Banti, Edward Thomas. et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jul 28, 2020

13427299 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jul. 28, 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.
13/427,299 03/22/2012 Edward Thomas Banti 14917.1988US01/334479.01 1152
27488 7590 07/28/2020
MERCHANT & GOULD (MICROSOFT)
P.O. BOX 2903
MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55402-0903
EXAMINER
HIGGS, STELLA EUN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2179
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/28/2020 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):
USPTO27488@merchantgould.com
usdocket@microsoft.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD

Ex parte EDWARD THOMAS BANTI, KARTIK S. MURTHY,
ELROY J. DYKSEN, JEFFREY SHERMAN, KRISTIAN ANDAKER,
SELVARAJ NALLIAH, and BETHANY KESSEN DOAN

Appeal 2019-002831
Application 13/427,299
Technology Center 2100

Before JAMES R. HUGHES, JUSTIN BUSCH, and
MICHAEL T. CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–6, 8–13, and 15–22. See Final Act.
2; see generally Appeal Br. Claims 7 and 14 were cancelled during
prosecution. Final Act. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Microsoft
Technology Licensing, LLC. Appeal Br. 2.
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We AFFIRM.
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claimed invention generally relates to “stacks” that group
different types of electronic content within a central interface. Appeal Br. 4.
Each content item is associated with tags that identify the content and travel
with the content. Id. Tags may be associated with different types of content,
such as emails, documents, and meetings. Spec. ¶¶ 3, 36. Content may be
automatically tagged based on keywords or other characteristics relating to
the content. Id. As the tagged content is used, applications interacting with
the content, such as a messaging application, can use the tag to perform
different actions, such as providing a view of all content associated with a
tag across different applications. Id.
Independent claim 1 is illustrative, with the disputed portions
italicized for emphasis:
1. A method for organizing electronic content, comprising:
displaying a stack user interface (UI) element that represents a
stack, wherein the stack is associated with at least a first type of
electronic content associated with a first application and a
second type of electronic content associated with a second
application, wherein the first type of electronic content includes
electronic messages and the second type of electronic content
includes electronic documents;
automatically associating a first item of the first type of
electronic content with a tag based on a first characteristic of
the first item, and automatically associating a second item of
the second type of electronic content with the tag based on a
second characteristic of the second item, wherein the tag
enables a policy applied to the stack to be consistently applied
on the first item and on the second item;
linking the first item associated with the first application and
the second item associated with the second application to the
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stack using the tag, wherein the first item is stored in a different
location than the second item;
in response to receiving an interaction with the stack UI
element, aggregating display of at least a first document
revision history related to the first item and a second document
revision history related to the second item in an overview pane,
wherein the first document revision history and the second
document revision history are selectable from the overview
pane; and
maintaining the stack based on automatically updating the first
type of electronic content and the second type of electronic
content associated by the tag with the stack, wherein
maintaining the stack comprises synchronizing the stack across
at least the first application and the second application.
Appeal Br. 26 (Claims App.). Independent claims 10 and 17 recite a
computer-readable medium and system having limitations similar to that of
claim 1. Appeal Br. 27–30. Dependent claims 2–6, 8–13, 15–16, and 18–22
each incorporate the limitations of their respective independent claims. Id.
at 26–31.
REFERENCES
Name Reference Date
Kondo US 2003/0028553 A1 Feb. 6, 2003
Estrada US 2003/0135565 A1 July 17, 2003
Bishop US 2013/0054613 A1 Feb. 28, 2013
REJECTION
Claims 1–6, 8–13, and 15–22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being obvious over the combination of Kondo, Estrada, and Bishop.2

