Edward Ott et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Nov 12, 2020

11347624 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Nov. 12, 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.
11/347,624 02/02/2006 Edward Stanley Ott IV 085804.022700 2836
76058 7590 11/12/2020
VERIZON MEDIA INC.
C/O GREENBERG TRAURIG, LLP
MET LIFE BUILDING
200 PARK AVENUE
NEW YORK, NY 10166
EXAMINER
JASMIN, LYNDA C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3629
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/12/2020 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):
cordesp@gtlaw.com
mendozae@gtlaw.com
njdocket@gtlaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte EDWARD STANLEY OTT IV, MICAH LAAKER,
MICHAEL LEE QUOC, and MATTHEW MCALISTER
____________

Appeal 2020-002307
Application 11/347,624
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before JAMES P. CALVE, NINA L. MEDLOCK, and
TARA L. HUTCHINGS, Administrative Patent Judges.

MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
final rejection of claims 1, 3, 5, 7–9, 18, and 39–49. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42. Our decision references Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.,”
filed July 16, 2019) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed January 31, 2020),
and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed December 23, 2019) and Final
Office Action (“Final Act.,” mailed December 10, 2018). Appellant
identifies Oath Inc. as the real party in interest (Appeal Br. 2).
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CLAIMED INVENTION
The claimed invention “relates to a system and method for syndicating
independent review and rating information for use by third parties”
(Spec. ¶ 11).
Claims 1, 18, and 44 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1,
reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method comprising:
maintaining on a non-transitory computer readable storage
medium associated with a computing device a controlled-access
community rating database comprising rating information
independently provided by members of a community such that
each individual rating is independently stored from any other
member and publisher’s control or oversight, the rating
information associated with one or more content items including
a first content item;
providing, via the computing device, a syndication
reference to a first publisher of a content description, the content
description containing information associated with the first
content item;
receiving, at the computing device, a request from a client
computing device, the request comprising information related to
the content description provided by the first publisher and a
publisher identifier (ID), said information containing a
syndication reference including a content ID associated with the
first content item;
parsing, via the computing device, the request to identify
the publisher ID, the content ID, the rating information
associated with the first content item, the first content item, and
information indicating the client computing device from which
the request was sent;
verifying, via the computing device, based on the
publisher ID, that the first publisher is authorized to provide a
community rating generated from the rating information in the
controlled-access community rating database;
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generating, via at least one processor of the computing
device, based on said verification, and further based on the
identified content ID and the rating information associated with
the first content item in the controlled-access community rating
database, a community rating for the first content item;
transmitting, over a network via the computing device, the
community rating for the first content item and information
associated with a user interface to the client computing device,
said transmission causing the user interface to be displayed on a
display of the client computing device such that at least the
community rating for the first content item is displayed within
the user interface; and
without logging in by the client computing device:
obtaining a member ID from a membership data
structure on the client computing device;
retrieving, based on the member ID and content ID,
member rating information previously provided by a first
member of the community including a member rating, the
member rating information associated with the first
content item, and wherein the client computing device is
operated by the first member; and
transmitting the member rating for inclusion in the
content description.
Appeal Br. 29–30, Claims App. (emphasis added).
REJECTION
Claims 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 18, 39, 40, 41, 43–47, and 49 are rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Calabria (US 7,409,362 B2, issued
Aug. 5, 2008) and Nicholas et al. (US 2008/0126476 A1, published May 29,
2008) (“Nicholas”).
Claims 8, 42, and 48 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Calabria, Nicholas, and Hastings et al. (US 7,403,910 B1,
issued July 22, 2008) (“Hastings”).
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ANALYSIS
Independent Claim 1 and Dependent Claims 3, 5, 7, and 9
We are persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the Examiner erred in
rejecting independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 at least because neither
Calabria nor Nicholas, individually or in combination, discloses or suggests
“a syndication reference including a content ID associated with the first
content item,” as called for in claim 1 (Appeal Br. 11–16; see also Reply
Br. 6–15).
Calabria is directed to a system for providing “trusted” reviews to
consumers, and describes that the system is socially enabled such that it
considers each user’s social relationship relative to the author of each review
and also considers that relationship in presenting reviews to the user
(Calabria 2:48–56). Calabria describes that reviews can be written on
various different subjects, e.g., an online or offline merchant, a particular
service or product, an employer (id. at 3:3–12), and that after a review has
been written on, for example, a given merchant, a flexible syndication
system permits the review to be distributed to an unlimited number and
variety of different websites, devices, and other media (id. at 12:21–26). In
one embodiment of Calabria’s system, when a user visits a review-
provider’s website and requests reviews on a specific subject or other
criteria, reviews relevant to the user’s request are selected from a database,
and are presented to the user, sorted by a metric that includes “social
distance” (id. at 13:34–41). In another embodiment, a merchant may display
all of its reviews on the merchant’s own website (id. at 13:42–45).
In rejecting claim 1 under § 103, the Examiner equates the merchant’s
website to the recited “syndication reference” (Final Act. 5 (“[T]he
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merchant’s website corresponds to a syndication reference.”)). The
Examiner acknowledges that Calabria “does not specifically teach a content
ID using those specific terms per se” (id. at 8); but the Examiner ostensibly
takes the position that Calabria nonetheless discloses a “content ID,” as
called for in claim 1, citing Calabria’s disclosure of “user ID information”
and a “subject ID” (id. at 5–6).
We agree with Appellant that neither user ID information nor a
subject ID constitutes a “content ID,” as called for in claim 1 (Appeal
Br. 11–14). Rather than identifying content associated with a content item,
“user ID information” (as described at Calabria, column 9, lines 44–47, cited
by the Examiner) identifies the person in a transaction, i.e., “the person who
made the purchase and is, therefore, authorized to complete the reviews” (id.
at 12–13). And a “subject ID” is not for a specific content item, but instead
is for a specific subject (id. at 13–14) (explaining that a “content item is a
specific thing that includes content on a subject” but is not itself a subject).
Moreover, as Appellant observes, the Examiner “has not pointed out where
or how a ‘syndication reference’ is taught by Calabria to contain a content
ID” (id. at 14).
The Examiner alternatively relies on Nicholas as teaching a content
ID (Final Act. 8–9 (citing Nicholas ¶ 125 as disclosing “a recurring content
identifier”)). Yet, even if Nicholas discloses a content ID, we agree with
Appellant that there is nothing in the cited portion of Nicholas that discloses
or suggests that a content ID is included in a syndication reference, as
recited in claim 1 (Appeal Br. 15–16). Instead, as the Examiner
acknowledges (see Final Act. 9), Nicholas discloses that the recurring
content identifier is inserted in the published content.
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Responding to Appellant’s argument, the Examiner notes that claim 1
recites, in pertinent part, “said information containing a syndication
reference including a content identifier ID associated with the first content
item”; and the Examiner takes the position that the claim merely requires
that the “information” include a plurality of items — a syndication reference
and a content identifier ID, i.e., two distinct data (Ans. 5–6). We disagree.
In our view, a person of ordinary skill in the art would reasonably
understand, when the claim language (i.e., “a syndication reference
including a content identifier ID”) is read in light of the Specification, that
the content ID is part of the syndication reference (see, e.g., Spec. ¶ 74 (“In
addition to the syndication reference, additional information may need to be
provided with, or included as part of the syndication reference when the
content description is generated, such as a publisher ID and a content ID”);
¶ 86 (“In an embodiment, a general syndication reference is provided to
which may be added additional information, such as a content ID or a
publisher ID, at the time the response is generated by the media server
206.”); ¶ 108 (“For example, in an embodiment the media server operation
may be required to maintain a list of content IDs correlating the content
items with the community rating information and provide these content IDs
in syndication references.”)).
Further responding to Appellant’s argument, the Examiner opines that
[e]ven if the two [data items, i.e., the syndication reference and
the content ID,] were somehow combined or merged, this would
be an obvious variation of Calabria and Nicholas as both teach
references to content and provide mechanisms for rating of that
content by using various identifiers and URLs, etc.
(Ans. 6). But, the Examiner provides no explanation and/or technical
reasoning to support that position.
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The Examiner has not sufficiently established, on the present record,
that the combination of Calabria and Nicholas discloses or suggests “a
syndication reference including a content ID associated with the first content
item,” as called for in claim 1. Therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner’s
rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. For the same reasons, we also
do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 3, 5, 7, and 9.
Cf. In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (“dependent claims
are nonobvious if the independent claims from which they depend are
nonobvious”).
Independent Claims 18 and 44 and Dependent Claims 39, 40, 41, 43, 45–47,
and 49
Independent claims 18 and 44 include language substantially similar
to the language of independent claim 1, and stand rejected based on the same
rationale applied with respect to claim 1 (see Final Act. 4–9). Therefore, we
do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 of
independent claims 18 and 44, and claims 39, 40, 41, 43, 45–47, and 49,
which depend therefrom, for the same reasons set forth above with respect to
claim 1.
Dependent Claims 8, 42, and 48
Claims 8, 42, and 48 ultimately depend from independent claims 1,
18, and 44, respectively. The rejection of these dependent claims does not
cure the deficiency in the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1, 18,
and 44. Therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 8,
42, and 48 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 for the same reasons set forth above with
respect to the independent claims.
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CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 3, 5, 7,
9, 18, 39,
40, 41, 43–
47, 49
103 Calabria, Nicholas 1, 3, 5, 7, 9,
18, 39, 40,
41, 43–47,
49
8, 42, 48 103 Calabria, Nicholas,
Hastings
8, 42, 48
Overall
Outcome
1, 3, 5, 7–9,
18, 39–49

REVERSED