International Business Machines CorporationDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardAug 4, 20212020002055 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 4, 2021) Copy Citation 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. 15/353,763 11/17/2016 Scott G. Bowden END920130040US2 8272 11445 7590 08/04/2021 IBM Corporation - Patent Center 1701 North Street B/256-3 Endicott, NY 13760 EXAMINER ELAHEE, MD S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2653 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/04/2021 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): edciplaw@us.ibm.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte SCOTT G. BOWDEN, CHRISTOPHER J. DAWSON, and SANJEEV KUMAR V. MARIMEKALA ____________________ Appeal 2020-002055 Application 15/353,763 Technology Center 2600 ____________________ Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, DAVID M. KOHUT, and BETH Z. SHAW, Administrative Patent Judges. KOHUT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–6.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as International Business Machines Corporation. Appeal Br. 2. 2 Throughout this Decision we refer to the Final Office Action mailed Nov. 1, 2018 (“Final Act.”), the Appeal Brief filed Mar. 20, 2019 (“Appeal Br.”), the Examiner’s Answer mailed Aug. 12, 2019 (“Ans.”), and the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”) filed Jan. 2, 2020. Appeal 2020-002055 Application 15/353,763 2 INVENTION The invention relates to “the field of audience attention measurement, and more specifically to real-time determination of audience attention to a speaker.” Spec. ¶ 1. The invention measures audience attention using sensors such as still cameras, video cameras, microphones, motion sensors, and computing device usage detectors within a room in which a presentation is being made. Id. at ¶ 12. Claim 1 is representative of the invention and is reproduced below. 1. A computer system for real-time determination of attentiveness of an audience in a room to a speaker making a presentation, the computer system comprising: one or more computer processors; one or more computer-readable storage devices; program instructions stored on the computer-readable storage media for execution by at least one of the one or more processors, the program instructions comprising: program instructions to determine amounts of attentiveness of the audience within the room over time during the presentation utilizing sensors located throughout the room; and based in part on amounts of attentiveness the audience over time, program instructions to determine and initiate display of measures of attentiveness of the audience over the time during the presentation, to display changes in the measures of attentiveness of the audience to the speaker during the presentation. Appeal Br. 21 (Claims App.) Appeal 2020-002055 Application 15/353,763 3 REFERENCES Name Reference Date Kuhlke US 2008/0320082 A1 Dec. 25, 2008 Ramaswamy US 2013/0205311 A1 Aug. 8, 2013 REJECTIONS3 Claims 1–3, 5, and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as anticipated by Kuhlke. Final Act. 5–6. Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kuhlke and Ramaswamy. Final Act. 7. ANALYSIS The Examiner finds that Kuhlke discloses each and every limitation of claims 1–3, 5, and 6. Final Act. 5–6. In particular, the Examiner finds that Kuhlke discloses “program instructions to determine amounts of attentiveness of the audience within the room over time during the presentation utilizing sensors located throughout the room.” Id. at 5 (citing Kulke, Figs. 1–7, ¶¶ 12, 15, 16, 22, 25, 26, 40–47). The Examiner further explains that In paragraph 23, Kuhlke teaches that monitoring circuitry (e.g., 40, 42) [i.e., sensors] in each of user device 20a, 20b and 20d is used for detecting user inputs and supplies these inputs to enable the IP meeting server 12 in fig. 1 to receive monitoring data in the form of detected user interaction inputs detected by the monitoring circuitry. Based on the received monitoring data, the meeting server generates attention metrics 3 Claims 1–3, 5–12, 14–16, and 18 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to patent-ineligible subject matter. Final Act. 8–10. However, this rejection was withdrawn in the Examiner’s Answer, and is no longer pending on appeal. Ans. 3. Appeal 2020-002055 Application 15/353,763 4 including an aggregate attention metric identifying the aggregate focus of attention by all the identified meeting participants (see fig.2; paragraphs 0024, 0025) and this aggregate focus of attention is used to determine the relative attention level 54 [i.e., amounts of attentiveness] of each of the meeting participants [i.e., audience] over time during the presentation (see paragraph 0026). In paragraph 0039, Kuhlke further teaches that a location- based presence can specify the relative proximity of the participant 28 in fig.1, relative to the meeting devices 20b or 20c. The locations-based services also can specify whether a nonparticipant enters the participant's office, indicating that the nonparticipant may be interrupting the participant while the participant is engaged in an instant messaging session or in a conference call. Thus it is clear that the monitoring circuitry (e.g., 40, 42) [i.e., sensors] in the participant [i.e., each of user] device 20b is located within the user's/participant's office/location [i.e., room] during the presentation utilizing sensors located within the room. Ans. 6–7. Appellant disagrees and argues that “Kuhlke is directed to ‘determining attention level of meeting participants of a web-based rich- media conference.’” Appeal Br. 12 (citing Kulhke ¶ 1). Because Kuhlke’s audience is web-based and their attention level is “determined based on detecting and analyzing interactions between a meeting participant and his or her user interface devices,” Appellant argues that Kuhlke fails to teach determining the attentiveness of the “audience within the room . . . utilizing sensors located throughout the room.” Id. More specifically, Appellant asserts that Kuhlke’s “use of ‘monitoring circuitry’ in a ‘user interface device’ of a meeting participant does not support the alleged teaching of ‘program instructions to determine amounts of attentiveness of the audience Appeal 2020-002055 Application 15/353,763 5 within the room over time during the presentation utilizing sensors located throughout the room.’” Reply Br. 3. Appellant’s arguments, however, are not commensurate with the scope of the claims. Claim 1 requires “program instructions to determine amounts of attentiveness of the audience within the room . . . utilizing sensors located throughout the room.” Notably, claim 1 does not recite any requirements on the claimed audience or room. Instead, claim 1 merely requires an audience in a room and sensors located in that room. As such, Appellant’s arguments are unpersuasive because Kuhlke teaches an audience within a room by disclosing a participant watching a presentation from their office. Ans. 6–7 (citing Kuhlke ¶ 39). Further, Kuhlke teaches sensors throughout the audience/participant’s room by disclosing sensors in user devices 20b and 20c as well as keyboard 40 and mouse 42 sensors. Id. (citing Kuhlke ¶¶ 23, 39, Fig. 1). Because Kuhlke’s sensors determine amounts of attentiveness of the audience/participant within their room or office and because the sensors are located throughout the participant’s room in their devices, we are not persuaded of Examiner error. Ans. 6–7. For the reasons explained above, we sustain the rejection of claims 1– 3, 5, and 6. Further, because Appellant does not separately argue claim 4, we also sustain the rejection of claim 4. See Appeal Br. 18. Appellant further argues that The Current Office Action (on page 4) improperly groups claims 2, 3, and 5 in with the rejection of independent claim 1. Appellant respectfully asserts that it is clear that the citations of Kuhlke with respect to independent claim 1 (which constitute a listing of all of the Figures of Kuhlke in addition to a listing of paragraphs of Kuhlke, without any analysis of which paragraphs, or portions of paragraphs, relate to any particular limitations of Appeal 2020-002055 Application 15/353,763 6 the claim) are not "equally applicable" to the content of claims 2, 3, and 5. Due to the Current Office Action being devoid of analysis or reasoning behind rejecting claims 2, 3, and 5 as anticipated by Kuhlke, Appellant cannot reasonably ascertain how Kuhlke anticipates claims 2, 3, or 5. Appeal Br. 16–17. During prosecution, 35 U.S.C. § 132 requires that an Examiner provide notification to an applicant of the reasons for a rejection with “such information and references as may be useful in judging of the propriety of continuing the prosecution of [the] application.” In re Jung, 637 F.3d 1356, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (quoting Chester v. Miller, 906 F.2d 1574, 1578 (1990)). Here, the Examiner notified Appellants that claims 2, 3 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as anticipated by Kulhke. The Examiner further provided the specific basis of the rejections via the citation of specific paragraphs and figures of Kuhlke. Final Act. 5–6 (citing Kuhlke, Figs. 1–7, ¶¶ 12, 15, 16, 22, 25, 26, 40–47). We find that the Examiner's rejection satisfies the notice requirement and accordingly, the burden shifts to Appellant to rebut the Examiner's prima facie case by distinctly and specifically pointing out the supposed errors in the Examiner's rejection. However, Appellant has merely alleged that the Examiner did not meet their burden and has not specifically identified how Kuhlke fails to teach the elements of claims 2, 3, and 5. See Appeal Br. 16–18. Accordingly, in the absence of a specific argument identifying the deficiencies of Kuhlke with respect to claims 2, 3 and 5, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection. See Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential) (“The panel then reviews the obviousness rejection for error based upon the issues identified by appellant, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced thereon.”)). Appeal 2020-002055 Application 15/353,763 7 CONCLUSION We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–3, 5, 6 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1). We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claim 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/ Basis Affirmed Reversed 1–3, 5, 6 102(a)(1) Kuhlke 1–3, 5, 6 4 103 Kuhlke, Ramaswamy 4 Overall Outcome 1–6 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). 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