Ex Parte Caskey et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 14, 2017

13544941 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 14, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
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Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/544,941 07/09/2012 Sasha P. Caskey 0464-029/YOR920120290US1 9923
55459 7590 02/16/2017
PATENT PORTFOLIO BUILDERS, PLLC
P.O. BOX 7999
Fredericksburg, VA 22404
EXAMINER
ORTIZ SANCHEZ, MICHAEL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2658
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/16/2017 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):
Mailroom @ PPBLAW. com
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PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SASHA P. CASKEY, DIMITRY KANEVSKY,
JAMES R. KOZLOSKI, and TARA N. SAINATH
Appeal 2016-002836
Application 13/544,9411
Technology Center 2600
Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, and
JOHN R. KENNY, Administrative Patent Judges.
HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1, 3, 4, 7—10, 13—15, 17—24, and 26—
31, which constitute all of the claims pending in this appeal. Claims App’x.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as International Business
Machines, Corp. Br. 2.
Appeal 2016-002836
Application 13/544,941
Appellants ’ Invention
Appellants invented a method and apparatus utilizing an N-gram
language model for automatically effectuating correction to a text string
input by a user in an electronic interface device. Spec. Tflf 4—5. In particular,
upon receiving the input text string containing N words, the electronic
device generates a preceding text string of N-l words, which is inserted
before the input text string. The electronic device then generates a
subsequent text string of N-l words, which is appended to the input text
string. Id.
Illustrative Claim
Independent claim 1 is illustrative, and reads as follows:
1. A method for text auto-correction, the method comprising:
receiving an input text string on an electronic text input
interface device, the input text string comprising N words and a
categorical topic;
generating a subsequent text string comprising a plurality of N-
1 subsequent words forming a subsequent phrase within the
categorical topic by determining probabilities that the N-1
subsequent words follow the N words in the input test string;
generating a preceding text string comprising a plurality of N-l
preceding words forming a preceding phrase for the input text
string within the categorical topic by determining probabilities
that the N-l preceding words following precede the N words in
the input test string;
creating a corrected text string by inserting the preceding phrase
before the input text string and appending the subsequent
phrase after the input text string; and
displaying the corrected text string on the electronic text input
interface device.
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Appeal 2016-002836
Application 13/544,941
Rejections on Appeal2
Claims 1, 3, 4, 9, 10, 13—15, 17—19, 21—24, and 26—31 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (pre-AIA) as being unpatentable over the
combination of Longe et al. (US 2006/0274051 Al, published Dec. 7, 2006),
Furuuchi et al. (US 2008/0195571 Al, published Aug. 14, 2008), Keim et al.
(US 2010/0285435 Al, published Nov. 11, 2010). Final Rej. 7-26.
Claims 7, 8, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (pre-AIA)
as being unpatentable over the combination of Longe, Furuuki, Keim, and
Gikandi (US 2006/0256139 Al published Nov. 16, 2006). Final Rej. 26—29.
ANALYSIS
Regarding the rejection of claim 1, Appellants argue the proposed
combination of Longe, Furuuchi, and Keim does not teach or suggest
generating a preceding text string and a subsequent text string, each
containing N-l words. App. Br. 8—9, Reply Br. 4. In particular, Appellants
argue that although Furuuki discloses generating a subsequent phrase
containing a plurality of words, which is appended to an input text string,
Furruki does not indicate that the generated subsequent text string contains
N-l words, as required by the claim. App. Br. 9. This argument is
persuasive.
At the outset, we note claim 1 recites in relevant-part “generating a
subsequent text string comprising a plurality of N-l subsequent words”, and
2 The non-statutory provisional double patenting rejection previously entered
against claims 1, 5, 6 over claims 1,3, and 4 of co-pending application
(13/560,319) is moot because the cited co-pending application has been
abandoned. App. Br. 5.
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Appeal 2016-002836
Application 13/544,941
“generating a preceding text string comprising a plurality of N-l preceding
words”. Therefore, the claim does require that the subsequent text string and
the preceding text string contain each a plurality of N-l words.
The Examiner finds Longe discloses generating a prefix, which precedes
a word stem, and generating a suffix, which is appended to the word stem.
Ans. 26 (citing Longe 1150). Further, the Examiner finds Longe also
discloses that the notion of generating a prefix, and suffix for a word stem
can be extended to phrases. Id. at 3 (citing Longe 1255). Additionally, the
Examiner finds Furuuki discloses “N number of preceding words that the
prediction algorithm uses to predict a candidate by using the N+l word.” Id.
at 27 (citing Furuuki || 16, 27). According to the Examiner, the claim
limitation of N-l is taught by the disclosure of N+l. Id. We do not agree
with the Examiner. Although Furuuki’s disclosure of generating a
subsequent phrase of N+l encompasses the required N-l subsequent phrase
recited in the claim, Furuki does not teach or suggest generating a preceding
phrase, let alone a specific length for such a phrase. Furuuki || 16, 27.
Therefore, the proposed combination of the cited disclosures of Longe and
Furuuki teaches or suggests, at best, inserting a preceding phrase of an
unspecified length before an input text string containing N words to which is
appended a subsequent phrase containing N+l words. However, the
proposed combination falls short of accounting for the length of the
preceding phrase being N-l. Accordingly, we agree with Appellants that the
Examiner has not shown how the proposed combination of Longe, Furuuki,
and Keim teaches or suggests the disputed limitations.
Because Appellants have shown at least one reversible error in the
Examiner’s obviousness rejection, we need not reach Appellants’ remaining
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Appeal 2016-002836
Application 13/544,941
arguments. Consequently, we reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1,
as well as the rejections of claims 3, 4, 9, 10, 13—15, 17—19, 21—24, and 26—
31, which recite the disputed limitations discussed above.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s obviousness rejections under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) of claims 1, 3, 4, 7—10, 13—15, 17—24, and 26—31 as set forth above.
REVERSED
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