David Gulezian et al.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardAug 14, 201913610761 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Aug. 14, 2019) 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. 13/610,761 09/11/2012 David Gulezian 31VL-171985 3889 69849 7590 08/14/2019 SHEPPARD, MULLIN, RICHTER & HAMPTON LLP 379 Lytton Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94301 EXAMINER HUYNH, THU V ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2177 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/14/2019 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): SheppardMullin_Pair@firsttofile.com svpatents@sheppardmullin.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte DAVID GULEZIAN, RICHARD TURNER BARKER, and NATHANIEL ANTHONY FAST Appeal 2017-010668 Application 13/610,761 Technology Center 2100 Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, MARC S. HOFF, and MONICA S. ULLAGADDI, Administrative Patent Judges. DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellants,1 David Gulezian et al., Appeal from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–16. Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 We use the word “Appellants” to refer to “Applicants” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellants identify the real party in interest as Viscira LLC. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2017-010668 Application 13/610,761 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to technique involves allowing use of content only if the content has been approved for the use. The content can be stored in a universal content format to facilitate cross-platform approval in a single approval transaction. The content can include granular content items incorporated into larger documents. In a specific implementation, it is possible to grant approval for one or more of the granular content items. Spec. ¶ 3. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A system comprising: a presentation building engine; a utility engine coupled to the presentation building engine; a presentation viewing engine coupled to the presentation building engine; a presentation management engine coupled to the presentation building engine; wherein, in operation, the utility engine transcodes a deck having one of a set of import formats to a universal slide format (USF); the presentation building engine modifies the deck; the presentation viewing engine presents the modified deck to a user; the presentation management engine controls use of content included in the modified deck by gaining approval of the modified deck according to a lowest approval number of approval levels of each slide of the modified deck, the approval levels specific to each slide of the modified deck at a slide- level. Appeal 2017-010668 Application 13/610,761 3 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Dryer US 2005/0076215 A1 Apr. 7, 2005 Packer US 2007/0195159 A1 Aug. 23, 2007 Friedman et al. US 2008/0005179 A1 Jan. 3, 2008 Anderson et al. US 2008/0288890 Al Nov. 20, 2008 Moller et al. US 2009/0129402 Al May 21, 2009 Fukuda et al. US 2009/0327349 A1 Dec. 31, 2009 Weber et al. US 2010/0169784 A1 July 1, 2010 Schuler et al. US 2010/0321647 A1 Dec. 23, 2010 Paas US 2011/0242121 A1 Oct. 6, 2011 Hussam US 2011/0161105 A1 June 30, 2011 Schlutz et al. US 2012/0140083 A1 June 7, 2012 Massand US 2013/0246901 A1 Sept. 19, 2013 Rexer et al. US 2013/0311894 A1 Nov. 21, 2013 REJECTIONS Claims 1–16 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the applicant regards as the invention. Final Act. 3; Ans. 2. Claims 1, 2, and 9 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Anderson in view of Moller, Dryer, and Rexer. Final Act. 4. Claim 3 stands rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Anderson in view of Moller, Dryer, and Rexer as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Friedman. Final Act. 7. Claim 4 stands rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Anderson in view of Moller, Dryer, and Rexer as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Fukuda. Final Act. 8. Appeal 2017-010668 Application 13/610,761 4 Claim 5 stands rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Anderson in view of Moller, Dryer, and Rexer as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Schuler. Final Act. 9. Claim 5 stands rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Anderson in view of Moller, Dryer, and Rexer as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Paas. Final Act. 9. Claim 6 stands rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Anderson in view of Moller, Dryer, and Rexer as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Packer. Final Act. 10. Claims 7, 8, and 16 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Anderson in view of Moller, Dryer, and Rexer as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Massand. Final Act. 11. Claim 10 stands rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Anderson in view of Moller, Dryer, and Rexer as applied to claim 9 above, and further in view of Hussam. Final Act. 13. Claims 11–14 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Anderson in view of Moller, Dryer, and Rexer as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Weber. Final Act. 14. Claim 15 stands rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Anderson in view of Moller, Dryer, and Rexer, and further in view of Weber as applied to claim 11 above, and further in view of Shultz. Final Act. 15. Appeal 2017-010668 Application 13/610,761 5 OPINION 35 USC § 112 In an attempt to overcome the indefiniteness rejection, Appellants presented proposed amendments to independent claim 1 in an After-Final Amendment (filed Nov. 14, 2016), but the Amendment was not entered by the Examiner. See Adv. Act. (Mailed Nov. 25, 2016). The Examiner maintains the indefiniteness rejection and repeats the indefiniteness rejection in the Examiner’s Answer. Ans. 2–3. Appellants do not address the indefiniteness rejection in either the Appeal Brief or the Reply Brief. Therefore, we summarily affirm the indefiniteness rejection of claims 1–16. 35 USC § 103 With respect to the obviousness rejection, Appellants individually address independent claim 1, and Appellants set forth separate headings for each of the individual obviousness rejections, but Appellants’ arguments are based upon the language in independent claim 1 and assert that the additional prior art references do not teach the claim 1 limitation “the presentation management engine controls use of content included in the modified deck by gaining approval of the modified deck according to a lowest approval number of approval levels of each slide of the modified deck, the approval levels specific to each slide of the modified deck at a slide-level.” App. Br. 14–22. Appeal 2017-010668 Application 13/610,761 6 Independent claim 1 We select independent claim 1 as the representative claim for the group and will address Appellants’ arguments thereto. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(iv) (2016). With respect to a representative independent claim 1, the Examiner relies upon a combination of the Anderson, Moller, Dryer, and Rexer references for the claim limitation the presentation management engine controls use of content included in the modified deck by gaining approval of the modified deck according to a lowest approval number of approval levels of each slide of the modified deck, the approval levels specific to each slide of the modified deck at a slide- level. Ans. 4–6, 17–19. Appellants individually discuss the relied upon teachings of each of the prior art references which is relied upon by the Examiner to teach the totality of the disputed claim limitationand because each of the references does not individually teach the totality of the disputed language of claim 1, the combination of Anderson, Moller, Dryer, and Rexer does not teach the claim language. App. Br. 8–13; Reply Br. 3–5. Appellants additionally contend that the Rexer reference teaches away from the Moller and Dryer references that are combined to form the rejection of claim 1. App. Br. 13– 14. Appellants argue that the Rexer reference only teaches regulating access to what content a user can access to make modifications and that the Rexer reference does not teach approving modifications made by a user to content a user can access. App. Br. 14. Appellants further argue that the Rexer reference teaches editing content without approval as long as a user has been Appeal 2017-010668 Application 13/610,761 7 granted access to the content and the Rexer reference teaches away from the teachings of the Moller and Dryer references. With respect to Appellants’ arguments that address the references individually, we note that the Examiner relied upon a combination of references to teach or suggest the claimed limitation, and as such, do not address the rejection as set forth by the Examiner. Consequently, Appellants’ arguments do show error in the Examiner’s factual findings or conclusion of obviousness with respect to the specific claim limitation as rejected by the Examiner. Appellants have not demonstrated error in the obviousness rejection applied against claim 1, but have instead alleged deficiencies in the references, taken one at a time, as if the rejection were based upon a lack of novelty. However, nonobviousness cannot be established by attacking references individually where the rejection is based upon the teachings of a combination of references. In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (citing In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981)). Appellants have provided no persuasive evidence tending to show that presenting control of the use of content included in the modified deck by gaining approval of the modified deck according to a lowest approval number of approval levels of each slide of the modified deck with approval levels specific to each slide of the modified deck at a slide-level was “uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art.” See Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416–18 (2007)). “Indeed, the common sense of those skilled in the art demonstrates why Appeal 2017-010668 Application 13/610,761 8 some combinations would have been obvious where others would not.” Leapfrog Enters., 485 F.3d at 1161 (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 414–15). With respect to the Rexer reference, the Examiner clarifies that the Examiner merely relied upon the Rexer reference with regards to a special- purpose hardware for the “engines” and that skilled artisans would have been motivated to combine the Rexer reference with the Anderson reference. Ans. 19–20. We find that the Examiner has provided a line of reasoning for the combination of the limited reliance upon the teachings of the Rexer reference. Ans. 4–6, 17–19. Additionally, “[a] reference may be said to teach away when a person of ordinary skill, upon reading the reference, would be discouraged from following the path set out in the reference, or would be led in a direction divergent from the path that was taken by the applicant.” In re Gurley, 27 F.3d 551, 553 (Fed. Cir. 1994). We disagree with Appellants’ general contention because Appellants have identified no specific teaching in the Rexer reference which would lead skilled artisans in a direction divergent from the path that was taken by the applicant. As a result, Appellants’ general argument does not show error in the Examiner’s factual findings or conclusion of obviousness of representative independent claim 1 and dependent claims 2 and 9 not separately argued. Dependent claims 3–8 and 10–16 With respect to the Appellants’ arguments regarding the dependent claims addressed in the “second ground” through “ninth ground” of Appeal 2017-010668 Application 13/610,761 9 rejection, Appellants present a general argument to the language of independent claim 1 regarding the “presentation management engine.” Merely reciting the language of the claim is insufficient. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (“A statement which merely points out what a claim recites will not be considered an argument for separate patentability of the claim.”). Merely alleging that the references fail to support an obviousness rejection is insufficient to persuade us of Examiner error. Attorney arguments and conclusory statements that are unsupported by factual evidence are entitled to little probative value. In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997); see also In re De Blauwe, 736 F.2d 699, 705 (Fed. Cir. 1984); Ex parte Belinne, Appeal No. 2009-004693, 2009 WL 2477843, at *3–4 (BPAI Aug. 10, 2009) (informative). Appellants discuss the additional prior art reference citations for the dependent claims, but provide no separate arguments for patentability of the dependent claims. Appellants maintain that the additional prior art reference does not “teach the language of claim 1.” App. Br. 15–22; see also Reply Br. 5. Because the Examiner has not relied upon these additional prior art references to teach or suggest the limitations of independent claim 1, Appellants’ argument does not show error in the Examiner’s factual findings or conclusion of obviousness with respect to each of these dependent claims. Additionally, Appellants’ general argument for patentability is not a separate argument for patentability with respect to each of the dependent claims. Therefore, we group the dependent claims as falling with representative independent claim 1. Appeal 2017-010668 Application 13/610,761 10 DECISION We summarily sustain Examiner’s indefiniteness rejection of claims 1–16 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph. We sustain Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 1–16 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). AFFIRMED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation