Ex Parte Deng et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 25, 2018

13689956 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 25, 2018)

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.
13/689,956 11/30/2012 Peter Xiu Deng 079894.0688 9844
91230 7590 01/29/2018
Raker Rntts; T T P /Faeehnnk Tne
EXAMINER
2001 ROSS AVENUE HE, WEIMING
SUITE 700
Dallas, TX 75201 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2612
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/29/2018 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):
ptomaill @bakerbotts.com
ptomai!2 @ bakerbotts .com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte PETER XIU DENG
and JOSHUA WILLIAMS
Appeal 2017-002835
Application 13/689,956
Technology Center 2600
Before MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2017-002835
Application 13/689,956
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1—14 and 21—27, which are all of the pending claims. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
THE INVENTION
The application is directed to “personalized and curated
recommendations provided by other users” of a social media network.
(Spec. 1 5.) Claim 1, reproduced below, exemplifies the subject matter on
appeal:
1. A method comprising:
by a server computing device, receiving one or more
recommendations from one or more second users for the first
user, wherein the one or more recommendations are associated
with one or more items corresponding to one or more nodes of a
social graph at one or more geo-locations and wherein the one or
more second users select the first user as an addressee of the one
or more recommendations, each of the one or more
recommendations comprising information that:
identifies the respective item being recommended;
identifies the geo-location associated with the item being
recommended;
provides an explanation for the recommendation;
identifies the first user as the addressee of the
recommendation; and
1 Appellants identify Facebook, Inc. as the real party in interest. (See App.
Br. 3.)
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Appeal 2017-002835
Application 13/689,956
identifies the respective second user as an author of the
recommendation;
by the server computing device, storing the one or more
recommendations;
by the server computing device, determining, in response to
receiving location data from a mobile client computing device
associated with the first user, whether the mobile client
computing device is near one or more of the geo-locations
associated with respective one or more of the items being
recommended;
by the server computing device, ranking the one or more
recommendations based on relative location proximities of the
one or more items being recommended to the mobile client
computing device and further based on a relationship between
the first user and each respective second user within the social
graph; and
by the server computing device, providing automatically to
the mobile client computing device the stored one or more
recommendations for presentation to the first user in response to
the determination that the mobile client computing device is near
one or more geo-locations associated with respective one or more
items being recommended, wherein the stored recommendations
are presented in an order based on their respective rankings, each
of the stored recommendations comprising:
a description of the respective item associated with the
respective geo-location;
the explanation for the recommendation; and
an identification of the respective second user as the author
of the recommendation.
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Appeal 2017-002835
Application 13/689,956
THE REJECTION AND THE REFERENCES
Claims 1—14 and 21—27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Berman et al. (US 8,095,432 Bl; issued Jan. 10, 2012),
Schaefer, IV et al. (US 2011/0173130 Al; published July 14, 2011),
Calabria (US 2006/0143068 Al; published June 29, 2006), and Jim
Kaskade, Big Data & the Future of Selling ‘Stuff (posted on Jan. 4, 2012;
presently available at http://jameskaskade.com/?p=2305). (See Final Act. 3—
13.)
ANALYSIS
In pertinent part, claim 1 is directed to a method in which a server
receives recommendations from second users for a first user, where the
second users select the first user as an addressee of the recommendations.
The server then (a) determines when the first user’s mobile device is near a
location corresponding to the subject of a recommendation, (b) ranks
recommendations based on relative proximities and the relationship between
the users, and (c) provides the first user with the recommendations in an
order based on the ranking.
Appellants argue the “Berman-Schaefer-Calabria-Kaskade
combination fails to disclose, teach, or suggest receiving a recommendation
from a second user for a first user, wherein the second user selects the first
user as an addressee of the recommendation, as independent Claim 1
recites.” (App. Br. 8, emphasis omitted.)
The Examiner responds by citing Berman at 5:53—67 and 6:58—61,
said to “clearly teach[] a recommendation is displayed within the social
network or delivered with relationship in e-mail or text message etc.” as
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Application 13/689,956
“[f]or example, the second user may select the first user as an addressee of
the recommendation in e-mail or text message manner.” (Ans. 2—3.) The
Examiner further states that “[i]t is also well-known that a communication
can be performed between the targeted users in the social network” and
“[f]or example, user A within [the] Facebook network can send [a] message
or recommendation to user A’s defined ffiend(s) within [the] Facebook
network.” {Id. at 3.) The Examiner adds that Schaefer 115 “also teaches
that the recommendation information can be presented through a text
message, an email or any suitable format.” {Id., emphasis omitted.)
Having reviewed the cited portions of Berman, we agree with
Appellants that they “merely specif[y] different communications means for a
system to deliver . . . general, non-addressed recommendations to the
inquiring member—i.e., within a social network, e-mail, text messages, or
other messaging methods.” (Reply Br. 2.) The same is true of Schaefer
which, as Appellants observe, “merely describes how general, non-addressed
information can be presented by a system to a user by any of several
delivery means, including e-mail and text messaging.” (Reply Br. 3.) We
do not find in the cited portions of the references a teaching or suggestion of
one user selecting another user as an addressee of a recommendation.
We conclude that the Examiner has not shown it would have been
obvious to “receiv[e] one or more recommendations from one or more
second users for [a] first user . . . wherein the one or more second users
select the first user as an addressee of the one or more recommendations.”
We accordingly do not sustain the Section 103 rejection of claim 1 or the
Section 103 rejection of claims 2—14 and 21—27, all of which include the
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subject language. Because this issue is dispositive, we do not reach
Appellants’ other arguments.
DECISION
The rejections of claims 1—14 and 21—27 are reversed.
REVERSED
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