Ex Parte Srivastava et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 26, 2017

13428539 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 26, 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.
13/428,539 03/23/2012 Gitika Srivastava 3622/104 3989
2101 7590 06/28/2017
Sunstein Kann Murphy & Timbers LLP
125 SUMMER STREET
BOSTON, MA 02110-1618
EXAMINER
ABRAHAM, AHMED M
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2165
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/28/2017 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):
usptomail @ sunsteinlaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte GITIKA SRIVASTAVA and NARESH RAMARAJAN
Appeal 2015-003159
Application 13/428,539
Technology Center 2100
Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, CARLA M. KRIVAK, and
MICHAEL M. BARRY, Administrative Patent Judges.
BARRY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a non-final
rejection of claims 1—37, which are all of the pending claims. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). There was an oral hearing on June 15,
2017.
We reverse.
1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as Navya Network, Inc. Br. 3.
Appeal 2015-003159
Application 13/428,539
Introduction
Appellants state “the invention relates to retrieving medical research
documents.” Spec. 1:18—19. Claim 1 is representative:2
1. A method of retrieving relevant documents having
medical research evidence, the method comprising:
receiving a request to access a plurality of documents in a
database stored in at least one memory device, each of the
plurality of documents containing information relating to
medical research evidence, each document having an associated
pre-defmed relational expression;
causing display of a user interface with a plurality of
fields, a set of the fields having selectable prescribed terms;
receiving a received relational expression based on
information received from the user interface, the received
relational expression including at least one of the selectable
prescribed terms in the user interface;
comparing the received relational expression with the
pre-defmed relational expressions associated with at least one
of the plurality of documents; and
causing display of information relating to a set of
documents in the database as a function of the comparison of
relational expressions.
Br. 12 (Claims App’x).
Rejections
Claims 1—37 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by
Courdy et al. (US 2008/0319942 Al; pub. Dec. 25, 2008) (“Courdy”). Non-
Final Act. 3—18.
2 Appellants argue the patentability of all claims based on claim 1. Br. 7—11.
There are two other independent claims (21 and 25), both of which recite
limitations commensurate in scope with the argued limitations of claim 1.
See Br. 15, 16 (Claims App’x).
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Application 13/428,539
ISSUES
Appellants contend Examiner errs in rejecting claim 1 because
Courdy fails to disclose three recited requirements: (a) “medical research
evidence” (Br. 7—9); (b) “each document having an associated pre-defmed
relational expression” {id. at 9-10); and (c) “comparing the received
relational expression with the pre-defmed relational expressions associated
with at least one of the plurality of documents” {id. at 10-11).
ANALYSIS
Medical Research Evidence
Appellants argue the Examiner disregards the term “medical research
evidence” and errs in rejecting claim 1 because Courdy fails to teach or
suggest this limitation. Br. 7. Appellants state that “[ajnalysis of medical
research evidence is vastly different from other types of documents,” and the
challenges from such analysis “are the very problems that the inventors
corrected. Applicants thus developed a ‘medical ontology’ (i.e., the claimed
invention) to store and retrieve the medical research evidence . . . .” Id. at 8.
Appellants submit an affidavit from one of the inventors, Dr. Ramarajan,
which states “one of ordinary skill in medical research would understand
that data must have been obtained from processes that meet numerous
requirements and the data itself must meet additional requirements before it
is recognized as ‘medical research evidence.’” Br. 21 (App’x II).
We disagree with Appellants that the Examiner disregards the claim
term “medical research evidence.” Indeed, by mapping Courdy’s medical
research application 116 to the term “medical research evidence” {see Non-
Final Act. 3^4 and Ans. 4), it is clear the Examiner does not disregard the
term. We also note that, even assuming arguendo the claimed invention is a
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“medical ontology,” this does not affect merits of the Examiner’s finding
that Courdy discloses “documents having medical research evidence.”
Appellants’ Specification states “[databases storing medical research
documentary data (also referred to herein as ‘medical research evidence’)
are identified by reference number 14.” Spec. 10:14—16 (referring to Fig. 1).
Thus, according to Appellants, “medical research evidence” plainly
encompasses “medical research documentary data.” Applying a broad but
reasonable interpretation, consistent with the Specification, we agree with
the Examiner that an ordinarily skilled artisan would understand “medical
research evidence” to encompass Courdy’s medical research application
116, which accesses documents such as pathology reports (see Courdy 177).
In view of the Specification’s clarity that “documentary data” of “medical
research” is “medical research evidence,” we decline Appellants’ invitation
to limit the meaning of “medical research evidence” based on Dr.
Ramajaran’s affidavit.3
Accordingly, Appellants fail to persuade us the Examiner errs in
finding Courdy discloses “medical research evidence,” as recited.
Each Document having an Associated Pre-defmed Relational Expression
Appellants argue “Courdy fails to disclose a document of any kind as
having ‘associated pre-defmed relational expression.’ In fact, Courdy is
silent regarding the manner in which information for the patient records are
stored.” App. Br. 9. The Examiner’s Answer finds Courdy’s medical event
detail window of Figure 22 and query tool interface of Figure 34b, along
3 See Bell & Elowell Document Mgmt. Prods, v. Altek Sys., 132 F.3d 701,
706 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (An inventor’s self-serving statements are rarely
relevant to the proper construction of a claim term.).
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Application 13/428,539
with related Specification discussion, teach the recited requirement for
documents to have associated pre-defmed relational expressions. Ans. 4—5;
see also Non-Final Act. 4.
We find Appellants’ argument unpersuasive. Courdy’s medical
research application 116 retrieves information from its records database 124
including documents that, as discussed above, may constitute documentary
data of medical research, or “medical research evidence.” Courdy 177.
Courdy’s Figure 22 shows an event detail window 2200 for research
application 116, in which events are classified into categories, and for which
various data fields may have pre-defmed information. Id. 194. Pre-defmed
sets of data items and links, such as event types, date ranges, etc., are
provided, and can be used for querying the database to extract documents.
Id. 195. Courdy’s Figure 34b shows a report generation window 3300 for
medical research application 116 that allows a user to build and reuse
queries. Id. 1150. Queries can include Boolean connectors, comparisons,
etc. Id. 1156. An ordinarily skilled artisan, in view of this, would have
understood that Courdy discloses saved (“pre-defmed”) queries that include
logical and comparative query components (“relational expressions”). These
pre-defmed relational expressions are associated with the documents they
previously retrieved.
In arguing the Examiner errs, Appellants contrast Courdy with their
disclosed embodiments that “use a document management engine 16 that
forms a relational expression for a medical research evidence document and
assigns the expression to the document.” Br. 9. This is unpersuasive
because the claim requires associated (not assigned) predefined relational
expressions.
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Accordingly, Appellants fail to persuade us the Examiner errs in
finding Courdy discloses “each document having an associated pre-defmed
relational expression,” as recited.
Comparing the Received Relational Expression with
the Pre-defmed Relational Expressions
Appellants argue the Examiner errs in finding Courdy teaches or
suggests “comparing the received relational expression with the pre-defmed
relational expressions associated with at least one of the plurality of
documents” because, “to retrieve patient records, Courdy merely filters for
patient records that include the same numbers and keywords input by the
user.” Br. 10. Appellants contend Courdy’s “process has no relation to the
claimed comparison. No pre-defmed relational expressions are assigned to
any Courdy documents — rather, the filtering is performed on the fly.” Id.
Appellants mistakenly imply that claim 1 requires assignment of pre-
defmed relational expressions to documents (as discussed above, the claim
requires “each document having an associated pre-defmed relational
expression” (emphasis added)). However, we agree with Appellants that
Courdy does not disclose the recited requirement for “comparing the
received relational expression with the pre-defmed relational expressions
associated with at least one of the plurality of documents.”
The Examiner finds Courdy’s Figures 22 and 34b (and associated
Specification discussion) depict and/or disclose the recited comparing
requirement. Ans. 5—6 (citing Courdy H 95, 156, 158). We disagree. This
disclosure of Courdy teaches creating, saving, retrieving, and executing
queries, such as SQL queries, to obtain information from a database. While
an ordinarily skilled artisan would have understood this disclosure in Courdy
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to encompass both a “received relational expression” and “pre-defmed
relational expressions” associated with medical research evidence
documents, each of these relational expressions in Courdy is for an
individual query that is individually executed against the database to obtain a
result. In reviewing paragraphs 2, 95, 156, and 158 (and Figs. 22, 34b, and
36) of Courdy, relied upon by the Examiner (Final Act. 5), we find no
express or inherent description of comparing the two claimed relational
expressions, as required to establish a prima facie case of anticipation.
Accordingly, we find a preponderance of the evidence supports
Appellants contention that Courdy does not disclose “comparing the
received relational expression with the pre-defmed defined relational
expressions associated with at least one of the plurality of documents,” as
recited in claim 1.
Conclusion
Thus, we do not sustain the rejection of independent claim 1. For the
same reason, we do not sustain the rejection of independent claims 21 and
25, argued together with claim 1 (Br. 7—11), which include commensurate
limitations {id. at 15—16 (Claims App’x)) and stand rejected for the same
reasons (Non-Final Act. 12—13). We also, accordingly, do not sustain the
rejection of dependent claims 2—20, 22—24, and 26—37.
DECISION
For the above reasons, we reverse the rejection of claims 1—37.
REVERSED
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