Avaya, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 2, 2021

2021001627 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 2, 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.
14/293,156 06/02/2014 George Erhart 4366-665 1196
48500 7590 12/02/2021
SHERIDAN ROSS P.C.
1560 BROADWAY, SUITE 1200
DENVER, CO 80202
EXAMINER
NEUBIG, MARGARET M
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3685
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/02/2021 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):
cjacquet@sheridanross.com
edocket@sheridanross.com
pair_Avaya@firsttofile.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD

____________

Ex parte GEORGE ERHART, VALENTINE C. MATULA, and
DAVID SKIBA
____________

Appeal 2021-001627
Application1 14/293,156
Technology Center 3600

____________

Before JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, MICHAEL C. ASTORINO, and
BRADLEY B. BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judges.

FISCHETTI, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s
final rejection of claims 1–7 and 5–20. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b).
SUMMARY OF DECISION
We AFFIRM.

1 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant
identifies “Avaya Inc.” as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 2.

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THE INVENTION
Appellant states that its “disclosure is generally directed toward data
storage and more particularly using a social media website.” Spec. ¶ 1.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on
appeal.
1. A method, comprising:
a processor, with a communications interface, performing:
accessing, via the communications interface, a record of
a customer in a database of a contact center, the contact center
comprising the processor;
generating a token to comprise a customer datum of the
customer;
accessing a portion of a social media website associated
with the customer;
causing the token to be stored in a data storage, the data
storage storing data of the portion of the social media website
associated with the customer and allocated by the social media
website for use by the customer for storing content controlled
by the customer and wherein the data storage is outside the
direct control of the contact center;
receiving a request to purge the record;
in response to receiving the request to purge the record,
purging the record;
after purging the record, receiving a work item associated
with the customer;
in response to the receiving of the work item, searching
the social media website for the token;
upon the searching locating the token, determining the
token is associated with the customer; and
upon the determining that the token is associated with the
customer, routing, via a network, the work item and customer
datum to a resource for resolution of the work item.

Appeal Br. 10 (Claims Appendix).
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THE REJECTIONS
The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of
unpatentability:
1. Claims 1, 3–6, 15, and 17–19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Sidman (US 2010/0281364 A1, pub.
Nov. 4, 2010) in view of Hosp (US 2014/0081844 A1, pub. Mar. 20, 2014),
in further view of Venkata Naga Ravi (US 2012/0136904 A1, pub. May 31,
2012) “(“Ravi”).
2. Claims 2, 7, 16, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Sidman in view of Hosp, in further view of Ravi, in
further view of Castro et al. (US 9,246,885 B2, iss. Jan. 26, 2016)
(“Castro”).

FINDINGS OF FACT
1. The Specification states:

Step 806 receives a work item associated with the customer
and/or the transaction. For example, a customer may have
decided to terminate the relationship with the enterprise and
causes step 802 to request the customer's records be purged from
the enterprise. Step 804 may have complied and purged all
records or just the records related to the work item. At some
period of time later, which could be almost instantly or many
years later, the customer creates a work item in step 806. For
example, a customer may request step 802 purge their records
with a particular enterprise, the enterprise complies in step 804,
and the customer realizes they had intended to have records
purged from a different enterprise. Accordingly, the work item
may be to recover all records or particular records and/or to
reestablish the customer-enterprise relationship. In another
example, a customer may have caused records to be purged in
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step 802, which were complied with by step 804. After some
time, perhaps years later, the customer may create a work item in
step 806 to reestablish the relationship with the enterprise (e.g.,
the enterprise changed a policy the customer found objectionable
was rescinded, etc.) and/or recover a particular transaction (e.g.,
a receipt for a purchase made years ago to facilitate the
customer's warranty claim).

