Adobe Inc.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMar 29, 20212019007026 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 29, 2021) Copy Citation 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. 13/873,401 04/30/2013 Damien Antipa AD01.2909US01 3370 111003 7590 03/29/2021 Adobe / Finch & Maloney PLLC 50 Commercial Street Manchester, NH 03101 EXAMINER SIDDIQI, EMAD H ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2458 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/29/2021 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): docketing@finchmaloney.com nmaloney@finchmaloney.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte DAMIEN ANTIPA Appeal 2019-007026 Application 13/873,401 Technology Center 2400 Before AMBER L. HAGY, DAVID J. CUTITTA II, and MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1 and 7–26, which are all of the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies Adobe Inc. as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2019-007026 Application 13/873,401 2 TECHNOLOGY The application relates to a drag-and-drop clipboard for HTML documents. Spec. Title. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM Claim 1 is illustrative and reproduced below with the limitation at issue emphasized: 1. A computer implemented method for editing a page in a client- server arrangement, the method comprising: allocating, by a client computing system, session storage local to the client computing system for use by a browser; receiving, by the client computing system, a page served to the browser from a server computing system with which the client computing system is in communication; allocating, by the client computing system, clipboard storage within the session storage; receiving, by the client computing system, input corresponding to either a copy operation or a cut operation, the input indicating a piece of content presented on the page that is selected for either the copy operation or the cut operation; copying, by the client computing system in response to receiving the input corresponding to either the copy operation or the cut operation, the selected piece of content to the clipboard storage within the session storage of the browser; presenting, by the client computing system, a clipboard user interface (UI) element on the page; and in response to the clipboard UI element being moved to and dropped at a target location, inserting the stored selected piece of content at the target location. Appeal 2019-007026 Application 13/873,401 3 REFERENCES The Examiner relies on the following references as prior art: Name Reference Date Dutta US 2008/0256601 A1 Oct. 16, 2008 Hansen US 2014/0304839 A1 Oct. 9, 2014 Kuwata US 7,509,577 B2 Mar. 24, 2009 Margolin US 8,555,187 B2 Oct. 8, 2013 Martin US 2012/0174002 A1 July 5, 2012 REJECTIONS The Examiner makes the following rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103: Claims References Final Act. 1, 7–10, 15–20, 25, 26 Kuwata, Dutta, Margolin, Martin 3–4 11–14, 21–24 Kuwata, Dutta, Margolin, Martin, Hansen 8 ISSUE Did the Examiner err in finding Dutta teaches or suggests “session storage,” as recited in claim 1? ANALYSIS Claim 1 recites “allocating . . . session storage local to the client computing system for use by a browser” and “allocating . . . clipboard storage within the session storage.” Independent claims 10 and 20 recite commensurate limitations. Appellant argues that the term “‘session storage’ refers to storage that a browser deallocates upon closure of a page.” Appeal Br. 9. Appellant cites to the W3C Web Storage specification and MDN Web Docs Web Storage API as supporting this interpretation by contrasting the “sessionStorage” attribute with the “localStorage” attribute. Id. at 11–12. Appeal 2019-007026 Application 13/873,401 4 The Examiner, however, determines that “there is no support found in the specification [of the present application] expressly indicating that the session storage deallocates upon closure of a page.” Ans. 4. According to the Examiner, the disclosures of the present application “indicate that other local suitable storage or memory is a functionally similar substitute for the session storage and not a distinct storage.” Id. (citing Spec. ¶¶ 12, 27). The Examiner then finds that Dutta discloses a “local memory module” that constitutes the claimed “session storage.” Ans. 5–6 (citing Dutta ¶¶ 29–30). The Federal Circuit has held that “the specification is always highly relevant to the claim construction analysis.” In re Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., 696 F.3d 1142, 1149 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (quotation omitted). “Usually, it is dispositive; it is the single best guide to the meaning of a disputed term.” Id. (quotation omitted). Here, the Specification discloses “the Clipboard element can be initialized and reads from the local storage (browser session storage or other local memory).” Spec. ¶ 27. Every other occurrence of “session storage” in the Specification is phrased (with minor variations) as “session storage or other suitable local storage.” Id. ¶¶ 9, 12, 13, 22. Thus, the Specification discloses “session storage” as a type of “local storage.” To the extent that Appellant’s extrinsic evidence treats “sessionStorage” and “localStorage” as mutually exclusive, this conflicts with the intrinsic evidence of the Specification, which expressly states that “session storage” is a type of “local storage.” Claim 1 similarly requires “session storage local to the client computing system.” As the Federal Circuit has said, “extrinsic evidence may not be used to contradict claim meaning that is unambiguous in light of the intrinsic record.” David Netzer Consulting Eng’r LLC v. Shell Oil Co., 824 F.3d 989, 997 (Fed. Cir. 2016). Appeal 2019-007026 Application 13/873,401 5 Thus, we give limited weight to Appellant’s extrinsic evidence. Nevertheless, we agree with Appellant’s more general point that the Specification distinguishes between “session storage” and “other suitable local storage.” See Reply Br. 3. The Examiner’s reliance solely on Dutta’s local memory alone reads out the word “session.” “It is highly disfavored to construe terms in a way that renders them void, meaningless, or superfluous.” Wasica Fin. GmbH v. Cont’l Auto. Sys., Inc., 853 F.3d 1272, 1288 n.10 (Fed. Cir. 2017). Thus, given the current record, the Examiner may have shown that Dutta teaches or suggests “storage local to the client computing system,” but has not yet shown how Dutta teaches or suggests such storage is “session storage.” Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1 and 7–26. OUTCOME The following table summarizes the outcome of each rejection: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s) /Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 7–10, 15–20, 25, 26 103(a) Kuwata, Dutta, Margolin, Martin 1, 7–10, 15–20, 25, 26 11–14, 21–24 103(a) Kuwata, Dutta, Margolin, Martin, Hansen 11–14, 21–24 Overall Outcome 1, 7–26 REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation