Ex Parte Palleschi et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 26, 2014

11549298 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 26, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
__________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
__________

Ex parte GIANCARLO PALLESCHI and
PRASANNAKUMAR PARIGIVENKATA
__________

Appeal 2011-004482
Application 11/549,298
Technology Center 2100
__________

Before ERIC GRIMES, ERICA A. FRANKLIN, and
SHERIDAN K. SNEDDEN, Administrative Patent Judges.

FRANKLIN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal1 under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) involving claims to
methods, a computer program, and systems that include generating a tabular
display of data according to default settings and predefined adjustable user
settings. The Patent Examiner rejected the claims as anticipated and
obvious. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm-in-part.

1 Appellants identify the Real Party in Interest as International Business
Machines Corporation of Armonk, New York. (App. Br. 2.)
Appeal 2011-004482
Application 11/549,298

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Claims 1-44 are on appeal. Claims 1 and 6 are representative and read
as follows:
1. A method of displaying tabular data, comprising:
receiving a definition of adjustable user settings from a user;
receiving input from the user after the receiving the definition of the
adjustable user settings;
retrieving data based on the input;
a processor of a computer generating a tabular display of the data
according to default settings and the predefined adjustable user settings; and
transmitting the tabular display to the user.

(Emphasis added.)

6. The method of claim 1, wherein:
the default settings comprise a column name, a default display column
order, a default sort column order, and a default sort order, and
the user settings comprise user a [sic, a user] display column order, a
user sort column order, and a user sort order.

The Examiner rejected the claims as follows:
• claims 1, 5-6, 8-16, 18-26, 28-36, and 38-43 under 35 U.S.C.
§102(b) as anticipated by Gross;2
• claims 2 and 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Gross
and Google;3
• claim 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Gross and
Cohen;4

2 Patent Application Publication No. US 2004/0143564 A1 by William
Gross et al., published Jul. 22, 2004.
3 Google Corporate Information, COMPANY OVERVIEW,
http://web.archive.org/web/20061005120303/www.google.com/corporate/
index.html, last visited on Jul. 27, 2009.
Appeal 2011-004482
Application 11/549,298

3
• claims 7, 17, 27, 37 and 44 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Gross and Kobashi.5

ANTICIPATION
I. Independent Claims 1, 14, 24, and 34
The Examiner’s findings are set forth in the Answer. (Ans. 5-7.) In
particular, the Examiner found that Gross disclosed a method of displaying
tabular data, comprising “receiving a definition of adjustable user settings
from a user,” as required by independent claims 1, 14, 24, and 34, because
Gross disclosed that the user can specify that a particular attribute is to be
used as a default sort key. (Id. at 5)(citing Gross [0051]).
Additionally, the Examiner found that Gross disclosed “generating a
tabular display of the data according to default settings and the predefined
adjustable user settings,” as required by the claims, because Gross disclosed
presenting search results with relevant attributes in column format according
to default and defined adjustable user settings. (Id.)(citing Gross [0098]).
Appellants contend that a number of disclosures in Gross are
“entirely silent as to receive a definition of adjustable user settings from a
user and generate a tabular display of the data according to default settings
and the predefined adjustable user settings.” (App. Br. 8.) In particular,
Appellants assert that “Gross’ paragraph [0051] discloses that a user can
define a particular attribute to be used as a default sort key when presenting

4 Patent Application Publication No. US 2006/0167853 A1 by Marsha R.
Cohen et al., published Jul. 27, 2006.
5 Patent Application Publication No. US 2005/0172226 A1 by Kazufumi
Kobashi et al., published Aug. 4, 2005.
Appeal 2011-004482
Application 11/549,298

4
a document.” (Reply Br. 2-3.) In other words, Appellants assert that “it
would appear that the user defined setting would revert to a default setting.”
(Id.) According to Appellants, “[i]t would appear that a reasonable reading
of paragraph [0051] only discloses using a predefined adjustable user
setting, i.e., which is the default setting,” such that the tabular display would
not be generated according “to both default settings and the predefined
adjustable user settings.” (Reply Br. 3.)
We have considered Appellants’ contention, but we do not find it
convincing. Appellants acknowledge that Gross disclosed a predefined
adjustable user setting, i.e., defining a particular attribute to be used as a sort
key. (Reply Br. 2-3.) However, Appellants assert that this user defined
setting would revert to a default setting, such that the tabular display would
be generated only according to the predefined adjustable user settings and
not additionally according to any original default settings. (See id.) Gross,
however, provides default settings for a variety of additional parameters.
For example, Gross disclosed that, optionally, a user may adjust the column
widths, reorder the column placement, and reverse a sort order. (Gross
[0103].) Inherently, prior to and in the absence of a user optionally adjusting
such parameters, these parameters function according to default settings.
Thus, when a sort key is defined by a user and any one of the additional
optional parameters having a default setting is not adjusted, Gross
necessarily generates a tabular display of the data retrieved according to the
(undefined) default settings and the predefined adjustable user settings.
Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of
independent claim 1. Appellants do not raise separate arguments for
independent claims 14, 24, and 34, therefore these claims fall with claim 1.
Appeal 2011-004482
Application 11/549,298

5
Additionally, Appellants do not raise additional arguments for dependent
claims 5, 10-13, 15, 20-23, 25, 30-33, 35, and 40-43, accordingly, these
claims fall with their respective independent claims.
II. Dependent claims 6, 16, 26, and 36
Dependent claims 6, 16, 26, and 36 require the default settings to
comprise a column name, a default display column order, a default sort
column order, and a default sort order. The Examiner found that Gross
disclosed these elements in paragraph [0103]. (Ans. 7-8.) We agree and
Appellants do not assert otherwise. The claims, however, additionally
require that the user settings comprise a user display column order, a user
sort order column order, and a user sort order. The Examiner has not
explained, nor do we apprehend, how Gross discloses default settings for
each of the recited parameters along with user settings for each of the
parameters. In other words, the Examiner has not established that Gross
disclosed generating a tabular display of data according to (a) default
settings for a column name, a default display column order, a default sort
column order, and a default sort order, and (b) user setting for these same
parameters, as required by claims 6, 16, 26, and 36.
Accordingly, we reverse the rejection of claims 6, 16, 26, and 36,
along with claims 8, 9, 18, 19, 28, 29, and 38, 39, which further depend from
these claims, respectively.

OBVIOUSNESS
I. Claims 2, 3, and 4
The Examiner’s findings are set forth in the Answer for the rejection
of claims 2 and 3 (Ans. 12-14) and the rejection of claim 4 (id. at 14-15).
Appeal 2011-004482
Application 11/549,298

6
Appellants contend that claims 2, 3, and 4 depend from claim 1 and
are therefore allowable by virtue of such dependency. (App. Br. 17-18.)
Further, Appellants assert that each reference combined with Gross for these
rejections fails to cure the alleged deficiency of Gross, i.e., “generating a
tabular display of the data according to default settings and the predefined
adjustable user settings, as recited in claim 1.” (Id.)
As we have found that the Examiner established that Gross anticipated
claim 1, we are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument.
Accordingly, we affirm the rejection of claims 2 and 3, as well as the
rejection of claim 4.
II. Claims 7, 17, 27, and 37
The Examiner’s findings are set forth in the Answer. (Ans. 15-17.)
Appellants assert, “Claims 7, 17, 27 and 37 are dependent claims and
are believed to be allowable at least by virtue of their dependencies upon
their respective base claims.” (App. Br. 25.) We agree. These claims
further depend from claims 6, 16, 26, and 36, respectively, the rejection of
which we have reversed. Because the Examiner has relied on Gross as
anticipating the limitations of claims 6, 16, 26, and 36 in this obviousness
rejection of claims 7, 17, 27, and 37, we reverse.
III. Claim 44
Appellants assert that “Gross is entirely silent as to receive a
definition of adjustable user settings from a user and generate a tabular
display of the data according to default settings and the predefined
adjustable user settings,” (App. Br. 19) for the same reasons asserted
regarding the rejection of claim 1 (see App. Br. 19-22). We are not
Appeal 2011-004482
Application 11/549,298

7
persuaded by this argument for the same reasons discussed regarding the
anticipation rejection of claim 1.
Additionally, Appellants contend that “the combination of Gross and
Kobashi fails to disclose the system received data defining the user settings
via the GUI, wherein the data includes a user display column order, a user
sort column order, and a user sort order, as recited in claim 44.” (App. Br.
23.) Specifically, Appellants assert that although Gross “teaches that
columns may be reordered as well as the data within the columns,” Gross
“does not disclose, at least, a user setting which determines which data
within a column is ordered first.” (Id. at 25.) Appellants assert that
“clicking on a column header . . . and the manipulation of a column’s
location does not override any predefined default values or settings.” (Reply
Br. 10-11.) According to Appellants, Gross, therefore, “fails to disclose or
suggest, at the very least, the data includes a user display column order and
a user sort column order.” (Id. at 11.)
We remain unpersuaded of nonobviousness by Appellants’
contention, as it is attorney argument unsupported by evidence. In
particular, Appellants have not established that a user’s adjustment of a
default setting does not redefine the setting so as to override the default
setting.
Accordingly, we affirm the obviousness rejection of claim 44.
SUMMARY
We affirm the rejection of claims 1, 5, 10-15, 20-25, 30-35, and 40-43
under 35 U.S.C. §102(b) as anticipated by Gross;
we reverse the rejection of claims 6, 8, 9, 16, 18, 19, 26, 28, 29, 36,
38, and 39 under 35 U.S.C. §102(b) as anticipated by Gross;
Appeal 2011-004482
Application 11/549,298

8
we affirm the rejection of claims 2 and 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Gross and Google;
we affirm the rejection of claim 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Gross and Cohen;
we reverse the rejection of claims 7, 17, 27, and 37 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Gross and Kobashi.
we affirm the rejection of claim 44 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Gross and Kobashi.

No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).

AFFIRMED-IN-PART

cdc