Ex Parte SCHMIDT

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 20, 2016

12467368 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 20, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/467,368
98804 7590
Reed Smith LLP
P.O. Box488
Pittsburgh, PA 15230
05/18/2009
04/22/2016
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Daniel F. SCHMIDT
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.
10-384-US (cbs051000) 7926
EXAMINER
KIM, CHRISTY Y
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2158
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/22/2016 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):
ptoipinbox@reedsmith.com
mskaufman@reedsmith.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Exparte DANIEL F. SCHMIDT
Appeal2014-003353
Application 12/467 ,368 1
Technology Center 2100
Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., CARL L. SILVERMAN, and
MICHAEL M. BARRY Administrative Patent Judges.
SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 65-91. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b ).
We AFFIRM.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The invention relates to a user interface for navigation of an electronic
catalog of assets, each asset having attributes and attribute values. Abstract.
Claim 65 is exemplary of the matter on appeal:
1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is CBS Interactive Inc.
App. Br. 1.
Appeal2014-003353
Application 12/467,368
65. A computer-implemented method, performed by
one or more computing devices, for providing a user interface for
navigation of an electronic catalog of assets, each asset having
attributes and attribute values, the method comprising:
transmitting, by at least one of the one or more computing
devices, a user interface including a first filter parameter set
configured to allow a user to select one or more filter parameters
corresponding to attribute values of assets in the electronic
catalog;
receiving, by at least one of the one or more computing
devices, selection of a first filter parameter in the first filter
parameter set;
storing, by at least one of the one or more computing
devices, in a monitoring log the attribute value corresponding to
the first filter parameter selection as a first tier attribute value;
transmitting, by at least one of the one or more computing
devices, a second filter parameter set configured to allow the user
to select one or more filter parameters corresponding to attribute
values of a subset of assets in the electronic catalog, each asset
in the subset having the attribute value corresponding to the first
filter parameter selection;
receiving, by at least one of the one or more computing
devices, selection of a second filter parameter in the second filter
parameter set;
storing, by at least one of the one or more computing
devices, in the monitoring log the attribute value corresponding
to the second filter parameter selection as a second tier attribute
value with an indication that the second tier attribute value was
selected as a sub-attribute of the first tier attribute value;
analyzing, by at least one of the one or more computing
devices, the second tier attribute value and the indication that the
second tier attribute value was selected as a sub-attribute of the
first tier attribute value in conjunction with past progressive filter
selection information stored in the monitoring log; and
generating, by at least one of the one or more computing
devices, one or more asset recommendations based on the
analysis.
App. Br. 15 (Claims Appendix).
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Application 12/467,368
THE REJECTION
Claims 65-91 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Drieschner (U.S. Publication No. 2009/0222720 Al;
published Sept. 3, 2009) in view of Mason (U.S. Patent No. 7,836,051 Bl;
issued Nov. 16, 2010). Final Act. 4--15.
ANALYSIS
Appellant and the Examiner dispute whether Drieschner and Mason
teach the claim 65 limitations:
analyzing, by at least one of the one or more computing
devices, the second tier attribute value and the indication that the
second tier attribute value was selected as a sub-attribute of the
first tier attribute value in conjunction with past progressive filter
selection information stored in the monitoring log; and,
generating, by at least one of the one or more computing
devices, one or more asset recommendations based on the
analysis.
Final Act. 4--7; Ans. 2-3; App. Br. 5-10; Reply Br. 1-5.
The Examiner finds the combination of Drieschner and Mason teaches
the claim 65 limitations and relies on Mason for the disputed limitations.
Final Act. 4--7.
Appellant presents arguments (designated A, B, C, and D) asserting
Examiner error. As discussed below, we are not persuaded by these
arguments.
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Application 12/467,368
Argument A
Appellant argues Mason's "selection history ... is an item selection
history and not a filter selection history." App. Br. 7 (citing Mason, col. 6,
11. 33--40). According to Appellant, "Mason teaches a system that scores
users' preferences based on their selection of items arranged within a
hierarchy of item categories." Id. (citing Mason Abstract; Fig. 1 ). Appellant
argues "[t]he 'ancestors' which the Examiner refers to in the Office Action
are simply the categories in the browse path of the user" and "Mason ...
does not analyze 'past progressive filter selection information' in
conjunction with a user's current selections." App. Br. 8 (citing Mason
Table 2).
The Examiner finds:
Mason's selection of a category causes sub-categories to be
displayed, thus making the sub-categories available for further
selecting (Col. 3 lines 27-29), and each event is associated with
a time when the event occurred (Col. 6 lines 33-40). Further the
browse tree may be a pure tree where each child node can have
only one immediate parent node (Col. 3 lines 15-17), in which
case the child node "second tier" must be selected as a
subsequent event of selecting its parent node "first tier," and the
indication of the order of selection is evident in the time of
selection.
Mason analyzes user's activity history, where selection of
a category/subcategory is an activity of the system, to determine
category preferences scores used to generate a user's relative
preference profile. Mason also takes into account the ancestors
of a selection, distributing credit to such ancestor categories to
aid the generation of the preference profile.
Ans. 2-3.
In response, Appellant argues the "Examiner's conclusion ... 'the
child node 'second tier' must be selected as a subsequent event of selecting
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Application 12/467,368
its parent node 'first tier,' and the indication of the order of selection is
evident in the time of selection' is a non-sequitur." Reply Br. 3. According
to Appellant, there is no "time of selection" mentioned in any of the cited
sections of Mason and, even if there was a time of selection and the browse
tree was structured so that each node had only one parent, the statement that
a child node must be selected subsequent to a parent node is merely
describing the obvious characteristics of a browse tree. Id. Appellant argues
there is no analysis of the order of selection in Mason and the fact that
browse events happen in a certain order has no relevance to the disputed
limitation "analyzing ... " Reply Br. 3.
We are not persuaded by Appellant's arguments and agree with the
Examiner's findings. Appellant presents no persuasive basis to limit the
terms filter or analyzing to exclude the teaching of Mason. Claim terms in a
patent application are given the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent
with the Specification, as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. In
re Crish, 393 F.3d 1253, 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2004). However, great care should
be taken to avoid reading limitations of the Specification into the claims. E-
Pass Techs., Inc. v. 3Com Corp., 343 F.3d 1364, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2003).
Argument B
Appellant argues Drieschner and Mason do not teach or suggest the
disputed limitation "generating ... " App. Br. 9-10; Reply Br. 3--4.
According to Appellant, Mason's recommendations are not based on the
analysis of the disputed limitation "analyzing ... " but rather on the user's
category preference scores. App. Br. 9-10 (citing Mason col. 6, 11. 6-12;
Table 4); Reply Br. 3--4.
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Application 12/467,368
As discussed above, the Examiner finds, and we agree, Mason teaches
the disputed limitation "analyzing ... " Regarding the disputed limitation
"generating ... ,"the Examiner finds, and we agree, "Mason's
recommendation/ content personalization module accesses a user's relative
preference profile generated in the analysis described above to make
personalized recommendations for the user (emphasis added)." Ans. 3.
Argument C
Appellant argues Drieschner and Mason do not teach or suggest
"wherein the analyzing step weights the first tier attribute value as more
important than the second tier attribute value" as recited in dependent claims
89-91. App. Br. 10-13; Reply Br. 4--5. According to Appellant, "Mason
actually teaches that equal amounts of credits are distributed between the
ancestors of a selected item" and "does not teach that a first ancestor node
that a user selected to navigate to an item is accorded more credit than a
second ancestor node that a user subsequently selected to navigate to the
item." App. Br. 10-11 (citing Mason col. 2, 11. 5-15; col. 4, 11. 21-33; col.
6, 1. 65---col. 7, 1. 1; Tables 2, 3); see also Reply Br. 4--5.
The Examiner finds:
nodes of Mason's browse tree are the categories and
subcategories, each associated with an accumulative credit score
"weight" which is adjusted when a selection event occurs to
reflect a higher preference of that category/sub-category. When
a node is selected, a credit is divided evenly among its ancestor
nodes, that slice of credit is added to the accumulative credit
score of each of the ancestor nodes. Accumulatively the higher
level parent nodes receive higher number[ s] of credits than their
respective child nodes as multiple child nodes are selected over
time.
Ans. 3--4.
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We are not persuaded by Appellant's arguments and instead agree
with the Examiner's findings. Appellant presents no persuasive basis to
limit the term "weights" to exclude Mason's accumulative credit score
weight.
Therefore, we sustain the rejection of claims 89-91.
Argument D
Appellant argues "modifying the teachings of Drieschner to
incorporate aspects of Mason would render the system of Mason
inoperable." App. Br. 13. According to Appellant, Mason requires items to
be in a hierarchy (citing Mason col. 4, 11. 21--41) and Drieschner's system
involves tagging pages with URLs. Id. Appellant then argues the
Examiner's suggested combination would be "impractical" and "defeat the
purpose of Drieschner." Id. Moreover, according to Appellant, in the
suggested combination, "the mechanism by which Mason determines
popularity \'l/ould be inoperable, as the document pages in Drieschner do not
have any kind of hierarchy, and no ancestor nodes would be determinable
for any document pages." Id. at 13-14.
The Examiner finds:
Dr[ie]schner's tags are associated with tag types [0027] in the
format of type: tag, for example Format:Tutorial, Format:
Reference, Format:Article which are categories capable of being
arranged into a hierarchy, and the application is capable of
handling category trees [0020]. Thus Mason's browsing tree and
associated popularity determination mechanisms may be
incorporated into Drieschner's application to provide the
hierarchy that Drieschner's application is capable of having, and
provide the mechanisms by which to determine preferences of
tags and to make recommendation based on those preferences.
Ans. 4.
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In response, Appellant additionally argues the Examiner has
"distort[ed] the disclosure of Drieschner." Reply Br. 6-7 (Footnote 1, citing
Drieschner i-fi-120, 27).
We are not persuaded by Appellant's arguments and agree with the
Examiner's findings. Appellant argues an unreasonably narrow teaching of
the individual references Drieschner and Mason.
The test for obviousness is not whether the features of a
secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the
structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed
invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the
references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of
the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in
the art.
In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981).
Moreover, Appellant argues the suggested combination would render
the system of Mason inoperable. We agree with the Examiner that it does
not. "i\~ court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a
person of ordinary skill in the art would employ," such as the
complementary teachings of the references. KSR Int 'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc.,
550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). We determine the benefit gained from the
combination, as articulated by the Examiner, would have motivated an
ordinarily skilled artisan to make such a combination. Further, we find
Appellant's conclusory arguments in attempting to rebut the Examiner's
findings that Drieschner can include a hierarchy (Reply 6) unpersuasive.
See KSR, 550 U.S. at 418 ("A person of ordinary skill is also a person of
ordinary creativity, not an automaton.").
On this record, Appellant does not present sufficient evidence that the
combination of Drieschner and Mason was "uniquely challenging or difficult
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for one of ordinary skill in the art" or "represented an unobvious step over
the prior art." Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157,
1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 418-19). Nor has Appellant
provided objective evidence of secondary considerations, which our
reviewing court guides "operates as a beneficial check on hindsight."
Cheese Sys., Inc. v. Tetra Pak Cheese and Powder Sys., 725 F.3d 1341, 1352
(Fed. Cir. 2013).
In view of the above, we sustain the rejection of claim 65, and
independent claims 73 and 81, which are commensurate in scope and argued
together with claim 65. Dependent claims 66-72, 74--80, and 82-88 are not
argued separately and, therefore, we also sustain the rejection of these
claims. We also sustain the rejection of dependent claims 89-91 as discussed
above with regard to Argument C.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 65-91 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a).
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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