Ex Parte Igra

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Oct 9, 2008

09816552 (B.P.A.I. Oct. 9, 2008)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________________

Ex parte MARK S. IGRA
____________________

Appeal 2008-1048
Application 09/816,5521
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Decided: October 9, 2008
____________________

Before LANCE LEONARD BARRY, JAY P. LUCAS, and CAROLYN D.
THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judges.

LUCAS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellant appeals from a final rejection of claims 1 to 33 under
authority of 35 U.S.C. § 134. The Board of Patent Appeals and
Interferences (BPAI) has jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

1 Application filed March 23, 2001. The real party in interest is BEA
Systems, Inc.

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Appellant’s invention relates to a system, method and computer
program for generating web pages efficiently. In the words of the Appellant:
A master specification is provided to specify a common design
for a number of resultant web pages to be generated. The common
design includes common content placement, and at least one of a
common style and a common navigation arrangement. The content of
a first resultant web page is defined employing a first subordinate web
page specification, including reference to the master specification for
content placement, and at least one of style and navigation. The
content of a second resultant web page is similarly defined. In turn,
the first and second resultant web pages are generated with first and
second contents being placed, styled and/or having the common
navigation arrangement in accordance with the master specification.

(Spec. 4).

Claim 1 is exemplary:
1. A web page generation method comprising:

defining a master specification specifying a common style, a common
navigation arrangement, and common content placement for each resultant
web page to be generated;

defining a first subordinate content specification specifying first
content of a first resultant web page, referencing the master specification for
style, navigation and content placement;

defining a second subordinate content specification specifying second
content of a second resultant web page, referencing the master specification
for style, navigation, and content placement; and

generating said first and second resultant web pages with said first and
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second contents being placed and styled in accordance with said common
content placement and said common style specified by said master
specification, and said first and second resultant web pages having said
common navigation arrangement specified by said master specification.

The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Ferrel US 5,860,073 Jan. 12, 1999
Keating US 2002/0052895 A1 May 2, 2002
(filed Oct. 11, 2001)

Hakon Wium Lie, Cascading Style Sheets, Level 1, W3C Recommendation,
(1999), available at http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS1.

REJECTIONS
R1: Claims 1 to 23, 26 to 29, and 32 to 33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) for being anticipated by Ferrel.
R2: Claims 25 and 31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for being
obvious over Ferrel in view of Keating.
R3: Claims 24 and 30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for being
obvious over Ferrel in view of Lie and Keating.

Groups of Claims:
Claims will be discussed in order of the rejections. Claim 1 is
representative.
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Appellant contends that the claimed subject matter is not anticipated
by Ferrel, or rendered obvious by Ferrel in combination with Lie and
Keating, for failure of the references to teach the claimed limitations. The
Examiner contends that each of the claims is properly rejected.
Rather than repeat the arguments of Appellant or the Examiner, we
make reference to the many Briefs and the Answers for their respective
details. Only those arguments actually made by Appellant have been
considered in this opinion. Arguments which Appellant could have made
but chose not to make in the Briefs have not been considered and are
deemed to be waived.
We affirm the rejections.
ISSUE
The issue is whether Appellant has shown that the Examiner erred in
rejecting the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) and 103(a). The issue turns on
whether Ferrel teaches the three recited features of a master specification.

FINDINGS OF FACT
The record supports the following findings of fact (FF) by a
preponderance of the evidence.
1. Appellant has invented a web page generation system, method and
computer program (hereinafter “method”) in which a master specification
specifies a common style, a common navigation arrangement and a
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common content placement for each resultant web page. (App. Br., 10,
middle).
2. Appellant defines those common elements as follows: “As alluded
earlier, content placement refers to the spatial placement of substantive
content in a web page, whereas style refers to style elements such as
fonts, color and so forth. Navigation refers the supported transitions
between the web pages.” (Spec., 7, ll. 11-14).
3. Ferrel, the primary reference, teaches a method of styling content of a
document with a plurality of style sheets. As a brief overview, Ferrel
discloses:
Yet another aspect of the present invention is a method of publishing
and viewing titles in an electronic publication system including a
storage, comprising the steps of creating a content object, creating a
style sheet object independent of the content object, linking the style
sheet object to a control object, linking the content object to the
control object, storing the objects in the storage, retrieving the objects
from the storage, applying the linked style sheet to the content, and
displaying the styled content with the control.
(Col. 3, ll. 45-53).
Further Findings of Fact will be incorporated into the Analysis section
below.

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PRINCIPLES OF LAW
Appellant has the burden on appeal to the Board to demonstrate error
in the Examiner’s position. See In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 985-86 (Fed. Cir.
2006) (“On appeal to the Board, an applicant can overcome a rejection
[under § 103] by showing insufficient evidence of prima facie obviousness
or by rebutting the prima facie case with evidence of secondary indicia of
nonobviousness.”) (quoting In re Rouffet, 149 F.3d 1350, 1355 (Fed. Cir.
1998)).
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102, “[a] single prior art
reference that discloses, either expressly or inherently, each limitation of a
claim invalidates that claim by anticipation.” Perricone v. Medicis Pharm.
Corp., 432 F.3d 1368, 1375-76 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (citation omitted).
Our reviewing court states in In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321 (Fed. Cir.
1989) that “claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably
allow.”

