Ex Parte DaCosta

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 14, 2016

12016827 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 14, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/016,827 01/18/2008
37123 7590 11/15/2016
FITCH EVEN TABIN & FLANNERY, LLP
120 SOUTH LASALLE STREET
SUITE 1600
CHICAGO, IL 60603-3406
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Behram DaCosta
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.
7114-104058-US 5084
EXAMINER
JOHNSON, GREGORY L
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3692
MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE
11/15/2016 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte BEHRAM DACOSTA
Appeal2014-005405
Application 12/016,827 1
Technology Center 3600
Before ANTON W. PETTING, JAMES A. WORTH, and
BRUCE T. WIEDER, Administrative Patent Judges.
WIEDER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the
Examiner's rejection of claims 1-7, 10-17, and 20-22. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Appellant's claimed "invention relates generally to providing
location-based advertisement content, and more particularly to providing
location-based advertisement content to mobile device users based on user
profile information." (Spec. i-f 1.)
1 According to Appellant, the real parties in interest are Sony Corporation
and Sony Electronics Inc. (Appeal Br. 3.)
Appeal2014-005405
Application 12/016,827
Claims 1 and 11 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1 is
representative. It is reproduced below (emphasis added):
1. A method for providing advertising content to a mobile
device comprising:
receiving, by an advertisement server, current location
information for the mobile device over a wireless network
connection from a location client executing on the mobile device,
the location client configured to forward current location
information to the advertisement server;
accessing, by the advertisement server, user profile
information corresponding to a user of the mobile device;
performing, by the advertisement server, an advertising
database lookup based on the current location information and
the user profile information;
selecting advertising content based on the advertising
database lookup; and
transmitting the advertising content to the mobile device
over the wireless network connection,
wherein the advertising database lookup comprises first
identifj;ing a set of personalized advertisements within a
database of available advertisements based on the user profile
information, and then identifj;ing a subset of the identified set of
personalized advertisements based on the current location
information.
REJECTIONS
Claims 1-5, 10-15, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Steele (US 2002/0046084 Al, pub. Apr. 18, 2002) and
Chew (US 2006/0293065 Al, pub. Dec. 28, 2006).
Claims 6, 7, 16, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Steele, Chew, and Anderson (US 2004/0267585 Al, pub.
Dec. 30, 2004).
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Appeal2014-005405
Application 12/016,827
Claims 21 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Steele, Chew, and Kramer (US 2007/0179792 Al, pub.
Aug. 2, 2007).
ANALYSIS
The Examiner finds that Steele does not explicitly disclose "wherein
the advertising database lookup comprises first identifying a set of
personalized advertisements within a database of available advertisements
based on the user profile information, and then identifying a subset of the
identified set of personalized advertisements based on the current location
information." (Final Action 7 .) However, the Examiner finds that Chew
discloses this limitation. (Id. at 7-8, citing Chew, Abstract, i-fi-1 5, 23-24, 34--
35, Fig. 2.)
Appellant argues that Chew "fails to disclose two distinct sets of
advertisements as is recited in the claims. Chew discloses only that
'content' is provided, and that content can be based on a profile and current
location." (Appeal Br. 10.) Appellant also argues that Chew does not
"disclose two distinct search steps, nor their particular order." (Id. at 11.)
Chew discloses "[ s ]ystems and methods ... for providing dynamic
temporally and geographically relevant information or content to mobile
communications devices." (Chew, Abstract.) Specifically, Chew discloses:
User profile information is stored, which may include personal
subscriber information (e.g., name, address, indications of
services to which the user subscribes, etc.) along with one or
more content databases with content entries having
advertisements or other information and geographical and
temporal relevance parameters. Logic is provided in the system
to get the profile/preferences for a given mobile device user, as
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Appeal2014-005405
Application 12/016,827
well as the current device location, and to obtain profile specific
geographically and temporally relevant information or content
from the content database( s) . . . . The invention thus provides
databases and logic to allow a user to receive pertinent content
according to the user's profile or preferences in a timely fashion,
while filtering information that does not relate to the current
location or the present time.
(Id. i-f 5, emphasis added.)
In other words, Chew discloses identifying pertinent content from a
database of the invention according to the user's profile information. Chew
further discloses filtering information based on the user's current location.
In view of the Examiner's finding that Chew discloses the disputed
limitation and the Examiner's ultimate determination of obviousness, the
Examiner has mapped the information Chew filters based on the user's
location to the identified content from the database. (See Final Action 7-8;
see also Answer 5-6.) Appellant does not persuasively argue why the
Examiner erred, i.e., why the information that Chew filters based on the
user's current location is not a subset of information from the database
obtained based on "profile/preferences for a given mobile device user," in
accordance with claim 1.
In view of the above, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in
rejecting claim 1 under § 103. Claims 1 and 11 are argued together and
claim 11 contains similar language. Therefore, for the reasons discussed
above, we are also not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claim 11. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (2013). The dependent claims are
not separately argued except as to their dependency on independent claims 1
and 11. (See Appeal Br. 13.)
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Appeal2014-005405
Application 12/016,827
DECISION
The Examiner's rejections of claims 1-7, 10-17, and 20-22 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) are 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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