Ex Parte Fogelberg

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 12, 2016

12784199 (P.T.A.B. May. 12, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
121784, 199 05/20/2010
25281 7590 05/16/2016
DICKE, BILLIG & CZAJA
FIFTH STREET TOWERS
100 SOUTH FIFTH STREET, SUITE 2250
MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55402
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Jon Nils Fogelberg
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. CONFIRMATION NO.
Fl 180.101.101 8318
EXAMINER
KHATTAR, RAJESH
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3693
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/16/2016 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):
USPTO.PA TENTS@dbclaw.com
dmorris@dbclaw.com
DBCLA W-Docket@dbclaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JON NILS FOGELBERG
Appeal2014-007257
Application 12/784,199 1
Technology Center 3600
Before ANTON W. PETTING, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, and
BRUCE T. WIEDER, Administrative Patent Judges.
WIEDER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the
Examiner's rejection of claims 5-8 and 10-17. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Appellant's claimed "invention relate to performing interest
calculations and return calculations by keeping track of all the cost or return
elements of an economic transaction and monitoring those costs or returns
1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Jon Nils Fogelberg.
(Appeal Br. 3.)
Appeal2014-007257
Application 12/784, 199
over actual real-time periods and not theoretical uniform time periods."
(Spec. ii 8.)
Claim 5 is the sole independent claim on appeal and is reproduced
below:
5. A method of analyzing financial investment and/or loan
data comprising:
controlling a computer configured to execute a
spreadsheet application having user definable rows and columns;
defining rows of the spreadsheet to represent sequential
financial events including a current financial event, wherein each
financial event includes an actual event date and/or time and an
actual event investment and/ or loan currency amount;
defining a first group of columns in the spreadsheet to
represent actual date and/ or time data pertaining to the financial
events including a column representing actual elapsed selected
time intervals between each of the financial events;
defining a second group of columns in the spreadsheet to
represent actual currency invested and/or loaned data including
a column representing the actual event investment and/or loan
currency amounts and a column representing actual total
investment and/ or loan currency amounts including a current
actual total investment and/or loan currency amount;
defining a third group of columns in the spreadsheet to
represent actual time-currency weighted factors, the third group
of columns including a column of actual event investment and/or
loan time-currency weighted factors weighted based on
multiplying the actual elapsed selected time intervals between
each of the financial events in the first group of columns with the
actual total investment and/or loan currency amounts in the
second group of columns and a column of actual total investment
and/ or loan time-currency weighted factors based on a
summation of the actual event investment and/or loan time-
currency weighted factors of the sequential financial events up to
each corresponding row of each of the financial events, the actual
total investment and/or loan time-currency weighted factors
including a current actual total investment and/or loan time-
currency weighted factor based on a summation of the actual
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Appeal2014-007257
Application 12/784, 199
event investment and/ or loan time-currency weighted factors of
the sequential financial events up to the corresponding row of the
current financial event;
defining a column in the spreadsheet to represent a current
total currency value of the financial investment and/ or loan; and
defining a column in the spreadsheet to represent a
cumulative true interest and/or true return based on dividing the
difference between the current total currency value of the
financial investment and/ or loan and the current actual total
investment and/ or loan currency amount in the second group of
columns by the current actual total investment and/or loan time-
currency weighted factor in the third group of columns.
REJECTIONS
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable
over a) Three useful dividend growth and reinvestment calculators,
http:// dividendstocks4 income. com/2 009 /02/26/three-useful-dividend-
growth-and-reinvestment-calculators/ (last visited May 6, 2016) (hereinafter
"NPL-Dividend Calculator"); and b) Rate of Return, http://v,reb.archive.org/
web/2 0071022144 313 /http:// en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Rate_of _return (last
visited May 6, 2016) (hereinafter "NPL-Rate of Return").
Claims 6-8 and 10-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over NPL-Dividend Calculator, NPL-Rate of Return, and
Official Notice taken by the Examiner. (Final Action 8-10.)
ANALYSIS
Appellant argues that unlike the prior art, "embodiments of the
limitations of independent claim 5 can accurately provide cumulative true
interest and/or true return in a variety of financially complex circumstances
such as: irregular investment and/or loan time intervals, irregular investment
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Application 12/784, 199
and/or loan amounts, and irregular interest and/or return amounts." (Appeal
Br. 8.)
