Ex Parte Jackson

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 31, 2014

10851485 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 31, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte WARREN BRUCE JACKSON
____________________

Appeal 2011-011632
Application 10/851,4851
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before MARC S. HOFF, JEREMY J. CURCURI, and
JENNIFER L. McKEOWN, Administrative Patent Judges.

HOFF, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a Final Rejection of
claims 1-6, 8, 38-43, and 48.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

1 The real party in interest is Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP.
2 Claims 26 and 31 have been cancelled. Claims 9-25, 27-30, 32-37, and 44-
47 stand allowed. Claim 7 stands objected to as being dependent upon a
rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form
including all the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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Appellant’s invention is a method for task-based design evaluation. A
proposed feature vector for a first design is received and an existing feature
vector for an existing design is retrieved for a given task. The proposed
design is evaluated against the existing design using task-based scores
associated with each design and based on their performances for the given
task (Abstract).
Claim 1 is exemplary of the claims on appeal:
1. A computer readable medium for evaluating electronic
templates for documents, said computer readable medium having
instructions thereon, the instructions when accessed performing the
method comprising:
selecting a task to evaluate a proposed electronic template for a
document against an existing electronic template for a document;
receiving a proposed feature vector for the proposed electronic
template;
retrieving an existing feature vector for the existing electronic
template;
evaluating if the proposed electronic template has a more
desirable estimated score than an existing score for the existing
electronic template based on the proposed feature vector and the
existing feature vector for the selected task;
selecting either the proposed electronic template or the existing
electronic template based upon the step of evaluating; and
displaying the document having the selected proposed
electronic template or the existing electronic template.

The Examiner relies upon the following prior art in rejecting the
claims on appeal:
Bargeron US 7,246,311 B2 Jul. 17, 2007
Claims 1-6, 8, 38-43, and 48 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Bargeron.
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Throughout this decision, we make reference to the Appeal Brief
(“App. Br.,” filed Mar. 30, 2011), the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed Jul. 11,
2011), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed May 11, 2011) for their
respective details.
ISSUES
Appellant argues that the Examiner admits that Bargeron fails to
disclose the claimed “feature vectors,” but fails to assert that it would have
been obvious to modify Bargeron to include them, or to provide a motivation
for such modification (App. Br. 10-11).
Appellant further contends that Bargeron does not disclose a “task to
evaluate a proposed electronic template for a document against an existing
electronic template for a document” (App. Br. 11-13).
Appellant asserts that Bargeron fails to disclose the evaluation
whether the proposed electronic template has a more desirable estimated
score than an existing score for the existing electronic template based on the
proposed feature vector and the existing feature vector for the selected task
(App. Br. 13-14).
Appellant’s contentions present us with the following issues:
1. Does Bargeron disclose one or more items that correspond to the
claimed “feature vector?”
2. Does Bargeron disclose a task to evaluate a proposed electronic
template for a document against an existing electronic template for a
document?
3. Does Bargeron disclose an evaluation of whether the proposed
electronic template has a more desirable estimated score than an existing
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score for the existing electronic template based on the proposed feature
vector and the existing feature vector for the selected task?
PRINCIPLES OF LAW
In an appeal from a rejection for anticipation, the Appellant must
explain which limitations are not found in the reference. See Gechter v.
Davidson, 116 F.3d 1454, 1460 (Fed. Cir. 1997) ("[W]e expect that the
Board's anticipation analysis be conducted on a limitation by limitation
basis, with specific fact findings for each contested limitation and
satisfactory explanations for such findings.")(Emphasis added). See also 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)).
ANALYSIS
CLAIMS 1-6 AND 8
FEATURE VECTORS
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the Examiner
admits that Bargeron fails to disclose “feature vectors” and fails to assert
that it would have been obvious to modify Bargeron to include them (App.
Br. 10).
The Examiner states that Bargeron does not recite the claim term
“feature vector,” but does disclose groups of ordered features defining at
least some aspects of templates (Ans. 7). We agree with the Examiner’s
finding that Bargeron discloses that “[d]ocument content 106 is represented
within the present invention as a set of individual content streams 503, each
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of which contains content that is laid out sequentially” (Ans. 7; Bargeron
col. 13, ll. 23-25).
EVALUATING PROPOSED TEMPLATE AGAINST EXISTING TEMPLATE
We do not agree with Appellant that Bargeron does not disclose a task
to evaluate a proposed electronic template for a document against an existing
electronic template for a document (App. Br. 11). Appellant’s argument that
Bargeron does not disclose the claimed evaluation based upon feature
vectors, because Bargeron discloses content streams that “represent
different, logically independent parts of the document . . .” (App. Br. 12-13;
Bargeron col. 13, ll. 26-27), is not persuasive. We disagree with the
allegation that Bargeron’s content stream does not correspond to the
Specification’s definition of feature vector, as “an ordered or sequential
concatenation of individual features that comprise a design” (App. Br. 13;
Spec. ¶ [0017]). The immediately preceding sentence of Bargeron makes
clear that individual content streams “contain[] content that is laid out
sequentially” (col. 13, l. 25). We find that content laid out sequentially is
also content that is concatenated, i.e., linked together in a series or chain.3
We further agree with the Examiner that Appellant’s argument against
the content of column 1 of Bargeron, which disclosed the background
teaching of grid formats in newspapers (App. Br. 12), is not relevant to the
rejection under appeal. The Examiner does not rely on the background
section of Bargeron for disclosure of any element of the claimed invention.
EVALUATING PROPOSED TEMPLATE’S ESTIMATED SCORE

3 www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concatenate. Retrieved March 26,
2014.
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We are not persuaded by Appellant that Bargeron fails to disclose
“evaluating if the proposed electronic template has a more desirable
estimated score than an existing score for the existing electronic template
based on the proposed feature vector and the existing feature vector for the
selected task . . .” (App. Br. 13-14). Appellant contends that Bargeron is
deficient because it discloses “scoring of a template based upon how well
the document content fits into a template . . .” (App. Br. 14).
Appellant defines a task as being used for establishing a score from a
given design based on that design’s feature vector (¶ [0018]). A task can be
a lower-level or higher-level measurement (¶ [0019]). An example of a
lower-level measurement is “psychophysical reactions to a design, referred
to as Just-Noticeable Difference (JND) measurements (e.g., visual sensitivity
to small design changes, etc.)” (Id.). An example of a higher-level
measurement is “how many individuals bought a product after seeing a
document having a particular design?” (Id.).
Appellant thus discloses that a score for a design, based on a feature
vector, can be based on human evaluation of the appearance, or results, of a
design as implemented with content items. Appellant may not explicitly
state in the Specification that the design is populated with content items, but
we find that such human evaluation must inherently be based on a design
populated with content, not merely a blank template.
We find that Bargeron’s invention functions in a similar manner. A user
“may add attribute preferences to elements 312 that influence the quality
score that the page template 306 receives for a given selection of document
content” (col. 6, ll. 32-35). “The template authoring tool 121 may then
automatically construct a scoring function that the layout engine 112
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evaluates for different selections of document content 106 that may possibly
be flowed into the element” (col. 6, ll. 38-41). “[T]he layout engine 112
calculates a score based on how well the content fits the template 306” (col.
18, ll. 37-38; emphasis added). Thus, in both Bargeron and the invention
under appeal, the scoring of a template is based on the application of content
data to the template, rather than on the template alone.
Because none of Appellants’ arguments against the Examiner’s
rejection are persuasive, we conclude that the Examiner did not err in
rejecting claims 1-6 and 8 as being unpatentable over Bargeron. We sustain
the Examiner’s § 103 rejection.
CLAIMS 38-43 AND 48
Appellant contends that “Bargeron fails to disclose each and every
feature claimed in independent claim 38 for at least the same reasons as
discussed above with respect to independent claim 1” (App. Br. 15).
Because we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in establishing the
prima facie obviousness of claim 1, we sustain the § 103 rejection of claims
38-43 and 48 over Bargeron, for the same reasons given with respect to
claim 1.
CONCLUSIONS
1. Bargeron discloses one or more items that correspond to the
claimed “feature vector.”
2. Bargeron discloses a task to evaluate a proposed electronic template
for a document against an existing electronic template for a document.
3. Bargeron discloses an evaluation of whether the proposed
electronic template has a more desirable estimated score than an existing
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score for the existing electronic template based on the proposed feature
vector and the existing feature vector for the selected task.
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-6, 8, 38-43, and 48 is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.50(f).
AFFIRMED

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