ANALYSIS
From our review of the administrative record, we find that Examiner
has presented a prima facie case for the rejections of Appellant’s claims
under 35 U.S.C. § 35 U.S.C. § 102(b). The prima facie case is presented on
pages 4 to 37 of the Examiner’s Answer. In opposition, Appellant presents a
number of arguments.

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Arguments with respect to the rejection
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)[R1]
The first argument addresses the common placement of content
among pages, as recited in claim 1. (App. Br., 11, top). Appellant argues
“As Figure 8 of Ferrel shows, the layout for each page must be
independently created, requiring the size of each control to be separately
selected and edited by the designer (See e.g., Ferrel Col. 19, Lines 24-25).”
The analysis begins with an interpretation of the claims: “Both
anticipation under § 102 and obviousness under § 103 are two-step inquiries.
The first step in both analyses is a proper construction of the claims . . . . The
second step in the analyses requires a comparison of the properly construed
claim to the prior art.” Medichem S.A. v. Rolabo S.L., 353 F.3d 928, 933
(Fed. Cir. 2003) (internal citations omitted). Claim 1 requires a “defining a
master specification specifying a common style, a common navigation
arrangement, and common content placement for each resultant web page to
be generated….” Though the Appellant has pictured the master
specification as a single document in his Figure 2, there is no requirement in
the limitations of the claims that imposes that requirement. The Examiner
has read the master specification as Ferrel’s multimedia publishing system
including templates comprising control and style sheets as pictured in
Figures 8, 9, and 14 of the patent. Considering Figure 8, picture object 460
and content objects (e.g., 462, 464, and 466) are placed by the story controls
(e.g., 438, 452, and 454) in defined places on the pages of the document.
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As the story objects are rendered, they reference the style sheet that is
linked to the appropriate control to retrieve formatting information.
This formatting information includes properties of the paragraphs,
fonts and embedded objects in the story that format the content as it
was originally designed. (Ferrel, col. 19, l. 39 – 44).

Multiple pages are produced, as needed to contain all of the
information in the story objects. “…the last page used is repeated until all
stories are rendered.” (Ferrel, col. 20, l. 30).
Navigation is supplied by the user moving from page to page to
continue following a story. (Ferrel, col. 20, l. 34).
We find that this is sufficient teaching for the master specification as
claimed in claim 1, containing the elements of common content placement,
common navigation between pages and the common styles, all recited as
part of the master specification.
Appellant argues that in Ferrel the layout for each page must be
independently created, requiring the size of each control to be separately
selected and edited by the designer. (App. Br., 11, top). This is certainly not
true for repeated pages added to finish a story, as mention above. However,
we find there is sufficient teaching in Ferrel to anticipate having common
content placement among multiple documents that use the same page
layouts.
Appellant next argues that Ferrel fails to show any method of
navigation between the pages, and thus does not teach or anticipate a method
for applying common navigation between pages. (App. Br., 11, middle).
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This argument weaves back and forth between the Examiner and the
Appellant in the seven briefs submitted to develop the issue. We are
persuaded that the evidentiary citations in Ferrel presented by the Examiner,
and best expressed in the “Argument Section B” response
(Acknowledgement of Reply Brief, mailed 1/18/07, pages 6 to 8) offer
sufficient backing to establish anticipation by Ferrel of the claim limitation.
The various pages of the template have a common page-by-page navigation
method. The template of the last page (page 2, #446, Fig. 8) is reproduced
exactly when additional space is needed, again offering common navigation
by pages. Finally, in Fig. 6, one notes a “Next” button. We find that
common navigation is defined in the Specification very broadly, simply as
navigation between pages. (FF#2 above). We thus find that Ferrel teaches
sufficient elements of common navigation to anticipate the claim in this
respect.
Appellant’s third argument (App. Br., 12, middle) is that “Ferrel does
not teach or anticipate common design by way of a master specification for
all content, but rather Ferrel shows variable design, requiring multiple steps
for each content object.” As evidence, Appellant mentions the three separate
web pages each with a unique layout. We believe the Appellant has
misconstrued the nature of the rejection and the teaching in Ferrel. The Page
Layout in Ferrel will produce a common design because various stories of
diverse natures can be written and placed as the story objects (e.g. 464) and
then flowed into the story controls (e.g. 438) producing documents of
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varying content but with common content placement. This is an objective
satisfied by the system of Ferrel. (Col. 2, l. 60). We thus fail to find error in
the Examiner’s rejection in regard to the Appellant’s objection.

Arguments with respect to the rejections
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) [R2] [R3]
Appellant’s arguments concerning the rejection of claims 25 and 31
for being obvious over Ferrel in view of Keating, [R2] and the arguments
concerning the rejection of claims 24 and 30 for being obvious over those
references plus Lie, [R3] are based on the arguments concerning [R1]. See
App. Br., 14, top and bottom. Appellant contends that Keating and Lie do
not remedy the deficiencies of the Ferrel reference. Since we did not find
those deficiencies, we do not support Appellant’s contention.

CONCLUSION OF LAW
Based on the findings of facts and analysis above, we conclude that
the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1 to 23, 26 to 29, and 32 to 33
under 35 U.S.C. § 102 [R1]. We likewise conclude that the Examiner did
not err in rejecting claims 24, 25, 30, and 31 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.

DECISION
The Examiner's rejections of claims 1 to 33 are Affirmed.
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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

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Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC
Oracle International Corporation
Attn: Patent Docketing 32nd Floor
Post Office Box 7037
Atlanta GA 30357-0037