Ex Parte Feigenbaum et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 6, 201711961742 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 6, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 11/961,742 12/20/2007 Lisa Feigenbaum 321803.01 6813 69316 7590 11/08/2017 MICROSOFT CORPORATION ONE MICROSOFT WAY REDMOND, WA 98052 EXAMINER WENG, PEI YONG ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2179 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/08/2017 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): u sdocket @ micro soft .com chriochs @microsoft.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte LISA FEIGENBAUM, ERNEST TONG, CALVIN HSIA, and JAY SCHMELZER Appeal 2015-006804 Application 11/961,742 Technology Center 2100 Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges. SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL1 Appellants2 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 1—18, 22, and 23, which constitute all the claims pending in this application.3 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm-in-part. 1 An oral hearing was held for this appeal on April 27, 2017. 2 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Microsoft, Inc. (App. Br. 3). 3 Claims 19-21 have been previously canceled (App. Br. 32). Appeal 2015-006804 Application 11/961,742 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants ’ Invention Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows: 1. A method of facilitating data entry at a data entry position in a data set within a data entry environment having a symbolic grammar on a computer having a processor, the method comprising: executing on the processor instructions configured to: if the grammar permits a currently undefined symbol name at the data entry position, select a new symbol name that is not currently assigned to any member of any object associated with the data entry position; and present a symbol list having symbol list options comprising: symbol options permitted by the grammar at the data entry position, and a new symbol name option for the new symbol name. The Examiner’s Rejections The Examiner’s Answer relies on the following prior art references: Claims 1—5, 15, 16, and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by Ng (Ans. 2—5). Claims 1—13, 15—18, 22, and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Shulman and Griesmer (Ans. 5—13). Shulman Griesmer Albrecht Ng US 6,311,323 B1 US 2005/0114779 A1 US 2005/0235207 A1 US 2007/0061753 A1 Oct. 30, 2001 May 26, 2005 Oct. 20, 2005 Mar. 15,2007 2 Appeal 2015-006804 Application 11/961,742 Claim 14 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Shulman, Griesmer, and Albrecht (Ans. 14). Appellants ’ Contentions 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) Rejection overNg With respect to independent claim 1, Appellants contend: 1. The relied-on portions of Ng “provide no teaching about the data entry environment being constrained by a grammar” and instead, discloses an autocompletion process where an error “is exclusively determined within the mind of the user” (App. Br. 19). 2. Ng discloses nothing about “select[ing] a new symbol name that is not currently assigned to any member of any object” and instead, provides symbol lists that include “lists of known words that may be used for auto-completion” (App. Br. 20). 3. The 260 (“More”) button in Figure 5 of Ng “allows the user to scroll within the list of known words from the database,” but does not present “to the user a new word that is not known in the database” (App. Br. 21). 4. The Examiner has not identified in Ng any teaching related to “selecting a new symbol name that is not currently assigned to any member of any object associated with the data entry position” by asserting the claims do not recite a “database” or define an “object” (App. Br. 22). 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) Rejection over Shulman and Griesmer With respect to independent claims 1,15, and 16, Appellants contend: 1. The relied-on examples of Shulman “only present lists of known symbol names. For example, in Shulman Figs. 3—4, the device 3 Appeal 2015-006804 Application 11/961,742 identifies that the user is referencing a member of the ‘mytext’ object, and therefore presents a list of the names of the known members of the ‘mytext’ object” (App. Br. 23). 2. The Examiner has not shown the proposed combination of references teaches or suggests the claim limitation relating to “undefined symbol name” based on the assertion that the claim term is not defined, whereas paragraph 43 of the Specification defines the term “symbol name” (App. Br. 24). 3. Griesmer discloses nothing about “select[ing] a new symbol name that is not currently assigned to any member of any object associated with the data entry position” and instead, focuses on “previously defined symbol names with known values” (App. Br. 25). 4. The relied-on portions of Shulman and Griesmer include no examples that “present [a] new symbol” (App. Br. 26). ANALYSIS 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) Rejection With respect to the first contention, the Examiner responds by stating: Ng expressly teaches the composition of the word “cafe.” User can select either “e” or “e” when grammar permits (see Para [64] and Fig. 2 — grammar permits 5 alternatives). Further, the Examiner’s interpretation of “Grammar” is consistent with the “Grammar” disclose[d] in the specification of the instant application. (Ans. 14). We agree with the Examiner’s findings. As explained by the Examiner {id.), the user’s letter choice in Ng presents accented or diacritic versions of the inputted character, which is tied to the character inputted in a 4 Appeal 2015-006804 Application 11/961,742 letter choice library and tied to the current content/context (see Ng ]Hf 64— 66). Regarding the second contention, the Examiner asserts that the symbols in Ng are not assigned to any object that is disclosed, which implies the user can enter a symbol or use the scroll button 260 to select from a new symbol list (Ans. 15). The Examiner further explains that, consistent with the description of the term “grammar” in paragraph 49 of Appellants’ Specification, selecting symbols in Ng is based on a certain type of grammar (id. (citing Ng ]Hf 80-81)). We agree with the Examiner’s findings and adopt them as our own. Regarding the third contention, the Examiner finds, given the breadth of the claims and to the extent the Specification does not include a definition for the term “new symbol name,” the claims do not require the new word to be a word that is not known in the database (Ans. 15—16). The Examiner further finds a “user can type their own symbol name.” Non-Final Act. 3 (citing Ng Figs. 2, 2a, 1 81). For example, in Figure 2a of Ng, a user has typed the letters ‘c’, ‘a’, ‘f’, and ‘e’ and is presented with “accented or diacritic versions of the inputted character” ‘e’. Ng 1 64. “By selecting the letter choice ‘e’ . . . the word ‘cafe’ ... is changed to the word ‘cafe’.” Id. Alternatively, the user could press one of the other accent or diacritical marks to replace ‘e’ with a different letter (e.g., ‘e’ or ‘e’). Under Appellants interpretation (see App. Br. 21), the word “cafe” may be “known in the database” and therefore not a “new” word, but the words “cafe”, “cafe”, and “cafe” from pressing the other buttons all are “new symbol names” not known. See Non-Final Act. 3 (finding no evidence “the suggested symbol names are associated with any objects”). Similarly, 5 Appeal 2015-006804 Application 11/961,742 Figures 4 and 5 of Ng depict the user having typed “deva” and the system presenting buttons for both known auto-completed words such as “devastating” as well as “new” words using accent or diacritical marks. Thus, we disagree with Appellants’ argument that “[t]here is nothing in the Ng reference indicating that either the list of choices, or the 260 ‘More’ button, presents to the user a new word that is not known in the database.” App. Br. 21. With respect to the fourth contention, the Examiner correctly finds that Ng provides teachings related to each and every limitations of claim 1, consistent with their definition described in paragraph 49 of Appellants’ Specification (Ans. 16). That is, Ng discloses inputting and selecting symbols based on “a certain type of grammar” {id. (citing Ng Fig. 2, || 80- 81)). 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) Rejection With respect to the first and second contentions, the Examiner finds paragraph 42 of Appellants’ Specification defines the new or undefined member as a value or range of values, which are met by Shulman’s displayed values (Ans. 16—17). We disagree with the Examiner that Shulman’s displayed color values are not defined or assigned (see Ans. 17 (citing Shulman Fig. 8); Shulman col. 12,11. 26—29). Similarly, we disagree with the Examiner that Shulman’s Boolean values and color values are not defined and instead, are automatically displayed for selection (Ans. 17 (citing Shulman Figs. 6, 8)). Instead, we agree with Appellants that “the examples of Shulman that the examiner has identified [i.e., Boolean values in Fig. 6 and the colors in Fig. 8] only present lists of known symbol names” (App. Br. 23). 6 Appeal 2015-006804 Application 11/961,742 CONCLUSIONS On the record before us, we conclude that, because the Examiner’s findings show that Ng teaches all the disputed claim limitations, the Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 1,15, and 16, as well as claims 2—5 and 22 which are not argued separately, as being anticipated by Ng. However, we are persuaded of Examiner error in rejecting claims 1,15, and 16, as well as claims 2—14, 17, 18, 22, and 23 dependent therefrom as being unpatentable over the combination of Shulman with Griesmer or Griesmer and Albrecht. Therefore, we sustain the rejection of claims 1—5, 15, 16, and 22, but not of claims 5—14, 17, 18, and 23. DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—5, 15, 16, and 22, but reverse with respect to claims 5—14, 17, 18, and 23. No time for taking any action connected with this appeal may be extended under 37C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED-IN-PART 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation