ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 18, 2021

2020006141 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 18, 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.
14/263,168 04/28/2014 VICTOR CHUNG-WAI CHAN ORA140090 (O-499) 1302
51444 7590 03/18/2021
Kraguljac Law Group/Oracle
P.O. Box 507
Cleveland, OH 44017
EXAMINER
SWARTZ, STEPHEN S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3623
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/18/2021 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):
DDay@KragLaw.com
MPusti@KragLaw.com
PTOMail@KragLaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte VICTOR CHUNG-WAI CHAN and
W. SCOTT SEEBAUER
____________

Appeal 2020-006141
Application 14/263,168
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before ANTON W. FETTING, MICHAEL C. ASTORINO, and
NINA L. MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judges.

MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
final rejection of claims 1–20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42. Our decision references Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.,”
filed September 6, 2019) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed August 26,
2020), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed June 26, 2020), and
Final Office Action (“Final Act.,” mailed February 8, 2019). Appellant
identifies Oracle International Corporation as the real party in interest
(Appeal Br. 2).
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CLAIMED INVENTION
The claimed invention “relate[s] generally to methods and systems for
managing workflows in a contact center” and, more particularly to,
“dynamically influencing workflows based on learned insights into those
workflows” (Spec. ¶ 1).
Claims 1, 9, and 15 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1,
reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method for dynamically influencing workflows in
a contact center based on accumulated workflow insights, the
method comprising:
learning, by a Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) system, a plurality of paths through each of a plurality of
workflows executed by the CRM system, the learning
comprising:
tracking each of a plurality of customer journeys,
each customer journey taking a path of the plurality of
paths, the tracking comprising:
identifying an intent of the customer journey
related to a product or service,
identifying each decision point in one or
more workflows in the plurality of workflows
executed in the path taken during the customer
journey, each decision point having a plurality of
associated branches and a selected branch for the
path,
at a resolution of the customer journey,
generating an outcome metric for the path taken
during the customer journey to achieve the
resolution, wherein the outcome metric indicates a
level of success of the path relative to the intent of
the customer journey,
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calculating a decision point metric for each
selected branch at each decision point in the one or
more workflows executed in the path taken to
achieve the resolution, wherein the decision point
metric is calculated based on the outcome metric for
the path, and indicates a likelihood that the selected
branch will lead to the resolution, and
updating, for each decision point in the one
or more workflows executed in the path taken to
achieve the resolution, an intent decision point
metric based on the calculated decision point metric
for the decision point and the intent of the customer
journey, wherein the intent decision point metric
indicates a probability that the selected branch will
lead to the resolution for the intent identified for the
customer journey;
dynamically selecting during run-time, by the CRM
system, one or more of the plurality of workflows in response to
a customer contact based at least in part on:
determining an intent of the customer contact, and
determining a correlation of each decision point in
the one or more workflows with a successful outcome for
the intent of the customer contact based at least in part on
the intent decision point metrics for each decision point in
the one or more workflows; and
executing, by the CRM system, the dynamically selected
one or more of the plurality of workflows.
REJECTIONS
Claims 1–4, 8–11, 14–17, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Rosner (US 9,459,764 B1, issued Oct. 4,
2016), Sumner et al. (US 2006/0143116 A1, published June 29, 2006)
(“Sumner”) and Raj et al. (US 2012/0166244 A1, published June 28, 2012)
(“Raj”).
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Claims 5, 12, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Rosner, Sumner, Raj, and Ethier et al.
(US 2012/0296691 A1, published Nov. 22, 2012) (“Ethier”).
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Rosner, Sumner, Raj, and Bethea et al. (US 2011/0211687 A1, published
Sept. 1, 2011) (“Bethea”).
Claims 7, 13, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Rosner, Sumner, Raj, Bethea, and Ethier.
ANALYSIS
Independent Claims 1, 9 and 15 and Dependent Claims 2–4, 8, 10, 11, 14,
16, 17, and 20
We are persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the Examiner erred in
rejecting independent claims 1, 9, and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) at least
because Sumner, on which the Examiner relies, does not disclose or suggest
“identifying each decision point in one or more workflows in the plurality of
workflows executed in the path taken during the customer journey, each
decision point having a plurality of associated branches and a selected
branch for the path,” as recited in claim 1, and similarly recited in claims 9
and 15 (Appeal Br. 9–11; see also Reply Br. 2–6).
Sumner is directed to a business method and system for reporting
routing transactions using business strategy and tactics information (Sumner
¶ 3). Sumner discloses that strategies may be created and deployed as a
mechanism for improving the values of a business key performance
indicator (“KPI”), and describes that in one embodiment, a strategy may
include a multiplicity of tactics (id. ¶ 30, Fig. 4). “Execution of the tactics
results in the completion of the strategy” (id.).
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Further describing the strategies, Sumner discloses in paragraph 49,
cited by the Examiner, that a strategy may be deployed multiple times during
a period, which may end either on a fixed time basis or on a change in a
system state variable, e.g., a change in a KPI measurement (Sumner ¶ 49).
“More so, the model may be configured to specify a decision point to
terminate a tactic if certain performance improvements in KPI do not occur
within a period of time[,] and begin the execution of a different tactic” (id.).
Referencing Figure 6 (reproduced below), Sumner describes, in
paragraphs 31 and 32, on which the Examiner also relies, a cause and effect
business model for a customer satisfaction key performance indicator metric
(Sumner ¶ 31).

