Ex Parte Antell

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 20, 2017

14492859 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 20, 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.
14/492,859 09/22/2014 BOB ANTETE 86291.1511 6720
7590
BAKER & HOSTETLER LLP
WASHINGTON SQUARE, SUITE 1100
1050 CONNECTICUT AVE. N.W.
WASHINGTON, DC 20036-5304
EXAMINER
RAHMAN, SM AZIZUR
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2458
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/24/2017 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):
eofficemonitor@bakerlaw.com
edervis @bakerlaw.com
patents @ bakerlaw. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte BOB ANTELL
Appeal 2017-005581
Application 14/492,8591
Technology Center 2400
Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., NORMAN H. BEAMER, and
ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8—11, and 13—15. We have jurisdiction over
the pending rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellant identifies Your View Ltd. as the real party in interest. (App. Br.
1.)
Appeal 2017-005581
Application 14/492,859
THE INVENTION
Appellant’s disclosed and claimed invention is directed to validating
votes sent responsive to events occurring in an interactive broadcast video.
(Spec. 11.) Claims 1 and 13—15 are independent.
Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject
matter on appeal:
1. A computer-implemented method of validating an
electronic vote, adapted to be executed as a set of instructions by
a processor, the method comprising:
receiving at a network element via a communication
network a received vote message comprising a sender identifier,
vote data and a timestamp;
determining from the timestamp that the received vote
message was received in a time window relating to an event,
wherein the start of the time window relating to the event is
defined by the time of broadcast of additional information
regarding the event;
accessing stored vote messages received at the network
element during a previous time window relating to the event and
stored at a data storage node, wherein the start of the previous
time window relating to the event is defined by the first time of
broadcast of the event;
validating the received vote message by matching the
sender identifier to a stored sender identifier in one of the stored
vote messages, marking only a complete, matched sequence of
vote messages for the sender identifier as validated;
storing the received vote message at the data storage node;
repeating the receiving, determining, accessing and
storing to obtain a plurality of validated sequences of vote
messages; and
generating statistics from the vote data in the plurality of
validated sequences of vote messages.
App. Br. 9 (Claims Appendix).
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Appeal 2017-005581
Application 14/492,859
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8—11, and 13—15 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Wald (US 2003/0094489 Al,
pub. May 22, 2003) and Hotto et al (US 2007/0241190 Al, pub. Oct. 18,
2007) (hereinafter “Hotto”). (Final Act. 3.)
ISSUE ON APPEAL
Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following
dispositive issue:2
Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Wald and
Hotto teaches or suggests the independent claim 1 limitation, “validating the
received vote message by matching the sender identifier to a stored sender
identifier in one of the stored vote messages, marking only a complete,
matched sequence of vote messages for the sender identifier as validated,”
and the commensurate limitations recited in independent claims 13—15.
(App. Br. 4-8.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s
arguments the Examiner erred. We disagree with Appellant’s arguments,
and we adopt as our own (1) the pertinent findings and reasons set forth by
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the positions of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed July 27, 2016) (herein, “App.
Br.”); the Reply Brief (filed Feb. 15, 2017) (herein, “Reply Br.”); the Final
Office Action (mailed Nov. 30, 2015) (herein, “Final Act.”); and the
Examiner’s Answer (mailed Dec. 15, 2016) (herein, “Ans.”) for the
respective details.
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Application 14/492,859
the Examiner in the Action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 2—9)
and (2) the corresponding findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in
the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief. (Ans.
2—5.) We concur with the applicable conclusions reached by the Examiner,
and emphasize the following.
In finding the combination of Wald and Hotto teaches or suggests the
claim limitations at issue, the Examiner relies on the disclosure in Hotto of
saving user input as voting data and authenticating each voter’s information
by comparing it to stored voter data comprising voter biometric information,
and generating a voting record identifier and considering the vote complete
after prioritizing votes to handle simultaneous requests. (Ans. 3^4; Hotto
1139, 63, 77—80, Fig. 4.) The Examiner also relies on the disclosure of
Wald of accessing stored vote messages received during a previous time
window. (Ans. 4; Wald H 62.)
Appellant argues that “Hotto does not address or solve the problem
that this invention addresses” (App. Br. 6) and more specifically argues
Examiner error because Hotto, “does not say anything about matching the
sender identifier to a stored sender identifier in a previously stored voter
message. This paragraph instead compares voter information with
previously stored voter, not vote, information.” (App. Br. 7, citing Hotto 1
39.) We are not persuaded of error. Here, the claimed “validating”
encompasses the combination of Hotto and Wald, when Hotto’s biometric
information is incorporated into Wald’s vote messages, and the resulting
incoming votes are validated under Hotto’s method to prioritize “multiple
simultaneous vote requests.” (Ans. 4.)
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Appeal 2017-005581
Application 14/492,859
Appellant additionally argues that “the Examiner’s reading of
paragraph [0039] of Hotto, which is crucial to the rejection, arises more
from hindsight knowledge of appellant’s invention than what Hotto actually
discloses.” (Reply Br. 4; see also App. Br. 7—8.) Appellant contends that
“apart from hindsight knowledge of appellant’s invention, a person of
ordinary skill in the art would not have seen a reason to ‘improve’ Wald and
would not have had a reason to look to Hotto to do so.” (Reply Br. 4.)
We are not persuaded by this argument. Here the Examiner finds the
following motivation to combine:
once the ballot selections are received from voters, the
authentication of the voters will be performed, a prioritization
will be performed if multiple simultaneous vote requests are
received and a sequence identifier will be assigned, and finally a
voting record identifier will be generated and the vote will be
considered to be complete.
(Ans. 4.) We conclude the Examiner’s articulated reasoning provides a
rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness. See
KSRInt’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). One of ordinary
skill in the art would understand that accounting for the timing of incoming
votes is an issue arising in voting systems such as Wald and Hotto (see, for
example Wald ^fl[ 34, 36; Hotto ]Hf 63), and is not hindsight motivation
derived from Appellant’s disclosure.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claim 1, as well as independent claims 13—15 not separately argued, and all
dependent claims not separately argued. See App. Br. 4—8.
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Application 14/492,859
DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8—11, and 13—15
is affirmed.
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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