Ex Parte Gross

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 17, 2014

11565352 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 17, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte JOHN NICHOLAS GROSS
____________

Appeal 2011–013137
Application 11/565,352
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before: MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, MICHAEL W. KIM, and
NINA L. MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judges.

KIM, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING
INTRODUCTION
The Board issued a Decision on May 15, 2014, that sustained the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, 4–16, 23, 24, and 26, and did not sustain
the Examiner’s rejection of claims 3, 20, and 21 (“Dec.”). Appellant filed a
Request for Rehearing on July 11, 2014 (“Req.”). In the Request, Appellant
asserts independent claims 20 and 26 recite similar subject matter, and that
in reversing the rejection of claim 20, the Board overlooked the arguments
set forth on page 9 of the Reply Brief and page 6 of the Appeal Brief which
asserted that claims 20 and 26 should be treated together. Accordingly,
Appellant asserts that since the rejection of claim 20 was not sustained, the
rejection of claim 26 should also not be sustained.
Appeal 2011-013137
Application 10/565,352

2
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the portions of the Reply Brief and Appeal Brief
cited by Appellant, and disagree that the Board overlooked or
misapprehended an argument. While page 9 of the Reply Brief lists
claims 20 and 26 in the section heading with other claims, the only claim
addressed with specificity in the analysis is claim 20. There is no indication
that Appellant’s assertions with regard to claim 20 are to be applied to
claim 26, but not the other claims listed in the section heading.
With regard to page 6 of the Appeal Brief, that page is a part of the
section entitled “Summary of Claimed Subject Matter,” and merely notes
that the support for claim 26 can be found generally in the prior analysis of
claim 20. This does not provide a clear indication to the Board that
claims 20 and 26 should be treated together throughout the Appeal Brief.
Nevertheless, upon inspection of independent claims 20 and 26, the
Board acknowledges the claims at least facially recite similar subject matter.
Upon further evaluation, we agree with Appellant that for the same reasons
that we did not sustain the rejection of independent claim 20 (Dec. 8), Kim
does not disclose “a web page compiler adapted to process content extracted
from selected ones of said one or more separate webpages to compile a
separate pseudo web page for said search results; means for identifying one
or more topics for said pseudo web page,” as recited in independent claim
26.
We modify our Decision of May 15, 2014, and do not sustain the
obviousness rejection of independent claim 26.

GRANTED

Klh