Verizon Patent and Licensing Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jun 29, 2020

2019002779 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 29, 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.
14/465,256 08/21/2014 Abhishek NAGPAL 20140681 8199
170054 7590 06/29/2020
VERIZON - AK
VERIZON PATENTING GROUP
1300 I STREET NW
SUITE 500 EAST
WASHINGTON, DC 20005
EXAMINER
INTAVONG, JIRAPON
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2652
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/29/2020 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):
VZPatent170054@verizon.com
docket@ak-ip.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte ABHISHEK NAGPAL and MANAH M. KHALIL
____________________

Appeal 2019-002779
Application 14/465,256
Technology Center 2600
____________________

Before JEAN R. HOMERE, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR, and
JEREMY CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judges.

HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE1
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 4–7, 9–11, 14–18, and 21–27, which
constitute all of the claims pending in this appeal.2 Appeal Br. 2. Claims 2,

1 We refer to the Specification, filed Aug. 21, 2014 (“Spec.”); the Final
Office Action, mailed Jan. 25, 2018 (“Final Act.”); the Appeal Brief, filed
July 24, 2018 (“Appeal Br”); the Examiner’s Answer, mailed Jan. 2, 2019
(“Ans.”); and the Reply Brief, filed Feb. 22, 2019 (“Reply Br.”).
2 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies Verizon Communications Inc. as
the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 2.
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3, 8, 12, 13, 19, and 20 have been cancelled. Id. at 16, Claims App. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
II. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
According to Appellant, the claimed subject matter relates to a
telephony method and system for routing incoming calls to representatives
best suited to handle each call. Spec. ¶ 1. As depicted in Figure 1 below, at
an initial time, telephony system (105) collects for each representative (106)
call handling production data (e.g., call handling stats, skill level/type,
schedule, workload) (117) along with call handling rules (116). Id. ¶¶ 21–
28. Upon receiving an incoming call, simulation manager (103) obtains and
evaluates the production data and rules to route the call to the most suitable
representative (106). Id.
Figure 1A, discussed above and reproduced below, is useful for
understanding the claimed subject matter:
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Figure 1A illustrates a system for simulating a telephony system evaluating
rules employed for assigning inbound calls to best suited representatives.
Spec. ¶ 5.
Illustrative Claim
Claims 1, 11, and 18 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below
with disputed limitations emphasized in italics, is illustrative of the claimed
subject matter:
A method comprising:
receiving call production data relating to inbound calls for a
telephony system and representative production data that includes
actions taken by representatives in response to receipt of the inbound
calls in the telephony system, the call production data and the
representative production data being generated by the telephony
system during a production run for directing the inbound calls to the
representatives, the operation of the telephony system including using
call handling rules that specify how the inbound calls are to be routed
to the representatives;
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executing a simulated telephony system to simulate processing
of at least a portion of the inbound calls based, at least in part, on the
call production data, the representative production data, and the call
handling rules, the execution of the simulated telephony system
including:
generating an expected call handling response of the telephony
system due to one or more inbound calls and a change associated with
the representatives, wherein the change associated with the
representatives is determined based on schedules of the
representatives and includes changes in skill levels and skill types, of
active representatives,
wherein the skill levels and skill types are obtained from
profiles corresponding to the representatives, and
wherein the skill levels are determined for a particular
representative based on historical call handling statistics of the
particular representative over a period of time and for a
particular skill type, the historical call handling statistics including a
total number of calls handled by the particular representative, an
average call duration for the particular representative, and an average
number of call transfers performed by the particular representative;
refining the call handling rules based on the execution of the
simulated telephony system and the expected call handling response
of the telephone system; and
updating the call handling rules, for the telephony system, to
the refined version of the call handling rules,
wherein executing the simulated telephony system further includes:
initiating the execution of the simulated telephony system at the
determined time of receipt,
wherein the time of receipt is different than an initial time of
recording of the call production data, the representative production
data, or a combination thereof.

Appeal Br. 16–17 (Claims Appendix).

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III. REFERENCES RELIED UPON
The Examiner relies upon the following references.3
Name Number Publ’d/Issued
Crockett US 6,044,355 Mar. 28, 2000
Fisher US 6,049,547 Apr. 11, 2000
Guerrero US 2012/0087486 A1 Apr. 12, 2012
Peloski US 2014/0046638 A1 Feb. 13, 2014
Leta US 2014/0185790 A1 July 3, 2014

IV. REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejects claims 1, 4–7, 9–11, 14–18, and 21–27, as
follows:
1. Claims 1, 4, 5, 7, 9–11, 14, 15, 17, 18, and 21–27 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of
Crockett, Guerrero, Leta, and Peloski4. Final Act. 2–11, 13–15, Ans.
14. 5
2. Claims 6 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Crockett, Guerrero, Leta,
Peloski, and Fisher. Final Act. 11–12.6

