Ex Parte D et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 30, 2016

12853242 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 30, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/853,242 08/09/2010
87851 7590
Facebook/Fenwick
Silicon Valley Center
801 California Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
04/01/2016
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Adam D'Angelo
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.
26295-17243 5476
EXAMINER
SITTNER, MATTHEW T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3682
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/01/2016 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):
ptoc@fenwick.com
fwfacebookpatents@fenwick.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ADAM D' ANGELO, ADITYA AGARWAL,
KANG-XING JIN, YUN-FANG JUAN, LEVY KLOTS,
OLEKSANDR MOSKAL YUK, and YISHAN WONG
Appeal2013-002840
Application 12/853,242
Technology Center 3600
Before JOHN C. KERINS, EDWARD A. BROWN, and
ANNETTE R. REIMERS, Administrative Patent Judges.
KERINS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Adam D' Angelo et al. (Appellants) seeks our review under 35 U.S.C.
§ 134(a) of the Examiner's final rejection of claims 1-15. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We REVERSE.
Appeal2013-002840
Application 12/853,242
THE INVENTION
Appellants' invention is directed to a method for selecting
advertisements for presentation to a user of a social networking system.
Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative:
1. A method comprising:
receiving multiple advertisements for a social networking
system, each advertisement associated with a set of
targeting criteria that specify one or more interactions
between a user and an object in the social networking
system;
selecting, using a processor, one or more candidate
advertisements for a user of the social networking system,
wherein the user has performed the interactions specified
by the targeting criteria of each of the candidate
advertisements;
computing, using the processor, an affinity score between
the user and each of the candidate advertisements, the
affinity score for a candidate advertisement based on the
user's affinities for the targeting criteria associated with
the candidate advertisement;
receiving a bid amount associated with the advertisements;
selecting, using the processor, one or more of the
candidate advertisements based on the affinity scores and
the bid amounts associated with the candidate
advertisements; and
sending the selected candidate advertisements to the user.
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Appeal2013-002840
Application 12/853,242
THE REJECTIONS ON APPEAL 1
The Examiner has rejected:
(i) claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Monfried (US 2008/0228537 Al, published Sept. 18, 2008) in view of
Calabria (US 2011/0093336 Al, published Apr. 21, 201 l)(hereafter
"Calabria '3 3 6"), Kramer (US 2007101 79792 A 1, published Aug. 2, 2007),
Official Notice, Kamangar (US 2003/0046161 Al, published Mar. 6, 2003),
Hall (US 2003/0225786 Al, published Dec. 4, 2003), and Calabria (US
200510144065 Al, published June 30, 2005)(hereafter "Calabria '065");
(ii) claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Monfried in view of Calabria '336, A vital (US 2009/0042545 Al, published
Feb. 12, 2009), Kunz (US 2007/0239522 Al, published Oct. 11, 2007),
Kramer, Morsa (US 2006/0085408 Al, published Apr. 20, 2006), Official
Notice, Kamangar, Hall, and Calabria '065;
(iii) claim 2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Monfried in view of Calabria '336, A vital, Kunz, Kramer, Morsa, Official
Notice, Kamangar, Hall, Calabria '065, Atazky (US 2007/0121843 Al,
published May 31, 2007), Chao (US 2008/0147498 Al, published June 19,
2008), Horowitz (US 2005/0097204 Al, published May 5, 2005),
Koningstein (US 2005/0096980 Al, published May 5, 2005), and Lieberman
(US 2010/0293054 Al, published Nov. 18, 2010);
(iv) claim 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Monfried in view of Calabria '336, A vital, Kunz, Kramer, Morsa, Official
Notice, Kamangar, Hall, Calabria '065, Atazky, Chao, Horowitz,
1 A rejection of claims 1-15 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, has been
withdrawn. Ans. 4.
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Application 12/853,242
Koningstein, Lieberman, and I'na (US 2007/0260520 Al, published Nov. 8,
2007);
(v) claims 4 and 6 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable
over Monfried in view of Calabria '336, A vital, Kunz, Kramer, Morsa,
Official Notice, Kamangar, Hall, Calabria '065, and Jha;
(vi) claim 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Monfried in view of Calabria '336, A vital, Kunz, Kramer, Morsa, Official
Notice, Kamangar, Hall, Calabria '065, Jha, O'Kelley (US 2006/0122879
Al, published June 8, 2006), Dunham (US 2003/0216930 Al, published
Nov. 20, 2003), McElfresh (US 2011/0264510 Al, published Oct. 27, 2011),
Chang (US 2004/0193691 Al, pub. Sept. 30, 2004), and Koningstein;
(vii) claim 7 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Monfried in view of Calabria '336, A vital, Kunz, Kramer, Morsa, Official
Notice, Kamangar, Hall, Calabria '065, and Graham (US 2007/0150537 Al,
published June 28, 2007);
(viii) claim 8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Monfried in view of Calabria '336, A vital, Kunz, Kramer, Morsa, Official
Notice, Kamangar, Hall, Calabria '065, and Jacoby (US 2006/0271997 Al,
published Nov. 30, 2006).
(ix) claim 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Monfried in view of Calabria '336, A vital, Kunz, Kramer, Morsa, Official
Notice, Kamangar, Hall, Calabria '065, and Murray (US 2011/0040586 Al,
published Feb. 17, 2011);
(x) claim 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Monfried in view of Calabria '336, A vital, Kunz, Kramer, Morsa, Official
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Application 12/853,242
Notice, Kamangar, Hall, Calabria '065, and Lawler (US 8,010,619 Bl,
issued Aug. 30, 2011 );
(xi) claim 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Monfried in view of Calabria '336, A vital, Kunz, Kramer, Morsa, Official
Notice, Kamangar, Hall, Calabria '065, Baluja (US 2012/0054205 Al,
published Mar. 1, 2012)(hereafter "Baluja '205"), Baluja (US 2008/0275899
Al, published Nov. 6, 2008)(hereafter "Baluja '899"), and Vonarburg (US
2008/0010319 Al, published Jan. 10, 2008);
(xii) claim 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Monfried in view of Calabria '336, A vital, Kunz, Kramer, Morsa, Official
Notice, Kamangar, Hall, Calabria '065, Kruger (US 2008/0294994 Al,
published Nov. 27, 2008), Guldimann (US 2008/0215426 Al, published
Sept. 4, 2008), and Shahine (US 2008/0046311 Al, published Feb. 21,
2008).
(xiii) claims 13 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Monfried in view of Calabria '336, A vital, Kunz, Kramer,
Morsa, Official Notice, Kamangar, Hall, and Calabria '065; and
(xiv) claim 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Monfried in view of Calabria '336, A vital, Kunz, Kramer, Morsa, Official
Notice, Kamangar, Hall, Calabria '065, Jha, O'Kelley, Dunham, McElfresh,
Chang, and Koningstein.
ANALYSIS
Claim 1-0bviousness-Monfried/Calabria ('3 3 6)/Kramer/Official
Notice/Kamangar/Hall/Calabria ('065)
The Examiner finds that Monfried discloses all limitations set forth in
claim 1, with the exceptions of the affinity score computation, for which he
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relies on Kramer, Kamangar and Hall, and the advertisement bid receipt, for
which he relies on Calabria '065 and Official Notice. Final Act. 7-17.
Moreover, the Examiner notes that, in addition to Monfried's disclosure,
Calabria '336 also discloses selecting candidate advertisements for a user
wherein the user has performed interactions specified by each candidate
advertisement's targeting criteria. Final Act. 10.
Appellants contend that "[ n Jo cited reference discloses or suggests
'computing, using the processor, an affinity score between the user and each
of the candidate advertisements, the affinity score for a candidate
advertisement based on the user's affinities for the targeting criteria
associated with the candidate advertisements,' as claimed." Appeal Br. 8
(emphasis omitted); see also Reply Br. 1-2.
We find that it is unclear from the Examiner's stated rejection how the
proposed combination of references teaches the claimed affinity score
calculation. The Examiner first appears to rely on Monfried for this
calculation, but the cited passages of Monfried discuss segmenting users into
clusters based on similarities between the users' behaviors and then targeting
advertisements to the determined clusters. Final Act. 11, 22; Monfried
iii! 100---134. These passages involve calculating distances between users
based on behaviors rather than calculating an affinity score between a user
and each of a set of candidate advertisements.
Next, the Examiner equivocates as to Monfried, stating that Monfried
"may not disclose the claimed 'affinity score' features," and turns to
Kramer's venue ranking scores for those features. Final Act. 12, 22.
However, Kramer's venue ranking scores are "based on the member's
predefined rankings of individual venue characteristics and attendee
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demographics" and do not describe scoring "based on the user's affinities for
the targeting criteria associated with the candidate advertisements." Kramer
i-f 232. It is not clear from the record how, if at all, the Examiner proposes
modifying Monfried to incorporate the teachings of Kramer, nor that the
resulting combination would render obvious the claimed computing of an
affinity score between a user and a plurality of candidate advertisements.
Additionally, the Examiner contends that Kamangar "discloses
targeting advertising for an item based upon a user's affinity for another
item (e.g., advertise beer and action movies during a football game or
advertise luxury items in magazines that reach an affluent readership)" as
well as computing a score that "may be a function of a performance
parameter." Ans. 9--10. The Examiner notes that the performance
parameters upon which such a score is based include "(a) click-through rate,
(b) user ratings, ( c) focus group ratings, [and] ( d) measure of user interest."
Id. at 10. However, as Appellants point out, Kamangar's performance
parameters describe how an ad has performed when presented to other users
and thus an individual user has no affinity for these performance parameters
upon which a score may be calculated. Reply Br. 4. Again, the Examiner's
explanation as to how Kamangar teaches the limitations directed to
computing an affinity score as claimed is inadequate.
Finally, the Examiner submits that Hall "discloses features construed
as the affinity score for a candidate advertisement based on the user's
affinities for the targeting criteria associated with the candidate
advertisement." Final Act. 13, 24. However, Hall's purchase interest scores
are derived from customer responses to questions regarding customer
interest in product/service concepts and are not based on a particular user's
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Application 12/853,242
affinities for targeting criteria associated with candidate advertisements.
Hall i-fi-143, 55-58. As with the teachings of Kramer, it is not clear from the
record how, if at all, the Examiner proposes modifying Monfried to
incorporate the teachings of Kamangar and/or Hall, nor is it clear that any
such envisaged combination would render obvious the subject matter of
claim 1. Accordingly, the rejection of claim 1 as being unpatentable over
Monfried in view of Calabria '336, Kramer, Official Notice, Kamangar,
Hall, and Calabria '065 is not sustained.
Claim 1-0bviousness-Monfried/Calabria
('3 3 6 )/ Avital/Kunz/Kramer/Morsa /Official N otice/Kamangar/Hall/Calabria
('065)
In the alternative, the Examiner finds that Monfried discloses all
limitations set forth in claim 1, with the exceptions of the affinity score
computation, for which he relies on Kramer, Kamangar and Hall, and the
advertisement bid receipt for which he relies on Calabria '065, Morsa, and
Official Notice. Final Act. 17-27. Moreover, the Examiner notes that, in
addition to Monfried's disclosure, each of Avital, Kunz, and Calabria '336
also discloses "each advertisement associated with a set of targeting criteria
that specify one or more interactions between a user and an object in the
social networking system." Final Act. 18-19. The Examiner further notes
that, in addition to Monfried' s disclosure, Calabria '3 3 6 also discloses
selecting candidate advertisements for a user wherein the user has performed
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interactions specified by each candidate advertisement's targeting criteria.
Final Act. 20.
The Examiner applies Monfried, Kramer, Kamangar, and Hall in the
same manner as discussed above, and the Examiner does not rely on
Calabria '336, Avital, Kunz, Kramer, Morsa, Official Notice, or Calabria
'065 in any manner that remedies the deficiency in the combination
employed in the first rejection of claim 1. The rejection of claim 1 is
therefore not sustained.
Claims 2-15--Rejections (iii)-(xiv)
The Examiner does not rely on any of the additional references cited
in any of the remaining rejections in any manner that remedies the
deficiency in the combination employed in rejecting claim 1. The rejections
of claims 2-15 are therefore not sustained.
DECISION
The rejections of claims 1-15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) are reversed.
REVERSED
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