Ex Parte Federov et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 29, 2018

13239343 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 29, 2018)

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.
13/239,343 09/21/2011 Vladimir Federov 26295-18776 6658
87851 7590 01/31/2018
Faoehnnk/Fen wi ok
EXAMINER
Silicon Valley Center LU, CHARLES EDWARD
801 California Street
Mountain View, CA 94041 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2161
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/31/2018 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):
ptoc @ fenwick.com
fwfacebookpatents @ fenwick.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte VLADIMIR FEDEROV, XIN LIU,
DAVID MICHAEL PROUDFOOT, and WEI XU1
Appeal 2016-000582
Application 13/239,343
Technology Center 2100
Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, CAROLYN D. THOMAS, and
DAVID J. CUTITTAII, Administrative Patent Judges.
NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 6 through 37. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Facebook, Inc. App.
Br. 2.
Appeal 2016-000582
Application 13/239,343
INVENTION
Appellants’ disclosed invention is directed to a social networking
system that includes a mechanism for integrating user actions on objects
outside of the social networking system in the social graph. See Abstract of
Appellants’ Specification. Claim 6 is representative of the invention and
reproduced below.
6. A method comprising:
receiving definitions of graph action types and definitions
of graph object types, the graph action types and the graph
object types defined by one or more third party developers that
are external to a social networking system;
receiving graph actions corresponding to the received
definitions of graph action types, the graph actions performed
on graph objects corresponding to the graph object types by
users connected to a viewing user of the social networking
system, and the users and the viewing user are different from
the one or more third party developers;
receiving graph data including information about the
graph actions performed on graph objects by users of a social
networking system;
generating, by a processor, content items from the
received graph data, each content item comprising a graph
action performed on a graph object by a user of the social
networking system;
determining, by the processor, weighted ranking factors
based on the information about the graph actions performed on
graph objects associated with the generated content items;
determining, by the processor, ranking scores for the
content items based on combinations of the weighted ranking
factors associated with the content items and preferences of the
viewing user; and
providing ranked content items for display to the viewing
user based on the ranking scores.
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Appeal 2016-000582
Application 13/239,343
REJECTIONS AT ISSUE2
The Examiner has rejected claims 6 through 8, 20 through 22, 24, and
33 through 37 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 for being unpatentable over Rathod
(US 2011/0276396 Al, published Nov. 10, 2011) and Cannelongo (US
2012/0158527 Al, published June 21, 2012). Final Act. 2—10.
The Examiner has rejected claims 9 through 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103
for being unpatentable over Rathod, Cannelongo, and Arellano (US
2004/0128624 Al, published July 1, 2004). Final Act. 10-12.
The Examiner has rejected claims 17, 23, and 30 through 32 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 for being unpatentable over Rathod, Cannelongo, and
Nicholas (US 2007/0204308) Al, published Aug. 30, 2007. Final Act. 12—
15.
The Examiner has rejected claims 18 and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103
for being unpatentable over Rathod, Cannelongo, and Sarkar (US
2007/0011155 Al, published Jan. 11,2007). Final Act. 15—16.
The Examiner has rejected claims 25, 26, 27, and 29 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 for being unpatentable over Rathod, Cannelongo, and
Stiebel (US 2007/0243509 Al, published Oct. 18, 2007). Final Act. 17-19.
The Examiner has rejected claim 28 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 for being
unpatentable over Rathod, Cannelongo, and Lund (US 2010/0088765 Al,
published Apr. 8, 2010). Final Act. 19.
2 Throughout this Decision we refer to the Appeal Brief filed March 31,
2015, Reply Brief filed October 13, 2015, Final Office Action mailed
October 23, 2014, Appellants’ Specification submitted September 21, 2011
and Examiner’s Answer mailed August 13, 2015.
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Application 13/239,343
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed Appellants’ arguments in the Briefs, the
Examiner’s rejections, and the Examiner’s response to Appellants’
arguments. Appellants’ arguments have not persuaded us of error in the
Examiner’s rejections of claims 6 through 37.
Appellants argue the combination of the references do no teach
receiving definitions of graph action types, and graph object types defined
by one or more third party developers that are external to the social
networking system. App. Br. 4. Further, Appellants argue that the
references do not teach receiving graphing actions which are performed on
graph object types by users connected to a viewing user of the social media
networking system, where the users and viewing users are different from the
one or more third party developers. App. Br. 4—5. Specifically, Appellants
argue that in Rathod the user defines the action type and thus the reference
does not teach the action are defined by a third party developer. App. Br. 5—
8 (citing Rathod paras 396, 426, 449, and Figs. 83, 84 and 90). Appellants
state:
in Rathod a user may manually define an action type that is
used to describe an action of the user, but the action types
created by a user are specific to describing actions of that user,
and they allow a user simply to describe its actions to other
users of Rathod’s system. See, e.g., paras. [0449]; see also FIG.
