Ex Parte Ozonat et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 31, 201714542098 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 31, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 14/542,098 11/14/2014 Mehmet Kivanc Ozonat 84086487 7326 56436 7590 Hewlett Packard Enterprise 3404 E. Harmony Road Mail Stop 79 Fort Collins, CO 80528 EXAMINER JAMI, HARES ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2162 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/02/2017 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): hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com chris. mania @ hpe. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte MEHMET KIVANC OZONAT and CLAUDIO BARTOLINI Appeal 2016-006889 Application 14/542,098 Technology Center 2100 Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and JON M. JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judges. JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 seek review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 1—9 and 12—18.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm.3 1 Appellants identify Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP as the real party in interest. (App. Br. 1.) 2 Claim 21 is allowed. Claims 10, 11, 19, and 20 have been objected to as being dependent upon rejected claims, but otherwise contain allowable subject matter. (Final Act. 11—12.) 3 Our Decision refers to the Specification (filed Nov. 14, 2014) (“Spec.”), the Final Office Action (mailed July 9, 2015) (“Final Act.”), the Appeal Brief (filed Dec. 22, 2015) (“App. Br.”), the Examiner’s Answer (mailed Appeal 2016-006889 Application 14/542,098 CLAIMED INVENTION The claims are directed to a semantic graph for enterprise communication networks. (Spec. Title.) Claim 7, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 7. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a set of instructions executable by a processing resource, wherein the set of instructions can be executed by the processing resource to: calculate a distance metric between a first signifier and a second signifier associated with an enterprise communication network, wherein the distance metric includes a plurality of relationships defined based on: a frequency of co-related services associated with the first signifier and the second signifier; a frequency of co-related phrases associated with the first signifier and the second signifier; and an average location of the first signifier and the second signifier on the enterprise network; and build a semantics graph for the enterprise communication network using the calculated distance metric. REJECTIONS Claims 1, 3—9, 12—15, 17, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Jain (US 7,996,379 Bl; iss. Aug. 9, 2011) and Franks et al. (US 2008/0250039 Al; publ. Oct. 9, 2008). (Ans. 2-9.) Claims 2 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Jain, Franks, and Cox (US 2003/0225749 Al; publ. Dec. 4, 2003). (Ans. 9.) Apr. 29, 2016) (“Ans.”), and the Reply Brief (filed June 28, 2016) (“Reply Br.”). 2 Appeal 2016-006889 Application 14/542,098 ANALYSIS Independent Claim 7 A. Frequency of Co-Related Services Appellants contend Jain is silent regarding the claimed “services” or “frequency of co-related services,” and merely teaches giving a term in a document a score based on a number of occurrences of the term and the position of earliest occurrence of the term. (App. Br. 6—7; Reply Br. 1—2.) We are not persuaded of Examiner error in the rejection. Appellants’ Specification provides examples of “services” as computing resources and/or programs, and states “[sjervices related to both signifiers . . . can include domains and/or documents associated with a service.” (Ans. 12 (citing Spec. 17 4; see also Spec. 130).) Thus, under the broadest reasonable interpretation of “a frequency of co-related services associated with the first signifier and the second signifier” that is consistent with Appellants’ disclosure, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that Jain teaches a frequency of co-related computer resource documents (i.e., services) (Ans. 4—6 and 8 (citing Jain col. 2:6—34: search results include computer resources such as webpages and other documents; col. 9:10-17, see also col. 9:19-20: document relationships are based on the term relationships)), which are associated with a pair of terms that interact with each other (i.e., first and second signifiers) (Ans. 4—6 and 12 (citing Jain col. 6,1. 38 — col. 7,1. 34)). See In re Am. Acad, of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 4 The Answer mistakenly refers to paragraph 6, but it is clear from the context that the Examiner intended to reference paragraph 7 of the Specification. Thus, we consider this error to be harmless. 3 Appeal 2016-006889 Application 14/542,098 1359, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (“[T]he PTO is obligated to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation during examination”). B. Average Location of the Signifiers on the Enterprise Network Appellants contend Jain’s description of scoring a word based on the number of times it appears and its position in a document does not teach or suggest any “location,” much less “an averase location of the first signifier and the second signifier on the enterprise network(App. Br. 7—8; Reply Br. 2—3.) We disagree with Appellants’ contention, and agree with the Examiner’s finding that the broadest reasonable interpretation, consistent with Appellants’ disclosure, of an “average location of the first signifier and the second signifier on the enterprise network” does not preclude Jain’s weighted calculation that factors in the number of occurrences of first and second terms and the distance between the terms within a document, where the document is stored on the enterprise network. (Ans. 13—14 (citing Jain col. 6,1. 53 — col. 7,1. 34).) See In re Am. Acad. ofSci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d at 1369. C. Rationale for Combining Jain and Franks Appellants contend the rejection of claim 7 lacks sufficient rationale for the proposed combination of Jain and Franks, because the Examiner fails to provide any explanation or reasoning as to how or why combining Jain and Franks in the manner proposed in the rejection would arrive at the claimed invention or would “improve efficiency of calculating distance score.” (App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 3.) We are unpersuaded of error in the rejection, and we find both Jain and Franks are directed to search result 4 Appeal 2016-006889 Application 14/542,098 metrics based on a frequency of co-related phrases associated with search terms. (See Jain col. 3:2-4; Franks | 62.) Thus, we find the Examiner has provided “some articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness,” specifically that incorporating Franks’ method of calculating a term distance score using sentences or phrases into Jain’s search method would result in an improved analysis of search terms and a more efficient search process. (Ans. 15.) See KSRInt’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417—18 (2007) (quoting In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006)). Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 7 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Jain and Franks. Remaining Claims Appellants argue the rejection of independent claims 1 and 14 on the same basis as claim 7 (see Ans. 9-11), thus, we sustain their rejection for the reasons stated above. No separate arguments are presented for remaining dependent claims 2—6, 8, 9, 12, 13, and 15—18. Accordingly, for reasons stated with respect to independent claims 1,7, and 14, we sustain the rejection of the dependent claims. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv); In re King, 801 F.2d 1324, 1325 (Fed. Cir. 1986); In re Sernaker, 702 F.2d 989, 991 (Fed. Cir. 1983). DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—9 and 12—18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). 5 Appeal 2016-006889 Application 14/542,098 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 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation