12353793 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 18, 2014)

Ex Parte Baran

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 18, 2014

12353793 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 18, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte DANIEL R. BARAN ____________________ Appeal 2012-010304 Application 12/353,793 Technology Center 2100 ____________________ Before STANLEY M. WEINBERG, DANIEL N. FISHMAN, and LINZY T. McCARTNEY, Administrative Patent Judges. McCARTNEY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 1–22. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. Appeal 2012-010304 Application 12/353,793 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant’s “invention relates to systems and methods for predictive recommendations.” (Spec. ¶ 1.) Claim 9 illustrates the claimed subject matter: 9. A computer-implemented method comprising: crawling, by a computing device, web sites for recent asset information; tagging the websites with recent asset information and storing the tagged recent asset information in a database that includes tagged existing asset information; identifying relationships between the recent asset information and the existing asset information; identifying a technical experience for a user by matching user data with the tagged asset information using a technical experience definition; and transmitting, by a computing device, the technical experience to the user. REJECTION Claims 1–22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by Gross (US 7,689,432 B2; filed June 7, 2004). ISSUE Does Gross disclose “identifying a technical experience” as recited in claim 9? ANALYSIS Appellant asserts the term “technical experience,” given its broadest reasonable interpretation in light of Appellant’s specification, “is identified to provide recommendations and content that have a high degree of probability of interest to the user.” (App. Br. 7–8 (citing Spec. 7:1–2).) Appeal 2012-010304 Application 12/353,793 3 Appellant argues that, under this construction, Gross does not disclose “identifying a technical experience” because Gross teaches “a system that allows an entity to pay to have certain items recommended before other items according to an entity defined policy.” (Id.) Even if we were to accept Appellant’s construction of “technical experience,” we would not agree Gross fails to disclose “identifying a technical experience.” Gross discloses “[r]ecommender systems are well- known . . . to provide specific ‘recommendations’ to users . . . of goods and/or services that are predicted to be of interest.” (Gross col. 1, ll. 21–25 (emphasis added).) As found by the Examiner, Gross discloses a number of polices that Gross’s invention uses to influence recommendations generated by a recommender system and “recommend[] items of interest to users.” (See Ans. 4–5, 6, 7–8 (citing Gross col. 2, ll. 30–35; Figs. 1, 2).) In particular, Gross teaches “[i]n a preferred approach the . . . policies are considered after a recommender system has generated an initial list of uninfluenced recommendations,” and the polices are generally used as “either a preference filter . . . against a list of recommendations items generated by the recommender system and/or a presentation preference for one or more items . . . [that] are part of the list of recommendation items.” (Gross col. 2, ll. 42–46, 56–58 (emphases added).) Because Gross teaches filtering or altering the presentation of a list of recommendations (and recommended items of interest) predicted to be of interest to a user, Gross’s invention discloses identifying “recommendations and content that have a high degree of probability of interest to the user.” Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 9. Because Appellant has not presented Appeal 2012-010304 Application 12/353,793 4 separate patentability arguments for claims 1–8 and 10–22, we also sustain the rejection of these claims.1 DECISION For the above reasons, we affirm the rejection of claims 1–22. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED lv 1 Should prosecution continue, the Examiner may want to consider whether the terms “technical experience” and “technical experience definition” render the claims indefinite under 35 U.S.C. § 112.