Figure 6 is a block diagram of one embodiment of a cause and effect
business model for a customer satisfaction model
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As illustrated in Figure 6, the model shows, in parenthesis, the impact of
various contact center statistics on the business metric of customer
satisfaction (id.). Positive scoring drivers in support of caller satisfaction are
shown at the top of the block diagram while negative scoring drivers are
shown at the bottom portion of the diagram; ROI (return on investment),
customer retention, and customer expectations are business metrics driven
by changes in the customer satisfaction score that may be estimated from the
model (id. ¶ 32).
In rejecting claim 1 under § 103(a), the Examiner relied on
paragraphs 32 and 49 as disclosing the argued limitation (Final Act. 4). But,
we agree with Appellant that the Examiner’s reliance is misplaced (Appeal
Br. 9–11; see also Reply Br. 2–6).
As described above, referring to a “decision point,” Sumner states in
paragraph 49 that “the model may be configured to specify a decision point
to terminate a tactic if certain performance improvements in KPI do not
occur.” Sumner, thus, describes “a decision point” as a point in time, i.e.,
“when” to terminate a particular tactic and begin execution of a different
tactic. We agree with Appellant that this is not a decision point in a
workflow path having multiple branches, as claims 1, 9, and 15 require
(Reply Br. 5 (citing Spec. ¶ 6, describing “a graphical representation of a
decision tree representing the decision points in the workflows”)).
As Appellant observes, there is no disclosure or suggestion in
paragraph 49 that a tactic includes a plurality of branches or any teaching or
suggestion that one tactic is selected from another (Appeal Br. 10). Instead,
it clearly appears that the tactics all are executed in sequence, as predefined
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in the strategy (id. (citing Sumner ¶ 30 (“Execution of the tactics results in
the completion of the strategy”))).
The Examiner’s reliance on paragraph 32 of Sumner also is
unavailing. The Examiner ostensibly interpreted the statement in
paragraph 32 that “[e]ach branch of this model represents a path for a major
strategic initiative that can be synthesized through adding additional metrics
that are then the target for substrategies and with tactics to implement them,”
as disclosing a “decision point having a plurality of associated branches,” as
called for in the independent claims. Yet, Sumner is referring in
paragraph 32 to the model in Figure 6, which, as described above, shows the
impact of various contact center statistics on the business metric of customer
satisfaction. We agree with Appellant that Figure 6 is not a “functional
execution diagram,” and the links shown in Figure 6 are not branches of a
workflow path that is being executed (Reply Br. 4). For example, as
Appellant observes, “[t]here is no teaching that Sumner has an execution
decision point that takes processing from [the] ‘Caller Satisfaction’ block to
the ‘Time in Queue’ block” (id.).
In view of the foregoing, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of independent claims 1, 9 and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). For the same
reasons, we also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent
claims 2–4, 8, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, and 20. Cf. In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260,
1266 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (“dependent claims are nonobvious if the independent
claims from which they depend are nonobvious”).
Dependent Claims 5–7, 12, 13, 18, and 19
Each of claims 5–7, 12, 13, 18, and 19 ultimately depends from one of
independent claims 1, 9, and 15. The Examiner’s rejections of these
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dependent claims do not cure the deficiency in the Examiner’s rejection of
claims 1, 9, and 15. Therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejections
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of dependent claims 5–7, 12, 13, 18, and 19 for the
same reasons set forth above with respect to the independent claims.
CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claim(s)
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–4, 8–11,
14–17, 20
103(a) Rosner, Sumner,
Raj
1–4, 8–11,
14–17, 20
5, 12, 18 103(a) Rosner, Sumner,
Raj, Ethier
5, 12, 18
6 103(a) Rosner, Sumner,
Raj, Bethea
6
7, 13, 19 103(a) Rosner, Sumner,
Raj, Bethea, Ethier
7, 13, 19
Overall
Outcome
1–20
REVERSED