Ex Parte Byrne et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 21, 201713037187 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 21, 2017) 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. 13/037,187 02/28/2011 Brian P. BYRNE SVL920100080US1 6386 63675 7590 11/24/2017 PATTERSON & SHERIDAN, LLP/IBM SVL 24 Greenway Plaza SUITE 1600 HOUSTON, TX 77046-2472 EXAMINER SHECHTMAN, CHERYL MARIA ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2157 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/24/2017 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): PAIR_eofficeaction@pattersonsheridan.com PS Docketing @ pattersonsheridan .com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte BRIAN P. BYRNE, MARTIN A. OBERHOFER, SUSHAIN PANDIT, and CHARLES D. WOLFSON Appeal 2017-002328 Application 13/037,1871 Technology Center 2600 Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, IRVIN E. BRANCH, and NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8—10, 13, 14, 16—18, 21, 22, 24, and 25. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 Appellants identify International Business Machines Corporation as the real party in interest. App. Br. 3. Appeal 2017-002328 Application 13/037,187 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Invention Appellants describe their invention as “directed to techniques for managing information assets in an enterprise environments. More specifically, embodiments of the invention provide an information asset management tool configured to capture and utilize crowd wisdom in order to identify and share relationships about information assets within the enterprise.” Spec. 11. Exemplary independent claim 1 is reproduced below. 1. A computer-implemented method for identifying information assets, the method comprising: monitoring users navigating query search results, each search result presenting a list of information assets responsive to a corresponding search query, wherein each information asset in the list corresponds to a computing resource available within an enterprise computing network; generating, by operation of one or more computer processors, a semantic graph representing relationships between the information assets, wherein nodes of the semantic graph each correspond to one of the information assets, wherein relationships between nodes are identified by monitoring users navigating from one of the information assets presented in the search results to another one of the information assets presented in the search results, and wherein the semantic graph includes metadata specifying an operational state of each information asset as being either a formally managed information asset within the enterprise computing network or an informally managed information asset within the enterprise computing network; periodically evaluating the semantic graph using predefined criteria; and upon determining at least a first one of the plurality of nodes in the semantic graph corresponds to an information asset which satisfies the predefined criteria and is one of the informally 2 Appeal 2017-002328 Application 13/037,187 managed information assets within the enterprise computing network, providing an indication of the first node as being an information asset which is a target for being a formally managed information asset within the enterprise computing network. References and Rejections 1. Claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8—10, 13, 14, 16—18, 21, 22, 24, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) as failing to comply with the written description requirement. Final Act. 3—5. 2. Claim 1, 2, 5, 6, 8—10, 13, 14, 16—18, 21, 22, 24, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Jing (Us 2012/0124034 Al, published May 17, 2012), Puzicha (US 7,657,522 Bl, issued Feb. 2, 2010), and Acharya (US 2012/0005199 Al, published Jan. 5, 2012). Final Act. 5—13. ANALYSIS Rejection Under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) The Examiner rejects the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) as failing to comply with the written description requirement. Final Act. 3. The Examiner finds “the specification fails to describe a definition or explanation as to the meaning of the concepts of ‘formally managed’ and ‘informally managed’ information assets.” Final Act. 3. Appellants point to paragraphs 2, 19, and 59 of the Specification as supporting “a characterization of information assets within an enterprise as being ‘formally managed’ by the enterprise or ‘informally managed’ by the enterprise.” App. Br. 12. We are persuaded by Appellants’ arguments. The written description requirement is satisfied where the disclosure “reasonably conveys to those 3 Appeal 2017-002328 Application 13/037,187 skilled in the art that the inventor had possession of the claimed subject matter as of the filing date.” Ariad Pharm., Inc. v. Eli Lilly & Co., 598 F.3d 1336, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (enbanc). Here, we find the Specification provides a description of information assets that are “formally managed” and “informally managed.” For example, the Specification describes that “[t]he degree of formality with which these systems are monitored, registered and managed can vary extensively within a large enterprise.” Spec. 12. The Specification further describes that “in large organizations, managing information assets is a significant problem; in particular, where some informally managed assets or ad-hoc systems become widely used. . . . [T]he relative weights of the links to such an [informally managed] asset may be used to identify informal systems within the enterprise that are targets to bring within the enterprises’ formal information management structures.” Spec. 119. The Specification also explains that “[b]y evaluating the information assets that form such ‘hubs’ within the semantic graph, an enterprise can identify assets that should be formally administered and managed or given priority when allocating resources.” Spec. 1 59. We find these descriptions would reasonably convey to one of skill in the art that Appellants had possession of an invention involving “formally managed” and “informally managed” information assets at the time of the filing date of the Application. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a). 4 Appeal 2017-002328 Application 13/037,187 Rejection Under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) Claim 1 Appellants ’ Arguments Regarding Jing Appellants argue “Jing does not disclose, or even suggest, the claimed ‘semantic graph’ which represents relationships between information assets (i.e., computing resources within an enterprise computing network) which include metadata indicating which information assets are formally managed by the enterprise and which assets are informally managed.” App. Br. 18. Specifically, Appellants argue Jing describes returning resources in response to a search query, the resources including web pages, word processing documents, PDF documents, images, videos, etc. Id. Appellants explain that such resources are not “information assets” because they “do not have ‘metadata specifying an operational state of each information asset as being either a formally managed information asset... or an informally managed information asset.App. Br. 18—19. We are unpersuaded by Appellants’ arguments. First, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that Jing teaches a semantic graph with nodes representing information assets and depicting relationships between those nodes based on users navigating from one information asset to another. Final Act. 6 (citing Jing H 41, 80—84, 121, Fig. 1). For example, Jing teaches a “weighted graph” with “nodes . . . that represent the reference image and the co-selected images.” Jing | 80. Jing further teaches “increment[ing] edge weights between nodes representing subsequently selected nodes based on the selection data.” Jing | 80. We find that Jing’s images are an “information asset” as claimed and described in the Specification. See Spec. 117 (“As used herein, ‘information assets’ broadly 5 Appeal 2017-002328 Application 13/037,187 refers to any form of information technology used by a given enterprise Second, we agree with the Examiner that by creating and incrementing edge weights between two nodes based on selection of two information assets represented by those two nodes, Jing’s graph represents relationships between the information assets as claimed. Appellants fail to address the totality of the Examiner’s findings and erroneously attack Jing individually by arguing that Jing does not disclose “metadata specifying an operational state of each information asset as being either a formally managed information asset... or an informally managed information asset.” The Examiner relies upon the combination of Acharya with Jing and Puzicha, as teaching or suggesting the metadata limitation, not Jing alone. See Final Act. 7—10. Appellants ’ Arguments Regarding Puzicha The Examiner finds Puzicha teaches “search results corresponding to computing resources available within an enterprise computing network.” Final Act. 8. Appellants argue: While the system of Puzicha teaches that objects may be assigned a relevance measure for certain topics, it plainly does not disclose anything about metadata which specifies “an operational state of each information asset as being either a formally managed information asset within the enterprise computing network or an informally managed information asset within the enterprise computing network, as claimed. App. Br. 20; see also Reply Br. 4. We are unpersuaded by Appellants’ argument against Puzicha for the same reason discussed above with respect to Jing, namely Appellants attack 6 Appeal 2017-002328 Application 13/037,187 Puzicha individually and fail to address the Examiner’s findings as a whole. As explained above, the Examiner relies upon the combination of references, including Acharya, as teaching or suggesting the metadata limitation, not Puzicha alone. See Final Act. 7—10. Instead Puzicha is relied upon to teach information assets in the context of an enterprise, which can be used to modify Jing and Acharya to apply to the enterprise context. Appellants ’ Arguments Regarding Acharya The Examiner finds Jing teaches a semantic graph that includes metadata. Final Act. 7 (finding Jing’s topic score label as metadata included in Jing’s weighted graph). The Examiner further finds that Acharya, in combination with Jing, teaches that this metadata can “specify[] an operational state of each information asset as being either a formally managed information asset, or an informally managed information asset; and upon determining that at least one node is one of the informally managed information assets, providing an indication of the node as being an information asset which is a target for being a formally managed information asset.” Final Act. 9. Specifically, the Examiner finds Acharya teaches continually evaluating documents and scoring them to indicate whether the documents are “fresh” or “stale” based on either an upward or downward trend, respectively, in the rate at which new links are created to those documents. Final Act. 9. The Examiner finds that a “fresh” document teaches or suggests a formally managed information asset, and a “stale” document teaches or suggests an informally managed information asset because a fresh document, like a formally managed document, is deemed to be important. Final Act. 9; Ans. 17—18. 7 Appeal 2017-002328 Application 13/037,187 Appellants argue: Put simply, a document being “fresh” because increasing numbers pages are linking to it in no way teaches “metadata specifying an operational state of [[an]] information asset as being ... a formally managed information asset.” Instead, it indicates whether the number of external webpages linking to the document online is increasing. Conversely, a document being “stale” because decreasing numbers pages are linking to it in no way teaches “metadata specifying an operational state of [[an]] information asset as being ... an informally managed information asset.” App. Br. 21 (ellipses and brackets in original); see also Reply Br. 5. Appellants’ arguments are unpersuasive. We agree with the Examiner that, under a broad but reasonable interpretation, Acharya’s “fresh” and “stale” categorizations are “operational state[s]” of the documents. Further we agree with the Examiner that by indicating that a document is “fresh,” Acharya indicates that an information asset is more desirable or important than other information assets, and therefore, together with the teaching of metadata included in Jing’s weighted graph and Puzicha’s computing resources in an enterprise computing network, would suggest to one of skill in the art that the information asset should be formally managed. See Ans. 17—18. Appellants’ Specification supports the Examiner’s finding by describing the identification and targeting of assets for formal management as essentially equivalent to the identification of assets as being deemed important through the use of the semantic graph. For example, the Specification states “nodes in the semantic graph having a relatively large number of relationships to other nodes may be readily identified as relatively ‘important’ .... By evaluating the information assets that form such ‘hubs’ 8 Appeal 2017-002328 Application 13/037,187 within the semantic graph, an enterprise can identify assets that should be formally administered and managed . . . Spec. 1 59. Appellants further argue: nothing in Acharya suggests taking a document with history data indicating it is stale (decreasing a score for that document) and recommending that document as “a target for being a formally managed information asset within the enterprise computing network,” as claimed. That is, documents with history data indicating that they are “stale” are not recommended as targets to be updated, changed, or modified at all. App. Br. 21—22; see also Reply Br. 5. We disagree. As the Examiner explains, Acharya teaches adjusting the score of the documents to account for upward trends (freshness) or downward trends (staleness). Ans. 18 (citing Acharya Tflf 65—66). Thus, a document that is currently deemed stale in Acharya, but that has an upward trend in the number of links to that document, would be a “target” to have the state of that document be changed from stale to fresh. Conclusion For the foregoing reasons, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1. Similarly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 9 and 17, which were argued together with claim 1 as a group. See App. Br. 16—17, 21—22. Finally, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 2, 6, 8, 10, 14, 16, 18, 22, 24, and 25 for which Appellants do not present arguments for separate patentability. 9 Appeal 2017-002328 Application 13/037,187 Claim 5 Claim 5 depends from claim 1 and recites “wherein the plurality of information assets include at least one of a database system, a web service and a server application.” The Examiner finds that Acharya discloses web pages that are implemented by servers and as such discloses server applications. Final Act. 11 (citing Acharya 23, 27); Ans. 18—19. Appellants argue “[t]he passages cited from Acharya do not refer to the ‘documents’ which can be ranked, at least in part, based on measures of ‘staleness’ or ‘freshness.’” App. Br. 23. Appellants further argue “Applicant submits that none of the search engine, server, or crawling application in Acharya discloses an ‘information asset’ which ‘corresponds to a computing resource available within an enterprise computing network,’ whether as ‘a database system,’ ‘a web service’ or ‘a server application,’ and used to build a semantic graph, as recited by claim 5.” App. Br. 23. We are unpersuaded by Appellants’ argument. First, we disagree that the documents referred to in cited paragraph 23 do not refer to the ‘documents’ which can be ranked based on staleness or freshness. Paragraph 23 of Acharya broadly defines the term “document,” and paragraphs 63—67 disclose that these documents are indeed ranked and scored based on staleness and freshness. Second, we note that web sites are included within the scope of the term “document” as defined in Acharya. Acharya 123. We find that web sites provided by the disclosed servers of Acharya would be considered a “web service” or a “server application” as claimed. Appellants do not provide intrinsic or extrinsic evidence rebutting the Examiner’s findings or supporting an interpretation of the claim terms 10 Appeal 2017-002328 Application 13/037,187 “web service” or “server application” excluding web sites provided by a the disclosed servers of Acharya. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 5. We also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 13 and 21 which were argued together with claim 5. See App. Br. 22—23. DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8—10, 13, 14, 16—18, 21, 22, 24, and 25 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) is reversed. The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8—10, 13, 14, 16—18, 21, 22, 24, and 25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is affirmed. Because we affirm at least one of the Examiner’s rejections with respect to each claim, we affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8-10, 13, 14, 16-18, 21, 22, 24, and 25. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED 11 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation