Ex Parte Gruhl et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 24, 2014

12062096 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 24, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________
Ex parte DANIEL FREDERICK GRUHL and
DANIEL NORIN MEREDITH
____________________

Appeal 2011-010330
Application 12/062,096
Technology Center 2100
____________________

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

CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2011-010330
Application 12/062,096

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1, 3-11, and 13-20. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

SUMMARY OF THE DECISION
We affirm.

BACKGROUND
Appellants’ invention is directed to creating, representing, and
delivering entity co-occurrence information pertaining to entities in a
document corpus such as the World Wide Web. (Spec. 1, ll. 4-5).
Claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A computer programmed to execute logic comprising:
receiving a query;
in response to the query, accessing at least one sparse
matrix containing information representing co-occurrences of
entities in a document corpus; and
returning information obtained in the accessing act as a
response to the query, wherein the sparse matrix includes entity
representations that are respective groups of sub-rows in the
sparse matrix, wherein the groups are sorted relative to each
other from most occurring entity to least occurring entity in the
document corpus, with each sub-row of a group corresponding
to an entity co-occurring in the document corpus with the entity
represented by the group, and furthermore wherein the sub-
rows within a group of sub-rows are internally sorted
independently of other groups of sub-rows based on frequencies
of co-occurrences within the group, from a first a [sic] sub-row
indicating a highest number of co-occurrences to a last sub-row
indicating a lowest number of co-occurrences.

Appeal 2011-010330
Application 12/062,096

3
Appellants appeal the following rejections:
Claims 1, 3-10 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, as indefinite.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as reciting ineligible
abstract idea subject matter.
Claims 1, 7, 10, 11, 13, and 161 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Kostoff (US 2004/0064438 A1, pub. Apr. 1, 2004),
Canright (US 2007/0185871 A1, pub. Aug. 9, 2007), and Sommer
(US 6,847,966 B1, iss. Jan. 25, 2005).
Claims 3-6, 8, 9, 14, 15, and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Kostoff, Canright, Sommer, and Eisele
(US 7,031,910 B2, iss. Apr. 18, 2006).

ANALYSIS
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, Second Paragraph
We are persuaded by Appellants’ argument that claims 1 and 20 are
not indefinite, based on insufficient antecedent basis for the term “the
groups” in the claims (Ans. 4-5), because this term is preceded by a
recitation of “groups of sub-rows” to which the term refers. (App. Br. 14-
15). We agree that “the groups” can only refer to the previously recited
“groups of sub-rows.”
We do not agree with the Examiner that “the groups” could refer to
either “groups of sub-rows” or “entity representations” (Ans. 36), because
one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize “groups” to refer only to the

1 We interpret the inclusion of claim 20 in this set of rejected claims as
inadvertent error, because the claim is not treated in this section in detail,
and is instead rejected separately at pages 14 and 22 of the Answer.
Appeal 2011-010330
Application 12/062,096

4
like-worded “groups.” In addition, because we find the claim text clear and
unambiguous, we do not agree with the Examiner’s reliance on the
discussion in the Specification to interpret “the groups” as instead referring
to “an entity.” (Ans. 36-37).
For these reasons, we reverse the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112,
second paragraph, of claims 1 and 20, as well as dependent claims 3-10.
Patentable Subject Matter
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments that claim 11 recites
patentable subject matter. Claim 11 recites “[a] service,” but the body of the
claim recites only method steps, with the verbs, “receiving a query” and
“returning a response,” in gerund form. If the body of a claim fully and
intrinsically sets forth all of the limitations of the claimed invention, and the
preamble merely states, for example, the purpose or intended use of the
invention, rather than any distinct definition of any of the claimed
invention’s limitations, then the preamble is not considered a limitation and
is of no significance to claim construction. Pitney Bowes, Inc. v. Hewlett-
Packard Co., 182 F.3d 1298, 1305 (Fed. Cir. 1999). Therefore, we construe
the claim as reciting a process or method.
Claim 11 recites receiving a query, but the content of that query being
“for information contained in the World Wide Web” is not functionally
related to the substrate method, because the step of “returning a response”
merely refers to “a document corpus” and the nature of the information
requested is never again mentioned, and does not alter the method of
receiving and responding to a request. The content of the information in the
request, as being for particular information, is not given patentable weight
Appeal 2011-010330
Application 12/062,096

5
because it is non-functional descriptive material. See In re Ngai, 367 F.3d
1336, 1338 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
The second step recites returning a response to the query, “at least in
part by accessing a data structure,” but the returning of the response to the
query is not recited as being dependent on the nature of information in the
data structure or the organization of the data structure, or even the accessing
itself. Therefore, the content of the data, including its organization, is also
not given patentable weight as non-functional descriptive material. Id. In
addition, the mere organization of data in a so-called “data structure” does
not rise to the level of patentable weight given the memory-based physical
relationship of data to memory locations that our reviewing court found
significant, for performance reasons, in In re Lowry 32 F.3d 1579 (Fed. Cir.
1994).
Therefore, our claim construction leads us to following two steps in
the claimed method. First, the claim recites “receiving a query for
information,” which we construe as insignificant extra-solution activity. See
Bilski v. Kappos, 545 F.3d 943, 963 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (en banc), aff'd sub
nom Bilski v. Kappos, 130 S. Ct. 3218 (2010) (characterizing data gathering
steps as insignificant extra-solution activity). Second, the claim recites
“returning a response to the query, at least in part by accessing a data
structure.” The “data structure,” however, could be mere human memory,
the response could be based on mental steps, and the communicating of the
response, which is not further recited in the claim, is also insignificant extra-
solution activity. Therefore, we conclude that the claim recites an abstract
idea, in that the significant portions of the method can be performed by pure
mental thought.
Appeal 2011-010330
Application 12/062,096

6
Appellants’ arguments relating to the “Research Corp.” case are
unpersuasive, because they are not relevant to our claim construction and
analysis set forth above (App. Br. 5-7, Reply Br. 1), or to the Examiner’s
finding that the claim is an abstract idea (Ans. 5).
Therefore, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claim 112 under
35 U.S.C. § 101 as reciting ineligible subject matter.
Rejection of claims 1, 7, 10, 11, 13, and 16 under § 103(a)
Claim 1 recites “[a] computer programmed to execute logic” but the
body of the claim recites method steps in gerund form, for “receiving a
query,” “accessing at least one sparse matrix,” and “returning information
obtained in the accessing.” We thus treat the claim as reciting a method,
because the claim does not contain any structural elements that delimit the
“computer.” In addition, the nature of the information contained in the
matrix, and the organization of the matrix, including how it is sorted,
represent non-functional descriptive material. This is because the content of
the data, and the organization of it, does not alter that data is merely being
accessed, without further reliance in the method on the organization of that
data. See Ngai, at 1338.
Claim 1 is therefore similar to claim 11, which Appellants argue by
reference to the arguments presented for claim 1. (App. Br. 12). Therefore,
we select claim 1 as representative, and claim 11 falls with claim 1. In
addition, Appellants present no separate arguments for dependent claims 7,

2 The Examiner did not reject, under 35 U.S.C. § 101, claims 13-19 that
depend from claim 11, but presented no analysis that the language recited in
those claims, which address abstract data organization but introduce no
additional steps, would take the claims out of the realm of an abstract idea.
Appeal 2011-010330
Application 12/062,096

7
10, 13, and 16, which also fall with claim 1. See, 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(vii).
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument that Canright does not
disclose sorting on the correct information, because it discloses “sorting
documents according to word similarity scores without regard to how
frequently the documents appear in the corpus,” and does not disclose an
“outer sort as claimed.” (App. Br. 8-10; see also Reply Br. 1-2). This is
because the arguments are directed to claim language to which we give no
patentable weight, as being non-functional descriptive material, as set forth
above.
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments that Sommer
“nowhere mentions the term ‘sparse matrix’” and that “Sommer does not
relate to sorting sub-rows within one of a group of sub-rows” (App. Br. 11),
because these arguments also are directed to claim language to which we
give no patentable weight. In addition, Sommer discloses operations on
matrices. (Sommer, col. 20, ll. 55-58; see also Reply Br. 2-3). The specific
content of a matrix, including whether it is dense or sparse based on how
many null/zero values it contains, also represents non-functional descriptive
material in the scope of these claims. Whether the information is even
organized in a matrix, also relates to non-functional descriptive material
because there is nothing in the “accessing” that requires a matrix.
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument that “Kostoff uses
phrases, not entities” (App. Br. 12; see also Reply Br. 3), because this is
directed to the content, or abstract meaning assigned to the content, used as a
sort term, and is thus also directed to non-functional descriptive material not
deserving patentable weight in the current claim language.
Appeal 2011-010330
Application 12/062,096

8
For these reasons, we affirm the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of
claims 1, 7, 10, 11, 13, and 16.
Rejection of claims 3, 9, 14, 15, and 17-19 under § 103(a)
These claims were not separately argued, so we affirm their rejection
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for the same reasons as claim 1, above.
Rejection of claims 4-6 and 8 under § 103(a)
Dependent claim 4 recites “accessing a header including at least two
bytes, the first of which indicates a file version and the second byte of which
indicates a number of bytes used for at least one cardinality representing a
corresponding number of entity co-occurrences.” Claim 5 depends from
claim 4 and recites “wherein the cardinality is expressed exactly.” Claim 6
also depends from claim 4 and recites “wherein the cardinality is expressed
using a two-byte approximation.” Dependent claim 8 recites “wherein the
index is a concatenated list of integers representing offsets of entity-
representing strings in the data string.”
We are not persuaded by any of Appellants’ arguments directed to
these claims (App. Br. 13-14, Reply Br. 3), because the arguments are all
directed to the content of the data itself, which we construe as mere non-
functional descriptive material, because the claimed “accessing” bears no
functional relationship to the content of the data, in that the accessing is
recited as being performed independent of the content that is accessed. See
Ngai, at 1338.
Therefore, we affirm the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of claims
4-6 and 8.

Appeal 2011-010330
Application 12/062,096

9
Rejection of claim 20 under § 103(a)
Independent claim 20 recites a method for responding to queries,
comprising:
receiving the query;
using at least a portion of the query as an entering
argument to access a string table having an index, the index
providing offsets of various character strings, the index being
followed by per-string data listing each entity represented in a
sparse matrix, the entities in the string table being listed in
order of frequency of occurrence in a document corpus;
using a selection from the string table selected in
response to the portion of the query to access a sparse matrix;
and
returning a response to the query at least in part based on
the access of the sparse matrix, wherein the sparse matrix
includes entity representations that are respective groups of sub-
rows in the sparse matrix, wherein the groups are sorted relative
to each other from most occurring entity to least occurring
entity, with each sub-row of a group corresponding to an entity
co-occurring in the document corpus with the entity represented
by the group, and furthermore wherein the sub-rows within a
group of sub-rows are internally sorted independently of other
groups of sub-rows based on frequencies of co-occurrences
within the group, from a first a[sic] sub-row indicating a highest
number of co-occurrences to a last sub-row indicating a lowest
number of co-occurrences.
In this method, “at least a portion of” a query is functional, in that it is
used “as an entering argument to access a string table having an index.”
Then, “a selection from the string table” is used “to access a sparse matrix.”
The claim does not limit the content of the string table used, because the
portion of the string table access “in response to the portion of the query”
could encompass the “portion of the query” used as an argument. However,
the “string table” is a separate, indexed data set from the “sparse matrix.”
Appeal 2011-010330
Application 12/062,096

10
Rather than direct “access of the sparse matrix,” as in claim 1, the
claim recites an extra step to first “access a string table having an index” and
to use “a selection from the string table . . . to access a sparse matrix.”
The Examiner finds that this extra step is not disclosed in the
combination of Kostoff/Canright/Sommer. (Ans. 24-25). Instead, the
Examiner finds this step in Eisele, in which a matrix r is accessed to
determine an offset in matrix p to access. (Eisele, col. 6, ll. 25-27, ll. 31-33,
and ll. 42-46). The Examiner reasons combining Eisele’s offset lookup in
one matrix to access another matrix could be combined with the system of
Kostoff/Canright/Sommer “to improve the performance of [the] text
searching system.” (Id. at 25). This advantage is disclosed in Eisele, at
column 3, lines 21-23.
Appellants argue there is no reason to incorporate Eisele’s system to
access data about frequency, because Kostoff already sorts by frequency.
(App. Br. 13; see also Reply Br. 3). We are not persuaded by this argument
because we find the content of the data, as to frequency, unimportant,
because Eisele discloses a way of using one matrix to improve performance
accessing data in another matrix, as claimed.
Therefore, we affirm the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of claim
20.

DECISION
We reverse the rejection of claims 1, 3-10, and 20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, second paragraph.
We affirm the rejection of claim 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Appeal 2011-010330
Application 12/062,096

11
We affirm the rejection of claims 1, 7, 10 11, 13, and 16 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
We affirm the rejection of claims 3-6, 8, 9, 14, 15, and 17-20 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

hh