Ex Parte Angel et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 18, 2016

13080632 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 18, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/080,632 04/05/2011
75158 7590 02/22/2016
Verint Systems, Inc,
Meunier Carlin & Curfman, LLC
999 Peachtree Street NE
Suite 1300
Atlanta, GA 30309
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Mark Angel
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.
10171-257US2 2205
EXAMINER
JASMIN, LYNDA C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3629
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/22/2016 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):
laaronson@mcciplaw.com
KCarroll@mcciplaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MARK ANGEL, ROB ARSENAULT,
KANNAN CHELLAPP A, MAX COPPERMAN,
KENDALL HERRICK, RANDALL MCREE, and
HECTOR TORRES
Appeal2014-004317 1
Application 13/080,632
Technology Center 3600
Before: MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, and
MICHAEL W. KIM, Administrative Patent Judges.
CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the
Examiner's final rejection of claims 1-13. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We reverse.
1 Appellants identify Kana Software, Inc. as the real party in interest.
(Appeal Br. 2.)
Appeal2014-004317
Application 13/080,632
Appellants' invention is directed to a graphical user interface
composition tool. (Spec. para. 22).
Claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A user interface workflow composition method comprising:
defining a form of different fields, at least one of the
fields in the form referencing a business object providing access
to data in an external data source that is different than at least
one other data source for a correspondingly different one of the
fields;
loading into a composition module executing in memory
by a processor of a computer from a data store coupled to the
computer, a set of references to both human steps of a
workflow, each of the human steps of the workflow referencing
a corresponding user interface, and also automated steps of a
workflow, each of the human steps and automated steps of the
workflow individually comprising contextual data;
generating a human step for the defined form and loading
the generated human step for the defined form into the
composition module;
visually placing individual graphical elements each
representative of a selected one of the human steps and
automated steps into a canvas rendered by the composition
module and also visually placing into the canvas an individual
graphical element representative of the generated human step
for the defined form;
defining transitions between different ones of the human
steps and automated steps represented by corresponding ones of
the graphical elements in the canvas by creating visual
connections between the different ones of the graphical
elements in the canvas, the human steps and automated steps
represented by the graphical elements in the canvas, and the
transitions defined therebetween setting forth a user interface
workflow; and,
generating computer readable instructions for the user
interface workflow.
2
Appeal2014-004317
Application 13/080,632
Appellants appeal the following rejections:
Claims 2, 6, and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, as indefinite.
Claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Hsu (US 5,581,691, iss. Dec. 3, 1996) and Ghoneimy
(US 2004/0078373 Al, pub. Apr. 22, 2004).
Claims 3, 7, and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Hsu,
Ghoneimy, and Hartman (US 2003/0195767 Al, pub. Oct. 16, 2003).
Claims 5, 8, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Hsu,
Ghoneimy, and Portnoy (US 7,644,351 Bl, iss. Jan. 5, 2010).
Claims 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, and 10 are provisionally rejected on the ground of
nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as unpatentable over claims
1-13 of co-pending Application No. 12/603,524 and Ghoneimy.
ANALYSIS
Indefiniteness
We are persuaded by Appellants' argument that claims 2, 6, and 10
are not indefinite, because the explanation of how each step is performed is
explained in the Specification, and because the Examiner improperly focuses
on "how" the invention works, rather than if the skilled artisan would
understand the scope of the claims. (Appeal Br. 7-11; Reply Br. 2--4.)
The rejection states the claims are "unclear" on how the claims
"implement workflow steps that are to be performed by humans" (claims 2
and 10), and how a data store stores "screens" (claim 6). (Final Act. 2-3.) .
We construe the claims to be addressing a way of creating the "visual
composition" of a user interface that displays information about a work
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Appeal2014-004317
Application 13/080,632
flow, including the steps involved in the work flow, and information about
each step and the interactions and dependencies between the steps, or a
"GUI builder" for a workflow management application. (See Spec. para.
22-23.)
Claims 2 and 10 "generate programmatic objects implementing the
user interface workflow," which is discussed in paragraph 8, where a
runtime version of the workflow user interface is created, which displays
both manual and automated steps in the workflow. (Id. at para. 10.)
Finally, claim 6 is clearly storing the visual representations of the
work flow, with which the user running the work flow program interacts, in
a database. (See id. at para. 31.)
We thus do not find these claims indefinite, because the ordinary
artisan would understand the scope of each claim. As a result, we do not
sustain the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph.
Obviousness
Each of independent claims 1, 6, and 9 recite language substantially
identical to "loading into a composition module executing in memory by a
processor of a computer from a data store coupled to the computer, a set of
references to both human steps of a workflow, each of the human steps of
the workflow referencing a corresponding user interface."
We are persuaded by Appellants' argument that Hsu does not disclose
the above claim language. (Appeal Br. 12-15; Reply Br. 4---6.)
We construe this language to refer to, for example, the lower part of
the display shown in Appellants' Figure 4C, shown below, at element 470,
which displays detail about "Human Step 2" when it is selected by the user
4
Appeal2014-004317
Application 13/080,632
(as shown by the shaded triangle pointing to that step in the upper part of the
display, within element 450).
40tl
I ! Context \/ ~ rlable Cond ~Hon
! Human S~ep '.2Var1 Boolean
! Human S~ep 2.Var2 Has
! Hum"1r. mep 2·.vs.rN isNo~Equa!
I
I
I
I
~470
Tnte
V&lue
Val"e
HLU'1'>~ StP.p 3
Aulom~.itf!-d St.i:1p 2
Av!omilted Stl!P 2
Appellants' Figure 4C, displaying Human Step 3 and Automated Step 2
together with Human Step 2.
In our view, Human Step 2 could be said to be "linked" to the
information that is displayed below in the screen, such that when the step is
selected, additional linked information is displayed, much as in a modem
hypertext web page.
Hsu discloses a "work flow management system and method for
executing and tracking the progress of long running work flows, and for
recovering from system failures during the execution of long running work
flows." (Col. 2, 1. 64 - col. 3, 1. 1.) Hsu discloses "a flow editor module 124
provides a graphic interface to facilitate the process of defining work flows."
(Col. 4, 11. 54--56). Hsu, however, does not disclose creating a user interface
for a user to interact with the work flow design on a computer, and makes no
further disclosure about the "editor module." Hsu thus creates and executes
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Appeal2014-004317
Application 13/080,632
a work flow, but does not disclose creating a user interface about that work
flow, as is claimed by Appellants. (See, e.g., col. 4, 11. 45--48 ("a flow
management system 120, consisting of a set of software modules, to control
the execution of work flows.").)
The Examiner, citing Hsu, column 16, lines 3-10, indicates the
"corresponding user interface" is an application program that "notifies the
human principal." (Final Act. 8; Answer 4--5.) At this cited section, Hsu
discloses that messages are sent to humans or "automated principal[ s ]," to
notify them and provide information necessary to perform a step. See Col.
16, 11. 3---63. One of ordinary skill would understand that Hsu' s notification-
message-sending program is not a "user interface," as claimed. To construe
a "user interface" in a graphical user interface design tool to encompass a
messaging system is an overly broad construction of the "user interface"
language.
Hsu thus does not disclose the disputed claim language. As a result,
we do not sustain the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of independent
claims 1, 6, and 9, nor of dependent claims 2, 4, 10, and 12 that are rejected
along with claims 1, 6, and 9. We also do not sustain the rejections of
dependent claims 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, and 13, separately rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a), but relying on the same portion of Hsu as disclosing the same
claim language.
DECISION
We reverse the rejection of claims 2, 6, and 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 112,
second paragraph.
We reverse the rejections of claims 1-13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
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Application 13/080,632
We do not reach the Examiner's provisional rejection of claims 1-13.
See Ex parte Moncla, 95 USPQ2d 1884 (BP AI 2010) (precedential).
REVERSED
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