Ex Parte BlockDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJul 18, 201612244515 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 18, 2016) Copy Citation 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.) 2 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. 3 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. 4 Appeal2015-000502 Application 12/244,515 DECISION The Examiner's rejections of claims 1-5, 7-13, and 15-22 are reversed. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation