Ex Parte Allen et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 22, 2016

12111711 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 22, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/111,711 04/29/2008
63675 7590 09/26/2016
PATTERSON & SHERIDAN, LLP/IBM SVL
24 Greenway Plaza
SUITE 1600
HOUSTON, TX 77046-2472
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Thomas B. Allen
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
SVL920070157US 1 7864
EXAMINER
JASMIN, LYNDA C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3629
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/26/2016 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):
P AIR_eofficeaction@pattersonsheridan.com
PSDocketing@pattersonsheridan.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte THOMAS B. ALLEN and BARRY M. CACERES
Appeal2014-008304
Application 12/111,711 1
Technology Center 3600
Before HUBERT C. LORIN, BIBHU R. MOHANTY, and
BRADLEY B. BAY AT, Administrative Patent Judges.
LORIN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEivIENT OF THE CASE
Thomas B. Allen and Barry M. Caceres (Appellants) seek our review
under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner's Final rejection of claims 1-25,
which are all the claims pending and rejected in the application. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) (2002).
SUMMARY OF DECISION
We REVERSE.
1 The Appellants identify International Business Machines Corporation as
the real party in interest (App. Br. 3).
Appeal2014-008304
Application 12/111,711
THE INVENTION
Claim 1, reproduced below with bracketed matter added, is illustrative
of the subject matter on appeal.
1. A computer-implemented method for processing identity
records received by an entity resolution system:
[ 1] configuring one or more computer processors to perform
at least the following operations:
[2] receiving, from a database, a first identity record;
[3] associating the first identity record with a known first
entity of a set of known entities;
[ 4] evaluating, by operation of the one or more computer
processors, at least the first entity against one or more conditions
specified in a relevance detection rule; and
[5] upon determining that the one or more conditions
specified by the relevance detection rule are satisfied:
[ 6] generating a first alert,
[7] assigning an original alert relevance score to the first alert,
and assigning an entity relevance score to the first entity,
determined, at least in part, on the original alert relevance score
assigned to the alert and a current alert relevance score assigned
to any other alerts in which the first entity is involved;
[8] wherein the alert relevance scores provide a quantitative
measure of relevance for an occurrence of an event that satisfies
the one or more conditions of the relevance detection rule, and
wherein the entity relevance score provides a quantitative
measure of relevance regarding a perceived relevance of the first
entity.
App. Br. 18 (Claims Appendix).
2
Appeal2014-008304
Application 12/111,711
THE REJECTION2
The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of
unpatentability:
Tien
Domenikos
US 2007/0112607 Al
US 2008/0103800 Al
May 17, 2007
May 1, 2008
Claims 1-25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Domenikos and Tien.
ISSUE
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1-25 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Domenikos and Tien?
ANALYSIS
The independent claims are claims 1, 10, and 18. Claim 1 includes
the limitations "[ 6] generating a first alert" and "[7] assigning an original
alert relevance score to the first alert ... " Claims 10 and 18 include similar
limitations.
The Examiner finds the "first alert" of claim 1 in Domenikos and
finds the claimed "alert relevance score" in Tien in the score-based alerts of
paragraphs 1, 2, 46, 47, 61---64, 72-75, and 88, and in claims 10 and 13 of
Tien (Ans. 5-6).
The Appellants argue, inter alia, that the score-based alerts in Tien are
not themselves assigned a score and therefore do not meet the claim 1
limitation "assigning an original alert relevance score to the first alert" (App.
2 The rejection of claims 1-9 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 has been withdrawn
(Ans. 2).
3
Appeal2014-008304
Application 12/111,711
Br. 13-16; Reply Br. 3-5). According to the Appellants, "at no point is an
'alert relevance score' actually assigned to the alert itself' in Tien (App. Br.
15) (emphasis original).
We agree with the Appellants.
Claim 1 requires that the "alert relevance score" is assigned to "the
first alert," referring back to the alert generated in limitation [ 6], and
therefore the claim requires that the alert is assigned a score after it is
generated. We have reviewed the cited disclosure and we see no evidence
that the alerts in Tien are assigned scores after being generated disclosed in
Tien.
Tien discloses that alerts can have "custom alert settings" including a
condition and a threshold. These conditions and thresholds are used to
determine whether the alert will be issued or not issued (see, e.g., Tien, para.
88). We see no evidence in Tien that- once the conditions for an alert have
been determined to be satisfied - the alert may be assigned to any type of
score. In other words, Tien discloses that alerts are either issued or not on
the basis of score-based conditions and thresholds; once issued, no score is
assigned that distinguishes between alerts or signifies the relevance of a
particular alert relative to any other alerts that may be issued. For example,
we note that Figure 12 depicts decision step 1212 wherein it is determined
whether conditions for an alert are met. If the conditions are met, then the
process continues to step 1214 where an alert is issued, and then the process
ends. We do not see any disclosure in Tien indicating that alerts are
assigned to scores once issued.
Accordingly, the rejection is not sustained.
4
Appeal2014-008304
Application 12/111,711
CONCLUSION
The rejection of claims 1-25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Domenikos and Tien is not sustained.
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-25 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) is reversed.
REVERSED
5