Ex Parte Bennett

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 14, 2016

13659733 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 14, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
13/659,733 10/24/2012 James D. Bennett
34399 7590 07/28/2016
GARLICK & MARKISON
Melanie Murdock
P.O. BOX 160727
AUSTIN, TX 78716-0727
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.
ENNUS01C4 2844
EXAMINER
LEVITIAN, KARINA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2165
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/28/2016 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):
MMurdock@TEXASPATENTS.COM
ghmptocor@texaspatents.com
bpierotti@texaspatents.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JAMES D. BENNETT
Appeal2014-006366
Application 13/659,733 1
Technology Center 2100
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, NATHAN A. ENGELS, and
STACY B. MARGOLIES, Administrative Patent Judges.
MARGOLIES, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This appeal arises under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the rejection of
claims 1-9 and 11-30. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Enpulz, LLC. App. Br.
3.
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Application 13/659,733
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention is generally directed to tailoring Internet search results
by processing browser activity information, favorite lists, related metadata,
user profiles, and trends based on browser activity behavior and favorite
behavior. See Abstract.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal and is
reproduced below (with the disputed limitation emphasized):
1. A web search system comprising:
a communication interface supporting communication
exchanges with a plurality of browsers of corresponding plurality
of computing devices of a plurality of users;
storage that contains previous interaction data constructed
based on previous interactions by the plurality of users via the
plurality of browsers;
a web crawling infrastructure that gathers text data from a
plurality of web pages hosted on an Internet;
a processing infrastructure, including at least one
processing circuitry, that (i) supports a login process for the
plurality of users, (ii) identifies a plurality of groups of users
from the plurality of users, and (iii) receives a search request
from a first user of a first group of the plurality of group of users;
and
the processing infrastructure responds to the search
request by generating a tailored search results for the first user,
the generation of the tailored search results involving reference
by the processing infrastructure to particular portions of the
previous interaction data comprising trend data originatingfrom
the first group of the plurality of groups of users, the trend data
indicating web links having recent and high-volume interaction
with regard to the first group.
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Application 13/659,733
REFERENCES AND REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1-3 and 11 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable in view of Turnbull (US
2002/0103789 Al; published Aug. 1, 2002) and Borkovsky (US 7,398,271
B 1; issued July 8, 2008). Final Act. 3-8.
The Examiner rejected claims 4 and 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable in view of Turnbull, Borkovsky, and Morris (US
2009/0204599 Al; published Aug. 13, 2009). Final Act. 9-10.
The Examiner rejected claim 6 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable in view of Turnbull, Borkovsky, Morris, and Orme (US
2007/0255702 Al; published Nov. 1, 2007). Final Act. 10-11.
The Examiner rejected claims 13-16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable in view of Turnbull and Morris. Final Act. 11-13.
The Examiner rejected claims 18, 21-23, 25, and 27-29 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable in view of Turnbull, Borkovsky, and
Morris. Final Act. 13-22.
The Examiner rejected claims 7, 8, 24, and 30 under 35 U.S.C. §
103(a) as being unpatentable in view of Turnbull, Borkovsky, Morris, and
Ramer (US 2009/0234745 Al; published Sept. 17, 2009). Final Act. 22-23,
25-26.
The Examiner rejected claims 9 and 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable in view of Turnbull, Borkovsky, and Ramer. Final Act.
24--25, 26-27.
The Examiner rejected claim 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable in view of Turnbull, Borkovsky, and Lu (US 200710106659
Al; published May 10, 2007). Final Act. 27-28.
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Application 13/659,733
The Examiner rejected claims 19, 20, and 26 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable in view of Turnbull, Morris, Borkovsky, and Lu.
Final Act. 28-30.
ISSUES
The issues in this appeal are:
(i) whether the Examiner erred in finding that the combination of
Turnbull and Borkovsky teaches or suggests "the previous interaction data
comprising trend data originating from the first group of the plurality of
groups of users," as recited in independent claims 1 and 11;
(ii) whether the Examiner erred in finding that Turnbull teaches
"wherein the identification of the plurality of groups of users involves an
attempt to identify at least similarities between portions of at least two of the
plurality of user's profile information," as required by dependent claim 3;
(iii) whether the Examiner erred in concluding that dependent claim
9 is rendered obvious by Turnbull, Borkovsky, and Ramer; and
(iv) whether the Examiner erred in finding that the combination of
Turnbull, Borkovsky, and Morris teaches or suggests generating "search
results data for a first user of the plurality of users by considering those
portions of the trend data gathered from a first group of users of the plurality
of users," as recited in independent claims 18 and 25.
ANALYSIS
Obviousness rejection of independent claims 1 and 11
Appellant argues that the combination of Turnbull and Borkovsky
fails to teach or suggest trend data or tailoring search results using that trend
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Application 13/659,733
data. App. Br. 9-11. Specifically, Appellant argues that Borkovsky's
disclosure of network traffic logs does not teach or suggest the claimed trend
data. App. Br. 10-11. Appellant argues that one of ordinary skill in the art
would understand "trend" to refer to "the general movement over time of a
statistically detectable change," and that under either that definition or the
definition used by the Examiner-" a tendency or inclination"-Borkovsky' s
network traffic logs "do not include trend, or tendency, data." Id. at 11.
