Ex Parte Greenfield et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 29, 201811426760 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 29, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 11/426,760 06/27/2006 100462 7590 08/31/2018 Dority & Manning P.A. and Google LLC Post Office Box 1449 Greenville, SC 29602 UNITED ST A TES OF AMERICA FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Lawrence Greenfield 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. GGL-600B 1434 EXAMINER GEBRESENBET, DINKU W ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2164 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/31/2018 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): usdocketing@dority-manning.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte LAWRENCE GREENFIELD, DANIEL EGNOR, FRANCOIS BAILLY, and JOHN HANKE Appeal2018-000243 Application 11/426,760 Technology Center 2100 Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and ERIC S. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judges. DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal2018-000243 Application 11/426,760 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 62-91. Claims 1-61 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. Appellants' application relates to processing ambiguous search requests in a geographic information system (GIS). Spec. ,r,r 35, 179-181. For example, a user entering a flight number in the GIS would be shown the location of the corresponding plane on a map, whereas a user entering a UPS tracking number would be shown the location of the corresponding package on a map. Spec. ,r 35. Claim 62, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 62. A method for processmg ambiguous search requests, compnsmg: receiving, by one or more computing devices at a server, a search request including an arbitrary search string; determining, by the one or more computing devices, for a plurality of composition rules, a respective plurality of probabilities that the composition rules match the arbitrary search string, wherein each composition rule specifies a search string pattern and is associated with a type of search; selecting by the one or more computing devices, a composition rule from among the plurality of composition rules based on the probability that the composition rule matches the arbitrary search string; and 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Google Inc. App. Br. 3. 2 Appeal2018-000243 Application 11/426,760 using information by the one or more computing devices, in the arbitrary search string to search an information system that corresponds to the type of search associated with the selected composition rule; and receiving by the one or more computing devices, a search result responsive to the search request from the information system and displaying it on a client device. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Narurkar Colledge Marks US 6,339,795 Bl Jan. 15, 2002 US 2005/0080776 Al Apr. 14, 2005 US 2005/0234641 Al Oct. 20, 2005 REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 62-66, 68, 72-76, 78, 82-86, and 88 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Narurkar and Colledge. Claims 67, 69-71, 77, 79-81, 87, and 89-91 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Narurkar, Colledge, and Marks. ANALYSIS The Examiner finds the combination ofNarurkar and Colledge discloses all the limitations of independent claim 62, including that Narurkar teaches the claimed "using information by the one or more computing devices, in the arbitrary search string to search an information system that corresponds to the type of search associated with the selected composition rule." Final Act. 3-5. Appellants contend, among other things, that 3 Appeal2018-000243 Application 11/426,760 N arurkar fails to teach searching an information system corresponding to the type of search associated with a selected composition rule. See Br. 11-12. We agree with Appellants. Narurkar discloses a "data exchange process for transferring data representing a geographical address from a source host using a source data format to a destination host using a destination data format." Narurkar, Abstract. Narurkar implements a parsing module to read data from the source host and perform pattern matching for determining the probability of the data corresponding to a particular type of information. Narurkar, col. 17, 11. 45-56. Narurkar's parsing module further performs a number of contextual analysis sub-processes that increase the accuracy in determining the probability of identifying the type of information of the data. Narurkar, col. 17, 11. 56-62. For the disputed claim 62 feature noted above, the Examiner cites column 21 ofNarurkar (Final Act. 4), which describes the parsing module's sub-processes as including contextual analysis sub-processes for state matching and zip code matching. Narurkar, col. 21, 11. 1-11. Here, Narurkar describes an iterative process of determining how to categorize certain data, e.g., a state match, or a zip code match. See id. Claim 62, however, recites not only determining the probabilities that a search string matches certain composition rules, but "search[ing] an information system that corresponds to the type of search associated with the selected composition rule." In other words, claim 62 selects and searches a particular information system based on the probability that a search string matches a composition rule that is associated with a type of search. The Examiner has not shown N arurkar uses the parsed data to perform a search, let alone perform a search on a particular information system based on the data type. 4 Appeal2018-000243 Application 11/426,760 Rather, Narurkar is concerned with determining the type of information in certain source host data so that it can be properly tagged for a destination host (see Narurkar col. 28, 11. 14--30), not so that an appropriate information system can be searched using the data. Accordingly, we are constrained by the record to find the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claim 62, independent claims 72 and 82 which recite commensurate limitations, and dependent claims 63-71, 73-81, and 83-91 for similar reasons. CONCLUSION The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 62-91 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). DECISION For the above reasons, we reverse the Examiner's rejection of claims 62-91. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation