Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 28, 2022

2021000647 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 28, 2022)

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. 14/788,351 06/30/2015 Stefan Alexander Ashall 357173-US-NP/342515 9331 45809 7590 03/28/2022 MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC SHOOK, HARDY & BACON LLP INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DEPARTMENT 2555 GRAND BOULEVARD KANSAS CITY, MO 64108-2613 EXAMINER NGUYEN, PHONG H ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2162 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/28/2022 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): shbdocketing@shb.com usdocket@microsoft.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte STEFAN ALEXANDER ASHALL, VINCENT OLISLANGERS and REZAUL HOQUE ___________ Appeal 2021-000647 Application 14/788,351 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR. and CHRISTA P. ZADO, Administrative Patent Judges. WHITEHEAD JR., Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL1 Appellant is appealing the final rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a).2 See Appeal Brief 1. Claims 1, 17 and 20 are independent. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). 1 Rather than reiterate Appellant’s arguments and the Examiner’s determinations, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed July 21, 2020), the Reply Brief (filed November 3, 2020), the Final Action (mailed February 21, 2020) and the Answer (mailed September 23, 2020), for the respective details. 2 Appellant refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. 1.42(a). (“The word ‘applicant’ when used in this title refers to the inventor or all of the joint inventors, or to the person applying for a patent as provided in §§ 1.43, 1.45, or 1.46.”). Appellant identifies Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC (subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation) as the real party in interest. Appeal Footnote continued on the next page. Appeal 2021-000647 Application 14/788,351 2 We affirm. Introduction According to Appellant: An identification and contextualization system comprises an analysis processing engine communicatively attached to various data repositories or workloads from which it collects signals of activities between people and between people and enterprise data, establishes edges in a graph structure representative of relationships between the people and between the people and the enterprise data according to the activities, and calculates weights associated with the relationships (edges). Specification ¶ 4. Representative claim3 (disputed limitations emphasized) 1. A computer-implemented method for identifying and contextualizing An individual in an organization, comprising: identifying one or more individuals associated with an information item relating to a user; querying an organizational graph for activity data associated with the user and each of the one or more individuals; Brief 1. 3 Appellant does not argue independent claims 1, 17 or 20 individually. See Appeal Brief 7 (“Appellant respectfully submits that the Li and Griffin references, whether taken individually or in combination, fail to teach or suggest the features of independent claims 1, 17, and 20.”). Accordingly, we select independent claim 1 as representative. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (“When multiple claims subject to the same ground of rejection are argued as a group or subgroup by appellant, the Board may select a single claim from the group or subgroup and may decide the appeal as to the ground of rejection with respect to the group or subgroup on the basis of the selected claim alone.”). Appeal 2021-000647 Application 14/788,351 3 based on the activity data, determining whether the user has an association with each of the one or more individuals; in response to determining that the user does not have an association with an individual: querying the organizational graph for activity data associated with the individual for discovering contextual information associated with the individual; and generating a visual information element for display to the user, the visual information element comprising contextual information associated with the individual. References (Reference citation is to the first named inventor only.) Name Reference Date Dunn US 2013/0091149 A1 April 11, 2013 Li US 2015/0249742 A1 September 3, 2015 Griffin US 2015/0350372 A1 December 3, 2015 Rejections on Appeal Claims 1-10 and 13-20 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Li and Griffin. Final Action 8-35. Claims 11 and 12 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Li, Griffin and Dunn. Final Action 35-39. ANALYSIS The Examiner determines that: Li does not explicitly teach: in response to determining that the user does not have an association with an individual: Appeal 2021-000647 Application 14/788,351 4 querying the organizational graph for activity data associated with the individual for discovering contextual information associated with the individual; and generating a visual information element for display to the user, the visual information element comprising contextual information associated with the individual. Final Action 10. The Examiner relies upon Griffin to address Li’s noted deficiency. See Final Action 10-11 (citing Griffin ¶¶ 29, 36, 41, 48 and 57); see Appeal Brief 5. Appellant contends: Appellant notes that the “querying the organizational graph for activity data” is triggered by a “determining that the user does not have an association with an individual.” In contrast, Griffin is directed only towards finding and displaying existing relationships between video conference attendees. Griffin is silent regarding any action taken when a lack of a relationship or association is found. The only action taken upon determining a lack of anything is when the system is unable to identify an attendee of the video conference. Id at ¶ [0035]. Appeal Brief 6 (emphasis added). The Examiner responds, “With regard to the organizational graph (as claimed), the Examiner correlates the enterprise directory and social networks (as disclosed in Griffin) to the claimed organizational graph.” Answer 4. The Examiner finds that: Griffin does not explicitly disclose the terms “activity data” and “contextual information.” However, given the fact Appellant has broadly claimed the impacted terms, the Examiner finds the teachings in at least Griffin ¶ [0025], to be sufficient and reasonable to teach the above-mentioned claimed terms using the broadest reasonable interpretation. Answer 4 (emphasis added). Appeal 2021-000647 Application 14/788,351 5 The Examiner further finds: Griffin, ¶ [0025], discloses some networks may typically store information about their members (i.e. employees of the enterprise) such as their areas of interest, hobbies, expertise, past experience, education, etc. Such networks may also be operative to enable their members to “follow” other members, or to become their “friends” or “buddies”, each of which entails the forming of some kind of relationship between two or more members. Members may also join groups of members with common interests. Answer 4 (emphasis added). Appellant contends that, “Griffin merely describes that an enterprise directory or social network may be searched to find an individual” and “makes no mention of using activity data associated with members of a network as a basis for determining whether the members are associated with each other.” Reply Brief 3. Appellant argument is not persuasive of Examiner error because Griffin discloses that suitable enterprise social networks “may typically store information [activity data] about their members (i.e. employees of the enterprise) such as their areas of interest, hobbies, expertise, past experience, education, etc.” Griffin ¶ 25. Griffin further discloses that the “networks may also be operative to enable their members to ‘follow’ other members, or to become their ‘friends’ or ‘buddies’, each of which entails the forming of some kind of relationship between two or more members. Members may also join groups of members with common interests [contextual information].” Griffin ¶ 25 (emphasis added). Appeal 2021-000647 Application 14/788,351 6 Griffin’s Figure 2 is reproduced below: FIG. 2 is a simplified pictorial illustration of a view from within exemplary video conference site from the system of FIG. 2. Griffin ¶ 5. [A]s shown in FIG. 2, there may be a solid line connecting node 230A and node 230B. In such manner meeting service 110 may indicate that these two attendees are connected to each other in some way such as, for example, they are friends in enterprise social network 140. A dashed line, such as that between nodes 230A and 230C may indicate that the associated attendees are not connected. Alternatively, a dashed line may indicate a degree of connection, i.e. the associated attendees are indirectly connected by a common connection with the attendee associated with node 230B. A third degree of connection may be indicated by a dotted line, and so on. Per the example in FIG. 2, the absence of any lines connecting to node 230D may indicate that none of the other attendees are known to be connected with the attendee associated with node 230D. Griffin ¶ 29 (emphasis added). Appeal 2021-000647 Application 14/788,351 7 Appellant argues that, “Griffin merely discloses that the video stream of the conference can show a solid line between two attendees who are not connected in some way, such as being friends in the enterprise social network.” Appeal Brief 6 (citing Griffin ¶ 29). Appellant’s argument is not persuasive of Examiner error because Griffin discloses, as discussed above, using information or activity data to determine if the members are associated with one another in various degrees. See Griffin ¶¶ 25, 29. Griffin also determines, as discussed above, relying upon activity data to discover and use contextual information of the members. See Griffin ¶¶ 25, 29, Figure 2. Appellant contends: The Office further asserts that Griffin discloses “generating a visual information element for display to the user, the visual information element comprising contextual information associated with the individual.” (citing to Griffin ¶¶ [0057] and [0048]). Griffin discloses a flowchart of FIG. 4 that illustrates a social connection visualization process for presenting visualization of social connections between the conference attendees. Id at ¶ [0057]. Griffin further discloses at Fig. 2 and ¶ [0029] that the reference social connections are in the form of lines displayed on the video stream between attendees who are connected to each other in some way, which is different from “the visual information element comprising contextual information associated with the individual.” Appeal Brief 7. Appellant argument is not persuasive of Examiner error because the Specification discloses a non-limiting example or embodiment that, “in some examples, a visual information element 202 is in the form of a content card 204 surfaced to the user 124 in a content feed 206 via an information discovery client application 128.” Specification ¶ 25, see ¶ 37, Appeal Brief 2; see also Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2005). Further, Griffin’s Appeal 2021-000647 Application 14/788,351 8 Figure 2 discloses visual information that comprises contextual information that is associated with the member/individual. See Griffin ¶¶ 29, 47 (“companion device 300 may provide alternate versions of the relationships displayed on display panels 210 and thumbnails 220 per device specific settings.”), ¶ 57 (“Meeting service 110 may identify (step 410) attendees of a video conference using, for example, face recognition, voice recognition, site, location and combinations thereof.”); see also Final Action 11-12. Finally, we discern no meaningful difference between the claimed visual information element, in light of the Specification, and Griffin’s disclosures discussed above. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 1-20, not argued separately. See Appeal Brief 8. DECISION SUMMARY Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1-10, 13-20 103 Li, Griffin 1-10, 13- 20 11, 12 103 LI, Griffin, Dunn 11, 12 Overall Outcome 1-20 No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(v). AFFIRMED