We are not persuaded that the Examiner erred. Claim 1 requires that
generation of tailored search results involve reference to particular portions
of "the previous interaction data comprising trend data originating from the
first group of the plurality of groups of users, the trend data indicating web
links having recent and high-volume interaction with regard to the first
group." Appellant's specification does not define "trend data" and describes
two examples of trend data: (i) websites recently added to a favorites list,
and (ii) websites with high visit volume. See, e.g., Spec. Figs. 7, 8, 10:4---6,
11: 16-19, 23:8-12, 25:22-23, 27:2-3. We agree with the Examiner that,
consistent with Appellant's specification, Turnbull teaches using trend data
of user and group activity to tailor search results and that Borkovsky bolsters
that teaching. Ans. 23-24. Specifically, we agree with the Examiner that
Turnbull teaches tailoring Internet search results based on user and user
group browser activity such as number and timing of web page visits and
that Borkovsky teaches tailoring search results based on the volume of web
page visits for a group of users. Ans. 23-24; Turnbull i-fi-122, 34, 41, 44, 71,
87, 93; Borkovsky Fig. 3, 5:31--48. Appellant fails to challenge the
Examiner's findings regarding Turnbull and fails to challenge the
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Examiner's findings that the combined teachings of Turnbull and Borkovsky
teach the disputed limitation. See App. Br. 9-11; Reply Br. 3-5.
We thus sustain the obviousness rejection of claims 1 and 11 and
claims 2, 4--8, and 13-17 which are not argued separately.
Obviousness rejection of dependent claim 3
Dependent claim 3 recites "wherein the identification of the plurality
of groups of users involves an attempt to identify at least similarities
between portions of at least two of the plurality of user's profile
information." Appellant argues that paragraphs 19 through 21 of Turnbull
do not disclose identification of a group of users and merely describe
grouping behaviors of a user. App. Br. 12.
We are not persuaded that the Examiner erred. The claim does not
require a particular way of identifying similarities, and Appellant's
specification single sentence describing this feature likewise does not limit
the claim. See Spec. 6: 13-16. We agree with the Examiner that Turnbull
teaches this limitation in that it teaches building a relevance model for a
community of users and using information stored about users in forming
groups of users. See Ans. 25; Turnbull i-fi-f 19, 21, 22, 41, 44. We therefore
sustain the obviousness rejection of claim 3.
Obviousness rejection of dependent claims 9 and 12
Dependent claim 9 requires restricting tailored search results "to
identification of only those of the plurality of web pages that have been
previously visited by at least one user from the first group of the plurality of
groups of users." Dependent claim 12 similarly recites that the tailoring of
search results involve "restricting the search results to those web pages
previously visited by at least one user of the first group of users." Appellant
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argues that setting unvisited search pages to a rank of zero is not found in the
cited references and that the Examiner does not provide any documentation
that the feature was known in the prior art. App. Br. 13-14. Appellant also
argues that Ramer' s disclosure of restricting delivery of search results based
on a web page's rank does not teach or suggest the claim limitation. Id. at
14, 15.
We are not persuaded that the Examiner erred. We agree with the
Examiner that Ramer's disclosure of a filter functionality that limits the
displayed content to only content with a specific rating teaches or suggests
to a skilled artisan the claimed feature of restricting search results to web
pages visited by at least one user. See Ans. 25; Ramer i-f 98. Turnbull also
teaches or suggests the feature in that it teaches a filter that limits search
results to web pages that have previously been seen. See Ans. 25; Turnbull i-f
69; see also Turnbull i-fi-141, 44 (relevance model based on group of users).
Appellant fails to persuasively challenge the Examiner's findings.
We thus sustain the obviousness rejection of claims 9 and 12.
Obviousness rejection of independent claims 18 and 25
Appellant raises a similar argument for claims 18 and 25 that it raises
for claims 1 and 11: that Morris's relevancy scores and Borkovsky's
frequency of access to website data are not the claimed trend data. App. Br.
15-16. As explained above in connection with claims 1 and 11, "trend data"
is a broad term that encompasses tracking of recent user browsing activity
and volume of web page requests. See, e.g., Spec. Figs. 7, 8, 10:4---6, 11: 16-
19, 23:8-12, 25:22-23, 27:2-3. We agree with the Examiner that the
combined teachings of Turnbull, Borkovsky, and Morris teach or suggest the
disputed trend data limitation of claims 18 and 25. See Ans. 22-24, 25;
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Final Act. 13-16, 18-20; Morris if 6 (teaching that a user's relevance score
affects a group's relevance score); Turnbull iii! 22, 34, 41, 44, 71, 87, 93;
Borkovsky Fig. 3, 5:31--48. We thus sustain the Examiner's obviousness
rejection of claims 18 and 25 and claims 19-24 and 26-30 which are not
argued separately.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-9 and 11-30.
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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