Ex Parte Ayzenshtat et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 23, 201813852283 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 23, 2018) Copy Citation 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. 13/852,283 03/28/2013 Mark Ayzenshtat 117224-01-5023-US 3182 24341 7590 01/25/2018 Morgan T .p.wis fo Rnrlcins T T P EXAMINER 1400 Page Mill Road Palo Alto, CA 94304-1124 BURKE, JEFF A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2159 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/25/2018 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): padocketingdepartment@morganlewis.com vskliba @ morganlewis. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte MARK AYZENSHTAT, JAKOB BIGNERT, PHIL LIBIN, PHIL CONSTANTINOU, and CONNIE CHAN Appeal 2017-008156 Application 13/852,283 Technology Center 2100 Before DENISE M. POTHIER, CARL L. SILVERMAN, and JOHN D. HAMANN, Administrative Patent Judges. POTHIER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, 4—16, and 18—28. App. Br. 2.2 Claims 3 and 17 have been canceled. App. Br. 14, 17 (Claims App’x). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 The real party in interest is listed as Evemote Corporation. App. Br. 2. 2 Throughout this opinion, we refer to (1) the Final Action (Final Act.) mailed August 8, 2016, (2) the Appeal Brief (App. Br.) filed January 10, 2017, and (3) the Examiner’s Answer (Ans.) mailed March 3, 2017. Appeal 2017-008156 Application 13/852,283 Invention Appellants’ invention relates to developing a method and computer-readable medium for identifying “related items in personal data collections that... are available through a whole spectrum of individual, enterprise, and public search.” See Spec. 3:15—18. For example, a user submits a search to a public search engine, and relevant items from personal and shared databases can be discovered using the search query. Id. at 5:21, 6:28—29. The search engine returns search results from the search as snippets and then processes the snippets to form an expanded query for the personal and shared content collections. Id. at 6:28—7:16. Claim 1 is reproduced below with emphasis: 1. A method of displaying relevant data subsets of at least one data collection, comprising: providing an input data subset; determining a plurality of partial relevance values for at least two different characteristics of each of the plurality of data subsets of the at least one data collection with respect to the input data subset according to a term frequency of terms in the input data subset and terms in each of the plurality of data subsets of the at least one data collection and according to an inverse document frequency of the terms; determining a relevance of each of the plurality of data subsets of the at least one data collection based on the partial relevance values of the at least two different characteristics using search results from a public search engine searching a public database that is different from the at least one data collection to form an extended query that is used to initially search the at least one data collection, wherein the search results from the public search engine are stripped of web links prior to being used to form the extended query; and displaying at least a portion of the data subsets of the at least one data collection in order of relevance. 2 Appeal 2017-008156 Application 13/852,283 The Examiner relies on the following as evidence of unpatentability: Rathod Richardson Yih US 2008/0235209 A1 Sept. 25, 2008 US 7,734,631 B2 June 8, 2010 US 2011/0219012 A1 Sept. 8,2011 US 8,041,694 B1 Oct. 18,2011 US 8,122,043 B2 Feb. 21,2012 US 8,255,819 B2 Aug. 28, 2012 Bayardo Buckley Chang Claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 14—16, 18, 19, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (pre-AIA) or § 103 as unpatentable over Rathod, Yih, and Richardson. Final Act 2—6. Claims 6—10 and 20-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (pre- AIA) or § 103 as unpatentable over Rathod, Yih, Richardson, and Chang. Final Act 6—8. Claims 11, 12, 25, and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (pre- AIA) or § 103 as unpatentable over Rathod, Yih, Richardson, and Bayardo. Final Act 8—9. Claims 13 and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (pre-AIA) or § 103 as unpatentable over Rathod, Yih, Richardson, and Buckley. Final Act 9-10.3 3 Although Appellants list only the rejections of claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 11, 12, 14—16, 18, 19, 25, 26, and 28 as those to be reviewed (App. Br. 6), we presume this appeal is taken from all the rejections of all claims. See id. at 2 (stating “claims 1, 2, 4-16, and 28-28 are on appeal”); see also 37 C.F.R. § 41.31(c) (stating “[a]n appeal, when taken, is presumed to be taken from the rejection of all claims under rejection unless cancelled by an amendment filed by the applicant and entered by the Office.”) 