Google LLC

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Aug 3, 2021

2020001978 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 3, 2021)

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.
14/628,093 02/20/2015 Eileen Margaret Peters Long 0715150.320-US1 4979
104433 7590 08/03/2021
Byrne Poh LLP/Google LLC
11 Broadway Ste 760
New York, NY 10004
EXAMINER
ALMANI, MOHSEN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2159
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/03/2021 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):
info@byrnepoh.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte EILEEN MARGARET PETERS LONG,
JONATHAN FRANKLE, WILL CHAMBERS, JIA WU,
CHARLES THOMAS CURRY, MATTHIAS HEILER,
RUBEN SIPOS, CHRISTOPHER KENNETH HAULK,
ANGELA YU-YUN YEUNG, and INGRID KARIN VON GLEHN
___________

Appeal 2020-001978
Application 14/628,093
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, JAMES B. ARPIN, and
MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges.

STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
decision rejecting claims 1, 3–10, 12–19, and 21–27, all of the pending
claims. Appeal Br. 3.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

1 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42.
Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Google LLC. Appeal Br. 3.
2 In this Decision, we refer to Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.,” filed
August 26, 2019); the Final Office Action (“Final Act.,” mailed March 14,
2019), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed November 7, 2019); and
the Specification (“Spec.,” filed February 20, 2015). Rather than repeat the
Examiner’s findings and Appellant’s contentions in their entirety, we refer to
these documents.
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We affirm.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The claimed devices, computer-implemented methods, and methods
relate to “methods, systems, and media for presenting search results.” Spec.
¶ 1. The Specification describes a need to provide parental control of a
child’s access to inappropriate content by providing parents with the ability
to limit a child’s ability “to view results from search queries that may result
in mature content (e.g., violent content, sexual content, profanity, drug use,
etc.).” Id. ¶ 2. Thus, “[i]n some embodiments [of the invention], . . .
mechanisms . . . can receive a search query from a user device, and can
determine if the search query is to be blocked based on information related
to search results retrieved in connection with the search query.” Id. ¶ 28.
“In some embodiments, in response to determining that the search query is
not to be blocked, the mechanisms can identify a subset of search results to
be presented.” Id. ¶ 30.
As noted above, claims 1, 3–10, 12–19, and 21–27 are pending.
Claims 1, 10, and 19 are independent. Appeal Br. 15 (claim 1), 17–18
(claim 10), 20 (claim 19) (Claims App.). Claims 3–9 depend directly or
indirectly from claim 1, claims 12–18 depend directly or indirectly from
claim 10, and claims 21–27 depend directly from claim 19. Id. at 15–22.
Claim 1, reproduced below with a disputed limitation emphasized, is
illustrative.
1. A method for presenting search results, comprising:
receiving text corresponding to a search query entered on a
user device;
determining whether a content rating score associated with
the search query is below a predetermined threshold value,
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wherein the predetermined threshold value is determined based
on a number of words included in the search query and wherein
the score is calculated by:
identifying a first plurality of search results retrieved
using the search query, wherein each search result in the
first plurality of search results is associated with one of a
plurality of content ratings classes;
determining, for each search result in the first plurality
of search results, a weight, wherein the weight is
determined based on a popularity of the search result; and
calculating the content rating score that is a proportion
of search results associated with at least one of the content
ratings classes among the first plurality of search results,
wherein the proportion of search results associated with
at least one of the content ratings classes is calculated
using the weight associated with each search result;
in response to determining that the content rating score is
below the predetermined threshold value, identifying a second
plurality of search results to be presented based on the search
query; and
causing the second plurality of search results to be presented
on the user device.
Id. at 15 (emphases added). Each of independent claims 10 and 19 recites
limitations corresponding to the disputed limitations of claim 1. Id. at 17–
18, 20.
REFERENCES AND REJECTIONS
The Examiner relies upon the following references:
Name3 Reference Published Filed
Rose US 5,870,740 Feb. 9, 1999 Sept. 30, 1996
Dutta US 2002/0078045 Al June 20, 2002 Dec. 14, 2000
Parthasarathy US 2012/0150850 Al June 14, 2012 Dec. 8, 2010

3 All reference citations are to the first named inventor only.
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Name3 Reference Published Filed
Johnson US 2016/0110460 Al Apr. 21, 2016 Oct. 21, 2014
The Examiner rejects:4
a. claims 1, 3–8, 10, 12–17, 19, and 21–265 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
obvious over the combined teachings of Parthasarathy, Rose, and
Dutta (Final Act. 4–9); and
b. claims 9, 18, and 27 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the
combined teachings of Parthasarathy, Rose, Dutta, and Johnson
(id. at 9–12).
We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues
identified by Appellant, and in light of the contentions and evidence
produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010)
(precedential). The Examiner and Appellant focus their findings and
contentions on claim 1 (see Appeal Br. 11–13; Ans. 3–9); so do we.
Arguments not made are forfeited.6 Unless otherwise indicated, we adopt
the Examiner’s findings in the Final Office Action and the Answer as our

4 A rejection of claims 1, 10, and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) (Final Act. 2–
3) is withdrawn. Ans. 3.
5 Although omitted from the listing of rejected claims appearing at page 4 of
the Final Action, claims 25 and 26 are encompassed within this rejection as
detailed in the Examiner’s narrative at pages 8–9.
6 See In re Google Tech. Holdings LLC, 980 F.3d 858, 863 (Fed. Cir. 2020)
(“We interpret the Patent Office to be arguing that Google’s failure to raise
its lexicography arguments, inadvertent or not, compels a finding of
forfeiture.”); 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2018) (“Except as provided for in
§§ 41.41, 41.47 and 41.52, any arguments or authorities not included in the
appeal brief will be refused consideration by the Board for purposes of the
present appeal.”).
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own and add any additional findings of fact for emphasis. We address the
rejections below.
ANALYSIS
As noted above, the Examiner rejects claim 1 as obvious over the
combined teachings of Parthasarathy, Rose, and Dutta. Final Act. 4–9. In
particular, the Examiner finds Parthasarathy teaches or suggests the majority
of the limitations recited in claim 1. Id. at 4–6 (citing Parthasarathy ¶¶ 19–
21, 24, 35, 40, 42, 43, 50, Fig. 3B (item 380)). The Examiner finds,
however, “Parthasarathy does not specifically disclose the predetermined
threshold is based on a number of words included in the search query,” as
recited in claim 1. Id. at 6 (emphasis omitted).
Nevertheless, the Examiner finds Rose teaches or suggests this
missing limitation (the “disputed limitation”). Id. (citing Rose, 4:28–54).
The Examiner further finds:
Parthasarathy, ¶ 2 discloses that “when determining
whether a search query is intended to produce adult content, the
search query may be analyzed to determine whether the search
query is associated with adult content”; it would have been
obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention
to a person having ordinary skill in the art to combine the applied
references for disclosing the predetermined threshold is based on
a number of words included in the search query because
analyzing a query for determining the query length and using the
query length as a threshold is very well known in the art and
doing so would further provide for assigning weight to a long or
a short query for retrieving relevant documents (Rose, col. 4, ll.
28- 54.).
Id. (emphasis added, bolding omitted).
Acknowledging the combination of Parthasarathy and Rose is still
deficient in that it “does not specifically disclose the weight is determined
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based on a popularity of the search result,” the Examiner finds Dutta teaches
or suggests this missing, but non-disputed, limitation. Id. (citing Dutta ¶ 55
(emphasis omitted)). The Examiner reasons one skilled in the art would
have had reason to modify Parthasarathy to include Dutta’s weighting factor
“because doing so would provide for a well-known alternative which
depends on a design choice for ranking the search result and selecting from
the ranked search result for further processing.” Id. at 6–7. Therefore, the
Examiner finds that a person of ordinary skill in the relevant art would have
had reason to combine the teachings of Parthasarathy, Rose, and Dutta to
achieve the method recited in claim 1. Id.
Appellant contends the Examiner fails to show that, when properly
interpreted, Rose teaches the disputed limitation of determining whether a
content rating score associated with the search query is below a
predetermined threshold value, wherein the predetermined threshold value is
determined based on a number of words included in the search query.
Appeal Br. 11. According to Appellant, Rose describes an information
retrieval system wherein, rather than a threshold value, a ranking score of a
document is increased based on a query length, “such that ‘the contribution
of coordination to the relevance-ranking score is greater for short queries
than for long queries.’” Id. at 12 (quoting Rose 4:28–39).
Appellant agues, as follows:
Appellant respectfully submits that the Examiner is
improperly interpreting the “predetermined threshold
value” recited in Appellant’s claim 1 as a mere score. In
particular, Appellant respectfully submits that a threshold value,
as clearly indicated in Appellant’s claim 1, is a value to which a
different score is compared (“in response to determining that
the content rating score is below the predetermined
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threshold value,” as recited in Appellant’s claim 1) to
determine if a particular action is to occur (“identifying a
second plurality of search results to be presented based on the
search query,” as recited in Appellant’s claim 1). Therefore,
Appellant respectfully submits that the score described in Rose
is simply not “a threshold value,” as recited in Appellant’s
claim 1, because the score described in Rose is not a value to
which a different score is compared.
Id. at 12–13. Thus, according to Appellant, “at most, the combination of
Parthasarathy and Rose describe increasing a score by an amount dependent
on a query length, not determining whether a score is below a value, where
the value itself is determined based on a number of words included in the
search query.” Id. at 13 (emphasis omitted).
The Examiner responds,
a configurable threshold value in Parthasarathy influences a
selection of the same document in response to a query; the value
that is calculated based on a number of words included in the
search query in Rose also influences a selection of the same
document based on the query length/a number of words included
in the search query: col. 6, ll. 45–47, “If the query length is short,
and the coordination level is high, then the boost to the relevance-
ranking score is high”, col. 6, ll. 54–56, “If the query length is
long, and the coordination level is high, then the boost to the
relevance-ranking score is low”. It would have been obvious to a
person having ordinary skill in the art to use the technique of
calculating a value based on the number of words in a query and
use the value as the configurable threshold to which a different
score is compared in Parthasarathy to achieve the predictable
result of influencing the selection of a document in search results
for presentation.
Ans. 6–7 (emphasis added). We agree with the Examiner.
Appellant’s argument is not persuasive of Examiner error.
Parthasarathy discloses selectable threshold settings used to determine
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whether search results include adult content with corresponding degrees of
confidence. See, e.g., Parthasarathy ¶ 40. Although Rose discloses
increasing a search result score based on query length, rather than decreasing
a threshold value to which the score is compared; we agree with the
Examiner that, in view of Parthasarathy’s thresholds, one skilled in the art
would have had reason to modify Parthasarathy’s threshold values to take
into account query length as taught by Rose. Thus, Appellant’s argument is
unpersuasive because it fails to address the Examiner’s finding that selection
of documents based on query length as taught by Rose in combination with
Parthasarathy’s threshold selection based on safety settings teaches or
suggests the disputed limitation requiring determining a threshold value
based on a number of words included in the search query. That is,
Appellant’s argument improperly attacks the Rose reference individually
when the rejection is based on the combined teachings of Parthasarathy and
Rose. “Non-obviousness cannot be established by attacking references
individually where the rejection is based upon the teachings of a
combination of references.” In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097
(Fed. Cir. 1986) (citing In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981)).
For the reasons discussed above, we are not persuaded the Examiner
errs in rejecting independent claim 1 as obvious over the combined teachings
of Parthasarathy, Rose, and Dutta; and we sustain that rejection. Further,
Appellant does not challenge the obviousness rejections of independent
claims 10 and 19 or of dependent claims 3–9, 12–18, or 21–27, separately.
See Appeal Br. 13. Thus, we also sustain the rejections of those claims.
DECISION
1. The Examiner does not err in rejecting:
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a. claims 1, 3–8, 10, 12–17, 19, and 21–26 as obvious over the
combined teachings of Parthasarathy, Rose, and Dutta; and
b. claims 9, 18, and 27 as obvious over the combined teachings of
Parthasarathy, Rose, Dutta, and Johnson.
2. Thus, on this record, claims 1, 3–10, 12–19, and 21–27 are not
patentable.
CONCLUSION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 3–10, 12–19, and
21–27.
DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claim(s)
Rejected
35
U.S.C. §
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 3–8, 10, 12–
17, 19, 21–26
103 Parthasarathy, Rose,
Dutta
1, 3–8, 10,
12–17, 19,
21–26

9, 18, 27 103 Parthasarathy, Rose,
Dutta, Johnson
9, 18, 27
Overall
Outcome
1, 3–10, 12–
19, 21–27

TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED