Ex Parte Sinha

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 6, 2017

12837090 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 6, 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.
12/837,090 07/15/2010 Raj Sinha 4366-508 3543
48500 7590 06/08/2017
SHERIDAN ROSS P.C.
1560 BROADWAY, SUITE 1200
DENVER, CO 80202
EXAMINER
NGUYEN, MINH CHAU
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2459
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/08/2017 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):
cjacquet@ sheridanross.com
pair_Avay a @ firsttofile. com
edocket @ sheridanross .com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte RAJ SINHA
Appeal 2016-002116
Application 12/837,090
Technology Center 2400
Before JEFFREY S. SMITH, WILLIAM M. FINK, and
JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judges.
FINK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1—15 and 17—21. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 The real party in interest is identified as Avaya, Inc. App. Br. 2.
Appeal 2016-002116
Application 12/837,090
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant’s invention relates to methods and systems for detecting
events by analyzing multiple messages retrieved from social media
networks. Abstract.2
Claims 1,11, and 15 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1 is
illustrative of Appellant’s invention and is reproduced below:
1. A method, comprising:
receiving a plurality of work items via a social media
gateway of a contact center;
analyzing, by at least one processor of the contact center
the plurality of work items for trends or similarities;
detecting, by the at least one processor a trend or similarity
among the plurality of work items;
classifying, by the at least one processor the trend or
similarity as an event that has occurred or is occurring; and
generating, by the at least one processor a response to the
event, wherein the response to the event is incorporated into a
response to each work item having the detected trend or
similarity within the plurality of work items, and wherein the
response to each work item having the detected trend or
similarity within the plurality of work items is customized to
each work item.
App. Br. 15.
Claims 1—3, 5—7, and 9-10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as
directed to non-statutory subject matter; and
2 Our decision refers to Appellant’s Appeal Brief filed May 11, 2015 (“App.
Br.”); the Examiner’s Answer mailed October 8, 2015 (“Ans.”); Appellant’s
Reply Brief filed December 8, 2015 (“Reply Br.”); the Final Office Action
mailed November 5, 2014 (“Final Act.”); and the original Specification filed
July 15, 2010 (“Spec.”).
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Application 12/837,090
Claims 1—15 and 17—21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable in view of Arnett (US 7,197,470 Bl; Mar. 27, 2007) and
Kaushansky (US 2008/0215607 Al; Sept. 4, 2008).
ANALYSIS
I. Non-Statutory Subject Matter
In rejecting the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the Examiner analyzes
the claims using the two-step framework set forth in Mayo Collaborative
Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 132 S. Ct. 1289, 1296—97 (2012)
and reiterated in Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, 134
S. Ct. 2347, 2355 (2014). Specifically, as to the first step, the Examiner
finds the claims “do no more than receiving blog messages and generating a
response,” which “is a mental process and/or can be performed by a human
using a pen and paper.” Ans. 4. The Examiner further finds that “the claim
is a whole is directed to a social activity identified by the courts as an
abstract idea.” Id. As to the second step, the Examiner further finds that
additional limitations of the claims do not transform the abstract idea into
significantly more than the exception itself as exemplified by the “receiving”
step of claim 1, which “amounts to merely adding insignificant extra­
solution activity . . . e.g., mere data gathering in conjunction with the law of
nature or abstract idea.” Id. at 5 (internal quotations omitted).
As to the first step of the analysis, Appellant contends claim 1 is not
simply directed towards receiving blog messages and generating a response,
but includes method steps such “classifying, by at least one processor of a
contact center the trend or similarity, among the plurality of work items
received via a social media gateway” and generating “a response to the event
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wherein the response to the event is incorporated into a response to each
work item having the detected trend . . . customized to each work item.”
Reply Br. 4—5. Appellant contends generating “a customized response to
each work item received via a social media gateway is certainly not an
abstract idea.” Id. at 5.
We are not persuaded by this argument. Section 101 “d[oes] not
embrace a process defined simply as using a computer to perform a series of
mental steps that people, aware of each step, can and regularly do perform in
their heads.” SmartGene, Inc. v. Advanced Biological Labs., SA, 555 Fed.
Appx. 950, 954 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (citing CyberSource Corp. v. Retail
Decisions, Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2011)). In this regard, we
“look to whether the claims in these patents focus on a specific means or
method that improves the relevant technology or are instead directed to a
result or effect that itself is the abstract idea and merely invoke generic-
processes and machinery.” McRO v. Banded Namco Games Am., Inc., 837
F.3d 1299, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
Here, claim 1 does no more than use a “processor” for “analyzing”
received internet postings (i.e. “work items”), “detecting ... a trend or
similarity,” “classifying . . . the trend or similarity as an event,” and
a response to the event. . . customized to each work item.
App. Br. 15. As an example, the invention could detect a spike in usage of
the term “earthquake” in social media postings, determine an estimated
location of that event, and retrieve a set of instructions for “acting in the
earthquake” provided to all users creating a posting about the event. Spec­
if 10. Significantly, aside from the generic “processor” (see id. If 86 (general
purpose or special-purpose processor or logic circuits programmed to
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perform the method)), we agree with the Examiner (Ans. 4) that the claim
can be performed in its entirely “in the human mind, or by a human using a
pen and paper.” CyberSource, 654 F.3d at 1372; see Alice, 134 S. Ct. at
2350—51 (determining that generic computer implementation fails to
transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.). Furthermore,
Appellant does not explain how claim l is limited to any particular
algorithm or process for analyzing or classifying the information. See
CyberSource, 654 F.3d at 1372 (“[C]laim 3 extends to essentially any
method of detecting credit card fraud.”). Therefore, when viewed as a
whole, we agree with the Examiner that the claims are directed to an abstract
idea.
As to the second step of the analysis, Appellant presents similar
arguments, which we disagree with for substantially the same reasons.
Reply Br. 5—6. Specifically, Appellant contends that “the claimed invention
addresses the technical problem of detecting the occurrence of an event
based on analyzing multiple messages received from social media networks
and converted into work items and quickly responding to the same.” Id.
According to Appellant, prior to the invention, there was “no mechanism
available to identify that... an event has occurred, or is occurring.” Id. at 6.
However, for the reasons discussed above, Appellant directs us to nothing in
the claims that limits the claims into something more than “routine mental
information-comparison” (e.g., “detecting” and “classifying”) and “rule-
application processes” (e.g., “generating”) using a generic processor.
SmartGene, 550 Fed. Appx. at 955.
For the foregoing reasons, Appellant has not persuaded us that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. We, therefore,
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sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, as well as claims 2, 3, 5—7, 9,
and 10, for which Appellant provides no separate patentability arguments.
See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
II. Obviousness
Upon consideration of the evidence on this record and Appellant’s
contentions, we find that the preponderance of the evidence on this record
supports the Examiner’s conclusion that the subject matter of Appellant’s
claims 1—15 and 17—20 is unpatentable over the combination of Arnett and
Kaushansky. Ans 6—21. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of claims 1,9, 14, and 21 for the reasons set forth in the Answer, which we
incorporate herein by reference. Because the arguments for claims 11 and
15 are grouped with claim 1 based on similar disputed limitations (App. Br.
5), we also sustain the rejection of claims 11 and 15. We also sustain the
rejection of dependent claims 2—8, 19, 12, 13, and 17—20 for which
Appellant presents no separate patentability arguments. See 37 C.F.R. §
41.37(c)(l)(iv).
We provide the following for emphasis only. Appellant argues Arnett
fails to teach or suggest “classifying ‘the trend or similarity as an event that
has occurred or is occurringas recited in the independent claims. App.
Br. 5—7; Reply Br. 6—7. According to Appellant, the cited portions of Arnett
refer to “Actor Classification” and generally describe how actors are
classified by correlating their postings to objective data, which is not
equivalent to classifying the trend as an event that has occurred or is
occurring. Reply Br. 7.
We are not persuaded by this argument, because it does not address
the Examiner’s complete findings. Although the Examiner relies on the
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description of actor classification, the Examiner emphasizes the description
of how actors’ postings are correlated with changes in objective data “(e.g.,
stock price changes, increased book sales, etc.)” that are tracked over a time-
period, such as a day. Ans. 15 (quoting Arnett, 10:19-25 (Examiner’s
emphasis)). Moreover, as the Examiner finds (Ans. 15—16), once actors are
identified as buzz accelerators and buzz decelerators, the analysis subsystem
uses this information to predict “real-world events” such as the rise or fall of
a stock price being discussed. Arnett, 10:42—53; see also id. at 10:4—17
(correlating actor behavior and community moods with objective sources to
forecast market behavior). Appellant does not explain why these
descriptions do not support the Examiner’s conclusion that Arnett teaches or
suggests classifying a trend as an event (e.g. change in stock price) that has
occurred or is occurring.
Appellant also argues that Arnett fails to teach or suggest generating
“a response to the event.” App. Br. 7—8; Reply Br. 7—8. Specifically,
Appellant contends the report presented to end-users is not “a response to
the event,” because “the ‘end-users’ of Arnett are not the ‘work items’ as
claimed.” Reply Br. 8.
We are not persuaded. Appellant is correct that the Examiner relies
on report generation subsystem 36, which generates reports for end-users
either upon request or automatically. Ans. 16—17 (citing Arnett, 9:24—10:17,
14:26—15:28). However, the Examiner does not equate end-users with work
items. Instead, the Examiner finds that Arnett’s generates a report to each
topic or “objective data,” which the Examiner considers as teaching the
recited “work item.” Ans. 17. We agree with this finding. The cited
portions of Arnett describe the reports as based on the results of the analysis
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subsystem where, as discussed above, the objective data and postings are
used to identify trends such as stock changes. Arnett, 9:50-53, 14:27—29.
For example, automatically generated reports may display companies where
activity is “spiking the greatest over the last day,” companies “being
discussed by the top five buy signalers,” or “real-time trends” being
discussed. Id., 14:51—65. As such, we find Arnett teaches or suggests
generating responses to work items even if such reports are ultimately
provided to end-users.
For the foregoing reasons, Appellants have not persuaded us that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1—15 and 17—20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1—15 and 17—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
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