Ex Parte Avner et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 13, 2016

13237538 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 13, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
13/237,538 09/20/2011 Amit Avner
122066 7590 09/15/2016
M&B IP Analysts, LLC
500 Headquarters Plaza
Morristown, NJ 07960-7070
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.
TYKYP0028 5435
EXAMINER
HWA, SHYUE JIUNN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2155
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/15/2016 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):
pair@mb-ip.com
eofficeaction@appcoll.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte AMIT AVNER, OMER DROR, and ITAY BIRNBOIM
Appeal2014-007341
Application 13/237,538
Technology Center 2100
Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., JON M. JURGOV AN, and
ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
WHITEHEAD JR., Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants are appealing the Final Rejection of claims 1-21 under 3 5
U.S.C. § 134(a). Appeal Brief 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b) (2012).
We affirm-in-part.
Introduction
The invention is directed to "the generation of taxonomies based on
information available on the Internet, and more specifically to the generation
of taxonomies with respect to a plurality of terms, particularly social terms,
and respective sentiments thereto, and generating real-time notifications
responsive to trends." Specification i-f 2.
Appeal2014-007341
Application 13/237,538
Representative Claim (disputed limitations emphasized)
1. A system for real-time monitoring of changes in a
sentiment respective of an input non-sentiment phrase,
compnsmg:
a data warehouse storage for storing a plurality of phrases
including sentiment phrases and non-sentiment phrases and a
plurality of term taxonomies, wherein each of the stored term
taxonomies is an association of a non-sentiment phrase with a
sentiment phrase, wherein at least one of the stored term
taxonomies includes the input non-sentiment phrase;
an analysis unit for at least computing sentiment trends for
the at least one term taxonomy including the input non-sentiment
phrase;
an interface for receiving the input non-sentiment phrase
and at least one tendency parameter respective of the input non-
sentiment phrase;
a monitor for querying the analysis unit to compute a
sentiment trend for the at least one term taxonomy, the monitor
is further configured to determine in real-time changes in a
direction of the computed sentiment trend of the at least one term
taxonomy with respect to the at least one input tendency
parameter; and
an output unn ror generating at least a notification
responsive of determination that the change in the direction of
the computed sentiment trend with respect to the at least one
input tendency parameter has occurred, wherein the at least one
notification is generated in real time as the change in the
direction of the sentiment trend has occurred.
Rejections on Appeal
Claims 1-21 stand provisionally rejected under the judicially created
doctrine of double patenting over claims 1-24 of copending U.S. Patent
Application Number 13/050,515 and claims 1-29 of copending U.S. Patent
Application Number 13/214,588. Final Rejection 6.
Claims 1-21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Huang (US Patent Application Publication Number
2
Appeal2014-007341
Application 13/237,538
2008/0249764 Al; published October 9, 2008) and Sommer (US Patent
Application Publication Number 2010/0262454 Al; published October 14,
2010). Final Rejection 7-17.
ANALYSIS
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner,
we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed November 15, 2013), the Reply Brief
(filed June 19, 2014), the Answer (mailed April 23, 2014) and the Final
Rejection (mailed May 17, 2013) for the respective details. We have
considered in this decision only those arguments Appellants actually raised
in the Briefs.
Double Patenting Rejection
The Examiner fails to specify why the claims of the instant
application are rejected over the claims of the noted copending applications;
however, we affirm the Examiner's rejection because Appellants elected to
"defer any further action and substantive reply" regarding the double
patenting rejection. 1 See Appeal Brief 16; see also Final Action 6.
Obviousness Rejection
Appellants argue:
A key difference between the cited art and the claimed
features is that while the cited art apparently teaches some aspect
of real-time monitoring of changes in a sentiment, it fails to teach
1 See Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 107 5 (BP AI 2010) (precedential) ("If
an appellant fails to present arguments on a particular issue - or, more
broadly, on a particular rejection-the Board will not, as a general matter,
unilaterally review those uncontested aspects of the rejection. See, e.g.,
Hyatt v. Dudas, 551F.3d1307, 1313-14 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (the Board may
treat arguments appellant failed to make for a given ground of rejection as
waived)").
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Appeal2014-007341
Application 13/237,538
or reasonably suggest the real-time monitoring of changes in a
sentiment respective of an input non-sentiment phrase. In
other words, the prior art fails to bridge or connect the concept
of sentiment phrases and non-sentiment phrases. It therefore
follows that the cited and applied art cannot and does not teach
the creation of a taxonomy by association of a non-sentiment
phrase with a sentiment phrase, as claimed by the Appellants.
Appeal Brief 8.
The Examiner finds that Huang (Abstract) discloses "an analysis unit
for at least computing sentiment trends for the at least one term taxonomy
including the input non-sentiment phrase" as recited in claim 1. Final
Rejection 8-9. The Examiner further finds that Huang discloses complex
features including opinion indicators, negation patterns, sentiment-specific
sections of product reviews, user rating, sequence of text chunks and
sentence types and lengths. Answer 9-10 (citing Huang Abstract).
However, the Examiner fails to correlate Huang's disclosure of enhanced
sentiment classification with Appellants' claimed taxonomies where
taxonomy is an association of a non-sentiment phrase with a sentiment
phase. Sommer fails to address Huang's deficiency. See Final Rejection 11.
We find Appellants' argument persuasive. We reverse the Examiner's
obviousness rejection of independent claim 1, as well as, independent claim
11 commensurate in scope. We also reverse the Examiner's obviousness
rejection of dependent claims 2-10 and 12-21.
DECISION
The Examiner's double patenting rejection of claims 1-21 is affirmed.
The Examiner's obviousness rejection of claims 1-21 is reversed.
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Appeal2014-007341
Application 13/237,538
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). See 37
C.F.R. § 41.50(±).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
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