Ex Parte Dhillon et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 24, 2017

11506556 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 24, 2017)

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).
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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.
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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