Ex Parte Ozonat et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 31, 2017

14542098 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 31, 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.
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.”).
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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.
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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
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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).
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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
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