Ex Parte Ganti et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 24, 2016

12970166 (P.T.A.B. May. 24, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/970, 166 12/16/2010
25537 7590 05/26/2016
VERIZON
PA TENT MANAGEMENT GROUP
1320 North Court House Road
9th Floor
ARLINGTON, VA 22201-2909
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Visweswararao GANTI
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.
20100753 5589
EXAMINER
KHATTAR, RAJESH
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3693
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/26/2016 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):
patents@verizon.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte VISWEW ARARAO GANTI, JOHN HANS VAN ARKEL,
ADAM YOUNG, JAMES J. PARA VECCHIO,
and LAWRENCE J. ZA YKOWSKI
Appeal2013-007738
Application 12/970,1661
Technology Center 3600
Before, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, NINA L. MEDLOCK, and
KENNETH G. SCHOPPER, Administrative Patent Judges.
FISCHETTI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner's
final rejection of claims 1-18. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
SUMMARY OF DECISION
We REVERSE.
1 Appellants identify Verizon Communications Inc. as the real party in
interest. Appeal Br. 3.
Appeal2013-007738
Application 12/970, 166
Claim 9 reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on
appeal.
9. A system, comprising:
one or more memory devices to store a plurality of rules for
detecting fraud; and one or more processors to:
receive first transaction data associated with a transaction
between a consumer and a merchant;
select rules, from the plurality of rules, applicable to the first
transaction data;
process the first transaction data using the selected rules to
generate a plurality of alarms;
generate an alarm score for each alarm of the plurality of
alarms;
combine the plurality of alarms with alarms associated with one
or more other transactions to form a combined set of alarms;
sort alarms, in the combined set of alarms, into groups based on
attributes of the transaction;
generate a group score for each of the groups based on one or
more of the alarm scores for one or more of the alarms, from the
combined set of alarm, in the group;
generate a fraud score, for the transaction, based on one or more
of the group scores;
output first information regarding the fraud score to the
merchant to notify the merchant that the transaction is not potentially
fraudulent;
receive second transaction data that was not available when the
first transaction data was received, wherein the second transaction
data corresponds to at least one other transaction between at least one
other consumer and at least one other merchant;
perform an analysis of the fraud score using the second
transaction data; and
outputting, based on the analysis, second information regarding
the fraud score to notify the merchant that the transaction is
potentially fraudulent.
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Appeal2013-007738
Application 12/970, 166
THE REJECTION2
The following rejection is before us for review. 3
Claims 1-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Gopinathan (US 5,819,226, iss. Oct. 6, 1998).
ANALYSIS
Each of independent claims 1, 9, and 18 recites, in one form or
another,
generate a fraud score, for the transaction, based on one or more of
the group scores:
output first information regarding the fraud score to the merchant to
notifY the merchant that the transaction is not potentially fraudulent;
2 The 35 U.S.C. § 112 first paragraph rejection of claims 1-18 was
withdrawn in the Advisory Action dated 11/15/2012.
3 Should there be further prosecution of this application (including any
review for allowance), the Examiner may wish to review the claims for
compliance under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in light of the most recent Patent Office
guidance on § 101 found in the May 4, 2016 Memorandum to the Examining
Corps, titled "Formulating a Subject Matter Eligibility Rejection and
Evaluating the Applicant's Response to a Subject Matter Eligibility
Rejection," and the "July 2015 Update on Subject Matter Eligibility,"
80 Fed. Reg. 45429 (July 30, 2015), which supplements the "2014 Interim
Guidance on Patent Subject Matter Eligibility," 79 Fed. Reg. 74618
(Dec. 16, 2014 ), and the "Preliminary Examination Instructions in view of
the Supreme Court Decision in Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank
International, et al.," Memorandum to the Examining Corps, June 25, 2014.
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Appeal2013-007738
Application 12/970, 166
receive second transaction data that was not available when the first
transaction data was received, wherein the second transaction data
corresponds to at least one other transaction between at least one other
consumer and at least one other merchant;
perform an analysis of the fraud score using the second transaction
data; ....
Claim 9, App. 20-21.
The Examiner found concerning these limitations that Gopinathan
discloses:
receiving, at a second point in the transaction
between the consumer and the merchant, second
transaction data corresponding to one or more
other transactions between at least one other
consumer and at least one other merchant (col. 4,
lines 12-col. 6, lines 35, col. 25, lines 60-col. 28,
lines 30, col. 30, lines 3-34); analyzing the fraud
score using the second transaction data (col. 30,
lines 24-col. 31, lines 45, Fig. 8, 18-20, claim 5,
reasons codes serve as second information, reason
codes indicate which inputs to the models are most
important);
(Final Act. 4--5)
Appellants however argue that:
Although Gopinathan discloses outputting "reason
codes" indicating which inputs to the model are
considered to be most important in determining the
fraud score for a given transaction, Gopinathan
does not disclose or suggest receiving, at a second
point in the given transaction, second transaction
data corresponding to one or more other
transactions between at least one other consumer
and at least one other merchant; analyzing the
fraud score using the second transaction data; and
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Appeal2013-007738
Application 12/970, 166
outputting, based on the analyzing, second
information regarding the fraud score to assist the
merchant in determining whether to accept, deny,
or fulfill the transaction, wherein the second
information differs from the first information, as
would be required of Gopinathan based on the
stated interpretation. Instead, Gopinathan simply
discloses that the fraud score and the reason codes
(i.e., bases for the fraud score) are output. That is,
Gopinathan's "reason codes" are not output based
on an analysis, of second transaction data
corresponding to one or more other transactions
between at least one other consumer and at least
one other merchant, which is received at a second
point in the given transaction.
(Appeal Br. 11 ).
We agree with Appellants. Our review of Gopinathan at the cited
sections listed above reveals that at best, Gopinathan discloses using first
and second models, the second of which models, "uses only those
transactions that have fraud scores; as determined by prior application to the
first neural network model, above a predetermined cascade threshold."
Column 31, lines 29-32. According to Gopinathan, "[t]hose transactions
that score above the cascade threshold 2003 are applied to the second neural
network model 2005. The system outputs scores and reason codes from
either the first model 2004 or the second model 2006, as appropriate."
Column 31, lines 41--45. Thus, we find that Gopinathan cannot meet the
claim requirement of second transaction data that was not available when
the first transaction data was received, wherein the second transaction data
corresponds to at least one other transaction between at least one other
consumer and at least one other merchant because the second transaction
data in Gopinathan (corresponding to data of the second model) are the same
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Appeal2013-007738
Application 12/970, 166
data which made up part of the first model, but which meet a higher
threshold for the second model. Thus, because the second transaction data
are used in the first model, the data were available because these are the
same data. Moreover according to Gopinathan, only one of the two scores
from the respective models is outputted, "from either the first model 2004 or
the second model 2006, as appropriate" (emphasis added). Id. Thus,
Gopinathan cannot meet the claim requirement of outputting both first fraud
score information (corresponding to Gopinathan' s first model data) and
second fraud score information (corresponding to Gopinasthan's second
model data) because Gopinathan discloses outputting one or the other, and
not the claimed outputting of both first and second fraud scores.
Thus, we will not sustain the rejection of independent claims 1, 9 and
18.
Because each of claims 2-8, and 10-17 depends from one of claims 1,
9 and 18 and because we cannot sustain the rejection of claims 1, 9, and 18,
the rejection of claims 2-8 and 10-17 likewise cannot be sustained.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
We conclude the Examiner did err in rejecting claims 1-18 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-18 is reversed.
REVERSED
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