Ex Parte Byrne et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 4, 2016

13553129 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 4, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/553, 129 07/19/2012
63675 7590 08/08/2016
PATTERSON & SHERIDAN, LLP/IBM SVL
24 Greenway Plaza
SUITE 1600
HOUSTON, TX 77046-2472
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Brian P. Byrne
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.
SVL920100079US2 6636
EXAMINER
PARK, GRACE A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2157
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/08/2016 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):
P AIR_eofficeaction@pattersonsheridan.com
PSDocketing@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
Appeal2015-003445
Application 13/553, 129
Technology Center 2100
Before: IRVINE. BRANCH, AMBER L. HAGY, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1
and 3-7. Claim 2 is canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Appeal2015-003445
Application 13/553, 129
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to managing information assets using
feedback re-enforced search and navigation. Spec. Abstract.
Claim 1, reproduced below (with the "argued limitations" italicized),
is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A computer-implemented method for presenting
relationships between a plurality of information assets managed
by an enterprise, the method comprising:
identifying, by an enterprise information asset
management application executed on a computing system having
at least a processor and a memory, a set of search results
responsive to a query requesting a subset of information assets
within the enterprise;
providing the set of search results;
receiving a selection of a first information asset presented
in the set of search results;
identifYing at least a second information asset presented
in the set of search results, wherein the first information asset
and the second information asset are related to one another by
an edge in a semantic graph that represents relationships
between the plurality of information assets, wherein the semantic
graph associates the plurality of information assets with nodes
of the semantic graph, and wherein the relationships between
nodes in the semantic graph are generated and updated by
monitoring user behavior in accessing the plurality of
information assets with the set of search results and wherein the
semantic graph is updated based on a domain ontology; and
providing an indication of the second information asset.
REJECTION
Claims 1 and 3-7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Prochazka (US 2010/0250526 Al; publ. Sept. 30, 2010),
Yi (US 2008/0004989 Al; publ. Jan. 3, 2008), and Najm (US 2011/0040776
Al; publ. Feb. 17, 2011). Final Act. 6-10.
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Appeal2015-003445
Application 13/553, 129
RELATED CASE
Appellants state that the instant application is related to US App. No.
13/036,834 (Appeal 2015-003143, Decided July 28, 2016). App. Br. 4.
ANALYSIS
Appellants argue error in the Examiner's rejection of claim 1 on the
basis of shortcomings in the teachings of Prochazka. App. Br. 7-11.
Appellants do not present separate arguments as to the rejection of the
remaining claims in the Appeal Brief. See, generally, id. 1 Accordingly,
whether the Examiner erred in the rejection of claim 1 is dispositive of this
appeal.
Appellants argue that Prochazka does not teach or suggest the argued
limitations and it "would not make sense" for Prochazka's "semantic search
engine" to perform the "receiving" step and the subsequent "identifying"
step thereafter. App. Br. 10-11; Reply Br. 5---6.
We are unpersuaded of error for the reasons stated by the Examiner
(Ans. 2-8), which Appellants do not persuasively rebut. See, generally,
Reply Br. 5-6.
The Examiner finds that "the user's interaction, usage, and walk of the
nodes in [Prochazka's] attention map entails selecting database items in the
search results to interact with, use, or walk to." Ans. 4--7 (citing Prochazka,
i-fi-195, 97, and 98). In reply, Appellants argue that
the "semantic search engine" of Proch[ a ]zka does not send an
"attention map" (itself a graph of products, categories, and
1 Appellants present additional arguments regarding claims 4 and 5 in the
Reply Brief. Reply Br. 6-7. We do not reach the merits of these arguments
because they are newly presented in Appellants' Reply Brief. See Carbino
v. West, 168 F.3d 32, 34--35 (Fed. Cir. 1999).
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Appeal2015-003445
Application 13/553, 129
relationships between products) in response to a search query to
a user and thereafter, ( 1) receive back a selection of a node from
the "attention map" and (2) identify "at least a second
information asset presented in the set of search results," as
claimed (or otherwise).
Reply Br. 5 (emphasis omitted). This argument does not, however,
persuasively rebut the Examiner's finding that "[e]ach time a database item
is selected, the database item is identified to the semantic engine as having
been selected by the user. In other words, a second database item is
identified in response to a first database item being selected by the user."
Ans. 8. We are unpersuaded of error for at least this reason.
Because this issue is dispositive, we sustain the rejection of all
pending claims.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1 and 3-7.2
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.
§ 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
2 Claims 1 and 3-7 also stand provisionally rejected for nonstatutory
obviousness-type double patenting, as unpatentable over claims 8 and 10-14
and claims 15 and 17-21 of co-pending Application No. 13/036,834. See
Final Act. 2-5. As no patent has issued from that co-pending Application,
and as Appellants present no arguments on this issue, we find that it would
be premature to address this provisional rejection. See In re Moncla, 95
USPQ2d 1884, 1885 (BP AI 2010) (precedential).
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