Ex Parte DA PALMA et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 28, 2016

11615856 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 28, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
111615,856 12/22/2006
57736 7590 03/30/2016
PATENTS ON DEMAND, P.A. IBM-RSW
4581 WESTON ROAD
SUITE 345
WESTON, FL 33331
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
WILLIAM V. DA PALMA
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.
BOC9-2006-0092 1579
EXAMINER
HASTY, NICHOLAS
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2178
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/30/2016 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):
brian.buchheit@patentsondemand.com
docketing 1@patentsondemand.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte WILLIAM V. DA PALMA, BAIJU D. MANDALIA,
VICTOR S. MOORE, and WENDI L. NUSBICKEL
Appeal2014-004698
Application 11/615,856
Technology Center 2100
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, KRISTEN L. DROESCH,
and SCOTT E. BAIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1-20, which are all the claims pending in this
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is International Business
Machines, Incorporated (Br. 1 ).
Appeal2014-004698
Application 11/615,856
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants' invention relates to a composite services environment that
permits users to interact with automated applications using different
interactive channels, interface types, and modalities (see Spec. if 3).
Exemplary claim 1 under appeal reads as follows:
1. A method for handling text exchange input in a
composite service environment comprising:
conveying text exchange input to an Action Classifier
Module (ACM) engine operating on a composite service server
of the composite service environment, the text conveyed from a
text exchange client;
the Action Classifier Module (ACM) engine mapping the
text exchange input to field and variable values of a composite
service application operating on the composite service server,
and in association with an application session of the composite
service application;
updating a memory of the composite service environment
associated \x1ith the application session of the composite services
application with the mapping results, said memory containing
field and variable values for the application session of the
composite services application for which the text exchange input
was provided, the application session providing concurrent
access to the mapping results in the memory to a plurality of
access channels, at least one of the plurality of access channels
being a different client than the text exchange client and using a
different access modality and wherein the different client
accesses the mapping results via the application session while the
composite service server maintains the application session with
the text exchange client concurrently; and
concurrently updating each of the plurality of access
channels with the mapping results during the application session
by a dedicated servlet of the composite service server for each of
the plurality of access channels.
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Application 11/615,856
Claims 1-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Helen Meng et al., ISIS: An Adaptive, Trilingual Conversational System
With Interleaving Interaction and Delegation Dialogs, 11 ACM
Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 268-299 (Sept. 2004)
("Meng"), Michael Bodell et al., W3C Multimodal Interaction Framework,
1-22 (May 2003) (http://www.w3.org/TR/mmi-framework/) (last accessed
June 4, 2010) ("Bodell"), and Putman (US 2008/0086564 Al; pub. Apr. 10,
2008) (see Final Act. 2-15).
ANALYSIS
Independent claims 1, 9, and 18
Claim 1
In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner relies on Meng for teaching the
recited method steps of conveying text exchange input, mapping the text
exchange input, and updating a memory of the composite service
environment for which the Examiner relies on Bodell (Final Act. 2--4). The
Examiner further relies on Putman as teaching the different client, other than
the text exchange client, that accesses the mapping results via the application
session (Final Act. 4). The Examiner concludes it would have been obvious
to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Bodell and
Putman with Meng in order to "allow a user to easily switch between
devices and modalities" and "to run multiple communication applications
simultaneously," respectively (id. (citing Bodell, p. 12, § 7.2 and Putman i-fi-1
214, 5)).
Regarding claim 1, Appellants contend Bodell does not disclose or
suggest concurrent access by multiple clients and instead, teaches serialized
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Application 11/615,856
access by a user wherein the disclosed synchronization "refers to ensuring
that each device or process is using or contains the same information" (Br.
5---6). Similarly, with respect to Putman, Appellants contend the described
one to many communication modality, known as broadcasting, does not
indicate any mapping (Br. 6). Additionally, Appellants argue the cited
references do not teach or suggest a composite service, which is known as "a
service that aggregates two or more smaller services" (Br. 6-10).
In response, the Examiner explains that Appellants' Specification
defines the recited composite service as "one that allows users to interact
with automated applications using different interactive channels" (Ans. 2
(citing Spec. i-f 3)). Additionally, the Examiner finds the client-server
architecture disclosed in Bodell teaches the claimed composite service
environment that operates different applications on a server (id. (citing
Bodell, Fig. 2, p. 16, § 10, property 3)). The Examiner further finds Meng
teaches the recited conveying text exchange input as the disclosed action
classifier module engine interpreting the accepted and typed input (see Ans.
2-3 (citing Meng, p. 274, § 3.2.2)) and the recited mapping in a composite
service server as the disclosed mapping commands (see Ans. 3 (citing Meng,
p. 282, § 4.1 and table IV)).
We are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments that the Examiner
erred. Appellants' contentions focus on the references separately, whereas
the proposed rejection is based on the combination of Meng with Bodell and
Putman. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck &
Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). As found by the Examiner
(Ans. 2-3), Bodell teaches a composite service application operating on a
composite service server, which in combination with Meng and Putman's
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Application 11/615,856
concurrent sessions, teaches or suggests the recited features of claim 1.
Accordingly, we are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments that the
Examiner erred in finding the disclosures of Meng, Bodell, and Putman
teach or suggest the disputed features of claim 1.
Claim 9
In rejecting claim 9, the Examiner relies on the combination of Meng
with Bodell and Putman as discussed above for claim 1 and additionally
finds Bodell teaches "wherein each of the plurality of access channels is
updated by a dedicated servlet of the composite services environment"
(Final Act. 8 (citing Bodell, p. 12, § 7.2 ("Meeting Rooms" and "Multiple
Device Applications")). Appellants contend Bodell does not disclose the
recited dedicated servlets (Br. 10).
We agree with the Examiner's findings and conclusion. As explained
by the Examiner (Ans. 4), the cited passages of Bodell teach the dedicated
servlets as the servlets or interpreters that update the communication
channels with information from each device during multiple device
applications. As such, Appellants' arguments do not persuade us that the
Examiner erred in finding the disclosures of Meng, Bodell, and Putman
teach or suggest the disputed features of claim 9.
Claim 18
With respect to claim 18, the Examiner relies on the combination of
Meng with Bodell and Putman as discussed above for claim 1 and
additionally finds Meng teaches "processing the text exchange input through
a NLU runtime component to identify application specific fields to which
the text exchange input is associated" (Final Act. 12 (citing Meng, Table
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Application 11/615,856
III)). Appellants contend "[n]o NLU runtime component is evident" (Br.
11).
We agree with the Examiner's findings and conclusion. As explained
by the Examiner (Ans. 4-5), the conversational system of Meng uses a NLU
runtime component for generating the dialogue shown in Table III which
identifies the necessary fields for completing the transaction and updating
the shared data. Therefore, Appellants' arguments do not persuade us that
the Examiner erred in finding the disclosures of Meng, Bodell, and Putman
teach or suggest the disputed features of claim 18.
Combination of the References
Appellants further challenge the propriety of the combination of the
references by stating that "extending the teachings of Bodell (and Putman) to
Meng, the examiner is advocating a separation between interaction functions
and session functions (FIG. 1 of page 3 of Bodell), where multiple different
session participants are interacting in a single session'' (Br. 14). Appellants
argue that the stated motivation as "allow[ing] a user to easily switch
between devices and modalities" would result in the undesired introduction
of latencies and security risks into Bodell (id.). Additionally, Appellants
argue that the proposed combination is improper because Bodell lacks a
teaching of concurrent access by multiple clients which is not cured by
Putman's teaching of "client-server interactions, which are initiated from a
server broadcast" (Br. 15-16).
We also agree with the Examiner's findings with respect to the stated
reason as to why one of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the
text exchange system of Meng with the composite service system of Bodell
for increasing the number of options for completing a task by easily
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switching between devices and modalities (see Ans. 5 (citing Bodell § 2,
i-f 8)). Additionally, we agree with the Examiner's explanation regarding the
combination of Meng and Bodell with the communication server of Putman
for running multiple communications applications concurrently (Ans. 5---6
(citing Putman i-f 5)). In addition to determining the Examiner's findings and
conclusions are reasonable and supported by evidence of record, we observe
that the identified improvements made by the combination of Meng with
Bodell and Putman are consistent with the guidelines stated in KSR Int 'l Co.
v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). Indeed, the Supreme Court has
indicated that:
[It is error to] assum[ e] that a person of ordinary skill attempting
to solve a problem will be led only to those elements of prior art
designed to solve the same problem .... Common sense teaches
. . . that familiar items may have obvious uses beyond their
primary purposes, and in many cases a person of ordinary skill
will be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like
pieces of a puzzle.
KSR, 550 U.S. at 420 (citation omitted). Here, "[t]he combination of
familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when
it does no more than yield predictable results." Id. at 416. Accordingly, we
are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments that the Examiner's proposed
combination of Meng, Bodell, and Putman is improper.
Dependent claims 2 and 6
Claim 2
Appellants contend the proposed combination of references does not
teach or suggest the limitation of claim 2 because "the software agent being
discussed (by Meng) is 'offline' and is not part of a session" (Br. 17). The
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Application 11/615,856
Examiner responds that the cited portion of Meng discloses "client receives
price information [from] second client through service" (Ans. 6).
We agree with the Examiner's findings and conclusion. The disclosed
process of multi-agent communication shown in Figure 9 of Meng teaches
the disputed limitation because it relates to communication sessions
involving the text exchange client with other clients. We further observe
that the broadest reasonable interpretation of claim 2, does not preclude any
part of the communication from being "offline." Accordingly, Appellants'
arguments do not persuade us that the Examiner erred in finding the
disclosures of Meng, Bodell, and Putman teach or suggest the disputed
features of claim 2.
Claim 6
Appellants contend the patentability of claim 6 by asserting the
combination of references does not teach or suggest the recited "composite
service application'' (Br. 18). In response, the Examiner provides detailed
mapping of claimed limitations to the teachings of Meng and specifically
characterizes the claimed "mapping new text exchange input" as Meng' s
different models that correspond to different tasks (see Ans. 7 (citing Meng,
p. 274, § 3.2.2, i-f 1)). The Examiner further maps "detecting a context
changing event" to Meng' s detecting the alerts which change the context of
the tasks and the claimed "changing active statistic language models" to
Meng's changing the task to handle the alert with a new model (id. (citing
Meng, p. 294, § 7, i-f 4)).
We agree with the Examiner's findings and conclusion and adopt
them as our own. Accordingly, Appellants' arguments do not persuade us
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Application 11/615,856
that the Examiner erred in finding the disclosures of Meng, Bodell, and
Putman teach or suggest the disputed features of claim 6.
The Remaining Claims
Appellants contend the patentability of the remaining claims by
relying on their dependency from their base claim or presenting general
allegations that their specific limitations are not taught or suggested by the
combination of the applied prior art references (Br. 16-19). For similar
reasons discussed above, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in
finding the disclosures of Meng, Bodell, and Putman teach or suggest the
disputed features of these claims.
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-20 is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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