Ex Parte Fagundes et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 10, 2017

13207502 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 10, 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.
13/207,502 08/11/2011 Luciano Godoy Fagundes 411156-US-NP/AVA031PA 6105
136582 7590 02/14/2017
STEVENS & SHOWALTER, LLP
Box AVAYA Inc.
7019 Corporate Way
Dayton, OH 45459-4238
EXAMINER
BAHL, SANGEETA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3629
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/14/2017 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):
pto @ sspatlaw. com
pair_avaya@ firsttofile.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte LUCIANO GODOY FANGUNDES, THOMAS J. MORNA,
VEERANNA A. YAMANAPPA, MOHAMMAD KHAN
DHAVAL DESAI AND JOYLEE E. KOHLER
Appeal 2015-001020
Application 13/207,502
Technology Center 3600
Before BIBHU R. MOHANTY, JAMES A. WORTH, and
BRADLEY B. BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judges.
MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final
rejection of claims 1—20 which are all the claims pending in the application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
SUMMARY OF THE DECISION
We AFFIRM.
Appeal 2015-001020
Application 13/207,502
THE INVENTION
The Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to analyzing call center
metrics and generating contextually rich values that are measurable (Spec,
para. 1). Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter
on appeal.
1. A method to produce a composite rating using context
information, comprising:
measuring a first metric in a first context to provide a first
contextual measurement;
measuring a second metric in a second context to provide a
second contextual measurement;
transforming, by a processor, the first contextual measurement
to a first plurality of semantic context values by use of a first plurality
of pertaining functions;
transforming, by a processor, the second contextual
measurement to a second plurality of semantic context values by use
of a second plurality of pertaining functions;
combining, by a processor, one or more of the first plurality of
semantic context values and one or more of the second plurality of
semantic context values, by use of one or more fuzzy logic
rules, to produce a plurality of semantic distributions; and
calculating, by a processor, a centroid of a merger of the
plurality of semantic distributions in order to produce the composite
rating.
THE REJECTIONS
The following rejections are before us for review:
1. Claims 1—20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being
directed to non-statutory subject matter.
2. Claims 1—20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Mueller et al (US 2007/0124161 Al, pub. May 31 2007),
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Appeal 2015-001020
Application 13/207,502
Wu et al (US 8,300,798 Bl, Oct. 30 2012) and Kannan et al (US 8,396,741
B2, Mar. 12, 2013).
FINDINGS OF FACT
We have determined that the findings of fact in the Analysis section
below are supported at least by a preponderance of the evidence1.
ANALYSIS
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. §101
The Examiner rejected claims 1—20 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being
directed to non-statutory subject matter (Ans. 5, 6). The Appellants have
provided no arguments in response to this and the rejection is accordingly
summarily affirmed.
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
The Appellants first argue that the rejection of claim 1 is improper for
the failure of the prior art to disclose “semantic context values” and
“semantic distributions” (App. Br. 8, 9).
In contrast, the Examiner has determined that the cited claim
limitation is found in Mueller in Figures 5, 7, and at paras. 28, 31, 43—45,
and 50 (Ans. 7).
We agree with the Appellants. The Specification at para. 30 describes
the term “semantics” to be a “comparison relative to a subjective scale (e.g.,
1 See Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988)
(explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the
Patent Office).
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Appeal 2015-001020
Application 13/207,502
“good”, “neutral”, “bad”, etc.), without precise numeric boundaries.”
However, the citation in the rejection to Mueller at Figures 5 and 43—47 for
example only provide numeric responses. Mueller at paragraph 28 does
disclose that calls may be placed to the customer to rate performance but
does not specifically disclose that the questions given do not seek precise
numeric boundaries. Mueller at paragraph 31 does disclose using an A-F
scale but at paragraph 50 this scale is shown to correspond to a numeric
level or boundary. The remaining citations to Mueller in the rejection fail to
disclose the argued claim limitation as well. Accordingly, the rejection of
claim 1 and its dependent claims is not sustained. The remaining claims
contain a similar limitation and the rejection of these claims is not sustained
as well.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
We conclude that Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred
in rejecting the claims under 35U.S.C. § 101.
We conclude that Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred in
rejecting the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—20 is sustained.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).
AFFIRMED
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