Ex Parte Palleti et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 6, 2016

12757342 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 6, 2016)

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.
12/757,342 04/09/2010 Pallavi PALLETI 10587.0035-00000 2480
100692 7590
AOL Inc./Finnegan
901 New York Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20001
12/08/2016 EXAMINER
KHONG, ALEXANDER
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2155
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/08/2016 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):
regional-desk @ finnegan. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte P ALLAVI PALLETI, ROHINIUPPULURI, and IAN HOLSMAN
Appeal 2014-009175
Application 12/757,342
Technology Center 2100
Before ERIC S. FRAHM, JOHN P. PINKERTON, and JEFFREY A.
STEPHENS, Administrative Patent Judges.
FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2014-009175
Application 12/757,342
STATEMENT OF CASE
Introduction
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1—39. Due to an amendment entered by the Examiner
after the Final Office Action, claims 8, 23, and 34 have been objected to as
allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of
the respective base claims and any intervening claims (App. Br. 1 and 16, fii.
1; Advisory Action mailed Dec. 26, 2013, p. 2). Accordingly, only claims
1—7, 9-22, 24—33, and 35—39 are before us on appeal. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm.
Exemplary Claims
Exemplary independent claim 1 and dependent claim 6 under appeal,
with italicized emphases and bracketed lettering added, read as follows:
1. A computer implemented method for identifying
popular electronic content, the method comprising the
following steps, performed by one or more processors, of:
[A] obtaining geographic data for a first geographic
region associated with a client device, the geographic data
comprising:
a geo-spatial identifier associated with the first
geographic region; and
[B] information identifying one or more second
geographic regions and relationships between the first
geographic region and corresponding ones of the second
geographic region;
retrieving, from a database, first data records associated
with the geo-spatial identifier, wherein:
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Application 12/757,342
the first data records comprise one or more of (i) a
number of requests for electronic content and (ii) a number of
users that requested the electronic content within the first
geographic region;
[C] selecting, when the first data records fail to include a
threshold number of data records, at least one of the second
geographic regions from the geographic data based on the
information identifying the relationships;
[D] generating an expanded geographic region
comprising the first geographic region and the at least one
second geographic region, the expanded geographic region
being associated with second data records, the second data
records comprising the first data records and additional data
records associated with the at least one second geographic
region;
determining whether the second data records include the
threshold number of data records; and
[E] processing the second data records to identify
popular electronic content within the expanded geographic
region, when the second data records include the threshold
number of data records, the popular electronic content being
identified based on at least one of the number of requests or the
number of users.
6. The method of claim 4, wherein the selecting step
comprises:
identifying the neighboring geographic region within the
geographic data based on the geo-spatial identifier of the first
geographic data and the information identifying the
relationships.
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Appeal 2014-009175
Application 12/757,342
Examiner’s Rejections1
(1) The Examiner rejected claims 1—4, 6, 9-22, 24—33, and 35—39 as
being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the combination of
Vechersky (US 2009/0070293 Al; published Mar. 12, 2009) and Wassingbo
(US 2010/0082526 Al; published Apr. 1, 2010).2 Final Act. 2—15; Ans. 2—
7.
(2) The Examiner rejected claims 5 and 7 as being unpatentable under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the combination of Vechersky, Wassingbo, and Fish
(US 2005/0080786 Al; published Apr. 14, 2005).3 * 5Final Act. 15—17; Ans.
8.
1 Although the Examiner mistakenly includes claims 20, 22, 31, and 33 as
being rejected over Vechersky, Wassingbo, and Fish (Ans. 2 and 8), we take
this as harmless error and consider claims 20, 22, 31, and 33 as rejected over
Vechersky and Wassingbo in light of: (i) the Examiner’s discussion of the
merits of the rejection of these claims at pages 12—14 of the Final Office
Action; (ii) the fact that the Fish reference was relied upon as teaching or
suggesting (a) a neighboring geographic region proximate to and sharing a
portion of a boundary with a first geographic region (claim 20), and (b) child
and parent geographic regions (claims 22, 31, and 33) (Final Act. 15—17);
and (iii) the lack of any discussion on the merits of claims 20, 22, 31, and 33
in the rejection applying Vechersky, Wassingbo, and Fish (see Final Act.
15—17 discussing only claims 5, 7, and 8 on the merits).
2 Based on Appellants’ arguments in the Briefs (App. Br. 16—25; Reply Br.
2—7), we select (i) claim 1 as representative of the group of claims 1—4, 9—
20, 22, 24—31, 33, and 35—39; and (ii) claim 6 as representative of the group
of claims 6, 21, and 32 (separately argued), rejected over Vechersky and
Wassingbo.
3 Based on Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief (App. Br. 26—27), the
outcome as to claims 5 and 7 rejected over Vechersky, Wassingbo, and Fish
will stand/fall with the outcome of representative claim 1 from which claims
5 and 7 ultimately depend.
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Appeal 2014-009175
Application 12/757,342
Issues on Appeal
Based on Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief (App. Br. 16—27)
and the Reply Brief (Reply Br. 2—7), the following issues are presented on
appeal:
(1) Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1—4, 9—20, 22, 24—31, 33,
and 35—39 as being obvious because, allegedly, the combination of
Vechersky and Wassingbo does not teach or suggest the disputed limitations
at issue (limitations [A]—[E]) in representative claim 1, including
“relationships” between a first geographic region and corresponding ones of
a second geographic region?
(2) Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 6, 21, and 32 because
Vechersky fails to disclose any process that identifies cells within an
additional cell neighborhood (i.e., identifies a neighboring geographic
region), as recited in representative claim 6?
(3) Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 5 and 7 as being obvious
because the combination of Vechersky, Wassingbo, and Fish fails to teach or
suggest the limitations set forth in these claims?
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections (Final Act. 2—17) in light
of Appellants’ contentions in the Appeal Brief (App. Br. 16—27) and the
Reply Brief (Reply Br. 2—7) that the Examiner has erred, the Examiner’s
Advisory Action mailed December 26, 2013, and the response to
Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief found at pages 2—8 of the
Answer. We disagree with Appellants’ arguments.
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Application 12/757,342
With regard to representative claims 1 and 6, we adopt as our own
(1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from
which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 2—6), as well as in the Advisory Action
mailed December 26, 2013 (p. 2), and (2) the findings and reasons set forth
by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellants’
Appeal Brief (see Ans. 2—7). We concur with the conclusions reached by
the Examiner with regard to the obviousness of representative claims 1 and 6
in view of the combination of Vechersky and Wassingbo, and add the
following for emphasis.
We agree with the Examiner that Vechersky teaches or suggests (i) a
second neighborhood of cells as set forth in representative claim 1 (see Final
Act. 2—5 and Ans. 4—6 citing Vechersky, || 6 and 38); (ii) determining a
distance between geographic regions that is equivalent to the recited
“relationships” in representative claim 1 (Final Act. 3; Ans. 3—6 citing || 6,
33, and 38); and (iii) as identifying a neighboring geographic region as set
forth in representative claim 6 (see Final Act. 6 and Ans. 7 citing Vechersky,
6, 21, and 33). Appellants’ arguments addressing paragraph 43 of
Vechersky are not persuasive, as this paragraph describes an embodiment of
Vechersky that is not relied upon by the Examiner. Although Appellants are
correct (see App. Br. 19-20, 23) that paragraph 43 of Vechersky discloses
second cells being analyzed excluding first cells in some embodiments, we
find that paragraph 38 discloses that first and second cells are combined for
processing. Thus, the embodiment relied upon by the Examiner (see e.g., 1
38), meets the limitations of claim 1. Additionally, Appellants have not
rebutted the Examiner’s new reliance (Ans. 3) upon paragraph 6 of
Vechersky as disclosing a second neighborhood of cells as claimed.
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Application 12/757,342
In view of the foregoing, we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness
rejection of representative claims 1 and 6 over the combination of Vechersky
and Wassingbo. For similar reasons as provided with respect to claim 1, and
because Appellants (see App. Br. 26—27) have not disputed the Examiner’s
reliance upon Fish (see Final Act. 15—17 citing Fish, Fig. IB; 133) as
teaching (a) a neighboring geographic region proximate to and sharing a
portion of a boundary with a first geographic region (claim 5), and (b) child
and parent geographic regions (claim 7), we also sustain the Examiner’s
rejections of claims 5 and 7, which ultimately depend from claim 1.
CONCFUSIONS
(1) The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1—4, 9—20, 22, 24—31,
33, and 35—39 as being obvious because the combination of Vechersky and
Wassingbo teaches or suggests the disputed limitations at issue (limitations
[A]—[E]) in representative claim 1, including “relationships” between a first
geographic region and corresponding ones of a second geographic region.
(2) The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 6, 21, and 32 because
Vechersky discloses a process that identifies cells within an additional cell
neighborhood (i.e., identifies a neighboring geographic region as claimed).
(3) Appellants have not shown the Examiner erred in rejecting claims
5 and 7 as being obvious over the combination of Vechersky, Wassingbo,
and Fish.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 1—7, 9—22,
24—33, and 35-39.
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Application 12/757,342
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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