Ex Parte Jin et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 20, 2017

12605551 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 20, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
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.
12/605,551 10/26/2009 Zhiying Jin 20090285 1035
25537 7590
VERIZON
PATENT MANAGEMENT GROUP
1320 North Court House Road
9th Floor
ARLINGTON, VA 22201-2909
EXAMINER
PACK, CONRAD R
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2174
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/24/2017 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):
patents @ verizon.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ZHIYING JIN, WENJIE LIU, JUHONG LIU,
HAOSHENG GUO, and HAIYAN ZHOU
Appeal 2016-002513
Application 12/605,5511
Technology Center 2100
Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, ADAM J. PYONIN, and
NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final
rejection of claims 1—6, 8—14, and 16—22, which are all of the pending
claims. See Reply Br. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
1 The real party in interest is identified as Verizon Communications Inc. and
its subsidiary companies. See App. Br. 1.
Appeal 2016-002513
Application 12/605,551
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
The Application is directed to “an approach for presenting video
assets to facilitate discovering video assets of interest.” Spec. 12. Claims 1,
9, and 17 are independent. Claim 1 is reproduced below for reference:
1. A method comprising:
determining a plurality of initial factors for positioning of
a plurality of video assets represented on a graphical user
interface;
receiving one or more additional or replacement factors
specified by one or more users;
determining a numerical value for each of the plurality of
initial factors and the one or more additional or replacement
factors for positioning of a respective video asset of the plurality
of video assets represented on the graphical user interface,
wherein the plurality of initial factors and the one or more
additional or replacement factors include user specified
preferences, historical information of the one or more users, and
an active date specifying a period of time a respective video asset
is available;
determining whether a command invokes a search or
browse operation for positioning of the respective video asset;
determining a weighting of each of the plurality of initial
factors and the one or more additional or replacement factors
using one or more rules that are applied based on the
determination of whether the command invokes the search
operation or browse operation; and
computing a score for ranking each available video asset
with respect to the positioning of other ones of the video assets
based on the determined weighting of each of the plurality of
initial factors and the one or more additional or replacement
factors.
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Application 12/605,551
References and Rejections
The following is the prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting
the claims on appeal:
Bodoff, David, Relevance for Browsing, Relevance for Searching, Journal
of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, vol. 57
no. 1, pp. 69—86, (Jan. 2006) (hereinafter “Bodoff’).
Claims 1, 8, 9, 16—18, 21, and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as obvious over Oblinger, Chang, and Bodoff. Final Act. 4.
Claims 2 and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious
over Oblinger, Chang, Bodoff, and Lin. Final Act. 13.
Claims 3, 4, 6, 11, 12, 14, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as obvious over Oblinger, Chang, Bodoff, and Thukral. Final Act.
Claims 5, 13, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious over Oblinger, Chang, Bodoff, Thukral, and Herz. Final Act. 19.
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
arguments. Any arguments Appellants could have made but chose not to
make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv)
(2012). We are not persuaded the Examiner erred; we adopt the Examiner’s
Herz
Oblinger
Lin
Chang
Thukral
US 5,754,939 May 19, 1998
US 2002/0105532 A1 Aug. 8, 2002
US 2009/0064228 A1 Mar. 5, 2009
US 2009/0288118 A1 Nov. 19, 2009
US 2010/0107128 A1 Apr. 29, 2010
14.
ANALYSIS
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Appeal 2016-002513
Application 12/605,551
findings and conclusions as our own, and we add the following primarily for
emphasis.
Claim 1 recites both “initial factors” and “additional or replacement
factors.” Appellants argue the Examiner erred in mapping the recited
“factors” to Oblinger’s “criteria,” because “the claimed ‘replacement
factors’ must be replacement or additional criteria of Oblinger. In clear
contrast, Oblinger, as seen in paragraph [0072] only adjusts the range of
acceptable values for the criteria or removes criteria to reduce the set of
criteria, however Oblinger does not provide additional or replacement
criteria.” App. Br. 11. Appellants further contend that, “[a]t best, the
‘Other’ criteria of Oblinger relates to a criteria slot that has not been used, as
seen in paragraphs [0027] and [0028] where users supply the decision
criteria so all initial criteria are provided by the users.” Reply Br. 5.
We are not persuaded the Examiner erred. Oblinger teaches “initial
factors,” as claimed, because Oblinger discloses a criteria list “provided by
the system,” and “[t]he initial system default might be to use all criteria and
weight them equally. Over time, however, the default criteria may be set by
the system.” Oblinger 172; see also Oblinger 127. We also agree with the
Examiner that “one of ordinary skill in the art would learn from the
reference” the further recited additional or replacement factors (Ans. 22),
because Oblinger discloses a workspace “for enabling the user to define the
criteria 245 to be used in evaluating resources,. . ., specify the weight
assigned to those criteria via selection boxes 242, and specify the positioning
of those criteria in a graphical display of the resources selected via selection
boxes 241” (Oblinger | 69; see also 128). Thus, we find Oblinger’s
teachings of both types of criteria—the default criteria set by the system and
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Application 12/605,551
the user defined criteria—to at least suggest, to one of ordinary skill in the
art, the initial and the replacement or additional factors as claimed. See Ans.
22—24; Oblinger Fig. 5; see also In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA
1981) (internal citations omitted) (“the test [for obviousness] is what the
combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of
ordinary skill in the art”); cf. In re Preda, 401 F.2d 825, 826 (CCPA 1968)
(“[I]n considering the disclosure of a reference, it is proper to take into
account not only specific teachings of the reference but also the inferences
which one skilled in the art would reasonably be expected to draw
therefrom.”).
Further, we do not agree that, in contrast with Appellants’ claims,
Oblinger “only contemplates the reduction of criteria.” Reply Br. 5.
Oblinger contemplates multiple criteria including user supplied criteria; we
find one of ordinary skill would understand Oblinger’s multiple criteria to
teach both the recited “initial factors” and the recited “additional or
replacement factors.” See Advisory Act 2; Oblinger Fig. 5.
We also note claim 1 is not limited to a single iteration of the method,
and Oblinger teaches that the system can use a limited and different set of
criteria based on each search. See Oblinger | 61. Thus, we find the recited
“replacement or additional factors” to encompass the criteria used in a later
search. See Ans. 23—24 (finding Oblinger teaches “an embodiment in which
selection of resource selection criteria may be performed repeatedly and may
be by checkbox further suggests contemplation of both selection and
deselection of criteria relative to a previous selection set.”).
Accordingly, we do not find the Examiner erred in finding Oblinger
teaches or suggests the disputed limitations of independent claim 1, or
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Application 12/605,551
independent claims 9 and 17, which recite similar features. See App. Br. 12.
Nor do we find the Examiner erred in relying on the findings in Oblinger
discussed above for the limitations inherited by the dependent claims
thereon. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—6,
8-14, and 16-22.
DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—6, 8—14, and 16—22 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)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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