Ex Parte Zhang et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 24, 2017

12968786 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 24, 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. 12/968,786 12/15/2010 Junliang Zhang 26295-17093 3027 87851 7590 03/28/2017 Faoehnnk/Fen wi ok EXAMINER Silicon Valley Center HOAR, COLLEEN A 801 California Street Mountain View, CA 94041 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3621 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/28/2017 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): ptoc @ fenwick.com fwfacebookpatents @ fenwick.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JUNLIANG ZHANG and GANG WU Appeal 2015-001410 Application 12/968,786 Technology Center 3600 Before BIBHU R. MOHANTY, NINA L. MEDLOCK, and MATTHEW S. METERS, Administrative Patent Judges. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final rejection of claims 1—22, 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. Appeal 2015-001410 Application 12/968,786 THE INVENTION The Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to providing social advertisements to a viewing user (Spec., para. 5). Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A method comprising: [1] receiving a plurality of advertisement requests, each advertising request comprising advertising content and an identification of one or more objects in a social networking system; [2] identifying a viewing user to receive advertising; [3] identifying one or more other users who are connected to the viewing user in the social networking system; [4] identifying a plurality of objects in the social networking system with which the identified one or more other users have interacted; [5] identifying one or more candidate advertisements based on the advertisement requests, where each candidate advertisement is associated with an advertisement request that identified at least one of the identified objects with which the identified one or more other users have interacted; [6] selecting a candidate advertisement for display to the viewing user; [7] generating by a processor a social advertisement that comprises (1) the advertising content for the advertisement request associated with the selected candidate advertisement and (2) a social story that describes an interaction between a user who is connected with the viewing user and an object in the social networking system; [8] and sending the social advertisement for display to the viewing user. 2 Appeal 2015-001410 Application 12/968,786 THE REJECTION The following rejection is before us for review: Claims 1—22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by King (US Patent Pub. 2010/0228582 Al, pub. Sept. 9, 2010).1 FINDINGS OF FACT We have determined that the findings of fact in the Analysis section below are supported at least by a preponderance of the evidence.2 ANALYSIS The Appellants argue that the rejection of claim 1 is improper because the prior art fails to disclose claim limitation [7] identified above (App. Br. 5, 6; Reply Br. 2-4). In contrast, the Examiner has determined that the cited claim limitation is found in King at paras. 5, 6, 24, 44, and 61—68 (Final Rej. 3, 4; Ans. 3). We agree with the Appellants. Here, claim limitation [7] requires: [7] generating by a processor a social advertisement that comprises (1) the advertising content for the advertisement request associated with the selected candidate advertisement and (2) a social story that describes an interaction between a user who is connected with the viewing user and an object in the social networking system. 1 The citation in the Final Rejection to the King reference as having a Publication Number of 2010/0228583 Al (last digit ‘3’) instead of 2010/0228582 Al (last digit ‘2’) is considered to be a typographical error. 2 See Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the Patent Office). 3 Appeal 2015-001410 Application 12/968,786 Thus, the cited limitation requires both generating (1) advertising content associated with the selected candidate advertisement and (2) a social story that describes an interaction between a user who is connected with the viewing user and an object in the social networking system. Here, the above citations to King at paras. 5, 6, 24, 44, and 61—68 fail to disclose this and the rejection of record is not sustained. For example, King at para. 5 discloses that status messages are sent to the user by one of the user’s social contacts and that the status messages are analyzed to determine the user’s status update context. However, King at para. 5 fails to disclose any specific “social story that describes an interaction between a user who is connected with the viewing user and an object in the social networking system.” King at para. 24 discloses that a user can receive a significant number of messages about sports cars, but this discloses nothing again about a social story that describes an interaction between a user who is connected with the viewing user and an object in the social networking system. King at para. 68 does disclose that contacts whose messages triggered the advertisement can be displayed with advertisement. However, King merely discloses the contacts that triggered the message and does not disclose any specific “social story that describes an interaction between a user who is connected with the viewing user and an object in the social networking system.” That is, King at para. 68 essentially provides a “listing” of the users that are connected to the user that triggered the advertisement rather than a social story that describes the interaction between the user connected to the viewing user and the object in the manner claimed. The other citations to King fail to disclose the cited limitation as well. 4 Appeal 2015-001410 Application 12/968,786 For these reasons the rejection of claim 1 and its dependent claims is not sustained. Claim 13 contains a similar limitation and the rejection of that claim and its dependent claims is not sustained for the same reasons given above. CONCLUSIONS OF LAW We conclude that Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting the claims as listed in the Rejection section above. DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—22 is reversed. REVERSED 5