Ex Parte Vogel et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 31, 2017

13108255 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 31, 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. 13/108,255 05/16/2011 ANDREAS VOGEL 2010P00479US 9193 62730 7590 SAP SE 3410 HILLVIEW AVENUE PALO ALTO, CA 94304 EXAMINER EVANS, KIMBERLY L ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3629 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/04/2017 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): APRIL.MENG@SAP.COM GIPinhouse@sap.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ANDREAS VOGEL, ALEXANDER VARSHAVSKY, and HARIHARAN VIJAYARAGHAVAN Appeal 2015-003302 ApplicationO/lOS^S1 Technology Center 3600 Before JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, TARA L. HUTCHINGS, and SHEILA F. McSHANE, Administrative Patent Judges. McSHANE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL The Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s final decision to reject claims 1—20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 According to the Appellants, the real party in interest is SAP AG. Appeal Brief filed February 18, 2014, hereafter “App. Br.,” 3. Appeal 2015-003302 Application 13/108,255 BACKGROUND The invention relates to an interactive graphical tool used in a graphical user interface (“GUI”) pane. Specification, hereafter “Spec.” 13. The invention is directed to correspondence of product characteristics in the GUI pane. Id. Representative claim 1 is reproduced from page 14 of the Claims Appendix of the Appeal Brief (Claims App.) as follows, with emphasis added to relevant claim limitations: 1. A computer system for customizing product parameters comprising: a processor; and a memory having instructions stored thereon which when executed by said processor cause the computer system to select a plurality of characteristics of a product, wherein each of said plurality of characteristics of said product is associated with a dimension of a plurality of dimensions, render a graphical user interface (GUI) to a display device, the GUI showing a graphical element representing a correlation between said plurality of dimensions associated with said plurality of characteristics of said product, in response to a user interaction with an interface device, change one or more of a position and a form of at least one segment of said graphical element within said GUI, and in response to said change of one or more of said position and said form of said at least one segment of said graphical element, customize said correlation between said plurality of dimensions associated with said plurality of characteristics of said product. The Examiner rejects claims 1—20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by Bennett.2 Final Action mailed June 19, 2013, hereafter “Final Act.,” 3—16; see also Examiner’s Answer mailed November 10, 2014, hereinafter “Ans.,” 2—12. 2 US Publication 2010/0275263 Al, published October 28, 2010. 2 Appeal 2015-003302 Application 13/108,255 DISCUSSION The Appellants argue the rejections of independent claims 1, 5, 11, 13 and 19 on common issues. App. Br. 4—5. The Appellants rely on the same arguments presented for the independent claims to support the patentability of dependent claims 2-4, 6—10, 12, 14—18, and 20. Id. at 11. We select claim 1 as representative, and the remaining claims will stand or fall with representative claim 1. The Appellants allege that Bennett’s disclosure of a “summary of data and how it changes over time” resulting from the evaluation of “security of a particular information system or network,” fails to disclose the limitation of claim 1 of a “GUI showing a graphical element representing a correlation,” where a plurality of characteristics of a product are selected, and not evaluated. App. Br. 8 (citing Bennett || 63, 65). The Appellants argue that “Bennett does not disclose a correlation between the definition or classification properties of an asset.” Id. at 8— 9 (citing Bennett, || 17, 86, 234—236, Fig. 13). More specifically, the Appellants contend that the spider graph disclosed in Bennett (Fig. 13), fails to disclose this correlation. Id. at 9. The Appellants further argue that Bennett’s “risk analysis scope, including the relationships between the assets’ classifications” does not disclose the claimed correlation. Id. On this point, the Appellants argue that “the simple notion that a particular information can be selected and displayed does not indicate a graphical element representing a correlation between a plurality of selected dimensions of a product.” Id. The Appellants do not find Bennett’s disclosure of the ability “to drill down to see the details, if the user so desires,” for instance, to be sufficient to disclose the claim limitation. See id. (citing Bennett | 65). 3 Appeal 2015-003302 Application 13/108,255 We are not persuaded by the Appellants’ arguments on this issue. First, the Appellants argument that “Bennett does not disclose a correlation between the definition or classification properties of an asset” impermissibly argues limitations not in the claim. See In re Self, 671 F.2d 1344, 1348 (CCPA 1982) (“appellant’s arguments fail from the outset because . . . they are not based on limitations appearing in the claims.”). Next, as to the Appellants’ additional arguments, we refer to the Examiner findings regarding Bennett that serve to disclose the limitation: that the spider diagram of paragraph 17 shows relationships between networks, computers, servers, etc.; the graphs of paragraph 65; and, information used in risk analysis of paragraph 86. Final Act. 4. The Examiner also refers to Bennett’s disclosures in paragraphs 74, 76, and 78—88 that describe the relationships between the assets and the asset classifications. Ans. 13—14.3 The Examiner additionally refers to Bennett’s teaching of a flow diagram for security forecasting that the user uses to collect, classify, evaluate and analyze assets. Id. at 14—15 (citing Bennett, || 1 lb- 122, Fig. 5). We find that the Appellants have not identified reversible error in the Examiner’s findings regarding the “correlation” limitation because the graphical representations of Bennett allow a user to discern details of information and data that correlate to the risk assessments that the user chooses to view. Although the term “correlation” is not used in Bennett, there is no ipsissimis verbis test for determining whether a reference discloses a claim element, i.e., identity of terminology is not required. In re Bond, 910 F.2d 831, 832 (Fed. Cir. 1990). The 3 The Appellants did not file a Reply Brief. Responses that the Appellants could have made but chose not to make are considered waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv); see also 37 C.F.R. §41.41. 4 Appeal 2015-003302 Application 13/108,255 point is that there is an association of risk assessment parameters (dimension) with data (characteristics of the product). The Appellants also contend that Bennett’s disclosure of “what-if” scenarios fail to disclose the claim limitation directed to the customization of the correlation of the plurality of the dimensions with characteristic of products. App. Br. 9—10. The Appellants refer to Bennett’s enumeration of communications protocols (Bennett 142) and “likelihood calculation method” (id. 191), and allege that neither are represented by a graphical element in a GUI. Id. at 10. The Appellants also allege that the overlapping bubbles of the “what-if’ scenarios of Bennett do not disclose the customization limitation of the claims. Id. (citing Bennett 1220). We are not persuaded by the Appellants’ arguments. The Examiner finds that Bennett discloses the creation of “what-if’ scenarios that can be customized or programmed by the user. Final Act. 5—6; Ans. 15—16 (citing Bennett H 19, 20). The Examiner refers to Bennett’s disclosure of the capability to alter security assessment information, where the altered information is used to represent hypothetical risk exposure, and can be used to animate a successive visual representations in a graph. Ans. 15—16 (citing Bennett 120). We find that the Appellants have not identified reversible error in the Examiner’s findings for this claim limitation because Bennett discloses customization of correlations of a parameter (dimension) with data (characteristics of the product) as claimed. We therefore sustain the anticipation rejection of representative claim 1. SUMMARY The rejection of claims 1—20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). AFFIRMED 5