Ex Parte Dasgupta et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 8, 2016

13025482 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 8, 2016)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/025,482 02/11/2011 Koustuv Dasgupta IN920100029US1
(790.111)
2770
89885 7590 02/08/2016
FERENCE & ASSOCIATES LLC
409 BROAD STREET
PITTSBURGH, PA 15143
EXAMINER
TRAN, ANHTAI V
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2168
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/08/2016 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 KOUSTUV DASGUPTA, NILANJAN BANERJEE,
DIPANJAN CHAKRABORTY, SUMIT MITTAL,
SEEMA NAGAR, ANUPAM JOSHI, and ANGSHU RAI
____________________

Appeal 2014-000097
Application 13/025,482
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, LARRY J. HUME, and JOHN D. HAMANN,
Administrative Patent Judges.

DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2014-000097
Application 13/025,482
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STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims
1–20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

The claims are directed to a real-time data mining. Claim 1,
reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

using a processor to assimilate information, wherein the
information is assimilated from an information stream;

analyzing data of the information stream by a plurality of
analyzers, each analyzer being configured for capturing different
representational variations of the data; and

classifying the data of the information stream at each of
the plurality of analyzers;

combining the classified data from each of the plurality of
analyzers; and

assigning a final classification to the combined classified
data.

REFERENCE
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence in rejecting the
claims on appeal is:
Forman et al. US 2010/0082642 Al Apr. 1, 2010

The Examiner has relied upon Gregoire et al. (US 2006/0026114 A1) and
Stankiewicz et al. (US 2012/00117092 A1), but Appellants have not
provided arguments for the rejections relying upon these references.
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REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1–5, 7–11, 13–15, 17, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e) as being anticipated by Forman.
Appellants have not provided arguments for the following rejections:
Claims 6 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Forman, and further in view of Gregoire.
Claims 12, 19, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Forman, and further in view of Stankiewicz.

ANALYSIS
The Notice of Appeal states “Applicant hereby appeals to the Patent
Trial and Appeal Board from the last decision of the examiner,” but
Appellants only argue the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e). (App. Br. 10).
Therefore, we pro forma affirm the rejections of claims 6, 12, 16, 19, and
20. Appellants argue independent claims 1 and 13 together. (App. Br. 11).
We select independent claim 1 as the representative claim for the group and
address Appellants’ arguments related thereto.
We agree with the Examiner’s findings and conclusions and adopt
them as our own. (Final Act. 2–11 and Ans. 3–7).
With respect to representative independent claim 1, Appellants
contend:

[I]ndependent Claims 1 and 13 recite that each of a plurality of
analyzers is configured for capturing different representational
variations of the data from an information stream. An illustrative
variety of such analyzers, according to at least one embodiment,
is discussed in the instant specification at paras. 0032-0037
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thereof (as originally filed); such example analyzers are also
indicated at 208-216 in FIG. 2.

(App. Br. 12). Appellants further contend “input is processed by
different analyzers in relation to different representational variations,
and the analyzers can thus lend themselves to accepting and processing
such input in different manners that act far beyond a mere assignment
of input into ‘categories’.” (App. Br. 12).

Moreover, Appellants contend:
Generally, it can be appreciated that analyzing an
information stream, as opposed to static information, presents
special challenges. The same holds true for classifying data of an
information stream. By way of at least one illustrative and non-
restrictive example, such challenges are discussed at paras. 0018-
0020 of the instant specification as originally filed. Generally, a
stream of information can be classified in real-time (see para.
0018) and an ensemble approach can be employed towards
classifying information in real-time, and scaling such
information in real-time (see para. 0019). To the extent that text
mining and classification are employed, by way of illustrative
and non-restrictive example, in analyzing real-time intent (RTI)
of a user, additional challenges inherent in analyzing and
classifying an information stream include limited context
information, extreme noise, informal/colloquial linguistic usage
and scalability (e.g., where classifier accuracy might need to be
traded off with respect to computation time). (See para. 0020.)

(App. Br. 12–13).
We decline Appellants’ invitation to read the limitations from the
Specification into the claims. “[A]lthough the specification often describes
very specific embodiments of the invention, we have repeatedly warned
against confining the claims to those embodiments.” Phillips v. AWH Corp.,
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415 F.3d 1303, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc) (citations omitted). A basic
canon of claim construction is that one may not read a limitation into a claim
from the written description. Renishaw PLC v. Marposs Societa’ per
Azioni, 158 F.3d 1243, 1248 (Fed. Cir. 1998).
We find each of Appellants’ arguments/contentions to go beyond the
express language recited in independent claim 1, and Appellants are
attempting to read limitations into a claim from the written description. We
agree with the Examiner that the disclosure in the Forman reference teaches
the invention as recited in the language of representative independent
claim 1. (Final Act. 5–6; Ans. 3–6).
We agree with the Examiner that Appellants’ argument relies upon the
labels placed on the data without setting forth corresponding structural or
functional limitations in the language of the claim or having identified an
express definition for the claim terminology which differentiates the claimed
invention from the disclosure set forth in the Forman reference. Hence, we
sustain the rejection of representative independent claim 1 and claims 2 –5,
7–10, 13–15, and 17 not separately argued.

With respect to dependent claims 11 and 18, Appellants contend:
Claims 11 and 18 relate to ascertaining a user intent in
real-time in connection with information stream. Illustrative
and non-restrictive examples of such intent are disclosed in the
instant specification as originally filed, e.g., at para. 0032, while
Forman merely relates to pushing advertising to users and has
nothing to do with inherent intent of a user or a message (or
other communication) of a user, let alone as ascertained in real-
time. Again, inherent challenges of processing an information
stream, and of ascertaining a real-time user intent thereby, can
be appreciated from paras. 0018- 0020 of the instant
specification as originally filed.
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(App. Br. 13–14). We agree with the Examiner that the classification of the
Forman reference discloses determination of a user intent in real-time
because the determination of the content and classification of information
would correspond to the data in the information stream.
In the event of further prosecution, we leave it to the Examiner to
consider whether all claims which recite “ascertaining a user intent in real-
time,” either directly or by virtue of their dependency, meet the requirements
of § 112, second paragraph. Specifically, the scope of “ascertaining a user
intent in real-time” depends solely on the unrestrained, subjective opinion of
a particular individual purportedly practicing the invention. See Datamize,
LLC v. Plumtree Software, Inc., 417 F.3d 1342, 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (“The
scope of claim language cannot depend solely on the unrestrained, subjective
opinion of a particular individual purportedly practicing the invention. See
Application of Musgrave, 57 C.C.P.A. 1352, 431 F.2d 882, 893 (1970)
(noting '[a] step requiring the exercise of subjective judgment without
restriction might be objectionable as rendering a claim indefinite'). Some
objective standard must be provided in order to allow the public to
determine the scope of the claimed invention.” (emphasis added)),
abrogated on other grounds by Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc.,
134 S. Ct. 2120 (2014).
Again, we find that Appellants’ arguments attempt to read limitations
into the language of claims 11 and 18 from the Specification. We find
Appellants’ argument tends to imply that the claimed invention determines
intent which is not clearly described in the express content of the data in the
information stream as disclosed in the Specification at paragraphs 32 et seq.
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We find Appellants’ argument to be unpersuasive of error in the Examiner’s
finding of anticipation of claims 11 and 18.

CONCLUSIONS
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1–5, 7–11, 12–15, 17 and
18 based upon anticipation. We pro forma sustain the obviousness
rejections of claims 6, 12, 16, 19, and 20.

DECISION
For the above reasons, we sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims
1–20.

No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED