Ex Parte Yan et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 23, 2017

13759838 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 23, 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.
13/759,838 02/05/2013 Rong Yan 26295-20813 5126
87851 7590 01/25/2017
Faoehnnk/Fen wi ok
EXAMINER
Silicon Valley Center SKHOUN, HICHAM
801 California Street
Mountain View, CA 94041 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2155
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/25/2017 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):
ptoc @ fenwick.com
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PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte RONG YAN, EYTAN BAKSHY, HAO ZHANG, and
HUAJING LI
Appeal 2016-002372
Application 13/759,838
Technology Center 2100
Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, ADAM J. PYONIN, and
KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, Administrative Patent Judges.
PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—20, which are all of the pending
claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
The Application is directed to social networks that “optimize the
communication of sponsored story units, which include a sponsored story
Appeal 2016-002372
Application 13/759,838
and/or one or more related posts or activities,” and which allow “advertisers
or the social networking system to modify selection of sponsored stories.”
Spec. 5—6. Claims 1,11, and 17 are independent. Claim 1 is reproduced
below for reference:
1. A method comprising:
storing, in a social networking system, a user profile
associated with a viewing user, the user profile identifying one
or more users of the social networking system connected to the
viewing user;
receiving a story request for a sponsored story unit, the
story request identifying content and a type of action to be
included in the sponsored story unit;
identifying interactions with objects by users of the social
networking system connected to the viewing user, the
interactions identified based on the content and the type of
action identified by the story request;
generating a plurality of candidate sponsored stories
based on the identified interactions, each candidate sponsored
story describing an interaction performed by a user of the social
networking system who is connected to the viewing user;
ranking, by a processor, the candidate sponsored stories
based on a performance metric;
selecting a candidate sponsored story from among the
candidate sponsored stories based at least in part on the
ranking;
generating the sponsored story unit including the selected
candidate sponsored story; and
presenting the sponsored story unit to the viewing user.
References and Rejections
Claims 1,2, 4—7, 10-15, and 17—19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e) as being anticipated by Kendall (US 2012/0109757 Al; May 3,
2012). Final Act. 2.
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Application 13/759,838
Claim 3 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Kendall and Chan (US 2008/0262931 Al; Oct. 23, 2008).
Final Act. 9.
Claims 8, 9, 16, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Kendall and Liu (US 2011/0238486 Al; Sept. 29,
2011). Final Act. 10.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
arguments. We adopt the Examiner’s findings and conclusions in the Final
Action and Examiner’s Answer as our own, to the extent they are consistent
with our analysis below. We add the following primarily for emphasis.
A. Independent Claims
Appellants argue the Examiner erred, because
Kendall fails to disclose or suggest at least “generating a
plurality of candidate sponsored stories based on the identified
interactions, each candidate sponsored story describing an
interaction performed by a user of the social networking system
who is connected to the viewing user,” and “ranking, by a
processor, the candidate sponsored stories based on a
performance metric,” as recited in independent claims 1, 11,
and 17.
App. Br. 5. Particularly, Appellants contend that Kendall discloses methods
for generating both newsfeed stories and social ads, “but the examiner seems
to conflate the two in his analysis.” Id. 6. Regarding KendalFs social ads,
Appellants assert that “KendalFs social ads are more similar to the claimed
sponsored stories than are newsfeed stories, but still do not meet the claimed
limitations,” because the reference “does not contemplate generating
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Application 13/759,838
multiple ‘candidate’ social ads from a single request as the claim recites for
sponsored stories (‘generating a plurality of candidate sponsored stories’),
nor does Kendall describe then ‘ranking’ and ‘selecting’ from a plurality of
social ads, since it does not generate a plurality of candidates.” Reply Br. 6.
We are not persuaded the Examiner erred. Rather, we agree with the
Examiner that Kendall’s process—for social advertising that is responsive to
receiving ad requests—discloses generating and ranking a plurality of
candidate sponsored stories as claimed:
Each of the triggering actions that were obtained ... for the
qualifying ad requests represent a candidate social ad that may
be generated by the ad server 380. To select which one or ones
of the candidate social ads to generate, the ad server computes
925 an expected value for each of the candidate social ads.
Kendall 172; see Final Act. 13—14. Once Kendall has selected a candidate
sponsored story (i.e., “candidate social ad”) based on the ranking, Kendall
generates a sponsored story unit (i.e., “social ad”) within the meaning of the
claim. See Kendall 173 (“Once the expected values are computed for the
candidate social ads, the ad server composes 930 a social ad for the
candidate with the highest expected value”); see also Final Act. 4.
We find unavailing Appellants’ contention that “Kendall only
composes the ‘desired number’ of candidate ads” (App. Br. 7), at least
because Kendall describes generating fewer social ads than the multiple
candidate social ads.1 See Final Act. 14; Kendall Tflf 71—73. In particular,
1 We find Kendall discloses the claim limitations as argued by Appellants;
therefore we do not reach the issue of whether the claims further encompass
generating a sponsored story unit for each candidate sponsored story. See
Genentech, Inc. v. Chiron Corp., 112 F.3d 495, 501 (Fed. Cir. 1997)
(“Comprising is a term of art used in claim language which means that the
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Application 13/759,838
Appellants do not provide sufficient evidence or argument to show that the
recited steps, including “generating a plurality of candidate sponsored
stories” and “generating the sponsored stories,” preclude Kendall’s disclosed
process, including the steps of identifying candidate social ads and
composing social ads. See Kendall Abstract; see also 37 C.F.R. §
41.37(c)(l)(iv) (“any arguments or authorities not included in the appeal
brief will be refused consideration”); cf. In re Baxter Travenol Labs., 952
F.2d 388, 391 (Fed. Cir. 1991) (“It is not the function of [the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit] to examine the claims in greater detail than
argued by an appellant, looking for nonobvious distinctions over the prior
art.”).
Accordingly, we are satisfied that Kendall discloses the disputed
limitations of independent claims 1,11, and 17.
B. Dependent Claim 20
Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting dependent claim 20,
because “the ranking factors of Liu are independent of the ad itself but rather
rely on external factors used to measure revenue.” App. Br. 9; see also
Reply Br. 7.
We are not persuaded the Examiner erred. The Examiner finds the
combination of Liu and Kendall teaches or suggests the limitations of claim
20.2 See Final Act. 12; Ans. 4 (“the combination of Kendall and Liu
named elements are essential, but other elements may be added and still
form a construct within the scope of the claim”).
2 Separately, and not relied upon for this Decision, we note dependent claim
7 recites similar limitations as claim 20; claim 7, however, is rejected as
anticipated by Kendall. See Final Act. 5.
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Application 13/759,838
references overcome the argued limitation.”). Particularly, the Examiner
finds “Kendall teaches . . . ranking the candidate sponsored stories so
candidate sponsored stories describ[e] a type of action specified by the
request.” Ans. 4; see also Kendall 172. Appellants do not present
arguments with respect to the Examiner’s Kendall findings; nor do
Appellants challenge the Examiner’s reliance on the combination of
references. Accordingly, we are not persuaded the Examiner’s rejection of
claim 20 is in error.
CONCLUSION
We sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1,11 and
17, and dependent claim 20. Appellants advance no further argument on
dependent claims 2—10, 12—16, 18, 19, and 33—36. See Appeal Br. 5, 8.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejections of these claims for the
same reasons discussed above.
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—20 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)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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