Ex Parte Fox

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 30, 2014

11139875 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 30, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte BILLY SHANE FOX
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Appeal 2011-012570
Application 11/139,875
Technology Center 3600
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Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, MEREDITH C. PETRAVICK, and
JOHN W. MORRISON, Administrative Patent Judges.

CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2011-012570
Application 11/139,875

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s
final decision rejecting claims 34-37. We have jurisdiction over the appeal
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
Claim 34 is illustrative:
34. A method of inventory management for an
enterprise, the method being implemented by a computer
including a processor and a memory and comprising:
(a) identifying a number of member stations of the
enterprise, each member station being a media property
having a name and associated market area in which the
media property delivers media programming to
consumers, and having associated advertising inventory
for sale, wherein the advertising inventory includes
advertising time associated with future time periods;
(b) generating a viewable display of advertising
inventory that meets specified criteria using a computer
implemented inventory management system including
price forecasting program logic executed by the
processor to generate the viewable display;
(c) generating and maintaining advertising inventory
pricing information in accordance with a demand curve
based pricing logic using yield management program
logic executed by the processor of the inventory
management system;
(d) maintaining advertising inventory order information
for the member stations using traffic billing program
logic executed by the processor of the inventory
management system;
(e) first recalculating advertising inventory pricing
information using the yield management program logic in
accordance with the demand curve based pricing logic
and price changes caused by a reduction in available
Appeal 2011-012570
Application 11/139,875

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inventory due to initial advertising inventory order
information;
(f) making a change to the advertising inventory order
information affecting inventory levels stored by the
traffic billing program logic;
(h) intermittently querying for a change in the advertising
inventory levels stored by the traffic billing program
logic;
(g) in response to the change in advertising inventory
levels, updating the advertising inventory utilized by the
yield management program logic; and
(i) second recalculating advertising inventory pricing
information using the yield management program logic in
accordance with the pricing logic and price change
caused by the change in available inventory due to the
change to the advertising inventory order information.

Appellant appeals the following rejection:
Claims 34-37 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Talluri
(US 6,263,315 B1; iss. Jul. 17, 2001) and Leonard M. Lodish, Applied
Dynamic Pricing and Production Models with Specific Application to
Broadcast Spot Pricing, 17 J. of Mktg. Res., 203-11 (1980) (hereinafter
“Lodish”).

ISSUE
Did the Examiner err in rejecting the claims because Talluri does not
disclose querying for a change in the advertising inventory levels stored by
the traffic billing program logic and recalculating advertising inventory
pricing information caused by the change in available inventory due to a
change in order information?
Appeal 2011-012570
Application 11/139,875

4
ANALYSIS
The Appellant argues that prior art does not disclose querying for a
change in advertising inventory levels stored by the traffic billing program
logic and recalculating pricing information caused by the change in
inventory due to a change in order information. We agree.
The Examiner relies on Figure 2, column l, lines 7-40, column 4, lines
6-11, column 4, lines 61-67, column 6, lines 12-36, and column 7, lines 21-
49 of Talluri and pages 206-208 of Lodish for disclosing this subject matter.
We find that Talluri discloses that when a bid is made, the computer
accesses the lookup table depicted in Figures 2a and 2b to obtain a threshold
value for the order. If the threshold value is reached, the bid is accepted
otherwise the bid is not accepted. This lookup table is calculated prior to the
receipt of any bid and is not caused by the change in available inventory
caused by the acceptance of a bid. As such, Talluri does not disclose
querying for a change in inventory and recalculating pricing information
caused by the change in inventory.
Likewise, we find that Lodish describes and depicts in table 3 that the
an optimal price to charge for a broadcast spots is calculated before the spots
run and thus the values in table 3 are pre-calculated prior to any change in
inventory caused by order information.

Appeal 2011-012570
Application 11/139,875

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Therefore, we will not sustain the rejection of claim 34 and claims 35
and 36 dependent therefrom. We will also not sustain this rejection as it is
directed to claim 37 because it also requires querying for a change in
advertising inventory and recalculating pricing information caused by the
change in inventory due to a change in order information.

DECISION
The decision of the Examiner is reversed.

REVERSED

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