90. Applicant notes that the API cited to by the examiner at
para. [0397] merely provides options for the user to “integrate
9026 one or more user’s Action[s]... with 3rd parties external
domains,... APL ...” Para. [00449]; see also FIG. 90 (e.g., the
user in FIG. 90 of Rathod has selected “My site.com”). Thus, in
Rathod, an action type created by a user may not be applied by
the system to describe actions performed by users other than the
user who created the action’s action type profile.
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Appeal 2016-000582
Application 13/239,343
App. Br. 8.
The Examiner finds that:
Rathod teaches that providing actions on objects [0136]
involves binding with third party applications via web services,
API (application programming interface), programming
instructions, etc. (e.g., Fig. 80, #726; [0143,0397]), to
communicate a user’s outside action (e.g., Fig. 80, #726) to the
social networking system (e.g., fig. 83). For example, social
networking page (e.g., Fig. 84) shows a user’s action on an
object (“post video” #8487) performed from a third party
application (YouTube).
This suggests the claimed subject matter of graph action
types (e.g., fig. 84 “post”, “purchase” “add” and fig. 83 “join”
“share”) and graph object types (e.g., fig. 84 “video” “photo”
and fig. 83 “product”) being defined by one or more third party
developers (e.g., programmers) external to the social
networking system. In other words, it is suggested that a third
party developer would have defined (programmed) such object
and action types, in order to bind these actions between the
third party application and the social network and allow the
actions to be properly recognized and communicated to the
social networking system.
For example, it is suggested that a third party developer
(e.g., programmer) defines that a user may “post [a] video,”
“purchase [a] product,” “add [a] photo”, etc., to track these
types of activities and communicate them to the social network
system. It is further suggested that the developer can be from
the third party application (e.g., YouTube, fig. 84, #8467), or
any independent developer in charge of integrating outside
actions with the social network (e.g., fig. 80, #728).
Answer 4—5.
We concur with the Examiner. Initially, we note that Appellants have
not contested the Examiner’s finding of the actions such as “post,”
“purchase,” and “share” are graph actions types, nor has Appellants
contested the Examiner’s finding that “video,” “photo” or “product” are
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Application 13/239,343
graph object types. Further, Appellants have not contested the Examiner’s
finding that Rathod teaches that third party systems can provide information
related to these objects and actions to a social media networking system.
Appellants’ arguments are directed to who defines these elements. Reply
Br. 2. The Examiner has found that the teachings of Rathod suggest that
these objects and actions would have been defined by third party developers
associated with the third party applications, which are providing the
information. Answer 5 (quoted above).3 We concur, as it seems reasonable
that the third party application would define their “products” (equated to the
claimed graphic object type) and what is a “purchase” (equated to the
claimed graphic action type). Appellants’ arguments, on pages 3^4 of the
Reply Brief, (citing Rathod’s Figure 83 user interface to select what
activities to show in their action feed) does not persuade us of error in the
Examiner’s finding, as the user selection does not preclude the object types
and actions discussed above from being defined by a third party. Thus,
3 We note that the claim term “third party developer external to the social
networking system” is ambiguous as it is not clear if the term means that a)
the developer is not a member of the social network system or b) the
developer is not a developer of the social network system. The Examiner’s
rejection appears to use interpretation b). We further note that the claim
does not recite receiving the definitions from the third party developers but
rather that the definitions are defined by the third party developers. Thus,
the claimed relationship between the definitions and a third party developer
is a product (definition) by process (third party developers) limitation. As
such who defines the definition does not change the definition. See In re
Thorpe, 111 F.2d 695, 697 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (“If the product in a product-by­
process claim is the same as or obvious from a product of the prior art, the
claim is unpatentable even though the prior product was made by a different
process.”).
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Application 13/239,343
Appellants’ have not persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s rejection of
claim 1 and we sustain the Examiner’s rejection.
Appellants argue that the rejection of independent claims 6 and 24,
and the claims which depend upon claims 1, 6, and 24 are in error for the
same reasons as claim 1. App. Br. 8—10. Accordingly, we similarly sustain
the Examiner’s rejection of these claims also.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 6 through 37 under
35U.S.C. § 103.
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
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