NICE-SYSTEMS LTD.

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardAug 3, 2020

2018008820 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 3, 2020)

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. 14/623,775 02/17/2015 David GEFFEN P-78693-US 4641 49443 7590 08/03/2020 Pearl Cohen Zedek Latzer Baratz LLP 1500 Broadway 12th Floor New York, NY 10036 EXAMINER CRANDALL, RICHARD W. ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3689 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/03/2020 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): Arch-USPTO@PearlCohen.com USPTO@PearlCohen.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte DAVID GEFFEN, ESHAY LIVNE, OMER ABRAMOVICH, and EYAL ESHEL ____________ Appeal 2018-008820 Application 14/623,7751 Technology Center 3600 ____________ Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, and NINA L. MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judges. FISCHETTI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s Non–Final rejection of claims 1–9 and 21. An oral hearing was held July 1, 2020. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). SUMMARY OF DECISION We REVERSE. 1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Nice Ltd. Appeal Br. 1. Appeal 2018-008820 Application 14/623,775 2 THE INVENTION Appellant states its “invention relate[s] to the field of automated capture of data for example during an oral conversation or interaction between two or more parties.” Spec. ¶ 1. Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A computer system for automatically generating and playing an audio file of an agreement between two or more parties, the system comprising one or more processors configured to: capture data via a real time client running on a computer that monitors an interaction between the two or more parties, the captured data relating to the agreement in successive capture operations, each capture operation executed in response to a detected event, wherein the real time client captures data from video display screen elements of one party of the two or more parties facing the application of the computer, one or more webservices of the computer, or any combination thereof and wherein the captured data comprises at least one piece of information that is specific to at least one of the parties; insert, via the real time client, the captured data into a template, wherein the template comprises text; use the template with the inserted captured data to prepare a continuous text of the agreement; transmit, from the real time client operating on the computer, the continuous text of the agreement via an API to a TTS server; generate, via the TTS server, an audio file from the continuous text; Appeal 2018-008820 Application 14/623,775 3 transmit the audio file from the TTS server, via the API to the real time client operating on the computer; presenting a screen pop-up to the display of the computer, wherein the screen popup includes an indication to play the audio file; upon receipt of the indication to play the audio file, play to at least one of the parties the audio file, wherein the audio file represents the agreement as indicated by the template with the inserted captured data; and receiving a keypad confirmation of the audio file being played and the one party of the two or more parties accepting the terms of the agreement. THE REJECTIONS The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of unpatentability: Berry US 4,429,372 Jan. 31, 1984 Donahue US 2002/0095311 A1 July 18, 2002 Fleizach US 2009/0254345 A1 Oct. 8, 2009 Angel US 2011/0287748 A1 Nov. 24, 2011 Haggerty US 8,537,983 B1 Sept. 17, 2013 Barnes US 9,462,238 B1 Oct. 4, 2016 The following rejections are before us for review.2 Claims 1, 3, 4, 6–9, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Donahue, Barnes, Haggerty, and Angel. 2 The Examiner withdraws the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and 35 U.S.C. § 112(a). (Answer 3). Appeal 2018-008820 Application 14/623,775 4 Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Donahue, Barnes, Haggerty, Angel, and Berry. Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Donahue, Barnes, Haggerty, Angel, and Fleizach. FINDINGS OF FACT 1. Barnes discloses: On-screen activities conducted at the monitored workstation 135 can be viewed (or “monitored”) by the supervisor 25 on the screen of the monitoring workstation 140 either in real time (i.e., as the activities are actually occurring), and/or the on-screen activities conducted at the monitored workstation 135 can be recorded by the monitor server 145 to a call records database 150 and “played back” at the monitoring workstation 140 at a later time. Col. 2, ll. 23–30. 2. Barnes discloses: The software on the agent workstation 135 can intercept workstation data, by “hooking” or “scraping.” Hooking operates by capturing operating system graphics primitives relevant to actual screen display, and either returns selected screen portions (referred to as “changed regions”) which have changed since the last data poll. The changed regions are displayable at a remote location in real time or can be recorded for display at a remote location at a later time. Col. 2, l. 65–col. 3, l. 6. Appeal 2018-008820 Application 14/623,775 5 3. Barnes discloses: At 510, it is determined if a stop condition exists, and if so, the capture of the image/video is stopped. For example, a conversation with a caller may have ended or a random sampling time ended, etc. At 512, the captured image/video data may be recorded and augmented with metadata for later retrieval. At 514, the process ends. Col. 6, ll. 64– col. 7, l. 2. 4. Barnes discloses: However, it should be recognized that the entire screen or portions of the screen could be sent over the network using either the ‘hooking’ or ‘scraping’ techniques, or the primitive graphics commands themselves, or any other technique operable communicate the agent’s activities for recording may be sent in accordance with the present disclosure. Col. 3, ll. 19–25. 5. The Examiner found “Donahue teaches capture data relating to the agreement in successive capture operations, each capture operation executed in response to a detected event, in paragraphs [0123]-[0125] and Fig. 13 . . . .” (Non-Final Act. 17) (emphasis omitted). 6. Donahue discloses, “the parties answer questions presented on web pages according to a computer-implemented transaction sequence, such that the parties can quickly identify areas of agreement and resolve areas of disagreement in an efficient manner.” (¶ 65.) Appeal 2018-008820 Application 14/623,775 6 ANALYSIS 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) REJECTION Claim 1, the sole independent claim on appeal, recites, insert, via the real time client, the captured data into a template, wherein the template comprises text; use the template with the inserted captured data to prepare a continuous text of the agreement; transmit, from the real time client operating on the computer, the continuous text of the agreement via an API to a TTS server. The Examiner found concerning this limitation, Barnes teaches data is captured via a real time client running on a computer that monitors an interaction between the two or more parties and the real time client captures data in col 2 ln 23-29 where software monitors in “real time” the agent’s workstation and in col 2 ln 64 - col 3 ln 6 where changes in the screen are hooked or scraped “at a remote location in real time” (thus video display screen elements). Barnes then teaches data insertion via a real time client in col 6 ln 64 - col 7 ln 2 where after the recording is stopped it is ‘augmented’ with metadata for later retrieval. Finally, Barnes teaches transmit, via a real time client operating on the computer in col 3 ln 19-25 where hooking and scraping results are sent over a network the hooking and scraping performed by what is taught as the real time client. (Non–Final Act. 19). Appeal 2018-008820 Application 14/623,775 7 Appellant argues in reply, Barnes does not cure the deficiency. Barnes describes that on-screen activities conducted at the agent’s work station can be recorded by the monitor server to a call records database and played back at the monitoring workstation at a later time. See Barnes, col. 2, lines 22 - 39. Recording the screen of an agent for playback, as is done in Barnes, is not the same thing as capturing data via a real time client running on a computer that monitors an interaction between two parties, as required by Appellant’s claim 1, at least because a recording of the screen is not equivalent to the captured data of Appellant’s claim 1. The captured data of Appellant’s claim 1 is captured from video display element, not an entire recording of the screen as is done in Barnes. In addition, the captured data of Appellant’s claim 1 is inserted into a template and used to prepare a continuous text of the agreement. A video recording of the screen, as is done in Barnes, cannot be inserted into a template and used to prepare a continuous text. Accordingly, Barnes does not satisfy this element. Appeal Br. 12. We agree with Appellant. According to Barnes, the content which is processed, is image video data. (FF. 1–4). Barnes discloses various ways of managing the video data, e.g., capturing and processing image data. Id. Any mention of real time operations occurs in two instances: 1) changed regions of the images “are displayable at a remote location in real time” (FF. 2), and 2) “[o]n-screen activities conducted at the monitored workstation 135 can be viewed (or “monitored”) by the supervisor 25 on the screen of the monitoring workstation 140 … in real time.” (FF. 1). The Appeal 2018-008820 Application 14/623,775 8 preferred way in which the image data are processed is through an intercept process known as “hooking” or “scraping.” (FF. 3–4). “Hooking operates by capturing operating system graphics primitives relevant to actual screen display, and either returns selected screen portions (referred to as ‘changed regions’) which have changed since the last data poll.” (FF. 2). The Examiner found “[i]t would have been obvious to one [of] ordinarily skilled in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to modify the computerized contracting teaching of Donahue with the real time monitoring teaching of Barnes . . . .” (Non–Final Act. 19, see also (FF. 5)). But, Donahue employs a questionnaire based process in which “the parties answer questions presented on web pages according to a computer- implemented transaction sequence, such that the parties can quickly identify areas of agreement and resolve areas of disagreement in an efficient manner.” (FF. 6). It is not apparent and the Examiner has not explained how capturing image data using a “hooking” or “scraping” technique, as disclosed by Barnes, would result in the captured image data being used in the computerized contracting text-based system of Donahue which uses an answer based questionnaire format. The questionnaire format of Donahue is a text-based process and is not one driven by graphics. Accordingly, we will not sustain the rejection of independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Because claims 2–9 and 21 depend from claim 1, and because we cannot sustain the rejection of claim 1, the rejection of the Appeal 2018-008820 Application 14/623,775 9 dependent claims likewise cannot be sustained. We note that the additional references to Berry and Fleizach, respectively applied in the rejections of claims 2 and 5, do not remedy the deficiency noted above in the proposed combination of Donahue with Barnes. CONCLUSION OF LAW We conclude the Examiner did err in rejecting claims 1–9 and 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. SUMMARY DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1–9 and 21 is reversed. In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 3, 4, 6–9, 21 103 Donahue, Barnes, Haggerty, Angel 1, 3, 4, 6– 9, 21 2 103 Donahue, Barnes, Haggerty, Angel, Berry 2 5 103 Donahue, Barnes, Haggerty, Angel, Fleizach 5 Overall Outcome 1, 3, 4, 6– 9, 21 REVERSED