Claim 5 recites "actual date and/or time data" and "actual elapsed
selected time intervals." Applying a broadest reasonable interpretation,
claim 5 includes both irregular and regular time intervals. Claim 5 also
includes both irregular and regular investment, loan, interest, or return
amounts. Thus, Appellant's argument is not commensurate with the scope
of the claim.
Additionally, even though Appellant's Figure 2 shows actual dates
and intervals measured in days, claim 5 does not require time measurement
in terms of days. Claim 5 includes time measurement in other intervals, e.g.,
regular monthly intervals. The prior art NPL-Dividend Calculator includes a
sample spreadsheet showing dollar cost averaging (DCA). (See Final
Action 3, citing DCA spreadsheet in NPL-Dividend Calculator.) The DCA
spreadsheet lists at regular monthly intervals ( 1, 2, etc.), beginning price,
dividend rate, dividend amount, cash, shares, cumulative shares, ending
price (for each period), and cumulative value. In other words, the DCA
spreadsheet shows time data for investments measured in regular monthly
intervals. (See NPL-Dividend Calculator.)
Appellant also argues that
[t]he ROI in NPL-Rate of Return "does not indicate how long
an investment is held" so it is difficult to compare investment
results without additional information. [2J The claimed invention
2 NPL-Rate of Return discloses that "rate of return," "return on investment,"
and "return" mean the same thing, i.e., "the ratio of money gained or lost on
an investment relative to the amount of money invested." NPL-Rate of
Return at 1.
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Application 12/784, 199
defined in independent claim 5 does define how long an
investment is held and the actual time-currency weighted
factors form an immediate basis to compare investment results.
(Id. 9.)
The basis to compare the investment results is recited in the final
limitation of claim 5:
defining a column in the spreadsheet to represent a cumulative
true interest and/or true return based on dividing the difference
between the current total currency value of the financial
investment and/ or loan and the current actual total investment
and/or loan currency amount in the second group of columns by
the current actual total investment and/ or loan time-currency
weighted factor in the third group of columns.
In other words, the total amount invested is subtracted from the total
current value. That result is then divided by the total amount invested. This
is the well-known return on investment. (See NPL-Rate of Return at 1.)
The result is then further processed by being divided by a weighting factor.
The prior art NPL-Rate of Return discloses applying a \veighting factor by
calculating return on investment and annualizing the rate "for a calendar or
fiscal year."3 (Id.) This also provides a basis for comparing investment
results. (Answer 5.) Appellants do not persuasively argue why Appellant's
weighting factor would not have been obvious particularly in view ofNPL-
Rate of Return.
3 The values in column N of Appellant's Figure 2 ("Cumulative True
Interest-True Return Percentage") are, in the first year, the return on
investment annualized by multiplying by 365 (to annualize) and dividing by
the elapsed days (365). We also note that the Specification discloses
annualizing the rates of return so that rates can be compared. (See Spec. 6.)
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Application 12/784, 199
Moreover, Appellant does not persuasively explain why the Examiner
erred in concluding that
given the disclosure of NPL-Rate of Return and NPL-Dividend
Calculator, it would have been obvious to a person having
ordinary skill in the art to define columns of the spreadsheet of
NPL-Dividend Calculator to represent actual time-currency
weighted factors (obtained by multiplying actual investment with
elapsed time as per Fig 3 of specification), actual event
investment and/ or loan time-currency weighted factors weighted
based on multiplying the actual elapsed selected time intervals
between each of the financial events in one column and actual
total investment and/or loan currency amounts in another column
(since the actual elapsed selected time interval and actual event
investment is disclosed by NPL-Rate of Return on pages 6-8,
multiplying these two using a spreadsheet would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art in order to calculate
the return, this is further supported by NPL-Rate of Return which
discloses holding period return by dividing the difference
between the ending price (total amount invested at the end of
period) and beginning price (total amount invested at the
beginning of the period) by the total amount invested at the
beginning of the period followed by dividing the return by
number of days the amount is invested for) would have been
obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art.
(See Answer 3.) Therefore, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in
rejecting claim 5.
Appellant does not separately argue dependent claims 6-8 and 10-17
except as to their dependence on claim 5. Therefore, for the same reasons,
we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 6-8 and
10-17.
Appellant's other arguments have been considered but are not deemed
persuasive of error.
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Application 12/784, 199
DECISION
The Examiner's rejections of claims 5-8 and 10-17 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) are 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)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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