Ex Parte Block

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 18, 2016

12244515 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 18, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/244,515 10/02/2008
48500 7590 07/20/2016
SHERIDAN ROSS P.C.
1560 BROADWAY, SUITE 1200
DENVER, CO 80202
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Frederick P. Block
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.
4366YDT-278 2135
EXAMINER
NGUYEN, THU N
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2154
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/20/2016 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):
cjacquet@sheridanross.com
pair_Avaya@firsttofile.com
edocket@sheridanross.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte FREDERICK P. BLOCK
Appeal2015-000502
Application 12/244,515
Technology Center 2100
Before ERIC S. FRAHM, JOHN P. PINKERTON, and
NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) the Examiner's Final
Rejection of claims 1-5, 7-13, and 15-22. 1 Claims 6 and 14 are cancelled.
We have jurisdiction over the pending rejected claims under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b ).
We reverse.
1 Appellant identifies Avaya Inc. as the real party in interest. (App. Br. 2.)
Appeal2015-000502
Application 12/244,515
THE INVENTION
Appellant's disclosed and claimed invention is directed to correlating
SMS (Short Message Service) user responses with system requests or
queries. (Abstract) Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed
subject matter:
1. A message correlation system comprising:
a message manager and processor that determine whether
there are two or more outstanding queries to which a response
from a user to any of the outstanding queries that includes no
context would render the response uncorrelatable to one of the
outstanding queries; and
a keyword management module that correlates a keyword
associated with a response to an outstanding query, wherein
when there is a conflict where the keyword is used in at least
two of the two or more outstanding queries or the keyword is
not used in the two or more outstanding queries, a supplemental
query is sent to the user requesting clarification.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 3-5, 7, 9, 11-13, 15, 19, 20, and 22
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over McCue (US
2004/0022264 Al, pub. Feb. 5, 2004), and Karmakar (US 2007/0066327
Al, pub. Mar. 22, 2007). (Final Act. 3-8.)
The Examiner rejected claims 8 and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over McCue, Karmakar, and Cross et al. (US
2009/0125499 Al, pub. May 14, 2009). (Final Act. 9-10.)
The Examiner rejected claims 2, 10, 17-18, and 21under35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over McCue, Karmakar, and Wolf (US
7,619,584 B2, issued Nov. 17, 2009). (Final Act. 10-13.)
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Appeal2015-000502
Application 12/244,515
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 McCue and
Karmakar teaches or suggests the limitations of independent claims 1, 9, and
20. (App. Br. 8-10, 12.)
ANALYSIS
In finding McCue and Karmakar teach or suggest the limitations of
the independent claims, the Examiner relies on a description in McCue of
the problem resulting when more than one notification message is sent
before a reply is received, such that the context of the reply is indeterminate.
(Final Act. 4; McCue i-fi-f l 0, 11.) The Examiner further relies on the
disclosure in Karmakar of a clarification message automatically sent to a
recipient in response to the recipient's request for clarification of an original
message. (Final Act. 4; Karmakar i122, Fig. 1.)
Appellant argues that, while McCue states the problem addressed by
Appellant's invention, it does not teach or suggest the claim requirement of
"determin[ing] whether there are two or more outstanding queries to which a
response from a user ... would render the response uncorrelatable to one of
the outstanding queries." (App. Br. 8.) As elaborated by Appellant,
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the findings of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Apr. 14, 2014); the Reply
Brief (filed Sept. 29, 2014); the Final Office Action (mailed Aug. 22, 2013);
and the Examiner's Answer (mailed Sept. 10, 2014) for the respective
details.
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Appeal2015-000502
Application 12/244,515
"McCue does not know how many notifications are outstanding because it
does not determine if there are two or more outstanding queries that have no
context." (Id.) With respect to the additional claim limitation,
"correlate[ing] a keyword associated with a response to an outstanding
query," Appellant argues, "McCue does not track information (keywords or
lack of keywords) in the notifications." (App. Br. 9.) Furthermore,
Appellant argues McCue does not teach or suggest "sending a supplemental
query requesting clarification," as required by the claims. (Id.)
We are persuaded the Examiner errs. McCue' s recognition of the
same problem that is addressed by Appellant's Application is insufficient,
given McCue's substantially different solution to the problem: sending
messages through different channels, so as to maintain the context of replies
to those messages. (McCue i-f 19.) Nor does Karmakar provide additional
pertinent teaching - the clarification request in Karmakar is sent by the
recipient of the original message to the sender, whereas the claims require a
clarification request to be sent to the recipient by the original sender.
(Karmakar i-f 22.) Therefore, on the record before us, we are constrained to
find the Examiner errs in rejecting independent claims 1, 9, and 20.
CONCLUSIONS
For the reasons stated above, we do not sustain the obviousness
rejection of independent claims 1, 9, and 20 over McCue and Karmakar. We
also do not sustain the obviousness rejections of claims 3-5, 7, 11-13, 15,
19, and 22 over McCue and Karmakar, of claims 8 and 16 over McCue,
Karmakar, and Cross, and of claims 2, 10, 1 7-18, and 21 over McCue,
Karmakar, and Wolf, which claims depend from claims 1 or 9.
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Appeal2015-000502
Application 12/244,515
DECISION
The Examiner's rejections of claims 1-5, 7-13, and 15-22 are
reversed.
REVERSED
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