Ex Parte Alison et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 3, 2017

13277180 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 3, 2017)

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.
13/277,180 10/19/2011 Thomas Alison 26295-19701 1281
87851 7590 04/05/2017
Faoehnnk/Fen wi ok
EXAMINER
Silicon Valley Center MCCRAY, CLARENCE D
801 California Street
Mountain View, CA 94041 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2458
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/05/2017 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):
ptoc @ fenwick.com
fwfacebookpatents @ fenwick.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte THOMAS ALISON, KIRANJIT S. SIDHU,
CAROL CHIA-FAN PAI, PETER H. MARTINAZZI,
FLORIN RATIU, and JENNIFER BURGE
Appeal 2017-000282
Application 13/277,180
Technology Center 2400
Before KRISTEN L. DROESCH, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and
LINZY T. McCARTNEY, Administrative Patent Judges.
KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1—29. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
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Application 13/277,180
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The present patent application concerns “filtering and ranking
recommended users on a social networking system.” Spec. 11. Claim 1
illustrates the claimed subject matter (disputed limitations emphasized):
1. A method comprising:
maintaining a user profile for each of a plurality of users
of a social networking system;
maintaining a plurality of connections established
between users of the social networking system;
for a viewing user of the plurality of users, receiving a
request to recommend one or more other users with whom to
establish a connection in the social networking system from the
viewing user, the request comprising a user profile
characteristic for recommending the one or more other users',
responsive to the request,
determining a plurality of the users of the social
networking system with whom the viewing user has not already
established a connection; and
filtering the determined plurality of users to eliminate
users with profiles that do not match the user profile
characteristic, the filtering resulting in a plurality of candidate
recommended users;
ranking the candidate recommended users based on a
prediction that the viewing user will initiate a request to the
candidate recommended users',
selecting one or more of the candidate recommended
users based on the ranking; and
providing the selected candidate recommended users for
display to the viewing user in an interface enabling the viewing
user to establish a connection with the selected candidate
recommended users.
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Application 13/277,180
REJECTION1
Claims 1—29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Jagadish (US 2009/0271370 Al, Oct. 29, 2009) and
Pinckney (US 2010/0312724 Al, Dec. 9, 2010). Final Act. 4-19.
ISSUE
Appellants have presented several arguments as to why the
combination of the references does not teach or suggest the features recited
in independent claims 1,21, and 24, and dependent claims 5,11, 12, 17, 19,
20, and25.2
These contentions present us with the issue: did the Examiner err in
finding that the combination of Jagadish and Pinckney teaches or suggests
the features recited in representative claim 1?
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellants’
arguments, and we disagree with Appellants that the Examiner erred.
Further, we have reviewed the Examiner’s response to Appellants’
arguments. The Examiner explains how the combination of Jagadish and
Pinckney teaches the disputed features and rebuts the Appellants’
contentions (App. Br. 4—12) in the Response to Argument section of the
Answer (Ans. 2—6). We have reviewed this response and concur with the
Examiner’s findings and conclusions. To the extent consistent with the
analysis below, we adopt the Examiner’s reasoning, findings, and
1 Throughout this opinion we refer to the Final Office Action mailed on
June 1, 2015, and the Examiner’s Answer mailed on July 28, 2016.
2 Throughout this opinion we refer to the Appeal Brief dated January 4,
2016, and Reply Brief dated September 28, 2016.
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conclusions set forth in the appealed action and the Examiner’s Answer. We
have limited our review to the arguments raised by Appellants. Appellants
have waived arguments Appellants failed to raise or properly develop. See
37 C.F.R. §§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv), 41.41(b)(2).
In the Reply Brief, Appellants contend on pages 2 through 7:
(1) Jagadish’s use of profile information is limited to after
candidates have been identified.
(2) Jagadish’s system allows the user to search by batchmate, but
only in a way that is “independent of profile information” and, thus,
cannot be based on a “request comprising a user profile
characteristic.”
(3) Nowhere does Jagadish disclose or suggest that its ranking is
based on any “prediction that the viewing user will initiate a request”
to any of the candidate users.
(4) In Jagadish, the ordered/ranked list is displayed to the viewing
user without any selection “based on the ranking.”
(5) Neither Jagadish nor Pinckney discloses anything whatsoever
regarding hometowns in profiles and their proximity to each other as a
basis for ranking.
(6) Jagadish and Pinckney do not disclose or suggest “wherein the
user profile characteristic comprises a graph object defined by an
entity external to the social networking system” (claim 17). Jagadish
is relied upon for this element. As described in the specification, “the
social graph may be ‘open,’ enabling third-party developers to create
and use the custom graph objects and actions on external websites”
(Spec. 112).
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(7) Jagadish and Pinckney do not disclose or suggest the user
profile characteristic being “suggested” or “pre-populated” “by the
social networking system based on a characteristic of the user profile
of the viewing user.” In the Examiner’s Answer, the Examiner
discusses Jagadish using profile information to suggest contacts.
However, in both claims 19 and 20, the “user profile characteristic”
that is “suggested” or “pre-populated” by the system further limits the
characteristic initially used to define the request to recommend other
users to connect with, which is prior to any determination of users not
connected to the user or filtering out users without profile matches.
Regarding Appellants’ above contention 1, we disagree because claim
1 does not preclude the use of profile information after candidates have been
identified.
Regarding Appellants’ above contention 2, Jagadish explicitly
discloses using at least some profile information:
Thus, while identifying the candidates is independent of profile
information, subsequent ranking, or grouping of the results may
employ at least some profile information, if it is available.
Jagadish 127 (emphasis ours).
Regarding Appellants’ above contention 3, we agree with the
Examiner’s findings and concur with the conclusions reached by the
Examiner at Answer 3—4:
Ranking is provided by Jagadish in 125-27 the user utilizes
profile information of contacts to retrieve users that are
potential contacts. A diffusion based approach calculates the
energy or closeness of contacts and candidates are provided
based on contact having a higher energy or affinity to the user
over the entire social contact graph as form of predicting the
likelihood that users will connect. Further in 126 the energy of
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closeness of contacts is distributed over the social graph and is
proportional to a strength of relationship so that users are
identified/provided based on their interactions in order to
identify or group candidates in a potential candidate list. This
ranking provides a system that predicts and proposes users that
are likely to communicate based upon their interactions, their
closeness or a variety of ranking/ordering mechanisms. The
label of universities attended is used to display to the viewing
user as a potential candidate friend in order to predict potential
users based on a particular criteria that the user may engage
when selecting new friends. The identified candidates are
displayed within the list and employs using some profile
information for the user to select an initial set of the
recommend ranked friends such as those whom have graduated
with the user as potential connections based on at least one
ordering mechanism to provide a candidate friend, see at least
128. The user is able to identify a number of degrees of
separation in order to search each available contact list for
potential candidates based on a user request for a certain
threshold to be met before displaying the potential candidates to
communicate. These prediction provide a system that supports
ranking of users to display candidate friends that the user will
most likely communicate with or form a connection.
Ans. 3^4 (emphasis ours).
Regarding Appellants’ above contention 4, we agree with the
Examiner’s findings and concur with the conclusions reached by the
Examiner at Answer 4:
Jagadish discloses in | 74 a system that generates a list of
candidate friends to be displayed to the user and ranked based
on the variety of ranking or ordering mechanisms. This system
provides a list of candidate friends based on profile information
used to determine the list of candidate friends to be organized
or grouped for a user due to the selected filtering criteria.
Further in 175 the system orders and ranks results to provide a
list in the user's display with the corresponding order for the
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user to select which friends to request as a potential candidate
contact based on the ranked results.
Ans. 4 (emphasis ours).
Regarding Appellants’ above contention 5, the Examiner relies upon
the combination of Jagadish’s ranking system and Pinckney profile “based
on the user’s geographic location” (Pinckney 170) that meets the claimed
“hometowns in profiles and their proximity to each other as a basis for
ranking” limitation. See also Ans. 4.
As to Appellants’ above contention 6, that the social graph may be
“open,” for third-party developers, Jagadish discloses third party vendors
(Jagadish 171) and “variety of sources” (Jagadish 1 87).
As to Appellant’s above contention 7, the Examiner finds, and we
agree:
Jagadish discloses in 122 that the profile information is used to
suggest potential contacts. The profile information provides
information about the relationship of the user whether they are a
friend, family, alumnus, co-worker, buddy, etc. The profile
information is used to suggest the contact based on a profde
that matches the viewing user and then recommends the contact
to the user based on the similarity they may share such as
attending the same school. Since the users are similar in this
regard then the candidate user is recommended because they
have similar profile information of attending the same school or
working in the same enterprise. Then list of candidate friends
is recommended to the user dependent on the profile
information similarities and analysis.
Ans. 6 (emphasis ours).
Thus, we are not persuaded of Examiner error. Therefore, we sustain
the Examiner’s § 103 rejections of claims 1—29.
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DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—29.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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