Ex Parte Dhillon et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 24, 201711506556 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 24, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 11/506,556 08/17/2006 Samreen Dhillon B271/ADBS.209188 7789 121363 7590 11/28/2017 Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P. (Adobe Systems Incorporated) Intellectual Property Department 2555 Grand Blvd Kansas City, MO 64108 EXAMINER NAZAR, AHAMED I ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2178 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/28/2017 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): IPDOCKET@SHB.COM IPRCDKT@SHB.COM mjj ordan @ shb .com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SAMREEN DHILLON and HARSHDEEP SINGH Appeal 2017-005233 Application 11/506,5561 Technology Center 2100 Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, JAMES R. HUGHES, and SCOTT E. BAIN, Administrative Patent Judges. BAIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Non-Final Rejection of claims 1-3, 6-8, 10, and 12^18, which constitute all claims pending in the application. Claims 4, 5, 9, and 11 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as Adobe Systems Incorporated. App. Br. 2. Appeal 2017-005233 Application 11/506,556 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Claimed Invention The claimed invention relates to systems and methods for enabling time-based access to portions of electronic content. Spec. 1—4. Claims 1, 10, 14, 29, 46, 47, and 48 are independent. Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and the subject matter of the appeal, and reads as follows: 1. A method comprising: accessing electronic content of a page-descriptive electronic document, the electronic content being associated with a first content element that is renderable as being included in the electronic content, the first content element being associated with active time period data, the active time period data specifying a time period during which the first content element is active with respect to the electronic content, the electronic content being further associated with a second content element that is renderable as being included in the electronic content, at least one of the first and second content elements included within the electronic content of the page-descriptive electronic document, the first and second content elements being alternate paragraphs of the page-descriptive electronic document; receiving current time period data; determining that the first content element is not active with respect to the electronic content, the determining being based on the current time period data and on the active time period data, the first content element being a first alternate portion of the page-descriptive electronic document; and rendering the electronic content as being inclusive of the second content element and not inclusive of the first content element, the second content element being a second alternate- portion of the page-descriptive electronic document, the rendering being based on the determination that the first content element is not active with respect to the electronic content and the rendering of the electronic content as being inclusive of the 2 Appeal 2017-005233 Application 11/506,556 second content element including presenting a view of second alternate-portion of the page-descriptive electronic document. Claims App. 2 (emphases added).2 The Rejections on Appeal Claims 1-3, 6-8, 10, and 12^18 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Sperry (US 2006/0259983 Al; Nov. 16, 2006) and Nicholas et al. (US 2006/0184617 Al; Aug. 17, 2006) (“Nicholas”). Final Act. 3-22. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellants’ arguments presented in this appeal. Arguments which Appellants could have made but did not make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). On the record before us, we are unpersuaded the Examiner has erred. We adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth in the rejections from which the appeal is taken and in the Examiner’s Answer, and provide the following for highlighting and emphasis. Appellants argue the Examiner erred in finding the prior art teaches or suggests “the first and second content elements [associated with the claimed electronic content] being alternate paragraphs of the page-descriptive electronic document,” as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 16-17.3 Specifically, Appellants contend Sperry’s description of “sensitive information (i.e., asserted as the first content element). . . redacted from documents through 2 The Claims Appendix is included in Appellants’ Response to Notification of Non-Compliant Appeal Brief, filed March 27, 2017. 3 Appellants argue all claims as a group, and we choose claim 1 as representative of the group. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). 3 Appeal 2017-005233 Application 11/506,556 use of obscuring information (i.e., asserted as the second content element),” even if teaching the claimed “associations,” does not teach the content elements being alternate paragraphs of the claimed electronic document. Id. Sperry, according to Appellants, “redacts or presents a single information element, the time-sensitive content,” not alternate paragraphs. Id. at 17 (emphasis added). Appellants further contend Nicholas describes time sensitive information that is not related to page-descriptive documents, and not “alternative portions of page-descriptive electronic documents” as claim 1 recites. Id. at 18. We, however, are not persuaded of error by Appellants’ arguments. As the Examiner finds, Sperry teaches time-based access to sensitive information in a document, whereby certain passages (e.g., text) in the document are presented in “redacted” form to users not authorized to access the sensitive information, or when the time for access has not yet begun. Ans. 20-21; Sperry 22, 26, 37, and 53; see also Sperry Figs. 4, 6, and 7. Sperry further teaches “[t]he sensitive information may include, but is not limited to, text, data, and images, [and] [tjhose skilled in the art will recognize that any information in the document that can be encoded into machine readable code can be selected as sensitive.'''' Sperry 22 (emphasis added). Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand Sperry as teaching the blocked portions of a document (whether presented as redacted text, encoded as glyphs, etc.) being “alternate” to the time-sensitive portion, and that these “alternate portions” may be paragraphs of text or images. Final Act 4; Ans. 20-21. 4 Appeal 2017-005233 Application 11/506,556 Appellants further argue that “redacting text by obscuring a view,” as taught in Sperry, is not the same as “providing] alternate text” as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 17. Appellants, however, provide no support for this argument. See In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (attorney arguments and conclusory statements that are unsupported by factual evidence are entitled to little probative value). Moreover, one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that in an electronic document, even a redaction is encoded and rendered by the hardware and software displaying the subject document and its content, and thus is “alternate” to the display of unredacted content. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ apparent analogy to “hiding” an object in the physical world (i.e., by covering it up).4 5 For the foregoing reasons, we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 1-3, 6-8, 10, and 12-48. DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-3, 6-8, 10, and 12- 48. 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). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED 4 Regarding the second reference, Nicholas, Appellants acknowledge Nicholas “is not asserted for purposes of showing the [disputed] ‘first and second content elements being alternate paragraphs of the page-descriptive electronic document,”’ but rather, the Examiner relies on Nicholas for teaching timing and access elements. App. Br. 18; Final Act. 4-5. 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation