Ex Parte Albanese et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 15, 2014

10856704 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 15, 2014)

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.
10/856,704 05/28/2004 Michael J. Albanese VN-0402 9458
36088 7590 10/16/2014
KANG LIM
2491 San Ramon Valley Blvd., #1-229
San Ramon, CA 94583
EXAMINER
JOSEPH, TONYA S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3628
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/16/2014 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte MICHAEL J. ALBANESE and
RAFAEL A. GONZALEZ-CALONI
____________

Appeal 2012-003473
Application 10/856,7041
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before BIBHU R. MOHANTY, MICHAEL C. ASTORINO, and
BRADLEY B. BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judges.

BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1–3, 5–7, 9, 10, and 12–16. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

STATEMENT OF THE DECISION
We REVERSE.2

1 The real party in interest is Vendavo, Incorporated (Br. 3).
2 Our decision references Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“Br.,” filed June 28,
2011), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed Oct. 7, 2011).
Appeal 2012-003473
Application 10/856,704
2
THE CLAIMED INVENTION
The claimed invention relates to a system and method for displaying
price modeling data by allowing a user to make, filter, zoom, and roll up
selections and apply those selections to a desired price modeling data set
(Spec. ¶ 8). Claim 2, reproduced below, is representative of the subject
matter on appeal.
2. A method for suitably displaying price modeling data
comprising:
selecting at least one subset of the price modeling data,
wherein the price modeling data includes transactions;

filtering the at least one selected subset of the price
modeling data by filter criterion to generate a filter expression
object, wherein the filter criterion is input by a user and
includes Boolean logic and value comparator operands, and
wherein the filter criterion is organized by dimension and by
measure, and wherein the dimension is an attribute of a
transaction that has a non-numeric value of a known list of non-
numeric values, and the measure is an attribute of the
transaction which has a numeric value;

determining whether each transaction of the subset of the
price modeling data matches the filter expression object;

aggregating the at least one selected subset of the price
modeling data wherein the aggregation includes rolling up the
at least one selected subset of the price modeling data in
accordance with a user-selected criterion;

computing at least one pricing index based on an
extracted data set, wherein the at least pricing one index is
computed by dividing an index numerator by an index
denominator, and wherein the index numerator includes at least
one of a data entry and a calculated value for one transaction,
and wherein the index denominator is an average of the at least
one data entry and the calculated value for a user defined set of
the transactions; and
Appeal 2012-003473
Application 10/856,704
3

displaying at least one of the at least one selected subset
and the at least one aggregated subset of the price modeling
data according to the filter expression object.

THE REJECTIONS
Claims 1–3, 6, 7, 9, 12–14, and 16 are under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Lucas (US 6,075,530, iss. June 13, 2000) in view of
Iborra (US 2002/0062475 A1, pub. May 23, 2002) and further in view of
Hirayama (US 2001/0003814 A1, pub. June 14, 2001).
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable
over Lucas in view of Iborra and further in view of Hirayama, Atkins (US
6,151,031, iss. Nov. 21, 2000) and Menne (US 5,497,489, iss. Mar. 5, 1996).
Claim 10 is under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Lucas in view of Iborra and further in view Hirayama and Official Notice.
Claim 15 is under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Lucas in view of Iborra and further in view Hirayama and Official Notice (as
supported by Ostergard, US 2005/0004832 A1, pub. Jan. 6, 2005).

FINDINGS OF FACT
We have determined that the findings of fact in the Analysis section
below are supported at least by a preponderance of the evidence.3

3 See Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988)
(explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the
Patent Office).
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Application 10/856,704
4
ANALYSIS
Appellants argue that the cited prior art fails to disclose “price
modeling data, wherein the price modeling data includes transactions,” as
required in independent claims 1–3 (Br. 15–16).
In rejecting claims 1–3, the Examiner determined that the primary
reference Lucas does not teach “wherein the price modeling data includes
transactions” and relied upon Iborra for remedying this deficiency at
paragraphs 112, 120, 224, 275, 290–306 (Ans. 6, 13). The Examiner stated
that “Iborra uses actual expense report data transactions-(including the
pricing) and performs modeling[,]” concluding that “modeling price data is
not a new and unobvious concept.” Id. at 13.
We disagree. We have reviewed the cited paragraphs of Iborra and
agree with Appellants that Iborra fails to teach “price modeling data,
wherein the price modeling data includes transactions,” as required by
claims 1–3 because we do not find that employee expense data for creating a
conceptual model for a program to automatically manage expense reporting
by employees corresponds to price modeling transaction data (Br. 15). In
other words, we find that expense data provided by an employee such as
employee name, “trip cause,” “project to charge expenses to,” “total
advanced amount,” “total expenses,” or “balance,” etc. cannot reasonably be
interpreted as price modeling data including transactions, as called for in
independent claims 1–3 (Iborra, 292–297). Therefore, we do not sustain the
rejections of claims 1–3.
The remaining rejections based on Lucas, Iborra, and Hirayama in
combination with Atkins and Menne, Official Notice, and Official Notice as
supported by Ostergard, rely on the same erroneous finding regarding the
disclosure in Iborra. As such, we do not sustain the rejections under 35
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Application 10/856,704
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U.S.C. § 103(a) of: claim 5 as being unpatentable over Lucas in view of
Iborra and further in view of Hirayama, Atkins and Menne; claim 10 as
being unpatentable over Lucas in view of Iborra and further in view
Hirayama and Official Notice; and claim 15 as being unpatentable over
Lucas in view of Iborra and further in view Hirayama and Official Notice as
supported by Ostergard.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–
3, 5–7, 9, 10, and 12–16.
DECISION
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the decision of the Examiner to
reject claims 1–3, 5–7, 9, 10, and 12–16.

REVERSED

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