Ex Parte Rosenstein et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 31, 2019

13229554 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 31, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/229,554 09/09/2011
69316 7590 02/04/2019
MICROSOFT CORPORATION
ONE MICROSOFT WAY
REDMOND, WA 98052
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Daniel Rosenstein
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
333795.01 9814
EXAMINER
CHUANG, TIJNG-MUT
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2179
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/04/2019 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):
usdocket@microsoft.com
chriochs@microsoft.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DANIEL ROSENSTEIN, BRIAND. REMICK,
MARK SIEVERT LARSEN, ALLISON A. O'MAHONY,
JASON M. CAHILL, CARMEN ZLATEFF,
FRANCISCO J. GARICA-ASCANIO, OMAR KHALID,
JOHN M. THORNTON, MICHAEL I. TORRES,
IGNATIUS SETIADI, CHUN-KIT J. CHAN,
RONALD L. WESSELS, MICHAEL F. PALERMITI, and
RACHEL K. POPKIN
Appeal2018-005012
Application 13/229 ,554 1
Technology Center 2100
Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, ERIC B. CHEN, and
JEREMY J. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judges.
KRIVAK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Microsoft Technology
Licensing, LLC. App. Br. 1.
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Application 13/229,554
Appellants' invention is directed to a content user experience "that
may be used to browse, view, search and sort content such as photos and
videos from remote devices associated a user account, which may include
devices that are particular to a user as well as devices that are part of a
network service, such as a social network. In this way, a user may interact
with content that is local to a device as well as content that is associated with
the user from other devices or services and may be cached locally on the
device to provide a variety of different scenarios, such as offline access."
Spec. ,r 17; Abstract.
Claims 1, 11, and 1 7 are independent. Appellants' main argument is
with respect to claim 11, which is reproduced below and is exemplary of the
subject matter on appeal (argued limitation is italicized).
11. A method implemented by one or more computing
devices, the method comprising:
obtaining metadata, from a plurality of sources of
different types of content, that describes content and specifies a
hierarchy used by a respective said content source to arrange
content;
constructing an aggregate view of the content using the
metadata as corresponding to the hierarchies at the respective
said content sources;
displaying the aggregate view in a user interface as
having representations of the content accessible via the
hierarchies, at least one said representation being selectable to
cause corresponding said content to be retrieved via a network
connection from a corresponding said source; and
receiving an input indicating that a change is to be made
to a different aggregate view of the representations; and
responsive to receiving the input, either:
displaying the representations of the different
aggregate view by obtaining additional metadata from the
respective said content sources, when a size of the
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Application 13/229,554
representations of the different aggregate view will be
enlarged compared to a size of the representations of the
aggregate view; or
displaying the representations of the different
aggregate view without obtaining additional metadata
from the respective said content sources, when a size of
the representations of the different aggregate view will be
smaller compared to a size of the representations of the
aggregate view.
REJECTIONS and REFERENCES
The Examiner rejected claims 11 and 12 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a)
based upon the teachings of Davis (US 2007/0033225 Al, pub. Feb. 8,
2007), DiMaria (US 2007/0288478 Al, pub. Dec. 13, 2007), and O'Connell
Jr. (US 2014/0189557 Al, pub. July 13, 2014).
The Examiner rejected claims 1-3 and 8 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a)
based upon the teachings of Davis and O'Connell.
The Examiner rejected claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) based upon
the teachings of Davis, Gill (US 2006/0080401 Al, pub. Apr. 13, 2006), and
Zhang (Network-Aware Data Caching and Prefetchingfor Cloud-Hosted
Metadata Retrieval, htt12://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2534700 (last visited
January 1, 2017))
The Examiner rejected claims 4-7 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) based
upon the teachings of Davis, O'Connell, and Svendsen (US 2009/0265416
Al, pub. Oct. 22, 2009).
The Examiner rejected claim 9 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) based upon
the teachings of Davis, and Arrouye (US 2008/0040359 Al, pub. Feb. 14,
2008).
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The Examiner rejected claim 10 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) based upon
the teachings of Davis, O'Connell, Arrouye, and Battat (US 2007/0033279
Al, pub. Feb 8, 2007).
The Examiner rejected claims 13-16 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) based
upon the teachings of Davis, DiMaria, O'Connell, and Svendsen.
The Examiner rejected claims 17-19 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) based
upon the teachings of Davis, Park (US 8,266,115 Bl, issued Sept. 11, 2012),
and Holcombe (US 2010/0030607 Al, pub. Feb. 4, 2010).
ANALYSIS
Appellants' main contention is the Examiner erred in finding the cited
references teach or suggest the claimed limitation "obtaining metadata, from
a plurality of sources of different types of content, that describes content and
specifies a hierarchy used by a respective content source to arrange content."
App. Br. 8, 11, 12, 15. Particularly, Appellants contend "[n]owhere does
Davis disclose that metadata specifies a hierarchical structure of any kind,"
including specifying a hierarchy used by a content source to arrange content,
as claimed. App. Br. 10, 12, 15.
The Examiner finds Davis teaches and suggests the disputed
limitation as evidenced by Davis' paragraphs 9, 10, 40-60, 71-75, 86, and
87, and Figures 2C-2F, 3E-3G, and 5. Final Act. 6-7, Ans. 4--5. The
Examiner finds Davis' paragraphs 72 and 73 and Figures 3E-3F teach a
locally rendered hierarchical collection structure. Final Act. 6-7; Ans.4.
See, e.g., Davis ,r 71 "FIG. 3E illustrates a fundamental hierarchical
collection structure 328 of media objects as a media collection." See also ,r,r
72, 75, and 87 "the media object is collectively organized in a playlist, the
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Application 13/229,554
playlist is parsed locally at system 100" (emphasis added). Further, Figures
2A-2F of Davis also display the hierarchical content at a media device,
contrary to Appellants' assertions ( specifying a hierarchy used by a content
source). Final Act. 6-8; Ans. 4--5.
Additionally, the Examiner finds DiMaria "teaches a navigation
system deployed in a client in Fig. lB and [0066]-[0077] with local metadata
database 150, local information architecture 142 with trees 154 and
hierarchies 152 ... " also teaching and suggesting the disputed limitation.
Ans. 6. Appellants do not address these findings.
The Examiner has provided fact findings together with reasoning
having a rational underpinning in making the obvious rejection. Appellants,
for the most part, state Davis does not specify a hierarchy and the
"hierarchical structures are not provided to the media device in any manner."
Reply Br. 4; see also App. Br. 9-10. As noted above, Davis does indeed
disclose this limitation.
For the above reasons, we are not persuaded of Examiner error. On
this record, we are not persuaded the Examiner's reading of the claims on
the cited combination of references is overly broad, unreasonable, or
inconsistent with the Specification. We find the weight of the evidence
supports the Examiner's ultimate legal conclusion of obviousness, and
therefore sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims independent claims 1,
11, and 17, and dependent claims 2-10, 12-16, and 18-20.
DECISION
The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) is affirmed.
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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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