2 The Final Action’s rejection of claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101 was
withdrawn in the Examiner’s Answer. Ans. 3.
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OPINION
We have reviewed the Examiner’s obviousness rejection (Final Act.
9–21, Ans. 4–24) in light of Appellant’s contentions that the Examiner has
erred (Appeal Br. 22–25, Reply Br. 2–6). Appellant contends that the
Examiner errs in finding the combination of Kondo, Estrada, and Bishop
teaches or suggests the steps of “automatically associating” first and second
items with a tag based on their characteristics and “linking” the items to the
stack using the tag, wherein the items are stored in different locations and
are associated with different applications. Appeal Br. 22 (citing the
corresponding limitations of claim 1).
We start with the Examiner’s rejection. The Examiner finds Estrada
to describe a collaborative workspace UI containing a number of projects
containing collaborative objects from a plurality of application sources such
as e-mails and other electronic documents. Ans. 5. The Examiner relates
the project folders to the claimed stack, relying on the Specification’s
description of a stack as associating together content such as e-mails and
other electronic documents. Id. (citing Spec. ¶ 3). The Examiner finds the
filenames/title of the project folders to read upon the claimed tags, wherein a
policy performed on one item within one application propagates to the same
project in the collaborative space. Final Act. 12; Ans. 19. The Examiner
further finds that documents can be stored remotely from one another. Final
Act. 11 (citing Estrada ¶¶ 126–127).
The Examiner finds Estrada to teach or suggest the disputed
limitations except for the tag being based on a first characteristic of the first
item and the tag being based on a second characteristic of the second item.
Ans. 12. However, the Examiner finds Bishop to teach that limitation
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through Bishop’s description of “tagging content of different types such as
emails and documents (i.e., first item and second item) based on various
keywords/identifiers (i.e., characteristics) of the content and placing them in
their appropriate folders.” Id. (emphasis omitted). The Examiner further
finds Bishop to teach different content being stored at remote locations from
one another. Id. at 13 (citing Bishop ¶ 117).
We turn to Appellant’s arguments. Appellant first argues that none of
the applied references disclose or suggest that the automatically associated
content is not stored in the same location. Appeal Br. 23. Appellant argues
that Estrada teaches content stored in the same location, i.e., the same
project folder, and not two items stored in different locations. Reply Br. 3.
Appellant admits that Estrada uses a synchronization operation to identify a
document that is out-of-sync with regard to the collaborative workspace and
then to resend the document, creating a local copy of a file stored on the
collaborative workspace, but argues that the documents are not linked as
claimed. Id. at 4 (citing Estrada ¶ 148). With regard to Bishop’s teachings,
Appellant argues that claim 1 “is not directed to simply storing files in
different locations.” Reply Br. 4.
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments with respect to
content being stored in different locations. Appellant does not appear to
contest that both Estrada and Bishop, in the form of Estrada’s
synchronization of local copies with copies stored on the collaborative
workspace and Bishop’s selection of a destination on a separate device for
propagating an electronic document, describe content being stored at
different locations. Further, we agree with the Examiner’s assessment of
Bishop, which describes content tagged with “Project X” being propagated
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from one communication device to folders on a second communication
device 304 and on a data store 314. See Bishop Fig. 3, ¶¶ 33–34, 48–50
(processing and propagating information that may be “located in a data
store(s), server(s), and/or online site(s)” across multiple communication
devices). Accordingly, Appellant has not persuaded us of error in the
Examiner’s finding that either Estrada or Bishop teaches content stored in
different locations.
We next turn to Appellant’s argument that any content stored in
different locations is not linked using the claimed tag. Appellant argues that
Estrada’s local copy is not linked with another file stored on the server or
with a corresponding copy on the collaborative workspace, even if such files
were both stored in a folder having the same name, i.e., if both folders were
saved in folders named “Folder A.” Reply Br. 4. With respect to the
teachings of Bishop, Appellant argues that Bishop merely discusses the
selection of a destination for propagating electronic documents, or
information relating thereto. Id. at 5. Appellant further argues that the
Examiner erroneously asserts, “a tag is simply a folder or project space in a
collaborative workspace environment.” Reply Br. 2.
We are not persuaded. The Examiner has found that the claimed tag
is taught by the labels or titles of the folder or project space. Ans. 5. The
Examiner has not taken the position that the folders themselves are the tags,
or that content items would necessarily be co-located in a single physical
folder location. Appellant has not explained how Bishop’s use of labels
such as “Project X,” used as a tag to identify content items on
communication device 302 having the phrase “Project X” within the content
item and to associate such items with a file folder in a separate data store
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314, is inconsistent with the Examiner’s finding that Bishop teaches or
suggests tagging multiple items with a label. See Bishop Fig. 3, ¶¶ 52–57.
Appellant further argues that although Bishop discloses manually
tagging content items based on highlighted keywords, there is no disclosure
in Bishop that a highlighted keyword that is used to tag one document can be
used to tag a second document. Appeal Br. 23–24.
We are not persuaded by this argument. The Examiner points to
Bishop as automatically tagging content items based on keywords within the
document, and that Bishop applies the same tag on different content items
such as email and documents, with each content item having different
characteristics in the form of items of key-content. Ans. 20, 22–23; see also
Bishop Fig. 3 (wherein DOC1 and DOC4 are both tagged with “PROJ. X”).
Appellant has not persuasively shown error in that finding. See Bishop
¶¶ 33, 35, 57, 117.
Accordingly, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of claim 1. Appellant has not argued the remaining
claims separately, and they fall with claim 1. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–6, 8–13, and
15–22.
CONCLUSION
For the above-described reasons, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection
of claims 1–6, 8–13, and 15–22 as being obvious over Kondo, Estrada, and
Bishop under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
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).
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DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § References/Grounds Affirmed Reversed
1–6, 8–
13, 15–22
103(a) Kondo, Estrada,
Bishop
1–6, 8–13,
15–22

AFFIRMED