Ex Parte Esau et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 5, 2014

11595922 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 5, 2014)

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.
11/595,922 11/13/2006 Andreas Esau 08020.0059-00 8619
60668 7590 12/08/2014
SAP / FINNEGAN, HENDERSON LLP
901 NEW YORK AVENUE, NW
WASHINGTON, DC 20001-4413
EXAMINER
AHLUWALIA, NAVNEET K
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2166
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/08/2014 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 ANDREAS ESAU, THOMAS MAYER, and
SIARHEI ULASENKA
____________________

Appeal 2012-007024
Application 11/595,922
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and
ERIC S. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judges.

DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2012-007024
Application 11/595,922

2
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1,
2, 4–9, 11–14, 16–21, 23–25, and 27–32. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

The invention relates to a supply chain management system where
certain orders are selected, assigned priorities, and filled according to the
priorities (See generally Spec. ¶¶ 1–6, 26–28). Claim 1, reproduced below,
is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A system for automatically selecting a plurality of
specific order items from a plurality of order items, wherein the
plurality of specific order items meet one or more predefined
criteria, the system comprising:

an inbound interface for interfacing with a plurality of
data storage devices in at least one of which the plurality of
order items are stored as data;

an execution memory operable to hold a software system;
and

a processor coupled to the inbound interface and the
execution memory, the processor being operable to execute the
software system such that the software system operates:

to generate one or more order due lists having a
definition according to the one or more predefined
criteria, the definition including a sort profile for
assigning priorities to the specific order items and for
sorting the specific order items according to their
priorities, and the order due lists having order due list
types defining data contained in the order due lists,

Appeal 2012-007024
Application 11/595,922

3
to use the one or more order due lists as an index
to select the plurality of specific order items meeting the
one or more predefined criteria,

to fill the order due lists via the inbound interface
with the data corresponding to the plurality of specific
order items,

to store the filled order due lists in a database,

to abort the selection when a predefined number of
specific order items is reached, and

to assign an available quantity of a product to the
specific order items according to their priorities.

REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Lee
Elmore
US 2002/0099649 A1
US 2006/0059107 A1
Jul. 25, 2002
Mar. 16, 2006

REJECTION
The Examiner made the following rejection:
Claims 1, 2, 4–9, 11–14, 16–21, 23–25, and 27–32 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C §103(a) as being unpatentable over Lee and Elmore.

ANALYSIS
Appellants contend that Lee and Elmore, taken alone or in
combination, fail to disclose the claim 1 limitation “to assign an available
quantity of a product to the specific order items according to their priorities”
(App. Br. 14–17). Specifically, Appellants argue Lee discloses that
Appeal 2012-007024
Application 11/595,922

4
“priorities are used merely for determining the sequence by which the
outsorted orders are evaluated by the merchant’s fraud analysts,” but “such
‘priorities’ of Lee are not used to ‘assign an available quantity of a product
to [] specific order items” (App. Br. 16–17). Appellants further argue that
no priorities are disclosed in the Examiner’s cited portion of Elmore, and
thus Elmore does not teach assigning an available quantity of a product to
specific order items according to priorities (App. Br. 15). Although Elmore
does mention priorities elsewhere, Appellants argue the “priorities are
merely ‘sorting priorities’ used to determine how to sort hierarchical objects
for a user to view the objects in a certain order” (Id.). Additionally,
Appellants argue that combining Elmore with Lee would render Lee
unsatisfactory for its intended purpose because Lee’s priorities relate to
orders which “may have been determined to be fraudulent and should not be
assigned a quantity of product” (App. Br. 17). We disagree with Appellants.
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments that neither Lee nor
Elmore individually discloses the functional limitation “to assign an
available quantity of a product to the specific order items according to their
priorities” (App. Br. 15–17) because the Examiner relies on the combination
of references for collectively disclosing this feature. That is, Lee is relied
upon for teaching priorities of specific order items (Ans. 5–6), and Elmore is
relied upon for teaching assigning an available quantity of a product (Ans.
6).
Further, we are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument that
combining Elmore with Lee would have rendered Lee unsatisfactory for its
intended purpose (App. Br. 17). Lee discloses the following:
Appeal 2012-007024
Application 11/595,922

5
A primary output of the eFalcon system 100 is the fraud
score that measures the likelihood that each order is fraudulent.
In one embodiment, the merchant may create a rule that sets a
threshold, or “cutoff score,” above which all orders are rejected.
The merchant might then create a different rule, with a lower
threshold score, “outsort score,” for which all orders receiving
scores above that threshold and less that the first are flagged for
further investigation.

(Lee, ¶ 343).
[T]he merchant should measure and evaluate the performance
of the merchant’s fraud policies on a weekly basis, and realign
the priorities in the queue of all outsorted orders, so that they
are evaluated as quickly as possible, beginning with those
having the highest fraud-risk scores.

(Lee, ¶ 422).
When the rule engine 112 analyzes order data, if the
activity meets predefined criteria as defined by its rule bases,
the rule engine 112 routes the order to the OMW [Order
Management Workstation] 104. Orders go into queues set up
by a supervisor or other authorized user. The queues then
present the orders to representatives for review.

(Lee, ¶ 460).
After reviewing the information, the user can assign an
order status to the order to indicate the results of his
investigation and record actions taken or recommended. The
user may also accept the order with an Accept Order function.

(Lee, ¶ 464). Based on the disclosure quoted above, we find Lee discloses a
merchant order fulfillment system that outsorts orders—separates certain
orders from other incoming orders—according to a fraud score that
measures the likelihood of fraud in each order. These outsorted orders are
placed in a prioritized queue where they are analyzed for further action,
Appeal 2012-007024
Application 11/595,922

6
including accepting a given outsorted order. One of ordinary skill in the art
would have understood that accepting an order would mean the order was
determined not to be fraudulent, and thus eligible to be filled. Accordingly,
Lee’s disclosure that at least some prioritized outsorted orders can be
accepted is readily combinable with Elmore’s teaching of assigning an
available quantity of product.
We are, therefore, not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claim
1, and claims 2, 4–9, 11–14, 16–21, 23–25, and 27–32 not specifically
argued separately.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1, 2, 4–9, 11–14, 16–21,
23–25, and 27–32 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

DECISION
For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, 4–9,
11–14, 16–21, 23–25, and 27–32 is affirmed.
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

kmm