Ex Parte Weitzman et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 20, 2012

10752476 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 20, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte LOUIS M. WEITZMAN and
DIKRAN S. MELIKSETIAN
____________________

Appeal 2009-015085
Application 10/752,476
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, THU A. DANG, and JAMES R. HUGHES,
Administrative Patent Judges.

DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2009-015085
Application 10/752,476

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STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 2-4, 6-10, 12, 14-19, 21-23, and 25-32. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Appellants' claimed invention relates to the field of content
management systems and methods, and more particularly relates to a content
management system and method having context-based document
composition and rendering. (Specification 1, ¶ [0001].)
Independent claim 30, reproduced below, is representative of the
subject matter on appeal.

30. A method for content management comprising:
receiving, from a device, at least one request for at least
one content, wherein the content is constructed from a plurality
of content fragments, wherein each content fragment is
associated with a plurality of content elements, wherein each
content element is a variation of the content fragment, wherein
each content element is a piece of reusable content across
different context documents and is independent of a particular
style sheet implementation;
extracting at least one context related information from
the request;
generating a context document based on the context
related information, wherein the context document includes
content attributes of content elements within the plurality of
content elements and the context document is used to map a set
of variables in a style sheet that is independent of each content
element in the plurality of content elements to the content
attributes of the content elements within the plurality of content
elements;
storing a set of variable mappings corresponding to the
set of variables in the style sheet that have been mapped to the
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content attributes of the content elements within the plurality of
content elements;
selecting for display on the device, a set of content
elements from the plurality of content elements based on the set
of variable mappings by identifying at least one content element
from the set of content elements associated with content
attributes that have been mapped to the set of variables in the
style sheet;
dynamically transforming the set of content elements that
have been selected based on the set of variable mappings
associated with the set of content elements, wherein the
dynamically transforming is performed prior to processing the
style sheet to generated an output document;
creating a constraint document based on at least the
context document and a device description document associated
with the device that defines a set of features and capabilities of
the device, and wherein the constraint document defines a set of
constraints to set a form and style of each content element to be
displayed on the device, wherein the constraint document is
separate and distinct from the context document and the device
description document; and
generating an output document comprising the set of
content elements that have been selected based upon the style
sheet and the constraint document, wherein the output
document is separate and distinct from the plurality of content
elements.

REFERENCES
Hunt US Patent App. Pub. No. 2004/0133848 A1 Jul. 8, 2004
(Filed: Oct. 24, 2003)
Harrington US 7,171,618 B2 Jan. 30, 2007
(Provisionally filed on Jul. 30, 2003)

Appeal 2009-015085
Application 10/752,476

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REJECTIONS
Claims 30-32, 2-4, 6-10, 12, 14-19, 21-23, and 25-29 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. 112, first paragraph, for failing to comply with the written
description requirement
Claims 2-4, 6-10, 12, 14-19, 21-23, and 25-32 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hunt and Harrington.

OPINION
35 USC § 112, First Paragraph, Written Description
The Examiner maintains that amended claims 30-32, 2-4, 6-10, 12,
14-19, 21-23, and 25-29 fail to comply with the written description
requirement under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph. In particular, the
Examiner finds that the claims contain subject matter which was not
described in the Specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one
skilled in the relevant art that the inventors, at the time the application was
filed, had possession of the claimed invention. (Ans. 3-4).
With the exception of "wherein the dynamic transforming is
performed prior to processing the style sheet to generate[] an output
document" (claims 30-32) which we find supported in the original
Specification and acknowledged by the Examiner at page 21 of the Answer,
we agree with the Examiner's findings regarding the various claim
limitations. In particular, we have considered Appellants' proffered support
but find those paragraphs identified by Appellants do not show written
description support in the original Specification for these amended claim
limitations. (App. Br. 10-12; Reply Br. 2-4). Therefore, we sustain the
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written description requirement rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first
paragraph.

35 USC § 103
Appellants provide detailed arguments with respect to each of the
disputed claim limitations. (App. Br. 13-20; Reply Br. 5-14). We note in
various places in Appellants' detailed arguments that "content" and "context"
appear to have been interchanged, but the thrust of Appellants' argument is
clear that the Hunt reference does not provide a disclosure of "generating a
context document based on the context related information" (claim 30) that
was extracted from a received device request. Therefore, it follows that the
remainder of the claim which uses the context document is similarly not
taught or fairly suggested.
We adopt Appellants' responsive arguments with respect to the prior
art and claimed invention as our own. (App. Br. 13-20; Reply Br. 5-14).
Specifically, Appellants address various interpretations which the Examiner
may rely upon with regards to the Hunt reference and generating a context
document (Reply Br. 6-7), and Appellants show error in each of the
Examiner's varied interpretations. We agree with Appellants' analysis.
The Examiner generally identifies and relies upon pages 6-8 of the
Hunt reference and paragraphs [0091]-[0094] in proffering that most of the
claim limitations are taught and fairly suggested. (Ans. 5-7, 20-28). While
we agree with the Examiner that the Hunt reference teaches a similar end
result in outputting modified content with respect to different user devices,
we cannot agree with the Examiner that the portions of the Hunt reference
relied upon by the Examiner in combination with the Harrington reference
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teaches or fairly suggests the specific method steps as recited in independent
claim 30. Therefore, we cannot sustain the rejection of independent claim
30.
Independent claims 31 and 32 recite similar functionality recited in
system and program product claims, and the Examiner has similarly relied
on the deficient teachings as discussed above. Therefore, we cannot sustain
the rejection of independent claims 31 and 32 for the same reasons.

Appellants' Specification
We note that Appellants' Specification at paragraph [0048] expressly
identifies that "computer readable medium may comprise computer readable
information in a transitory state medium such as a network link and/or a
network interface, including a wired network or a wireless network that
allow a computer to read such computer readable information." (Spec. 15-
16). We leave it to the Examiner to further evaluate the claimed invention
with respect to the expressed disclosure in Appellants' Specification.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 30-32, 2-4, 6-10, 12, 14-
19, 21-23, and 25-29 under 35 U.S.C. 112, first paragraph, for failing to
comply with the written description requirement.
The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 2-4, 6-10, 12, 14-19, 21-23,
and 25-32 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the applied references.

Appeal 2009-015085
Application 10/752,476

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DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 30-32, 2-4, 6-10, 12, 14-19,
21-23, and 25-29 is affirmed.
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 2-4, 6-10, 12, 14-19, 21-23,
and 25-32 is reversed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv)(2010).

AFFIRMED

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