Ex Parte Granpeesheh

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 31, 2018

12954520 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 31, 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.
12/954,520 11/24/2010 Doreen Granpeesheh 5209-0003 5571
27571 7590
Ascenda Law Group, PC
333 W San Carlos St.
Suite 200
San Jose, CA 95110
EXAMINER
ZAMAN, SADARUZ
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3715
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/02/2018 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):
patents @ ascendalaw.com
tarek.fahmi@ascendalaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DOREEN GRANPEESHEH
Appeal 2017-004654
Application 12/954,520
Technology Center 3700
Before MICHAEL L. HOELTER, BRETT C. MARTIN, and
PAUL J. KORNICZKY, Administrative Patent Judges.
MARTIN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2017-004654
Application 12/954,520
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1, 3, 5, and 10. Claims 2, 4, 6—8, and 9 are canceled.
Ans. 3. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
THE INVENTION
Appellant’s claims are directed generally “to computer-based methods
and systems for providing training materials for educators.” Spec. 11.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A computer-based system, comprising: a processor and a
storage medium communicatively coupled to said processor, said
storage medium storing instructions, which when executed by
said processor cause said processor to execute an e-Leaming
module comprising assessment tools and training modules that
include a plurality of lessons, wherein said execution includes:
providing a client computer system with a web page
configured as a dashboard, said dashboard adapted to (1)
describe each respective one of the training modules by name
and to indicate a number of lessons and audio video presentations
that comprise each respective training module; (2) permit
student navigation to (i) various ones of said of lessons available
to the student, and (ii) quizzes associated with said lessons, and
(iii) a final exam which is comprehensive for all of the lessons,
wherein a respective lesson is presented on the dashboard as
being available to the student only if the student has completed
all necessary prerequisite lessons for said respective lesson and
passed all associated quizzes for said respective lesson to a level
sufficient to indicate mastery of subject matter of the respective
lesson, a respective quiz is presented on the dashboard as being
available for student selection only if the student has completed
all respective lessons that are prerequisites for said respective
quiz, and the final exam is automatically presented on the
dashboard as being available for student selection responsively
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Application 12/954,520
to a determination that all of the individual quizzes have been
successfully completed; and (3) graphically depict the student's
progress through the individual lessons and successful student
completion of individual ones of the quizzes;
providing, responsive to student selection, the client
computer system with a selected one of said lessons as a lesson
web page that includes, on a single page, a viewing area for a
respective one of the audio-video programs associated with the
selected lesson and a text field adapted to permit the student to
enter notes while watching the respective audio-video program;
and
storing, for later retrieval in context with the selected
lesson, notes entered by the student in the text field of the lesson
web page, said notes being accessible by the student in a review
panel of a second web page that also includes an additional notes
field configured to permit the student to edit, revise and add to
the previously taken notes, and also being accessible to the
student while taking the quizzes and the final exam.
REJECTION
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1,3,5, and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as
directed to non-statutory subject matter. Ans. 3.
ANALYSIS
The Examiner rejects the claims as “well understood, routine, and
conventional [activities] previously known to the pertinent industry” as well
as being a “machine implementation [that] is not providing either
improvement or meaningful limitation of the abstract idea to a particular
technological environment.” Ans. 5, see also Final Act. 3. Appellant asserts
that the Examiner is incorrect because the claims do not merely recite “a
fundamental economic practice, methods of organizing human activity,
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Application 12/954,520
mathematical concept, or a mental process such as categorizing information
that can be performed in the human mind, or by a human using a pen and
paper.” App. Br. 11. We disagree.
As stated by the Examiner, all of the limitations in the claims
essentially amount to mere organization of human activity, and/or utilizing a
generalized computer to automate various activities that could otherwise be
performed by a human. See Ans. 4—5. Most of the activities in claim 1
amount to storage and retrieval of information, such as lessons,
quizzes/exams, and notes, that then are presented to a student at specific
times based upon completion of prior activities. The majority of these
activities simply replace a teacher or instructor with a computer for
organizing the activity of a human in being able to, for example, teach
lessons and then present a quiz or final exam. As stated by the Examiner,
“[tjhese system limitations are simply describing a process of reviewing,
responding, and interacting with a generic machine functionality used in a
training environment.” Ans. 5.
The other aspects of claim 1, merely provide for storage and retrieval
of students’ notes for later access and possible edits, and provide a specific
interface for so doing, but otherwise recite nothing more than providing a
platform and interface for accessing those notes that would otherwise be
achievable by a student interacting with any computer to receive notes typed
into a computer. The Examiner is also correct that this “amount(s) to no
more than (i) mere instructions to implement the idea on a standard
computer.” Ans. 6. We also agree that the “[hjuman mind can process the
[claimed] activities with the help of pen and paper and are considered to be
an abstract idea in itself.” Ans. 8. This all amounts to organizing of human
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Application 12/954,520
activity through the use of a general computer amounting to an abstract idea
that is specifically prohibited under § 101.
The Examiner and Appellant then mainly go off on a tangent as to
whether this abstract idea is one “in itself’ and whether certain case law
applies to the claims at issue. None of this tangential argument changes the
ultimate basis provided by the Examiner in the Final Action that properly
categorizes the claims as an abstract idea that is essentially nothing more
than a “machine implementation” of conventional classroom activities, i.e.,
organization of human activity. We agree with Appellant that “[abstraction
is avoided or overcome when a proposed new application or computer-
implemented function is not simply the generalized used of a computer as a
tool to conduct a known or obvious process . . . .” Reply Br. 5. We do not,
however, agree that the claims here are anything more than merely a
generalized use of a computer to conduct the known or obvious process of
presenting course materials to students, testing/quizzing them on such
material, and also providing a platform for storing and editing of notes.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection.
DECISION
For the above reasons, we AFFIRM the Examiner’s decision to reject
claims 1, 3, 5, and 10.
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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