COGNITIVE SCALE, INC.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 14, 2021

2020002387 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 14, 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.
14/729,559 06/03/2015 Matthew Sanchez COGSC-15-001.2 9131
33438 7590 09/14/2021
TERRILE, CANNATTI & CHAMBERS, LLP
P.O. BOX 203518
AUSTIN, TX 78720
EXAMINER
ALABI, OLUWATOSIN O
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2126
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/14/2021 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):
USPTO@dockettrak.com
celeste@tcciplaw.com
tmunoz@tcciplaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte MATTHEW SANCHEZ and
DILUM RANATUNGA
___________

Appeal 2020-002387
Application 14/729,559
Technology Center 2100

____________

Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., MICHAEL J. STRAUSS and
IRVIN E. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judges.

WHITEHEAD JR., Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE1
Appellant2 is appealing the final rejection of claims 1–12 under
35 U.S.C. § 134(a). See Appeal Brief 5. Claims 1 and 7 are independent.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

1 Rather than reiterate Appellant’s arguments and the Examiner’s
determinations, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed September 30, 2019), the
Final Action (mailed April 25, 2019) and the Answer (mailed November 18,
2019), for the respective details. Appellant indicates that application
14/729,554 (Appeal Brief 2020-002384) is a related appeal. Appeal Brief 1.

2 Appellant refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. 1.42(a). (“The word
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We affirm.
Introduction
According to Appellant, “[t]he present invention relates in general to
the field of computers and similar technologies, and in particular to software
utilized in this field. Still more particularly, it relates to a method, system
and computer-usable medium for generating and using a universal
knowledge repository.” Specification ¶ 2.
Representative Claim3
1. A computer-implementable method for managing a
universal knowledge repository comprising:
receiving streams of data from a plurality of data sources, the
plurality of
data sources comprising a social data source stored in a social
data repository, public data source stored in a public data repository,
licensed data source stored in a licensed data repository and
proprietary data source stored in a proprietary data repository;

‘applicant’ when used in this title refers to the inventor or all of the joint
inventors, or to the person applying for a patent as provided in §§ 1.43, 1.45,
or 1.46.”). Appellant identifies Cognitive Scale, Inc. as the real party in
interest. Appeal Brief 1.

3 Appellant does not argue independent claims 1 and 7 individually. See
Appeal Brief 6 (“[T] he data enriching performs sentiment analysis,
geotagging and entity detection operations on the streams of data from the
plurality of data sources, as required by claims 1 and 7.”). Accordingly, we
select independent claim 1 as representative. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv)
(“When multiple claims subject to the same ground of rejection are argued
as a group or subgroup by appellant, the Board may select a single claim
from the group or subgroup and may decide the appeal as to the ground of
rejection with respect to the group or subgroup on the basis of the selected
claim alone.”).

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processing the streams of data from the plurality of data
sources, the processing
the streams of data from the plurality of data sources
performing data enriching to provide data enriched data streams, the
data enriching performing sentiment analysis, geotagging and entity
detection operations on the streams of data from the plurality of data
sources; and,
storing the data streams and the data enriched data streams
within the universal
knowledge repository as a collection of knowledge elements,
the storing being performed by a cognitive inference and learning
system, the cognitive inference and learning system executing on a
hardware processor of an information processing system and
interacting with the plurality of data sources, the cognitive inference
and learning system and the information processing system
providing a cognitive computing function, the cognitive computing
function comprising at least one of performing a spatial navigation
operation, a machine vision operation
and a pattern recognition operation on at least some of the
streams of data from the plurality of data sources, the cognitive
inference and learning system comprising a cognitive platform, the
cognitive platform comprising
a cognitive graph, the cognitive graph being derived from the
plurality of
data sources, the cognitive graph enabling the cognitive
inference and learning system to render the cognitively processed
insights, the universal knowledge repository comprising the
cognitive graph;
a cognitive engine, the cognitive engine processing the
streams of data
from the plurality of data sources, the cognitive engine
comprising a dataset engine, a graph query engine and an
insight/learning engine, the dataset engine being implemented to
establish and maintain a dynamic data ingestion and enrichment
pipeline, the graph query engine being implemented to receive and
process queries such that the queries are bridged into the cognitive
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graph, the insight/learning engine being implemented to generate a
cognitive insight from the cognitive graph, the dataset engine, the
graph query engine and the insight/learning engine operating
collaboratively to generate the cognitive insight;
a sourcing agent, the sourcing agent sourcing the data streams
and the
enriched data streams; and,
a destination agent, the destination agent publishing the
cognitively
processed insights to a consumer of cognitive insight data.
References
Name4 Reference Date
Blaschak US 2013/0204882 A1 August 8, 2013
Chandrasekaran US 2013/0297618 A1 November 7, 2013
Porpora US 2015/0095333 A1 April 2, 2015
Baughman US 2015/0294216 A1 October 15, 2015
Bauer US 2015/0317376 A1 November 5, 2015
Rejections on Appeal
Claims 1–12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) or 35 U.S.C.
§ 112 (pre-AIA), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to
particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the
inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the
invention. Final Action 4–6.
Claims 1–4 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Bauer, Chandrasekaran and Porpora. Final Action 7–18.
Claims 5 and 6 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Bauer, Chandrasekaran, Porpora and Blaschak. Final
Action 18–21.

4 All reference citations are to the first named inventor only.

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Claims 7–10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Bauer, Baughman, Chandrasekaran and Porpora. Final
Action 21–44.
Claims 11 and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Bauer, Baughman, Chandrasekaran, Porpora and
Blaschak. Final Action 44–48.
ANALYSIS
35 U.S.C. § 112 rejection
Appellant contends, “Claims 1–12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, as indefinite. It is believed the 35 U.S.C. § 112 rejection can be
resolved should agreement be reached regarding the rejections over the art.”
Appeal Brief 5; see Answer 47–48. Appellant does not argue the merits of
the rejection and therefore we summarily sustain the Examiner’s
indefiniteness rejection of claims 1–12. See Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d
1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential) (“If an appellant fails to present
arguments on a particular issue — or, more broadly, on a particular rejection
— the Board will not, as a general matter, unilaterally review those
uncontested aspects of the rejection. See, e.g., Hyatt v. Dudas, 551 F.3d
1307, 1313–14 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (the Board may treat arguments appellant
failed to make for a given ground of rejection as waived)”).
35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections
Appellant states:
[W]hen discussing the element of processing the streams of data
from the plurality of data sources, the processing the streams of
data from the plurality of data sources performing data enriching
to provide data enriched data streams where the data enriching
performs sentiment analysis, geotagging and entity detection
operations on the streams of data from the plurality of data
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sources, the examiner cites to a combination of Bauer,
Chandrasekaran and Porpora. Specifically, the examiner cites to
a portion of Bauer which discloses using a co-cluster approach
to identify data elements regarding expert and skills associations
(see e.g., Bauer, Paragraph [0046]) and finding an expert based
upon an expertise area, keyword or topic with context filtering
(see e.g., Bauer, Paragraph [0071], a portion of Chandrasekaran
which discloses performing a sentiment analysis for an entity
using social media data segments (see e.g., Chandrasekaran,
Paragraph [0010]) and to a portion of Porpora which discloses
generally discloses activity based analytics which includes
applying geo-tags to data elements in extracted data (see e.g.,
Porpora, Paragraph [0019]).
Appeal Brief 6; see Final Action 7, 8, 11 and 13–15.
Appellant contends:
It is respectfully submitted that nowhere within the cited portions of
Bauer (nor anywhere else in Bauer) is there any disclosure or
suggestion of a cognitive inference and learning system as disclosed
and claimed, much less a cognitive inference and learning system
comprising a cognitive platform, the cognitive platform comprising
a cognitive graph, the cognitive graph being derived from the
plurality of data sources, the cognitive graph enabling the cognitive
inference and learning system to render the cognitively processed
insights, the universal knowledge repository comprising the
cognitive graph; a cognitive engine, the cognitive engine processing
the streams of data from the plurality of data sources, the cognitive
engine comprising a dataset engine, a graph query engine and an
insight/learning engine, the dataset engine being implemented to
establish and maintain a dynamic data ingestion and enrichment
pipeline, the graph query engine being implemented to receive and
process queries such that the queries are bridged into the cognitive
graph, the insight/learning engine being implemented to generate a
cognitive insight from the cognitive graph, the dataset engine, the
graph query engine and the insight/learning engine operating
collaboratively to generate the cognitive insight; a sourcing agent,
the sourcing agent sourcing the data streams and the enriched data
streams; and, a destination agent, the destination agent publishing
the cognitively processed insights to a consumer of cognitive insight
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data, as required by claim 1 and as substantially required by claim 7.
These deficiencies of Bauer are not cured by Chandrasekaran,
Baughman or Porpora, alone or in combination.
Appeal Brief 7.
Additionally, when discussing the elements of the universal
knowledge repository comprises a cognitive graph, the cognitive
graph comprising a representation of expert knowledge, associated
with individuals and groups over a period of time, to depict
relationships between people, places and things, the cognitive graph
comprising a machine-readable formalism for knowledge
representation, the cognitive graph providing a common framework
allowing data and knowledge to be shared and reused across user,
application, organization and community boundaries, the examiner
cites to the expert skill matrix of Bauer. However, it is respectfully
submitted that the cognitive graph as disclosed and claimed is
patentably distinct from the expert skill matrix of Bauer.
Appeal Brief 7–8.
Appellant concludes, “Accordingly, claims 1 and 7 are allowable over
Bauer, Chandrasekaran, Baughman and Porpora. Claims 2-6 depend from claim
1 and are allowable for at least this reason. Claims 8-12 depend from claim 7
and are allowable for at least this reason.” Appeal Brief 7. Appellant also
concludes:
Bauer, Chandrasekaran, Baughman and Porpora taken alone
or in combination, do not disclose or suggest a cognitive
graph as disclosed and claimed, much less the cognitive
graph comprising a representation of expert knowledge,
associated with individuals and groups over a period of time,
to depict relationships between people, places and things,
much less the cognitive graph comprising a machine-readable
formalism for knowledge representation, much less the
cognitive graph providing a common framework allowing
data and knowledge to be shared and reused across user,
application, organization and community boundaries, all as
required by claim 6 and as substantially required by claims
11 and 12. Accordingly, claims 6, 11 and 12 are allowable
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over Bauer, Chandrasekaran, Baughman and Porpora for at
least these additional reasons.
Appeal Brief 8.
We find Appellant’s arguments unpersuasive of Examiner error
because the arguments do not address the Examiner’s rejection with any
specificity. See 37 CFR § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (“The arguments shall explain
why the examiner erred as to each ground of rejection contested by
appellant.); see also Final Action 7–48. Appellant lists a myriad of claim
limitations and contends that none of “the cited portions of Bauer (nor
anywhere else in Bauer)” discloses the listed claim limitations without
proffering any explanation as to why Bauer and/or any of the other cited
references (Baughman, Chandrasekaran, Porpora and Blaschak) fail to
discloses the listed claim limitations. Appeal Brief 7–8; see In re Jung,
637 F.3d 1356, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (affirming because Appellant “merely
argued that the claims differed from [the prior art], and chose not to proffer a
serious explanation of this difference”); see also In re Baxter Travenol
Labs., 952 F.2d 388, 391 (Fed. Cir. 1991) (“It is not the function of this
court to examine the claims in greater detail than argued by an appellant,
looking for [patentable] distinctions over the prior art.”). Accordingly, we
affirm the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 1–12.

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CONCLUSION

Claims
Rejected
35
U.S.C. §
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–12 112 Indefiniteness 1–12
1–4 103 Bauer,
Chandrasekaran,
Porpora
1–4
5, 6 103 Bauer,
Chandrasekaran,
Porpora, Blaschak
5, 6
7–10 103 Bauer, Baughman,
Chandrasekaran,
Porpora
7–10
11, 12 103 Bauer, Baughman,
Chandrasekaran,
Porpora, Blaschak
11, 12
Overall
Outcome
1–12
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)(v).

AFFIRMED