Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC.

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardSep 30, 2021

2020004843 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 30, 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. 15/249,013 08/26/2016 Roshin Lal Ramesan 14917.2808USU1/359392.02 6821 181403 7590 09/30/2021 Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP-Microsoft PO Box 29001 Glendale, CA 91209-9001 EXAMINER SINGH, AMRESH ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2159 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/30/2021 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): PLPrivatePair@lrrc.com pto@lewisroca.com usdocket@microsoft.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ROSHIN LAL RAMESAN, MICHAEL FRANCIS PALERMITI II, and MEGAN MARIE QUINTERO Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 Technology Center 2100 Before JAMES B. ARPIN, AMBER L. HAGY, and PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to “the automatic enrichment of content with contextually relevant information.” Spec. ¶ 5. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method of providing automatic enrichment of content with contextually relevant information, comprising: receiving a content item to display within an application user interface; determining an entity associated with the content item; querying one or more data sources for results that relate to the entity; retrieving context information relating to the content item; parsing the results in view of the context information; identifying contextually relevant information; and displaying the content item within the application user interface, wherein the application user interface is modified to display both the content item and the contextually relevant information, and wherein the displayed contextually relevant information is dynamically refreshed every time the content item is displayed. Appeal Br. 21 (Claims Appendix). Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 3 REFERENCES2 The Examiner relies on the following references: Name Reference Date McCormack US 2012/0084340 A1 Apr. 5, 2012 Convertino US 2012/0117484 A1 May 10, 2012 Schnitman US 2014/0337441 A1 Nov. 13, 2014 REJECTION Claims 1–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over McCormack, Convertino, and Schnitman. Final Act. 3–7. ISSUES First Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding McCormack and Convertino teach or suggest “wherein the application user interface is modified to display both the content item and the contextually relevant information,” as recited in claim 1? Second Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding McCormack and Schnitman teach or suggest “wherein the displayed contextually relevant information is dynamically refreshed every time the content item is displayed,” as recited in claim 1? Third Issue: Has the Examiner erred in combining the teachings of McCormack, Convertino, and Schnitman to achieve the invention recited in the claim? 2 Reference citations are to the first named inventor only. Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 4 Fourth Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding McCormack teaches or suggests “wherein the calendar entry is automatically populated into a calendar,” as recited in claim 3? Fifth Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding McCormack teaches or suggests “determining the strength of the entity relative to other entities,” as recited in claim 5? Sixth Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding McCormack teaches or suggests “the contextually relevant information is displayed in-line with the content item,” as recited in claim 6? Seventh Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding “wherein selection of the object causes the contextually relevant information to be displayed in- line with the content item,” as recited in claim 8? Eighth Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding McCormack teaches or suggests “wherein the contextually relevant information includes promotional information relating to the entity,” as recited in claim 9? Ninth Issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding McCormack teaches or suggests “wherein the entities include cities or promotions providers,” as recited in claim 11? ANALYSIS First Issue The Examiner rejects claim 1 as obvious over the combined teachings of McCormack, Convertino, and Schnitman. Final Act. 3–4. The Examiner relies primarily on McCormack, finding that it teaches all but the final two limitations of the claim. For the limitation “wherein the application user interface is modified to display both the content item and the contextually relevant information,” the Examiner relies on Convertino’s teachings. Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 5 Specifically, the Examiner finds Convertino’s description of displaying dynamic content and static content within the same interface teaches or suggests the limitation. Final Act. 4 (citing Convertino ¶¶ 9, 29, 32, 33, and 38). Appellant argues that Convertino is deficient because the Examiner improperly equates the dynamic content of Convertino, which includes calendar events and email messages, to the recited “contextually relevant information.” Appeal Br. 11–12. Appellant asserts that the Specification demonstrates that calendar events and e-mails are not “contextually relevant information,” but instead are “content items” within the meaning of the claim. Appeal Br. 12. We are not persuaded of error. We begin with claim interpretation. “[T]he PTO gives a disputed claim term its broadest reasonable interpretation.” In re Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320, 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Appellant contends that email messages and calendar items cannot be within the scope of “content item.” We disagree because nothing in the language of the claim or the Specification precludes an e-mail message or a calendar event from being a content item. The language of claim 1 only requires that a content item be displayed, and that contextually relevant information be displayed along with it. See Claim 1 (“wherein the application user interface is modified to display both the content item and the contextually relevant information” (emphasis added)). Thus, while the recited content item may include an e-mail or a calendar event, the meaning of “content item” is not limited to these types of content provided as examples in the Specification. Appellant points to several examples in the Specification that purportedly limit the scope of “content item.” Appeal Br. 10. However, Appellant Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 6 identifies no lexicographic definition for “content item” in the Specification. As such, Appellant’s reliance on Specification examples to confine the scope of the claims is inconsistent with the broadest reasonable interpretation standard. Similarly, we discern no requirement in the phrase “contextually relevant information” other than it be contextually related to the content item, i.e., related by meaning to or circumstances surrounding the content. In short, nothing in Appellant’s Specification or in the claims requires the recited “content item” to be an email or a calendar event, nor does anything in the Specification preclude “contextually relevant information” from including emails, calendar events, or other types of dynamic information. Turning to the applied references, we agree with the Examiner’s findings. Convertino teaches identifying “[d]ynamic content including one or more information items satisfying a similarity threshold with the static content.” Convertino ¶ 10. We agree with the Examiner that dynamic content satisfying a similarity threshold teaches “contextually relevant information.” The dynamic content may include “a wide class of data digital items,” including “email messages, web feed items in Really Simple Syndication (RSS) or Atom formats, chat or Instant Messaging messages, status updates from social networking sites, web forum or blog posts, and microblogging, for example Twitter, messages.” Convertino ¶ 26. Convertino further teaches the static content and the dynamic content may be displayed together. Convertino ¶ 10 (“An interactive visualization is generated within the shared information management client from information extracted from the static content and the similar dynamic content.”). As such, we agree with the Examiner that Convertino teaches or suggests the argued limitation of “wherein the application user interface is Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 7 modified to display both the content item and the contextually relevant information.” Second Issue Claim 1 also recites the limitation “wherein the displayed contextually relevant information is dynamically refreshed every time the content is displayed.” Appeal Br. 21 (Claims Appendix). With respect to this limitation, the Examiner relies on Schnitman. Final Act. 4 (citing Schnitman ¶¶ 31, 44, 48; Figs. 3, 13). The Examiner explains that Schnitman’s disclosure of fetching data related to a specific email when a user reads the email teaches dynamically refreshing the contextually relevant information because the email must be displayed in order for it to be read by a user. Ans. 4–5. Appellant argues Schnitman is deficient because “an annotated email is updated when the real time data service determines that an email should be updated, not every time the content is displayed, as recited [in claim 1].” Appeal Br. 12. We are not persuaded of error. Schnitman teaches the use of a “real time data service” that is configured to update annotated email messages by retrieving data when a user reads the email. Schnitman teaches an example where “an email containing a flight number may be displayed to a recipient with an annotation that allows the recipient to view real-time information associated with the recipient’s flight.” Schnitman ¶ 44. Schnitman further teaches that “[t]he real time data service may fetch data at serving time” and that “[s]erving time refers to fetching the data for a particular email when the user reads the email.” Schnitman ¶ 48 (emphasis added) (reference numerals omitted). We agree with the Examiner that Schnitman’s disclosure Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 8 of updating and/or refreshing related data when a user reads the email sufficiently corresponds to the argued limitation. That is, in order for an email to be read by the user, it must be displayed to the user. Because Schnitman teaches that the real-time service updates the related data “when the user reads the email,” a person of ordinary skill in the art would have understood that Schnitman’s system would update any time the email is displayed. Third Issue In concluding that claim 1 is obvious, the Examiner finds that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have sought to combine the teachings of McCormack, Convertino and Schnitman because “[they] are in the same field of endeavor of collecting and displaying information.” Final Act. 4. The Examiner finds that a person of skill in the art would have understood that making such a combination “would allow McCormack’s invention the ability to perform updates to email messages thereby making sure the data is not stale.” Final Act. 4 (citing McCormack ¶ 43). Appellant challenges the Examiner’s rationale in combining the references. Specifically, Appellant argues “citing to McCormack as the basis for adding the teachings of Schnitman suggests that the McCormack inventors were aware of such an issue and chose not to implement it.” Appeal Br. 18. Appellant further asserts that “none of the references disclose any concern regarding any data becoming stale, so such a consideration can hardly serve as a motivation to combine these three references in the manner recited only in the pending claims.” Appeal Br. 18. Appellant also argues “the Office Action fails to cite any portion of the Convertino or Schnitman references supporting the assertion why the skilled Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 9 artisan would be motivated to make the . . . combination.” Appeal Br. 19 (citing In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1447 (Fed. Cir. 1992)). We are not persuaded the Examiner erred in combining the cited references. We address each argument in turn. Appellant’s first argument posits that citing McCormack as the basis for adding the teachings of Schnitman reflects a choice on the part of McCormack not to address the problem of stale data. We do not find this argument persuasive. Appellant identifies no such authority supporting the notion that a citation to a reference in support of a combination can be the basis of drawing an inference regarding implementation choices with regard to that reference. Further, we discern no description in McCormack indicating that any such implementation choice was made. With respect to Appellant’s second argument that none of the references express any concern regarding stale data, we disagree. Schnitman, in disclosing a real time data update service, is focused on ensuring that data delivered to the user is up to date and timely and relevant. As such, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have sought to improve McCormack’s system by implementing the aspects of the secondary references that would address issues arising from presentation of stale data. Moreover, as the Examiner correctly explains in the Answer, Appellant’s argument also fails to acknowledge that the reasons for combining references need not be expressly stated in the cited references, but can also be drawn from the knowledge generally available to a person of skill in the art. Ans. 8 (citing inter alia In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347 (Fed. Cir. 1992)); see also In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 987 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (“[S]uggestion, teaching, or motivation Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 10 to combine the relevant prior art teachings does not have to be found explicitly in the prior art.”). Based on the teachings of the cited references, we agree with the Examiner that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have understood the benefits of ensuring that data presented to a user be current data, and that regular updates to dynamic data should be made in order to prevent it from becoming stale. Because Appellant’s arguments with respect to claim 1 are not persuasive of error, we sustain the obviousness rejection of claim 1. Fourth Issue Claim 2 depends from claim 1 and recites that “the content item is an email or calendar entry.” Claim 3 depends from claim 2 and further specifies that “the calendar entry is automatically populated into a calendar.” The Examiner finds these limitations taught or suggested by McCormack. Final Act. 5 (citing McCormack ¶ 63). Appellant contends the cited portion of McCormack “merely discloses the creation of calendar entries, not populating calendar entries into a calendar.” Appeal Br. 14. We are not persuaded of error. McCormack discloses that “presented data therefore can include not only the contact information, but also actions based upon the contact information such as, for example, creating calendar events.” McCormack ¶ 63. We agree with the Examiner that the creation of a calendar event, as taught by McCormack, at least suggests that the calendar entry is automatically populated into a calendar, as the purpose for creating calendar events is to incorporate them into a calendar. Appellant does not provide argument or explanation for why a person of ordinary skill in the art would not have understood that a created calendar event would be automatically Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 11 incorporated into a calendar. As such, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 3. Fifth Issue Claim 5 depends from claim 1 and recites the additional limitation “further comprising determining the strength of the entity relative to other entities.” Appeal Br. 22 (Claims Appendix). In rejecting claim 5, the Examiner cites McCormack’s disclosure of identifying a single most relevant entity associated with entity related data. Final Act. 5 (citing McCormack ¶ 26). Appellant argues McCormack is deficient because “the cited portion of McCormack merely discloses disambiguating entity information to identify a single most-relevant entity based on such information as contact list or aliases stored at the client device or data stored at a location remote from the client device.” Appeal Br. 14. According to Appellant, “[t]he cited portion of McCormack is silent regarding determining the strength of the entity relative to anything, much less relative to other entities.” Appeal Br. 14. We are not persuaded the Examiner has erred. McCormack’s paragraph 26 teaches that its system “may recognize that more than one entity potentially relates to the entity related data.” McCormack ¶ 26. As a result, the application “can be configured to disambiguate the entity information to identify a single most-relevant entity associated with entity- related data.” McCormack ¶ 26 (reference numeral omitted). Appellant’s argument fails to recognize that in determining the single most relevant entity, McCormack necessarily must compare the relevance of the entity to other entities. Otherwise it would not be able to identify the single most- Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 12 relevant entity. As such, we agree with the Examiner that McCormack teaches the limitation recited in claim 5, and we sustain its rejection. Sixth Issue Claim 6 depends from claim 1, and recites the additional limitation “wherein the contextually relevant information is displayed in-line with the content item.” Appeal Br. 22 (Claims Appendix). The Examiner rejects claim 6 citing the teachings of McCormack. Final Act. 5 (citing McCormack ¶¶ 33–34). Appellant argues “the cited portion of McCormack merely discloses that the retrieved relevant information can be presented to the user, and is silent regarding displaying context relevant information in-line with the content item or with the email, as that feature is disclosed in the specification at least at ¶¶ [0015], [0025], [0035].” Appeal Br. 14–15. Appellant further asserts that “the specification distinguishes between displaying the information in-line versus displaying information as embedded.” Appeal Br. 15 (citing Specification ¶ 35). We are not persuaded the Examiner has erred. The cited portion of McCormack describes Figures 2–4, which include Figures 3A–3G depicting context-relevant information displayed in-line with a content item, such as an email. Appellant argues that McCormack’s presentation differs from that described in the Specification. This argument is not persuasive because it seeks to confine the scope of the claim to the embodiments described in the Specification. However, as we note above, under the broadest reasonable interpretation standard, it is improper to limit the claims in such a fashion. Accordingly, we do not discern error in the Examiner’s findings with respect to claim 6, and we sustain its obviousness rejection. Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 13 Seventh Issue Claim 7, depends from claim 1, and recites that “objects within the content item are associated with the contextually relevant information.” Appeal Br. 22 (Claims Appendix). Claim 8, in turn, depends from claim 7, and further specifies that “selection of the object causes the contextually relevant information to be displayed in-line with the content item.” In rejecting claim 8, the Examiner cites McCormack and, in particular McCormack’s teaching “that the context information can be considered, formatted and displayed within [a] content item.” Final Act. 6 (citing McCormack ¶¶ 33–34). Similar to the argument presented in connection with claim 6 and discussed above, Appellant argues “the cited portion of McCormack . . . is silent regarding displaying context relevant information in-line with the content item or with the email,” as the disputed limitation is described in the Specification. Appeal Br. 15. Our analysis for claim 6, discussed above, applies equally to claim 8. McCormack’s description in paragraphs 33 and 34 references the graphical user interface is depicted in Figures 2–4 and, in particular in Figures 3A–3G, each of which shows selecting an email causes contextually relevant information to be displayed in-line, and not embedded within the email. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claim 8. Eighth Issue Claim 9 depends from claim 1, and recites “wherein the contextually relevant information includes promotional information relating to the entity.” Appeal Br. 22 (Claims Appendix). In rejecting claim 9, the Examiner cites McCormack, finding that the illustration in Figure 3E of a Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 14 road bike wholesale purchase opportunity teaches or suggests the recited limitation. Final Act. 6 (citing McCormack Fig. 3E). Appellant argues the portion of Figure 3E cited by the Examiner “is an insight pane that includes information about attendees of a calendared event, such as the statistics and personal information—not promotional information related to the entity.” Appeal Br. 15–16 (citing McCormack Fig. 3D, ¶¶ 87–89). We are not persuaded of error. Again, Appellant relies on an overly narrow interpretation of the disputed claim language. The Specification does not provide a definition for the word “promotional,” so we look to a dictionary for guidance. One dictionary defines “promotion” as “the act of furthering the growth or development of something, especially the furtherance of the acceptance and sale of merchandise through advertising, publicity, or discounting.” Promotion, https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/promotional#other-words. The “Opportunity” box depicted in Figure 3E relates to calendar entry 354A shown in Figure 3D. As such, the “Opportunity” box is contextually relevant information relating to the entity (calendar entry 354A). We further agree with the Examiner that the “Opportunity” box includes promotional information relating to the calendar entry. That is, in accordance with the definition of “promotion,” the “Opportunity” box provides information that helps to “further[] the growth . . . and sale of merchandise through . . . discounting,” as it shows the use of a wholesale price discount that is used to promote road bike sales. As such, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 9, and we sustain the rejection. Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 15 Ninth Issue Claim 11 depends from independent claim 10, and recites the limitation “wherein the entities include cities or promotions providers.”3 Appeal Br. 23 (Claims Appendix). The Examiner rejects claim 11 citing the teachings of McCormack. Final Act. 7 (citing McCormack ¶ 44). Appellant argues the cited portions of McCormack merely describe a physical address, but that the claim requires that the entity itself be a city. Appeal Br. 16. We are not persuaded of error. The limitation of claim 11 uses the term “include” which is an open-ended term that does not limit the recited “entities” to only a city or promotion provider. Rather, the “entities” may include a city, but need not be limited to only a city. The cited address in McCormack includes a city, in addition to other parts of an address. Under the broad scope of the argued limitation, we agree with the Examiner that McCormack teaches or suggests than an entity includes a city, as recited in claim 11. We, therefore, sustain the rejection of claim 11. Remaining Claims Appellant presents no separate arguments for patentability of any other claims. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejections of these claims for the reasons stated with respect to the independent claims from which they depend. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv). 3 When prosecution resumes, the Examiner may wish to consider whether the plural “entities,” as recited in claim 11, has sufficient antecedent basis in independent claim 10. Independent claim 10 recites “determining an entity” and “querying one or more data sources for results that relate to the entity,” both recitations in the singular. Appeal 2020-004843 Application 15/249,013 16 CONCLUSION We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject the claims. DECISION SUMMARY Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1–20 103 McCormack, Convertino, Schnitman 1–20 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) (2019). AFFIRMED