Ex Parte Duan et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 28, 201613070238 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 28, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/070,238 03/23/2011 49267 7590 06/30/2016 TUTUNJIAN & BITETTO, P,C 401 Broadhollow Road, Suite 402 Melville, NY 11747 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Songyun Duan 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. YOR920110073US 1 (163-397) CONFIRMATION NO. 1626 EXAMINER FAN, SHIOW-JY ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2168 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/30/2016 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): patents@tb-iplaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SONGYUN DUAN, ACHILLE B. FOKOUE- NKOUTCHE, OKTIE HASSANZADEH, ANASTASIOS KEMENTSIETSIDIS, KA VITHA SRINIVAS, and MICHAEL J. WARD Appeal2014-003717 Application 13/070,238 Technology Center 2100 Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., IRVINE. BRANCH, and KEVIN C. TROCK, Administrative Patent Judges. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1- 25. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Appeal2014-003717 Application 13/070,238 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The subject matter relates to "annotating data elements based on heterogeneous knowledge bases." Spec. i-f 2. Claims 1, 10, and 11, reproduced below are representative of the claimed subject matter. 1. A method for determining schema element types, compnsmg: pooling potential annotations, for an element of an unlabeled schema, from a plurality of heterogeneous sources; scoring with a processor the pool of potential annotations according to relevancy using instance information from the plurality of heterogeneous sources to produce a relevancy score; and annotating the element of the unlabeled schema using the most relevant potential annotations. 10. The method of claim 1, wherein scoring includes using structural properties of the potential annotations to produce the relevancy score. 11. The method of claim l u, wherein potenua1 annotanons that are further away in a structure from a potential annotation that is being scored are assigned smaller scores than types that are closer in the structure to the potential annotation being scored. REJECTIONS Claims 11, 12, 23, and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. § 112 (pre-AIA), second paragraph, "as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the [inventor] regards as the invention." Final Act. 6-8. 1 1 Final Rejection/Final Office Action ("Final Act.") (mailed Apr. 25, 2013). 2 Appeal2014-003717 Application 13/070,238 Claims 1, 2, 13, 14, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Kannan (US 2011/0289026 Al; publ. Nov. 24, 2011) and Cragun (US 2004/0260702 Al; publ. Dec. 23, 2004). Final Act. 9-14. Claims 3, 4, 15, and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Kannan, Cragun, and Welch (US 8,090,724 Bl; iss. Jan. 3, 2012). Final Act. 14--15. Claims 5-9 and 17-21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Kannan, Cragun, and Adler (US 2008/0301168 Al; publ. Dec. 4, 2008). Final Act. 15-17. Claims 10, 11, 22, and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Kannan, Cragun, and Bernstein (US 2007 /0055655 Al; publ. Mar. 8, 2007). Final Act. 17-18. Claims 12 and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Kannan, Cragun, Adler, and Bernstein. Final Act. 18-24 OPil...JION Rejections under 35 U.S. C. § 112 The Examiner rejects claim 11 because "[i]t is not clear how these two limitations 'potential annotations that are further away in a structure' and 'types that are closer in the structure' are compared. Final Act. 7. Appellants argue, "[t]hose having ordinary skill in the art would have no difficulty implementing some mechanism to determine what annotations are close and what annotations are far-thus the claims 11-12 and 23-24 are clear and definite." App. Br. 12. We are unpersuaded of Examiner error. Appellants do not provide argument or evidence sufficient to persuade us that Appellants' assertion is accurate. It is well settled that arguments of counsel cannot take the place of 3 Appeal2014-003717 Application 13/070,238 factually supported objective evidence. See, e.g., In re Huang, 100 F.3d 135, 139--40 (Fed. Cir. 1996); In re De Blauwe, 736 F.2d 699, 705 (Fed. Cir. 1984). Accordingly, we are unpersuaded of error in the Examiner's decision to reject claim 11. We sustain the rejection of claim 11, and the rejection of claims 12, 23, and 24, which Appellants argue on the same grounds. Obvious Rejection Based on Kannan and Cragun Appellants contend that Kannan and Cragun collectively fail to teach or suggest claim 1 's "pooling potential annotations, for an element of an unlabeled schema, from a plurality of heterogeneous sources." App. Br. 15- 17; Reply Br. 5---6. The Examiner finds that Cragun discloses the argued limitation. Ans. 5-8 (citing, inter alia, Cragun Figs. 1, 4C and i-fi-137--40, 61---65, and 79). The Examiner finds that "[f]igure 1 illustrates annotation store (element 130) stores/pools annotations (element 132) from heterogeneous sources (elements 115, 117 ... ) through universal annotation system." Id. 7. The Examiner also finds that "[f]igure 4A illustrates the data source type which can be created and stored in annotation store (e.g. pooling annotations from a plurality of heterogeneous sources)." Id. 8. Appellants argue that "Cragun describes only one source of annotations. The fact that the data objects may come from a variety of sources does not in any way imply that the annotations come from any source other than the one explicitly stated: the user." Reply Br. 6. We are unpersuaded of error in the Examiner's findings. Final Act. 10-11; Ans. 5-8. We note specifically Cragun's disclosure that "annotations 132 may be stored in a central annotation repository (e.g., an 4 Appeal2014-003717 Application 13/070,238 annotation store 130), which may be searched independently or in conjunction with the annotated data, thus allowing users to harvest knowledge captured by other users about the data of interest." Cragun i-f 38 (cited by the Examiner (Final Act. 10; Ans. 6)). We are unpersuaded by Appellants' argument as follows: Thus, while Cragun allows for many heterogeneous types of target data, it provides one, and only one, source for annotations-a user. Even in the case of users collaborating on a given data object, that collaboration would make the group of users a single source of annotations, because the annotations provided would be the result of a group effort. In the same way that the decision of a committee comes from a single source, so too do Cragun' s annotations come from a single source---either a single user or a group of users working together. App. Br. 16-17. Whether Cragun's users-from whom annotations are sourced (i-f 38}-are part of a group, does not negate their being a plurality of sources, as Appellants unpersuasively argue. App. Br. 16-17. Moreover, even if Appellants' assertion that a group of users acting together melds them into a single source such that they are no longer a plurality, we would be unpersuaded of error nevertheless, because Cragun does not preclude pooling annotations from an additional source, and adding an additional source would be a predictable variation, well within the capability of a person of ordinary skill in the art. See KSR Int 'l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007) ("If a person of ordinary skill can implement a predictable variation, § 103 likely bars its patentability"). Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's decision to reject claim 1 as obvious over Kannan and Cragun. We also sustain the Examiner's decision to reject claims 2, 13, 14, and 25, argued on the same grounds. App. Br. 15- 17. We also sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 3, 4, 15, and 16, 5 Appeal2014-003717 Application 13/070,238 which Appellants argue only on the basis that Welch fails to cure the deficiencies with respect to Kannan and Cragun, which we do not find persuasive. Id. 17-20. We also sustain the Examiner's decision to reject claims 5 and 17, which Appellants argue only on the basis that Adler fails to cure the deficiencies with respect to Kannan and Cragun, which we do not find persuasive. Id. 21-24. We also sustain the Examiner's decision to reject claims 10, 11, 22, and 23, which Appellants argue only on the basis that Bernstein fails to cure the deficiencies with respect to Kannan and Cragun, which we do not find persuasive. Id. 31-32. We also sustain the Examiner's decision to reject claims 12 and 24, which Appellants argue only on the basis that Bernstein and Adler fail to cure the deficiencies with respect to Kannan and Cragun, which we do not find persuasive. Id. 31-32. Remaining Claims We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection of claims 6-9 and 18-21 as unpatentable over Kannan, Cragun, and Adler (Final Act. 15-17), Appellants' arguments in opposition to this rejection (App. Br. 24--29), the Examiner's answer (Ans. 11-14), and Appellant's reply (Reply Br. 6-8). We are unpersuaded of error. We adopt as our own, the Examiner's findings (Final Act. 14--17; Ans. 24--29) and the Examiner's conclusion that claims 6-9 and 18-21 are obvious over the combination of Kannan, Cragun, and Adler. In particular, we agree with the Examiner (Ans. 10-14) that Appellants' arguments unpersuasively attack the references individually and fail to appreciate what the combined teachings of the references would have taught or suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See, e.g., In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). 6 Appeal2014-003717 Application 13/070,238 DECISION We sustain the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-25. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation