Ex Parte Oral et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 5, 2017

11608682 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 5, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O.Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
11/608,682 12/08/2006 Tolga Oral CAM920060108US1 (160) 9780
46321 7590
CRGO LAW
STEVEN M. GREENBERG
7900 Glades Road
SUITE 520
BOCA RATON, EL 33434
EXAMINER
STERRETT, JONATHAN G
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3623
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/10/2017 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
docketing@crgolaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte TOLGA ORAL, SERGEI R. LANDAR, and
ANDREW L. SCHIRMER
Appeal 2016-0022991 2 3
Application 11/608,6822,3
Technology Center 3600
Before BIBHU R. MOHANTY, NINA L. MEDLOCK, and
JAMES A. WORTH, Administrative Patent Judges.
WORTH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1—17. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§§ 134 and 6(b).
1 Our decision refers to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.,” filed
June 15, 2015) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed Dec. 16, 2015), and the
Examiner’s Final Office Action (“Final Act.,” mailed Jan. 14, 2015) and
Answer (“Ans.,” mailed Oct. 16, 2015).
2 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is International Business
Machines Corporation (Appeal Br. 2).
3 This application has previously been before the Board in a prior appeal. In
that appeal, the Board reversed a previous rejection of the Examiner. In re
Oral, Appeal No. 2012-002317 (PTAB July 7, 2014).
Appeal 2016-002299
Application 11/608,682
We AFFIRM.
Introduction
Appellants’ application relates to “the field of collaborative
computing and more particularly to event scheduling conflict management
and resolution in a collaborative computing environment” (Spec. 1 1).
Claims 1, 8, and 11 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1,
reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal:
1. A method of event scheduling conflict management and
resolution for unprocessed events in a collaborative computing
environment, the method comprising:
proposing a new calendar event for a specified time slot
not already scheduled for a processed calendar event in a
collaborative computing environment executing in memory of a
computer;
identifying an unprocessed, unscheduled, proposed event
conflicting with the specified time slot; and,
prompting for conflict resolution of the conflict.
(Appeal Br., Claims App.)
Rejections on Appeal
The Examiner maintains, and Appellants appeal, the following
rejections:
I. Claims 1—17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to
non-statutory subject matter.
II. Claims 1—7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being
anticipated by A. Chun et al., Optimizing agent-based meeting scheduling
2
Appeal 2016-002299
Application 11/608,682
through preference estimation, 16 Engineering Applications of
Artificial Intelligence, 727-743 (2003) (hereinafter, “Chun”).4
III. Claims 8—17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Chun and Lee (US 2003/0233265 Al, pub. Dec. 18,
2003).
ANALYSIS
Rejection I
Claims 1—11
The Court in Alice emphasized the use of a two-step framework
for analysis of patentability under 35 U.S.C. § 101:
Lirst, we determine whether the claims at issue are directed to
one of those patent-ineligible concepts. ... If so, we then ask,
“[wjhat else is there in the claims before us?” To answer that
question, we consider the elements of each claim both
individually and “as an ordered combination” to determine
whether the additional elements “transform the nature of the
claim” into a patent-eligible application.
See Alice Corp., Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Inti, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2355 (2014)
(citing Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Labs, Inc., 132 S.Ct.
1289 (2012)).
The Lederal Circuit further elucidated the analysis for determining
whether an idea is abstract in DDR, where the court held that a specific
implementation of a webpage was non-abstract because it was necessarily
rooted in computer technology to overcome a problem specifically arising in
the area of computer networks. DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P.,
4 The heading for the rejection lists claims 1—8 but the body of the rejection
addresses claims only claims 1—7. We regard the inclusion of claim 8 in the
heading as a typographical error.
3
Appeal 2016-002299
Application 11/608,682
773 F.3d 1245, 1257—58 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (“these claims stand apart because
they do not merely recite the performance of some business practice known
from the pre-Internet world along with the requirement to perform it on the
Internet. Instead, the claimed solution is necessarily rooted in computer
technology in order to overcome a problem specifically arising in the realm
of computer networks.”)
In this case, the Examiner determines that the claims are directed to
“the abstract idea of event scheduling on a calendar, i.e., which is a method
of organizing human activity” (Final Act. 5—6). We agree with the
Examiner that scheduling events on a calendar is a method of organizing
human activity that is unpatentable subject matter under Alice.
Appellants argue that the claims are drawn to a specific way of
performing a process within the context of a specific computing arrangement
(Appeal Br. 11 (citing Spec. 20-21)). Appellants assert that the structure
of the claims require complex programming to enable the management and
resolution of event scheduling conflicts for unprocessed events {id. at 11).
Appellants also include a general background discussion of the case law,
including Ultramercial v. Hulu, 772 F.3d 709 (Fed. Cir. 2014); DDR
Holdings, LLCv. Hotds.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245 (Fed. Cir. 2014); and Ax
parte Starbuck, Appeal No. 2010-007936 (PTAB Jan. 24, 2013). The
Examiner responds that Appellants have “not relied on any fact pattern in
this case to be applied to the instant application, other than to quote general
statements made by the Court...” (Ans. 7). We agree with the Examiner
that Appellants have not tied the case law discussion to specific aspects of
the claims or Specification.
4
Appeal 2016-002299
Application 11/608,682
In any event, with respect to Appellants’ discussion of DDR, the
Examiner finds that “[s]ince appointment calendars and resolving scheduling
conflicts on them were not new to the internet, the fact pattern of DDR does
not apply” (Ans. 8). The Examiner further finds that Appellants’ arguments
that the claim limitations are a “specific application” are not persuasive (id.
at 9). The Examiner reasons that Appellants rely on paragraphs 20 and 21 of
the Specification, which refer to Figures 2 and 3 (id. at 9-10). The
Examiner finds that these portions of the Specification show a generic
computer platform and a generic flow chart, with routine and nominal
computer functions for loading data and performing processing, but without
specific computer instructions for implementing the claimed invention (id.
at 10; see also Final Act. 6).
Applying DDR, we agree with the Examiner’s findings that the
Specification does not provide anything more than conventional computer
equipment and programming techniques (see Spec, H 23—25; Figs. 2—3),
and that Appellants have not provided specific arguments to the contrary.
Further, we agree with the Examiner that this case is unlike DDR because it
addresses a pre-internet problem that is not specific to computer networks.
See 773 F.3d at 1257—58. We note that the background of the Specification
attempts to differentiate the invention from commercially available products
(Spec. H1—2). Nevertheless, the Specification still does not provide
anything more than conventional technology to solve the problem of
avoiding unscheduled meetings on a calendar and does not offer a specific
implementation.
Accordingly, in view of the claim language and the Specification, we
agree with the Examiner that the claims are directed to scheduling an event
5
Appeal 2016-002299
Application 11/608,682
on a calendar, as an abstract idea, i.e., as a method of organizing human
activity. For similar reasons, we further conclude that the additional
limitations, which include “proposing,” “identifying,” “prompting,”
“listing,” “selecting,” “determining,” taken individually, or as a whole, do
not add significantly more to take the invention out of the realm of the
abstract because they are directed to the same abstract idea.
Therefore, we determine to affirm the Examiner’s rejection under
§ 101 of independent claims 1, 8, and 11, and their dependent claims.
Rejection II
Independent claim 1 and its dependent claims
Appellants argue that Chun fails to disclose “identifying an
unprocessed, unscheduled, proposed event conflicting with the specified
time slot,” as recited by independent claim 1. In particular, Appellants assert
that pages 733—34 of Chun, relied on by the Examiner, teach “only of the
proposing and counter-proposing of a timeslot for a meeting and the marking
of different time slots in the proposal table” (Appeal Br. 14). Appellants
continue that the “Examiner has made the same mistake as before in the
prior appeal in which the Board noted Examiner’s attempt to construe the
claimed event to be one in the same so as to create a problematic application
of the term ‘conflicting’” (id.).
The Examiner provides the following definition of event: “a thing that
happens,” especially one of importance (Final Act. 4). The Examiner
proposes the following interpretation of the scope of “events” that are
“conflicting”:
two events (e.g. when someone wants to have a meeting one
day and another person wants to have the same meeting another
day) can conflict when different times are proposed for the
6
Appeal 2016-002299
Application 11/608,682
event. The claim language, broadly construed, does not require
that the different events recited have to be for different
meetings as argued. They can be for the same meeting, but
proposed for different times and thus be ‘conflicting’ (i.e. in
disagreement) with respect to a particular proposed time.
(Ans. 13). Thus, the Examiner concludes that the same meeting can be
understood to conflict with itself if two users propose different times. In this
manner, the Examiner concludes that the same meeting can constitute two
different events.
We conclude that this is an unreasonable interpretation of “event,”
and suffers from a similar problem as the rejection which was previously
reversed. In the previous appeal, the Examiner found that the same event
could conflict with itself. See In re Oral, Appeal No. 2012-002317, slip op.
at 4 (PTAB July 7, 2014). In the instant appeal, the Examiner interprets the
same meeting as two different events if proposed to occur at different times.
This meaning is inconsistent with the Specification and the remainder of the
claims, which refer to an event that conflicts with a “specified” time slot,
i.e., a specific time.
Further, we conclude that this is not within the broadest reasonable
meaning of “event” because it is contrary to the ordinary usage of the term
“event,” even as proposed by the Examiner. Importantly, events occur only
once in the physical world. Additionally, the Examiner has not shown a
special meaning for the term “event” in the claims or Specification.
Therefore, we agree with Appellants that Chun discloses a proposal
and a counter-proposal for times for the same event rather than for different
events (see Chung 733—34). We further agree with Appellants that different
events do not “conflict” with each other if they are at different times under
the ordinary usage of the limitation taken as a whole. Even if different
7
Appeal 2016-002299
Application 11/608,682
proposed times were considered a “conflict,” the different events would not
conflict with a “specified time slot.” As such, Chun does not disclose a
“new calendar event” that conflicts with a “specified time slot” for an event
that has already been proposed, as required by independent claim 1.
Accordingly, we determine to reverse the Examiner’s rejection under § 102
of independent claim 1 and its dependent claims.
Rejection III
Independent claims 8 and 11 and their dependent claims
Independent claims 8 and 11, which contain similar language and
requirements as independent claim 1, stand rejected under § 103 as
unpatentable over Chun and Lee. The Examiner does not rely on Lee to
remedy the argued deficiency in the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claim 1 under § 102 as anticipated by Chun. Accordingly, we determine to
reverse the Examiner’s rejection under § 103 of independent 8 and 11, and
of their dependent claims.
DECISION
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—17 under § 101 is
affirmed.
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—7 under § 102 is reversed.
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 8—17 under § 103 is
reversed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
8