3 Appeal 2017-008156 Application 13/852,283 OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OVER RATHOD, YIH, AND RICHARDSON Regarding representative claim l,4 the Examiner finds Rathod, Yih, and Richardson teach its limitations, including “determining a relevance of each of the plurality of data subsets of the at least one data collection.” Specifically, the Examiner finds Rathod teaches determining the relevance of data collection’s data subsets based on the partial relevance values of different characteristics as recited by identifying the most important terms in an index. Final Act. 3 (citing Rathod, Fig. 2 (step 212)). The Examiner also finds that Rathod teaches using search results from a public search engine to form an extended query that is used to search the data collection initially, as recited. Final Act. 4 (citing Rathod, Fig. 2). The Examiner turns to Richardson, when combined with Rathod and Yih, to teach the recited features in claim 1 of using search results from a public search engine, having the public search engine differ from the data collection, and stripping web links from the search results. Final Act. 4—5 (citing Richardson 5:3—17, Fig. 1). Appellants argue Rathod, Yih, and Richardson do not teach or suggest the above “determining” step. Appellants assert Rathod and Yih do not disclose using the search results from a public search engine to form an extended query and Richardson does not cure this purported deficiency. App. Br. 9-10. 4 Claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 14—16, 18, 19, and 28 are argued as a group. App. Br. 8—12. We select independent claim 1 as representative. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). 4 Appeal 2017-008156 Application 13/852,283 ISSUE Under § 103, has the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 by finding that Rathod, Yih, and Richardson collectively would have taught or suggested: determining a relevance of each of the plurality of data subsets of the at least one data collection . . . using search results from a public search engine searching a public database that is different from the at least one data collection to form an extended query that is used to initially search the at least one data collection[?] ANALYSIS Based on the record before us, we find no error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. Notably, the rejection relies on both Rathod and Richardson to teach the above disputed phrase, including “using search results from a public search engine searching a public database ... to form an extended query that is used to initially search the at least one data collection.” Final Act. 4 (citing Rathod, Fig. 2 (steps 206—210)); see also Ans. 3^4 (citing Rathod 141, Fig. 2), 5 (stating “Rathod was cited to disclose the general capability of using a search engine to form an extended query and then using that extended query to re-search the search engine.”) As such, Appellants’ argument that the rejection relies on Richardson alone to teach or suggest this recited feature is unavailing. See App. Br. 9 (asserting the Office Action states Rathod and Yih do not disclose the above-noted, recited features). Turning to Rathod, the reference teaches forming a new set query by augmenting an original query (step 214 in Figure 2) and provides an example where the new set query (e.g., an expanded query) refines a search 5 Appeal 2017-008156 Application 13/852,283 engine search on the Internet. Rathod H 31, 37-41, Fig. 2 (step 214). Thus, Rathod teaches and suggests that the new query (e.g., an expanded query) is re-used in the Figure 2 process, including identifying the most important terms in the index (step 212). Rathod 20 (discussing extracting relevant information, expanding a query, and later forming a new query), 24, 30, Fig. 2. Moreover, Appellants do not dispute that Rathod’s step 212, which identifies the most important terms (see id.), teaches or suggests “determining a relevance of each of the plurality of data subsets of the at least one data collection,” as recited. Accordingly, Rathod teaches or suggests “determining a relevance of each of the plurality of data subsets of the at least one data collection . . . using search results from” a search engine. Although Rathod teaches at least one embodiment where the search engine searches a public database (see Rathod 138 (discussing the Internet)), the Examiner further turns to Richardson to teach this feature, as well as to teach the public database is different from the at least one data collection. Final Act. 4 (citing Richardson 5:3—17, 30-50); see also Ans. 4—5 (citing Richardson 4:52—55, 5:3—17, 14:56—67). These specific findings—those concerning the art recognizing known concepts of using search results from a public search engine that searches a public data database different from a data collection—are largely undisputed. See App. Br. 9—11 (summarizing Richardson and asserting the reference does not teach using search results from one of these databases to form an extended query to search one of these databases). Additionally, the Examiner adequately explains Richardson’s teachings and how Richardson is combined with Rathod to conclude the claimed limitations are obvious. See 6 Appeal 2017-008156 Application 13/852,283 Ans. 4—6 (explaining how Richardson’s teaching of searching a second database for information related to a first database’s information would be extended to Rathod’s search abilities); see also Final Act. 2—5. Appellants did not submit a Reply Brief to rebut these findings and conclusions. For the foregoing reasons, Appellants have not persuaded us of error in the rejection of independent claim 1 and claims 2, 4, 5, 14—16, 18, 19, and 28, which are not separately argued. OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OVER RATHOD, YIH, RICHARDSON, AND BAYARDO Representative claim 115 depends from claim 1 and further recites “[the] relevance is a weighted sum of the partial relevance values using weights of the at least two different characteristics.” App. Br. 15 (Claims App ’x). For this claim limitation, the rejection relies on Yih and Bayardo. Final Act. 3 (citing Yih 121, claim 16), 8 (citing Bayardo 17:20-40); see also Ans. 6—7 (discussing Yih 121, claim 16 and Bayardo 2:5—10, 17:20- 40). Appellants argue Bayardo does not teach a weighted sum of values but defines weight as a “maxweight,” and this weight does not relate to the recited weights in claim 11, but rather concerns sorting. App. Br. 12 (quoting Bayardo 9:58—606). We are not persuaded. First, Appellants do not address the rejection’s findings of the collective teachings of Yih and Bayardo related to using a weighted sum of values. See Ans. 6. Second, Appellants do not address the 5 Appellants argue claims 11, 12, 25, and 26 as a group. App. Br. 12—13. We select claim 11 as representative. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). 6 Although no citation was provided (App. Br. 12), we presume Appellants refer to column 9, lines 58—60 based on the quotation. 7 Appeal 2017-008156 Application 13/852,283 specifically cited finding related to Bayardo in column 17, choosing rather to focus on Bayardo’s column 9. See App. Br. 12. Third, the Examiner adequately explains how Bayardo’s column 17 demonstrates summing similarity scores between vectors (e.g., relevance values) and contrasts this teaching with Bayardo’s column 9 addressing “maxweight” related to the largest feature among vectors (e.g., how the vectors are ordered). See Ans. 6—7 (citing Bayardo 2:5—10, 9:58—63, 17:20-40). The Examiner also sufficiently explains how these references are combined, predictably yielding claim 11 ’s limitations. Final Act. 8. Accordingly, Appellants have not persuaded us of error in the rejection of claim 11 and claims 12, 25, and 26, which are not separately argued. THE REMAINING OBVIOUSNESS REJECTIONS As noted previously, the rejections of claims 6—10, 13, 20-24, and 27 are not discussed in the appeal brief. See, e.g., App. Br. 6. We presume the appeal is taken from the rejections of all claims under rejection. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.31(c). We therefore summarily sustain the remaining rejections. See Hyatt v. Dudas, 551 F.3d 1307, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (explaining that when appellant fails to contest a ground of rejection, the Board may affirm the rejection without considering its substantive merits); see also 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv); Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) § 1205.02, 9th ed., Rev. 07.2015 (Nov. 2015) (“If a ground of rejection stated by the examiner is not addressed in the appellant’s brief, appellant has waived any challenge to that ground of rejection and the Board may summarily sustain it.”). 8 Appeal 2017-008156 Application 13/852,283 DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 2, 4—16, and 18—28 under § 103. 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 9 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation