Ex Parte Tanaka et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 24, 201409873259 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 24, 2014) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte TERUO TANAKA, MASAAKI HIGUCHI, and MASARU YAMADA ____________ Appeal 2012-001556 Application 09/873,259 Technology Center 3600 ____________ Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, and BIBHU R. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judges. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2012-001556 Application 09/873,259 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final rejection of claims 1, 3-10, and 14-20 which are all the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). SUMMARY OF THE DECISION We REVERSE. THE INVENTION The Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to an auction brokerage service to locate auction sites that meet a user’s requirements on the Internet and provide an auction brokerage service so that the user can put up a commodity at a plurality of the auction sites simultaneously (Spec. 1:5-11). Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A method for auction brokerage service provided by a computer that resides between an information terminal of a user putting up an article which the user owns to be an auctioned item and a plurality of auction servers accessed by a plurality of buyers to perform brokerage operation for auctions of the auctioned item owned by the user among the auction servers, the method comprising steps of: selecting a plurality of information of said plurality of auction servers suitable for the user’s conditions from among stored information related to said auction servers in order to obtain selected auction servers, in response to a request from said information terminal; transmitting an auction registration request in the name of the user to each of the selected auction servers to receive a notification that the auctioned item owned by the user has been registered at the selected auction servers, the selected auction servers auctioning the auctioned item owned by the user simultaneously to the plurality of buyers accessing the selected auction servers; Appeal 2012-001556 Application 09/873,259 3 gathering trade information of how the auctioned item owned by the user has been bid for at the selected auction servers and tendering to the other selected auction servers the highest tendered price of the bids in the name of a substitute in order to adjust the bid prices to the highest price over all the selected auction servers; and notifying said information terminal of the auction result of the auctioned item owned by the user and outputting the auction result. THE REJECTION The Examiner rejected claims 1, 3-10, and 14-20 under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being unpatentable over Huberman (US 5,826,244, iss. Oct. 20, 1998), Kinney (US 7,249,085 B1, iss. Jul. 24, 2007), Shoham (US 6,285,989 B1, iss. Sep. 4, 2001), Odom (US 6,058,379, iss. May 2, 2000), and Koopersmith (US 2001/0042002 A1, pub. Nov. 15, 2001). FINDINGS OF FACT We find that the findings of fact used in the Analysis section below are supported at least by a preponderance of the evidence.1 ANALYSIS The Appellants argue that the combination of Huberman, Kinney, Shoham, Odom, and Koopersmith fails to teach or suggest a brokerage computer that resides between a user’s information terminal (i.e., seller) and a plurality of auction servers accessed by a plurality of buyers, as generally required by independent claims 1, 5, 8, and 14 (App. Br. 8-11; Reply Br. 2- 4). Specifically, the Appellants argue that the broker process 230 disclosed 1 See Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the Patent Office). Appeal 2012-001556 Application 09/873,259 4 in Huberman is similar to the “auction servers” of claims 1, 5, 8, and 14, and as such, does not disclose a brokerage computer that selects information of a plurality of auction servers, transmits an auction registration request to auction servers, and gathers trade information at selected auction servers (App. Br. 10-11; Reply Br. 2-3). In contrast, the Examiner maintains that Huberman discloses a computer server (i.e., broker process 230) which enables a brokered auction which “resides between an information terminal of a user” and “a plurality of buyers” in the preamble of claim 1, and also the plurality of auction servers in the claimed limitations such as in limitation (a) “selecting” and “following” (Ans. 14). We agree with the Appellants. While the Examiner is correct that Huberman discloses a brokerage computer that resides between a user’s information terminal and a plurality of buyers (see fig. 2), claims 1, 5, 8, and 14 do not require such a configuration, but rather require a brokerage computer which resides between a user’s information terminal and a plurality of auction servers. We agree with Appellants that the brokerage computer relied on by the Examiner in Huberman corresponds to an auction server accessed by a plurality of buyers because the broker computer (i.e., broker process 230) in Huberman receives bidding information, establishes a price responsive to the received bidding information, and establishes the price. (See Col. 3, ll. 6-10.) Huberman at Figure 2 only shows a customer process (i.e., user computer), broker process, and supplier process (i.e., buyer computer), therefore, even if we were to construe the brokerage service computer of claims 1, 5, 8, and 14 to read on the broker computer in Huberman, the Examiner still fails to show where Huberman discloses a Appeal 2012-001556 Application 09/873,259 5 plurality of auction servers. The Examiner’s citation in the Answer at page 14 to Huberman at Figures 1-2, column 3, line 53, column 4, lines 19-21, and column 5, line 34 – column 7, line 31 fails to disclose the above identified arrangement as well. The Examiner does not rely on Huberman, Kinney, Shoham, Odom, or Koopersmith to address this limitation, and we do not find the addition of these references cures the deficiency identified by the Appellants in Huberman. For these reasons the rejection of claim 1, 5, 8, and 15 and their dependent claims is not sustained. CONCLUSION OF LAW We conclude that the Appellants have shown the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 3-10, and 14-20 under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being unpatentable over Huberman, Kinney, Shoham, Odom, and Koopersmith. DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 3-10, and 14-20 is reversed. REVERSED mls Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation