Ex Parte Houston

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 27, 2018

13491080 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 27, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/491,080 06/07/2012
73325 7590 05/01/2018
Matthew G. McKinney
Allen, Dyer, Doppelt & Gilchrist, P.A.
255 South Orange A venue
Suite 1401
Orlando, FL 32801
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
ROBERT KEVIN HOUSTON
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.
122770 2436
EXAMINER
LEE, SOOKIL J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2144
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/01/2018 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):
mmckinney@allendyer.com
creganoa@allendyer.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ROBERT KEVIN HOUSTON
Appeal2017-009491
Application 13/491,080 1
Technology Center 2100
Before ERIC B. CHEN, MONICA S. ULLAGADDI, and SCOTT E. BAIN,
Administrative Patent Judges.
BAIN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1-7 and 10-23, which constitute all claims
pending in the application. Claims 8 and 9 have been cancelled. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We REVERSE.
1 Appellant Robert Kevin Houston identifies himself as the real party in
interest. App. Br. 2.
Appeal2017-009491
Application 13/491,080
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Claimed Invention
Appellant's claimed invention relates to a method and system to
generate process flow diagrams. Spec. i-fi-f l--4. According to the
Specification, a process flow diagram is a diagram for visualizing a series of
activities, for example in a business transaction. Id. i-f l. The Specification
describes that "properly developing process flow diagrams from textual
descriptions and to identify problems within the process can be tedious and
time consuming." Id. at i12. Appellant's invention is directed to an
improvement upon prior methods and systems. Id. at i1 4.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and the subject matter of the
appeal, and reads as follows (with disputed limitation emphasized):
1. A method to generate a process flow diagram, the
method comprising:
receiving a textual description of a process from an
originating user at a remote terminal, wherein the textual
description includes at least one actor and one or more
activities;
transmitting the textual description of the process to
network servers using a network;
analyzing the textual description at the network servers
using an analysis module to detect whether there is an error in
the textual description of the process;
searching a database containing predefined rules to find
syntactically similar sentences in the database used in the
textual description of the process;
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Application 13/491,080
using a social graph to control access to the database,
wherein the social graph determines the information of the
database that is accessed;
creating a connection between the originating user and a
selected process expert that the originating user prefers to create
expert annotations;
creating links by the selected process expert to other
process experts whose annotations the selected process expert
approves in order to provide that the process flow description
is processed using expert annotations created by the selected
process expert and by the other process experts that the
selected process expert created links to;
generating an annotated textual description according to a
set of predefined rules and the expert annotations that corrects
any errors that were detected in the textual description;
generating a process flow diagram from the annotated
textual description using a graph generation module; and
transmitting the process flow diagram to the originating
user using the network.
App. Br. 12-13 (Claims App.).
Rejections on Appeal
Claims 1-7 and 14--23 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Manson et al. (US 2007/0055491 Al; Mar. 8,
2007), Clavel (US 2009/0251488 Al; Oct. 8, 2009), Kabiljo et al.
(US 8,452,851 B2; May 28, 2013), Bookman et al. (US 2008/0133591 Al;
June 5, 2008), and Sridhar et al. (US 2010/0287163 Al; Nov. 11, 2010)
("Sridhar"). Final Act. 2-14 (May 5, 2016).
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Appeal2017-009491
Application 13/491,080
Claims 10-13 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Manson et al., Clavel, Kabiljo et al., Bookman et al.,
Sridhar, and Kinsel et al. (US 2013/0204940 Al; Aug. 8, 2013). Final
Act. 14--17.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of the arguments
raised in the Briefs. On the record before us, we cannot sustain the
Examiner's rejections.
In the Final Action, the Examiner finds Sridhar's description of
"selecting multiple editors" (Sridhar i-f 22) teaches or suggests "creating links
by the selected process expert to other process experts whose annotations the
selected process expert approves ... ," as recited in claim 1. Final Act. 8-9
(citing Sridhar Fig. 1, i-fi-122, 24, 25, 27). In the Answer, the Examiner
elaborates, finding the disputed limitation in Sridhar's description of
selecting editors and special administrators. Ans. 2 (citing Sridhar i-fi-1 24--
25). Specifically, in the Answer, the Examiner finds one of ordinary skill
would understand Sridhar' s "editors" as teaching the recited "selected
process expert" and Sridhar' s administrators as teaching the recited "other
process experts." Id.
Appellant argues that the Examiner has erred because neither the Final
Action nor the Answer indicates how Sridhar teaches or suggests a selected
process expert (whether considered to be Sridhar's editor(s) or special
administrators) "creating links ... to other process experts whose
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Application 13/491,080
annotations the selected process expert approves." App. Br. 8 (emphasis
added); Reply Br. 2-5. We are persuaded by Appellant's arguments.
As Appellant contends, Sridhar teaches or suggests "one flat level of
Editors 370," none of whom create links for one another. App. Br. 9 (citing
to Sridhar Fig. 3); see also App. Br. 7-9. Although Sridhar teaches or
suggests "[edited] content is rerouted to specialist administrators for
approval" (Sridhar i-f 25), such rerouting prompts the special administrator
to approve or reject the content that had been edited by the editors. The
Examiner does not identify how Sridhar teaches or suggests the same
"selected process expert" (whether understood as the editor or specialist
administrator in Sridhar) both creating the link to other process experts and
approving the annotations by the other process experts, as recited in claim 1.
See Reply Br. 3. Further, Sridhar does not teach or suggest links created
(such as by routing content) by an editor to other editors or administrators,
but rather that content is routed automatically based on a "rating" system.
See Sridhar i-fi-1 24--25.
Accordingly, we find the Examiner erred on the record before us.
We, therefore, do not sustain the obviousness rejection of claim 1. We also
do not sustain the obviousness rejections of dependent claims 2-7 and 10-
13, which include the limitations of independent claim 1.
The Examiner rejects independent claims 14 and 23 "due to similar
reasons as claim 1," and makes no further findings as to these claims. Final
Act. 11, 14; Ans. 2--4. For the reasons discussed above, we find the
Examiner erred on the record before us, and we do not sustain the
obviousness rejection of claims 14 and 23. We also do not sustain the
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Application 13/491,080
obviousness rejection of claims 15-22, which depend from claim 14 and
therefore include its limitations. 2
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-7 and 10-23.
REVERSED
2 In the event of further prosecution, the Examiner and Appellant may wish
to consider whether the claims constitute patent-eligible subject matter under
Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Banklnt'l, 134 S.Ct. 2347 (2014).
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