Ex Parte Hallman

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

May 18, 2011

10324099 (B.P.A.I. May. 18, 2011)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE
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.
10/324,099 12/20/2002 Paul Hallman FAN-0002 7275
38680 7590 05/18/2011
RADER, FISHMAN & GRAUER, PLLC (FAN MATTERS)
LION BUILDING
1233 20TH STREET., N.W., SUITE 501
WASHINGTON, DC 20036
EXAMINER
MALHOTRA, SANJEEV
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3667
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/18/2011 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte PAUL HALLMAN
____________

Appeal 2010-004178
Application 10/324,099
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before, HUBERT C. LORIN, ANTON W. FETTING and JOSEPH A.
FISCHETTI, Administrative Patent Judges.

FISCHETTI, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2010-004178
Application 10/324,099

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s
final rejection of claims 1, 3-6, 8-11, 13 and 15-19. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) (2002). A hearing was held on May 5, 2010.

Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on
appeal.
1. A system for depicting geographic and demographic information
relating to mortgage lending activities, the system comprising:
a database that stores information including demographic, economic,
and mortgage lending information used in mortgage lending activities
from a plurality of public and private sources;
a user interface, which is configured to receive from a user
identifications of geographical regions, present to the user information
in the database for identified geographical regions, receive from the
user selections from a list of options that are used to filter the
information from the database for the identified geographical regions,
and present visual representations corresponding to the received
information;
a mapping application, in operative communication with the database
and the user interface, which uses the information in the database and
information entered by the user to generate the visual representations,
wherein the visual representations include depictions of demographic,
economic and mortgage lending information relating to mortgage
lending activity, wherein the mapping application receives the
information received from the user from the list of options to filter the
information retrieved from the database, and wherein the mapping
application customizes the generated depictions of demographic,
economic and mortgage lending information for selected geographic
regions for use by a mortgage market participant in understanding
mortgage lending activity for a geographic area that comprises the
selected geographic regions.

Appeal 2010-004178
Application 10/324,099

3

The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of
unpatentability:
Dykstra US 5,611,052 Mar. 11, 1997
Shaffer US 6,748,426 B1 Jun. 2004

TIGER/Line (TM) Files, 1992 Developed by the Bureau of the
Census Washington: The Bureau [producer and distributor],1993.

The Examiner rejected claims 1, 3-6, 8-11, 13 and 15-19 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Schaffer in view of Dykstra.

ANALYSIS
Each of independent claims 1 and 13 require: presenting to the user a
list of options for filtering the mortgage lending activity information that
corresponds to the identified geographical areas and receiving from the user
selections from the list of options….
The Examiner found that Shaffer discloses this feature, inter alia, at
col. 8, ll. 23-35 (Appeal Br. 8).
Shaffer discloses at this section:
One other embodiment of the invention is a system
for providing information directly to consumers
based on an identifier transmitted from the
consumer to the information system. For example,
a consumer connected to the Internet may be in the

Appeal 2010-004178
Application 10/324,099

4
middle of typing a letter to a friend in a word
processing program. However, the consumer
might only know the telephone number, but not
address of the friend. One embodiment is a
software application that runs as an applet within a
word processing program, such as Microsoft
Word, for determining a street address associated
with a LKIPV, such as a telephone number. The
consumer enters the telephone number of his
friend then selects a "lookup" option within the
software program.
We do not find that typing a phone number within the context of a
letter which leads to an address of the addressee being automatically looked
up constitutes presenting to the user a list of options for filtering because the
inputted telephone number results in only one type of information being
returned to the user without option, namely, the return of only address
information corresponding to the inputted number. Any discussion in
Shaffer of “options” goes to a functional option, e.g., lookup, as opposed to
a selection of different content information. For the same reason, we do not
find with the Examiner (Appeal Br. 7) that Shaffer’s “Linkage Key”
presents to the user a list of options for filtering. Nor, has the Examiner
cogently explained how a person with ordinary skill in the art would
understand presenting to the user a list of options for filtering would be an
obvious modification to Shaffer. Accordingly, we will not sustain the
rejection of independent claims 1 and 13. Since claims 3-6, 8-11, and 15-19
depend from claims 1 and 13, and since we cannot sustain the rejection of

Appeal 2010-004178
Application 10/324,099

5
claims 1 and 13, the rejection of claims 3-6, 8-11, and 15-19 likewise cannot
be sustained.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
We conclude the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 3-6, 8-11, 13
and 15-19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Schaffer in
view of Dykstra.

DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1, 3-6, 8-11, 13 and 15-19 is
reversed.

REVERSED.

MP