Ex Parte Rossmark et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 12, 201714558375 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 12, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 14/558,375 12/02/2014 Sharon Rossmark 006591.00891 6563 71823 7590 06/14/2017 BANNER & WITCOFF , LTD ATTORNEYS FOR CLIENT NUMBER 006591 10 SOUTH WACKER DR. SUITE 3000 CHICAGO, IL 60606 EXAMINER ROSTAMI, MOHAMMAD S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2154 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/14/2017 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): PTO-71823 @bannerwitcoff.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SHARON ROSSMARK, LARRY KOBORI, and GARY KERR Appeal 2017-002811 Application 14/558,3751 Technology Center 2100 Before JAMES R. HUGHES, ERIC S. FRAHM, and MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, and 4—21, which are all the claims pending in this application.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Allstate Insurance Company. App. Br. 2. 2 Claim 3 was canceled by amendment on September 21, 2015. Appeal 2017-002811 Application 14/558,375 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellants’ application relates to determining a location for a new office of a business, for example, an insurance company, based on considering certain factors with respect to different geographical locations. Spec. 2—3. Specifically, the invention uses a scoring algorithm to rank geographical regions by zip code based on various modeling factors, such as “1) households with 2+ vehicles current year estimate; 2) households with 2+ vehicles five year projection; 3) net change vehicle households in five years . . . .” Spec. H 7—8, 32. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method of determining an insurance agency location, the method comprising: providing a graphical user interface configured to prompt a user to select a plurality of geographic regions, wherein the plurality of geographic regions are each related to one of at least two zip codes; receiving, by a server, the plurality of geographic locations; determining, by the server, the at least two zip codes; receiving, by the server, at least one modeling factor; calculating, by the server, a score for each of the at least two zip codes based at least in part on the at least one modeling factor; identifying and displaying, via the graphical user interface, a zip code having a highest score of the scores for each of the at least two zip codes; and 2 Appeal 2017-002811 Application 14/558,375 identifying and displaying, via the graphical user interface, a zip code having a second-highest score of the scores for each of the at least two zip codes. The Examiner’s Rejections Claims 1, 2, 16, 17, and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by Baechtiger (US 2005/0096972 Al; May 5, 2005). Final Act. 9-18. Claims 4 and 5 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Baechtiger and Dasari (US 2004/0267743 Al; Dec. 30, 2004). Final Act. 18-21. Claims 6—8, 11, and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Baechtiger and Zizzamia (US 2006/0136273 Al; June 22, 2006). Final Act. 21-23. Claims 9 and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Baechtiger and Mattingly (US 2006/0242024 Al; Oct. 26, 2006). Final Act. 23-24. Claim 12 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Baechtiger and Blackshaw (US 2006/0253316 Al; Nov. 9, 2006). Final Act. 24-25. Claims 13 and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Baechtiger and Capanna (US 2006/0036524 Al; Feb. 16, 2006). Final Act. 25-27. Claim 18 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Baechtiger and Harvey (US 2007/0112791 Al; May 17, 2007). Final Act. 27-28. 3 Appeal 2017-002811 Application 14/558,375 Claims 19 and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Baechtiger, Dasari, and Harvey. Final Act. 28-29. Claims 1, 2, and 4—21 stand rejected under the non-statutory doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting over Kobori (US Patent 8,219,535 Bl; Jul. 10,2012). Final Act. 8-9. Claims 1, 2, and 4—21 stand rejected under the non-statutory doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting over Kobori (US Patent 8,805,805 Bl; Aug. 12,2014). Final Act. 8-9. Claims 1, 2, and 4—21 stand rejected under the non-statutory doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting over Rossmark (US Patent 8,938,432 B2; Jan. 20, 2015). Final Act. 8-9. Claims 1, 2, and 4—21 stand provisionally rejected under the non- statutory doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting over US Application 14/341,276. Final Act. 9. ANALYSIS Claims 1, 2, 16, 17, and 21 Appellants contend Baechtiger fails to disclose “calculating, by the server, a score for each of the at least two zip codes” and “identifying and displaying, via the graphical user interface, a zip code having a highest score,” as recited in independent claim 1. App. Br. 7—10. Appellants have persuaded us the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 as anticipated by Baechtiger. Baechtiger describes a method for evaluating the placement of network service provider branches, for example, insurance agency branches. See Baechtiger, || 12—13, 43. As part of the method, Baechtiger describes 4 Appeal 2017-002811 Application 14/558,375 identifying the value of service recipients who use the service provider branches, where in one embodiment a service recipient can be a zip code. See Baechtiger, H 44—50. The value of service recipients can be defined in terms of a “branch reach” for each zip code, where branch reach is calculated by multiplying the number of individuals in the zip code by a probability of those individuals visiting the nearest existing service provider branch based on the travel distance to the branch for individuals in the zip code. See Baechtiger, H 51—53. Although the Examiner does not make an explicit mapping between a particular value employed by Baechtiger’s method and the claim 1 limitation “calculating ... a score for each of the at least two zip codes,” the Examiner emphasizes Baechtiger’s use of the number of individuals in each zip code in finding Baechtiger discloses the claimed “score.” See Ans. 5—6.3 The Examiner finds Baechtiger discloses “identifying and displaying” a zip code having the claimed “score” because Baechtiger’s map in Figure 10 “shows a graphical representation of composite service provider branch location value” where “[sjhading 110 is used to show composite values of potential service provider branch locations.” Ans. 6-7 (citing Baechtiger, 181). Appellants argue the Examiner erred because the map does not display a zip code with the highest score, as claimed. App. Br. 9. 3 Appellants argue the number of individuals in a zip code is not a calculated score, but rather data that is merely retrieved from a data source. App. Br. 7. We do not decide the outcome of the anticipation rejection on this issue, however, because we agree with Appellants that Baechtiger does not disclose “displaying, via the graphical user interface, a zip code having a highest score.” See App. Br. 8—9. 5 Appeal 2017-002811 Application 14/558,375 Appellants have persuaded us the Examiner erred. Baechtiger’s Figure 10 does not display a zip code having the highest score, as recited in claim 1, because Baechtiger’s accompanying description of Figure 10 does not describe a correlation between the shading 110 and any alleged scores for individual zip codes. See Baechtiger, | 81. Accordingly, to the extent the Examiner finds the population for a zip code is “a score,” the Examiner has not shown Baechtiger discloses displaying a zip code identified as having the highest population, or score. On this record we, therefore, do not sustain the rejection of independent claim 1, independent claim 16, which recites commensurate limitations, and dependent claims 2, 17, and 21. Claim 18 Independent claim 18 recites a similar limitation to independent claim 1, namely, “displaying a ranking of the final scores for each of the zip codes.” As discussed above, the Examiner has not shown Baechtiger discloses displaying scores for zip codes. Further, the Examiner has not shown Harvey cures this deficiency. See Final Act. 27—28. On this record we, therefore, do not sustain the rejection of independent claim 18. Claims 4—15, 19, and 20 The Examiner has not shown the addition of the Dasari, Zizzamia, Mattingly, Blackshaw, Capanna, and Harvey references cure the deficiency of Baechtiger discussed above with respect to independent claims 1 and 18, from which claims 4—15, 19, and 20 depend. On this record we, therefore, do not sustain the rejection of claims 4—15, 19, and 20 for the same reasons as independent claims 1 and 18. 6 Appeal 2017-002811 Application 14/558,375 The Double Patenting Rejections Appellants do not present arguments contesting the double patenting rejections; rather, “Appellants have requested these rejections be held in abeyance until the present claims are deemed allowable but for the double patenting rejections, at which time Appellants will consider filing a terminal disclaimer” (App. Br. 6). In the absence of specific arguments showing error, we pro forma sustain the Examiner’s double patenting rejections of claims 1, 2, and 4—21. DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 2, and 4—21. 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 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation