Nicholas A. Baldwin et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Aug 16, 2019

14290498 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Aug. 16, 2019)

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.
14/290,498 05/29/2014 Nicholas A. Baldwin AU920130035US2 9449
75949 7590 08/16/2019
IBM CORPORATION
C/O: Fabian Vancott
215 South State Street
Suite 1200
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
EXAMINER
MOBIN, HASANUL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2168
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/16/2019 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):
patents@fabianvancott.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte NICHOLAS A. BALDWIN, MARK C. HAMPTON,
STEFAN HEPPER, and ERIC MARTINEZ DE MORENTIN
____________________

Appeal 2018-007378
Application 14/290,498
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, JUSTIN BUSCH, and
STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges.

BUSCH, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellants appeal from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–13 and 15–20, which constitute all
the claims pending. Claim 14 was canceled previously. We have jurisdiction
over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Appellants’ invention generally relates to repairing a broken link and,
more specifically, repairing a link to a resource in a resource repository in
response to determining there is an issue between the link and the resource.
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Spec. ¶ 2, Abstract. Claims 1 and 12 are independent claims. Claim 1 is
reproduced below:
1. A method for repairing a link based on an issue, the
method comprising:
associating at least one metadata segment with a link,
wherein the link originally comprises navigation information to
a designated resource, the at least one metadata segment being in
addition to the navigation information of the link;
identifying, in a resource repository, at least one resource
that matches the at least one metadata segment already associated
with the link;
determining if there is an issue between the link and the at
least one resource; and
changing the navigation information of the link to repair
the link in response to there being a determined issue between
the link and at least one resource;
in which repairing the link based on the issue between the
link and the at least one resource comprises, at least, identifying,
in the resource repository, a second resource that matches the at
least one metadata segment; matching the second resource to the
at least one metadata segment.
REJECTIONS
Claims 1 and 12 stand provisionally rejected on the ground of
nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting. Final Act. 4–8.
Claims 1–5, 12, and 18–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
obvious in view of Chalemin (US 2008/0263193 A1; Oct. 23, 2008), Stark
(US 5,935,210; Aug. 10, 1999), and Rehfeld (US 2006/0230050 A1; Oct.
12, 2006). Final Act. 9–17.
Claims 6–11, and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious
in view of Chalemin, Stark, Rehfeld, and Stearns (US 8,694,531 B1; Apr. 8,
2014). Final Act. 17–23.
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Claims 15 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious in
view of Chalemin, Stark, Rehfeld, and Fukada (US 2005/0089017 A1;
Apr. 28, 2005). Final Act. 23–24.
Claim 17 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious in view of
Chalemin, Stark, Rehfeld, and Johnson (US 2002/0165955; Nov. 7, 2002).
Final Act. 24–25.
ANALYSIS
THE DOUBLE-PATENTING REJECTION OF CLAIMS 1 AND 12
Appellants do not argue the merits of the provisional double-patenting
rejection of claims 1 and 12. Appeal Br. 10 (arguing the rejection should be
held in abeyance); Reply Br. 4. To the extent Appellants have not advanced
separate, substantive arguments for particular claims or issues, such
arguments are considered waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2016);
see also Hyatt v. Dudas, 551 F.3d 1307, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (“When the
appellant fails to contest a ground of rejection to the Board, . . . the Board
may treat any argument with respect to that ground of rejection as waived.”).
Because Appellants do not argue the merits of the rejection, we
summarily sustain the Examiner’s provisional rejection of claims 1 and 12
under the doctrine of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting.
THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTIONS
The Examiner finds the combination of Chalemin, Stark, and Rehfeld
teaches or suggests every limitation recited in independent claims 1 and 12.
Final Act. 9–16 (citing Chalemin ¶¶ 2, 11, 15, 50, 60–61; Stark 1:35–43,
7:9–17; Rehfeld ¶¶ 5–6, 25, 28, 31–32, Abstract, Figs. 2–6). Of particular
note to this Appeal, the Examiner finds the combination of Chalemin and
Rehfeld teaches or suggests the identifying a resource in a repository
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matching a metadata segment with the link, determining there is an issue
between a link and a resource, and repairing the link in response to there
being a determined issue steps, as recited in independent claim 1 and 12.
Final Act. 9–16; see also Ans. 3 (“Combination of references such as
Chalemin and Rehfeld discloses the above argued limitations.”).
More specifically, the Examiner finds Chalemin discloses identifying
a replacement resource by comparing a name and consistency value using
difference files to locate resources associated with broken links, which
teaches the identifying step recited in claim 12. Ans. 3–4 (citing Chalemin
¶¶ 15, 50). The Examiner further finds Rehfeld discloses repairing a broken
link by “modify[ing] the link to reflect the changed location or identity” of a
target resource. Ans. 4 (emphasis added, citing Rehfeld ¶ 28). The
Examiner finds Rehfeld discloses repairing a broken or ambiguous link
using a pre-determined policy specifying rules to select “a substitute target
that has a similar file name or address” if the target cannot be located using
the stored file ID. Ans. 4 (emphases added); see Final Act. 15–16 (finding
the same disclosures in Rehfeld teach or suggest a target resource (i.e.,
Rehfeld’s substitute target with a different file name or address) distinct
from the first resource (i.e., Rehfeld’s original target identified by the file
ID)).
Appellants argue the Examiner acknowledges Chalemin and Stark fail
to teach or suggest identifying a second resource that matches the metadata
segment and cites Rehfeld to “attempt[] to overcome this deficiency.”
Appeal Br. 11. To the extent the Examiner finds Chalemin discloses a “Web
server identifies a matching replacement Web site resource,” Appellants
assert Chalemin merely identifies a new location of the requested resource
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rather than a second resource. Reply Br. 5–6. Appellants further argue
Chalemin’s replacement resource is “the exact same resource[]” that was
simply moved, which created a broken link. Reply Br. 6.
Appellants also assert Rehfeld merely describes modifying a link to
point to a new location of the target, such that the link still points to the same
resource, whereas the claims require identifying two different resources.
Appeal Br. 11–12; Reply Br. 4–5; see also Appeal Br. 12 (“It is clear that
Rehfeld merely describes situations where a resource is moved and a link
(not a resource) is changed to link to the moved resource. The present claim
clearly includes the matching of one resource to another; a method/device
that is not described in Rehfeld.”); Reply Br. 7–8. Appellants argue that
Rehfeld teaches away from identifying a different resource because “Rehfeld
specifically states that a ‘file ID corresponds to the target file of the link and
uniquely identifies the target file within the collection.’” Reply Br. 7
(quoting Rehfeld ¶ 22); see also Appeal Br. 11–12 (arguing the Examiner’s
finding that Rehfeld teaches selecting a substitute target with a similar file
name or address “is incorrect and Rehfeld actually teaches away from the
claimed subject matter”).
Appellants argue the Examiner’s conclusion of obviousness regarding
claim 12 suffers from a similar deficiency because Rehfeld fails to disclose
identifying a second resource distinct from the designated/original resource.
Appeal Br. 14–15. Appellants do not argue the rejections of claims 2–5 and
18–20 separately with particularity. See Appeal Br. 14–15 (arguing the
rejection of the dependent claims in view of Chalemin, Stark, and Rehfeld
should be reversed for the same reasons argued with respect to the
independent claims from which they depend), 15 (arguing the additional
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rejections of the dependent claims in view of Chalemin, Stark, Rehfeld, and
one of Stearns, Fukada, and Johnson should be reversed for the same reasons
argued with respect to the independent claims from which they depend).
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments.
Initially, we note that Appellants’ Specification clearly discloses
repairing a link for a resource that has moved. Spec. ¶¶ 26 (explaining an
exemplary scenario of a broken link resulting from the resource associated
with the link being renamed or moved), 32 (describing that a broken link
have “been proven to be a difficult task for a website author to manually
repair”). Furthermore, given the nature of how resources are conventionally
tracked in the context of Appellants’ invention, we construe the “second
resource” recited in claim 1 (and the commensurately recited identified
resource in independent claims 12) as encompassing a resource that was
moved. In other words, if resource “Image.jpg” was moved from one
location on a website to a new location, the “Image.jpg” resource located at
the new location would teach or suggest the recited “second resource.” For
this reason alone we are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument that moving
a resource from one location to another fails to teach or suggest the two
distinctly recited resources and Appellants have presented insufficient
evidence or argument to persuade us otherwise.
Nevertheless, even assuming we agreed with Appellants’ distinction
between a moved resource and a distinct resource that is not merely the
result of moving a resource from one location to another, we still are not
persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claims 1 and 12. In
particular, we agree with the Examiner that both Chalemin and Rehfeld
teach or suggest repairing broken links by either identifying an alternate
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location of a moved resource or an alternate resource when the exact
resource no longer exits. Consistent with the Examiner’s findings, Chalemin
discloses comparing the name and consistency value (e.g., a checksum or
CRC (cyclic redundancy check)) of an originally requested resource with a
candidate resource’s name and consistency value and, when it finds a match,
“return[ing] the replacement Web site resource.” Chalemin ¶ 15 (emphasis
added); see also Chalemin ¶¶ 63 (describing providing a “replacement Web
site resource using a new URL” when available), 64 (describing prompting a
user to ask if the user would “like to see the replacement page” in scenarios
in which an identical consistency value is not found), 65 (describing an
exemplary scenario where a resource’s contents and location changes, but
the system still provides a recommendation for the new resource as a
replacement for the originally requested resource).
Moreover, the Examiner additionally finds Rehfeld teaches or
suggests a second resource that is different than the first resource. See
Ans. 4–6 (citing Rehfeld ¶¶ 25, 28). It is true that Rehfeld discloses, in
some instances, using a stored file ID, which uniquely identifies a file, to
locate a target resource that was moved to a different location. Rehfeld ¶ 25.
However, Rehfeld also discloses repairing broken or ambiguous links by
selecting a target based on a pre-determined policy using rules or criteria to
select the target. Rehfeld ¶ 28. More specifically, Rehfeld discloses “if that
target cannot be located, then the link repair component 130 selects a
substitute target that has a similar file name or address.” Rehfeld ¶ 28
(emphasis added). This is further supported by Rehfeld’s explanation that
the log tracking a change in a data structure may “record the original target
address and the new target address” in situations involving a file that has
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moved from one location to another or, “[a]lternatively, the log can record
the original target file ID and the new target file ID” when a new resource
has been selected. Rehfeld ¶ 32. Accordingly, not only do we disagree with
Appellants’ argument that Rehfeld teaches away from the claimed subject
matter, Appeal Br. 12, we agree with the Examiner that Rehfeld teaches or
suggests the disputed subject matter.
For the reasons discussed above, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of independent claims 1 and 12 as obvious in view of Chalemin, Stark and
Rehfeld. We also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 2–
11, 13, and 15–20, which Appellants did not argue separately with
particularity.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–13 and 15–20
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious.
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.
§ 41.50(f).
AFFIRMED