Ex Parte Punaganti Venkata et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 9, 2017

11182934 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 9, 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. 11/182,934 07/14/2005 Murali Krishna Punaganti Venkata 48582-US-PAT 8590 100809 7590 03/13/2017 Core Wireless Licensing Ltd 5601 Granite Parkway Suite 1300 Plano, TX 75024 EXAMINER MITIKU, BERHANU ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2156 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/13/2017 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): ipadmin-core@core-wireless.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte MURALI KRISHNA PUNAGANTI VENKATA and CHAND MALU Appeal 2016-000785 Application 11/182,9341 Technology Center 2100 Before DEBRA K. STEPHENS, JASON V. MORGAN, and NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 1—4, 6—24, and 26—66. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 Appellants identify Core Wireless Licensing as the real party in interest. App. Br. 2. Appeal 2016-000785 Application 11/182,934 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Invention Appellants’ invention relates to providing an integrated search engine on an electronic device that accepts a search query and performs searches transparently across multiple applications within the device or via other search medium. Spec. 4:3—8. Exemplary independent claim 1 is reproduced below. 1. An apparatus comprising: a search platform comprised of a search mediator, said search mediator comprising: an application interface configured to couple to a plurality of applications, to receive a search query from at least one application and to provide search results to the at least one application, a plurality of search interfaces configured to couple to a plurality of different search functions; and at least one memory interface configured to couple to a memory that stores at least one search profile specific to one or more of the plurality of applications for use by said search mediator during at least one of responding to a received search query and providing search results, wherein the search mediator is configured to: select a search function of the plurality of different search functions; and route the received search query to the selected search function, wherein the memory further stores at least one device profile associated with the apparatus, said at least one device profile for use by said search mediator during at least one of responding to a received search query and providing search results. 2 Appeal 2016-000785 Application 11/182,934 References and Rejection Claims 1—4, 6—24, and 26—66 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Wu et al. (US 2005/0076022 Al, Apr. 7, 2005) and Hoh (US 2006/0101417 Al, May 11, 2006). ANALYSIS I. Claim 1 A. Whether Wu Teaches or Suggests “one search profile specific to one or more of the plurality of applications ” Appellants argue Wu does not disclose a “search profile specific to one or more of the plurality of applications for use by said search mediator.” App. Br. 8—10. Specifically, Appellants argue the Examiner errs in finding that search terms in a search request, as disclosed in Wu, are a search profile specific to one or more of the plurality of applications. App. Br. 8. Appellants further contend the Examiner errs in finding various other portions of Wu teach or suggest the disputed search profile. App. Br. 9—10. We are unpersuaded by Appellants’ arguments. The Examiner relies on paragraphs 15, 25—27, 30, 31, 46, 48, and 76 of Wu as teaching or suggesting a “search profile specific to one or more of the plurality of applications.” See Final Act 4, 36; see also Ans. 4. We agree with the Examiner’s findings. Specifically, the cited portions teach that Wu’s search engine framework includes a configuration database with electronically stored mappings that “specify the particular one of the search engines 104a— 104c that is to be used to execute a search request received from a particular one of the applications 102a—102c . . . .” Wu explains that knowledge bases 3 Appeal 2016-000785 Application 11/182,934 can be assigned to certain business applications so that “[w]hen a framework has received a search request from an application 102a—c and has identified a knowledge base 110a—d, the framework 116 can then access the mapping information 904 to determine which search engine 104a—c . . . that is to be used in processing the search request. . . Wu 75—76. Thus, Wu’s configuration database stores information specific to one or more applications that is used by the search engine framework in processing the search request by providing a mapping from the application to certain knowledge bases and search engines. We find these mappings from the application teach or suggest the claimed “search profile specific to one or more of the plurality of applications.” Moreover, Appellants do not sufficiently address the aforementioned findings, merely stating that they do not disclose or suggest the disputed limitation, without further analysis or reasoning as to why. See App. Br. 9— 10. Such arguments are unpersuasive and conclusory. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (2014) (noting that an argument that merely points out what a claim recites is unpersuasive); accord In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (‘[T]he Board reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to require more substantive arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation of the claim elements and a naked assertion that the corresponding elements were not found in the prior art.”’). 4 Appeal 2016-000785 Application 11/182,934 B. Whether Wu and Hoh Teach or Suggest “one device profde associated with the apparatus, said at least one device profde for use by said search mediator during at least one of responding to a received search query and providing search results ” Appellants argue the Examiner errs in finding the combination of Wu and Hoh teaches a device profile used by a search mediator in responding to a received search query and providing search results. App. Br. 11. Appellants argue that even if Wu teaches a search query and provision of search results, and Hoh teaches storing a device profile associated with an apparatus, the two references do not link these elements together to teach the disputed limitation as a whole, which requires a device profile used for responding to a search query and providing search results. Id. We are unpersuaded by Appellants’ arguments. Hoh teaches a device profile can be used by web servers to tailor the content and form of a website to suit the needs of a device accessing that website. Hoh || 1, 7—10. Wu teaches a search mediator that receives search queries from other devices over a network and provides search results to those devices. See Wu 1 82. The Examiner finds an ordinarily skilled artisan would have found it obvious to combine the teachings of Hoh with Wu, to modify Wu so that a device profile can be used to tailor the search results to suit the network devices receiving the search results just as Hoh’s Webserver tailors a website for the client devices which access them. Final Act 5—6 (explaining that Wu’s system server could access the client device profile to adapt the results to a client terminal and minimize the number of network transactions needed to adapt such results to the client terminal). We agree with the Examiner that 5 Appeal 2016-000785 Application 11/182,934 this teaches a device profile for use by a search mediator during responding to a search query and providing search results as required by the claim. Accordingly we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. II. Claims 2-4, 6—24, and 26—66 Appellants do not separately argue claims 2—4, 6—24, and 26—66 relying instead on the arguments made for claim 1. See App. Br. 12. Because we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, we also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2-4, 6—24, and 26—66. DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—4, 6—24, and 26—66 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED 6