3 All reference citations are to the first named inventor only.
4 Subsequent to Appellant’s rewriting claim 1 to incorporate the limitations
of canceled claim 8 therein, the Examiner modifies the rejection to include
Peloski to the combination. Ans. 14.
5 The Examiner includes claim 27 as part of this combination of references.
Id. at 16.
6 Id. at 14.
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V. ANALYSIS
We consider Appellant’s arguments seriatim, as they are presented in
the Appeal Brief, pages 9–14 and the Reply Brief, pages 2–5.7 We are
unpersuaded by Appellant’s contentions. Except as otherwise indicated
herein below, we adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth in the
Final Action, and the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal
Brief. Final Act. 3–17; Ans. 3–17. However, we highlight and address
specific arguments and findings for emphasis as follows.
Claim 1
Regarding the rejection of claim 1, Appellant argues the Examiner’s
proposed combination of Crockett, Guerrero, Leta, and Peloski does not
teach or suggest “initiating the execution of the simulated telephony system
at the determined time of receipt, wherein the time of receipt is different
than an initial time of recording of the call production data, the
representative production data, or a combination thereof.” Appeal Br. 9–10.
In particular, Appellant argues Peloski’s disclosure of monitoring and
controlling contact centers with dynamic temporal dimension and
maintaining a simulated contact center using virtualized time system does
not teach the disputed claim limitations. Id. at 10–11 (citing Peloski ¶¶ 71,
72). According to Appellant, Peloski’s disclosure of pausing or unpausing a
simulation does not teach initiating an execution of a simulated telephony
system at any particular time, let alone the time of receipt of an inbound call.

7 We have considered in this Decision only those arguments Appellant
actually raised in the Briefs. Any other arguments Appellant could have
made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See
37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2012).
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Id. at 11. Appellant’s arguments are not persuasive of reversible Examiner
error because they are not responsive to the rejections at hand.
As noted above, the Examiner relies upon the combination of
Crockett, Guerrero, Leta, and Peloski to reject claim 1 including the disputed
claim limitations. In particular, one cannot show non-obviousness by
attacking the references individually where the rejections are based on
combinations of references. In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed.
Cir. 1986); see also In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981). In this
case, the Examiner relies upon Crockett to teach executing a simulation
including time receipt of inbound calls. Ans. 14, 15 (citing Crockett 6:7–67,
7:60–67). Further, the Examiner relies Peloski’s time warped simulation by
a cell center simulator to process incoming calls in the order they were
stored in an event queue. Id. at 15 (citing Peloski ¶¶ 71, 72). We find the
Examiner’s proposed combination of the cited teachings of Crockett,
Guerrero, Leta, and Peloski is no more than a simple arrangement of old
elements with each performing the same function it had been known to
perform, yielding no more than what one would expect from such an
arrangement. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
Therefore, the ordinarily skilled artisan, being “a person of ordinary
creativity, not an automaton,” would have been able to fit the teachings of
the cited references together like pieces of a puzzle to predictably result in
simulation subsequently processing inbound calls in the order they were
initially stored in an event queue to thereby assign each call to the best
suited representative. Id. at 420–21. Because Appellant has not
demonstrated that the Examiner’s proffered combination would have been
“uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art,” we
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agree with the Examiner that the proposed modification would have been
within the purview of the ordinarily skilled artisan. See Leapfrog Enters.,
Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR,
550 U.S. at 418). Consequently, we are satisfied that, on the record before
us, the Examiner has established by a preponderance of the evidence that the
combination of Crockett, Guerrero, Leta, and Peloski teaches the claimed
subject matter. Because we are not persuaded of Examiner error, we sustain
the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 as being unpatentable over the
combination of Crockett, Guerrero, Leta, and Peloski.
Regarding the rejection of claim 9, Appellant argues that although
Peloski’s “time warp daemon” controls the virtual time clock during the
normal course of the simulation, it does not teach or suggest fast forwarding
of the execution of the simulation. Appeal Br. 13, 14. For this same reason,
Appellant argues that Peloski does not teach the limitations of claim 10. Id.
These arguments are unpersuasive. We agree with the Examiner that
because Peloski’s time warp daemon controls the virtual clock during the
normal course of simulation, and causes each upcoming event in the queue
to be processed in turn, such a mechanism teaches fast forwarding (i.e.
advancing to a next event) execution of the simulation. Ans. 16–17.
Accordingly, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s patent
rejection of claims 9 and 10. For the foregoing reasons, we sustain the
Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 9 and 10.
Regarding the rejection of claims 4–7, 11, 14–18, and 21–27,
Appellant has not presented separate patentability arguments or has
reiterated substantially the same arguments as those previously discussed for
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the patentability of claim 1. As such, claims 1, 4–7, 11, 14–18, and 21–27
fall therewith. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
VI. CONCLUSION
For the above reasons, we affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims
1, 4–7, 9–11, 14–18, and 21–27.
VII. DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected 35 U.S.C. § References s Affirmed Reversed
1, 4, 5, 7, 9–11,
14, 15, 17, 18,
21–27
103 Crockett, Guerrero, Leta, Peloski
1, 4, 5, 7, 9–11,
14, 15, 17, 18,
21–27

6, 16 103
Crockett, Guerrero,
Leta, Peloski,
Fisher
6, 16
Overall
Outcome
1, 4–7, 9–11,
14–18, 21–27

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)(iv).
AFFIRMED