Spec.¶ 76.
2. The Specification states that, “an enterprise receiving a ‘forget me’
request may be required to purge all marketing data associated with the
request but maintain certain financial records for a period of time, such as
may be required to comply with tax recordkeeping regulations or other
regulatory requirements.” Id. ¶ 75
3. Ravi discloses:
The “RMA_ROLE” option designates the records
management administrator (RMA) role. The “AUTO PURGE”
option may be on or off. The “LC_TABLE” option identifies the
Life Cycle Table that is linked with the table. As explained
previously, the life cycle table defines retention and/or
disposition rules that apply to associated records (e.g., preserve
for 5 years, then move to location B, then destroy record). The
“SOFT_DELETE” option, as explained above, allows for
records to be removed from the user application but not from the
main database. The “STORAGE” option can be set as “in place”
or “read only tablespace.” The “in place” setting is mutually
exclusive with the “soft delete” option. The “read only
tablespace” means that once the data is written, it can only be
read and cannot be deleted or modified.

Id. ¶ 28.
4. The Examiner found the motivation for combining Sidman and Hosp:
Sidman acknowledges the advantages of commercializing the
method and system (see [49], “. . . In this way, Coca-Cola may
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be able to associate its brand with user experience without
requiring users to navigate to a Coca-Cola operated website. In
a further implementation, Coke Tags may be available on user
websites on social networking websites such as Facebook,
MySpace, etc. . . . ”), and Hosp further discloses the increased
security and marketing possibilities offered by the fraud-
detection capabilities and marketing possibilities (see Hosp
[0007], [118], which discloses allowing user to confirm, and
[121], disclosing targeted marketing).

Final Act. 11.
5. The Examiner found the motivation for combining Ravi with Sidman
and Hosp:
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at
the time of the claimed invention to have combined the
generating of tokens and providing such tokens for storage at
social media websites as disclosed by Sidman, as modified by
the feature of a contact center entity storing and retrieving
associated customer data from the social media site as disclosed
by Hosp, with the feature of purging records and retrieving from
alternate memory as disclosed by . . . Ravi because deleting data
as requested by clients would have decreased local storage
requirements and increased client satisfaction, as discussed by
. . . Ravi (¶ [0024]).
Id. at 12.
ANALYSIS
35 U.S.C. § 103 REJECTION
The Appellant argues claims 1, 3–6, 15, and 17–19 as a group.
(Appeal Br. 4). We select claim 1 as the representative claim for this group,
and so the remaining claims stand or fall with claim 1. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2015).
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We begin by construing the scope of the claims; the ordinary and
customary meaning of the word “purge” is to “to get rid of.”2 Claim 1
recites, “accessing, via the communications interface, a record of a customer
in a database of a contact center” and “in response to receiving the request to
purge the record, purging the record.” The Specification states: “The request
may be with respect to all data associated with a customer (e.g., a ‘forget
me’ request) or with respect to a particular transaction.” Spec. ¶ 75. The
Specification further states “purging” is reversible,
a customer may request step 802 purge their records with a
particular enterprise, the enterprise complies in step 804, and the
customer realizes they had intended to have records purged from
a different enterprise. Accordingly, the work item may be to
recover all records or particular records and/or to reestablish the
customer-enterprise relationship.

(FF. 1). Likewise, the Specification states, even after a purge or a “forget
me” request, certain enterprise receiving a “forget me” request may be
required to purge all marketing data associated with the request but maintain
certain financial records for a period of time, such as may be required to
comply with tax recordkeeping regulations or other regulatory
requirements.” (FF. 2). Thus, we construe the term “purge the record,” to
mean a non-complete or reversible elimination of selective files from a
record whereby the data is recoverable and/or maintained elsewhere
pursuant to retention rules.
The Examiner found concerning this limitation:
Ravi discloses receiving a request to purge the record (¶¶ [0023],
[00241, [0028], [00371, [0039], [0040]); in response to receiving

2 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/purge (last visited 11/17/2021)
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a request to purge the record, purging the record (¶¶ [0023],
[0024], [0028], [0037], [0039], [0040]); after purging the record,
receiving a data request associated with the user (¶¶ [0023],
[0024], [00281, [0037], receiving data request after a data
deletion, as discussed above, [0039], [0040]).

(Final Act. 12).
The Appellant argues:
Ravi plainly discloses a “soft delete” where the data may
be removed from a user’s application, however it is not deleted
and continues to be maintained in the main database.
Accordingly, “purging the record,” is not disclosed or
reasonably suggested. Ravi's further discloses how emails may
be deleted from an in-box, “[b]ut, the emails are then stored in a
separate storage device/location to comply with the retention
rules.” (Id., ¶0024). Similarly, Ravi’s ¶¶ 0028, 0037, 0039, and
0040 discloses database operations to perform the “soft delete”
operation. Here to, Ravi plainly discloses emails being “then
stored” elsewhere. In other word, the required “purging” of the
record is not disclosed.
Appellant submits that what Ravi teaches is receiving a
“delete” command and, in response, hiding or moving the target
of the command: “Thus although the user believes the emails are
deleted, they still exist in a different location.” (Ravi, ¶0024).
“Purging” the record, as claimed, is not disclosed by Ravi.
(Appeal Br. 5, 12).
We disagree with the Appellant because Ravi discloses purging the
record to the same extent as the Appellant describes in the Specification.
That is, while Ravi at paragraph 24 discloses emails are deleted (purged)
from the user inbox (email record), but the emails are then stored in a
separate storage device location to comply with the retention rules, the
Appellant’s Specification similarly states, “purg[ing] all marketing data
associated with the request but maintain[ing] certain financial records for a
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period of time, such as may be required to comply with tax recordkeeping
regulations or other regulatory requirements.” (FF. 2). As we determined
above, the scope of the term “purge the record” is the non-complete
elimination of selective files in a record, but maintaining the data as
recoverable and/or maintained pursuant to retention rules. Thus, Ravi’s
disclosure of deleting emails in an inbox record, but maintaining them in a
separate location meets the claim requirement of “purge the record.”
Notwithstanding this analysis, we find Ravi explicitly discloses, an
“AUTO_PURGE” option offered by the records management administrator
(RMA) as an alternative to a “soft purge.” (FF. 3). We find that because
this option is offered as an alternative to the “soft delete” option, it would
not be, by inference, a “soft delete” because Ravi explicitly discloses other
“mutually exclusive” conditions to the “soft delete” option such as the “in
place” setting. (FF. 3). See KSR Int’l. Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398,
418 (2007). (In making the obviousness determination one “can take
account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in
the art would employ.”)
The Appellant argues:
Outside the scope of what is claimed, records may exist
elsewhere. For example, the user may have a local copy of such
a record. However, maintaining a copy somewhere else is not
germane to what is claimed. It is only with respect to the data
maintained by the contact center database that are subject to
being purged and, based on a subsequent interaction, recovered
via the token maintained on a social media site.
(Appeal Br. 5–6).
We disagree with the Appellant because the Appellant’s arguments
“fail from the outset because . . . they are not based on limitations appearing
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in the claims . . .,” and are not commensurate with the broader scope of
claim 1, which merely recites the step of “receiving the request to purge the
record, purging the record,” without mention of data being maintained by the
contact center database. In re Self, 671 F.2d 1344, 1348 (CCPA 1982). The
Appellant asserts: “Claim 1 requires the record to be purged from the
enterprise (the record of the customer in a database of a contact center).”
(Appeal Br. 6). Again, the purging step only recites, “receiving the request
to purge the record, purging the record.” If Appellant seeks the scope of
claim 1 to cover “purging the record of the customer in a database of a
contact center,” then this should be explicitly recited in the claim. As the
Examiner has found, and we agree, Ravi meets this claim requirement when
it purges the email inbox record of emails. (FF. 3, 5).
“Appellant has challenged the proffered motivation and submits that
motivation remains absent.” (Appeal Br. 7).
We disagree with the Appellant because as identified above (FF. 4–5),
the Examiner’s reasons for motivation suffice to establish a prima facie case.
We note that the Examiner sufficiently confines the motivation teachings in
these findings to the applied references.
Accordingly, we will sustain the rejection of in claims 1, 3–6, 15, and
17–19. We also sustain the rejection of dependent claims 2, 7, 16, and 20,
which have been separately rejected with Castro but which the Appellant has
not challenged with any reasonable specificity.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
We conclude the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1–7 and
15–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
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DECISION
Claims
Rejected
35
U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 3–6, 15,
17–19
103 Sidman, Hosp,
Ravi
1, 3–6, 15,
17–19

2, 7, 16, 20 103 Sidman, Hosp,
Ravi, Castro
2, 7, 16, 20
Overall
Outcome
1–7, 15–20

The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1–7 and 15–20 is
affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED