Ex Parte Jonas

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 16, 2013

11221622 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 16, 2013)

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.
11/221,622 09/08/2005 Jeffrey James Jonas SVL920050501US3 6674
45729 7590 04/17/2013
GATES & COOPER LLP - IBM
6701 CENTER DRIVE WEST
SUITE 1050
LOS ANGELES, CA 90045
EXAMINER
BROWN, SHEREE N
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2163
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/17/2013 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 PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte JEFFREY JAMES JONAS
____________

Appeal 2010-010314
Application 11/221,622
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, MARC S. HOFF, and
JEFFREY S. SMITH, Administrative Patent Judges.

RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1-19, 21-65, and 67-116, which are all of the pending claims.
Claims 20 and 66 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We reverse.
Appeal 2010-010314
Application 11/221,622

2
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner,
reference is made to the Appeal Brief (filed Feb. 3, 2010), the Answer
(mailed Apr. 15, 2010), and the Reply Brief (filed June 15, 2010).

Appellant’s Invention
Appellant’s invention relates to the processing and retrieving of data,
the querying of data, and the analyzing of data in a data warehouse.
Received data is enhanced prior to storage by accessing one or more
databases to search for additional information which can supplement the
received data. See generally Abstract; Spec. ¶ [0033].
Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows:
1. A computer-implemented method for processing data in a
computer, comprising:
(a) receiving, in the computer, data comprising at least one record
having at least one identifier, each record representing at least one of a
plurality of entities;
(b) performing, in the computer, an algorithm to process the received
data, including enhancing the received data by querying one or more data
sets or lists for additional identifiers to supplement the received data,
comprising:
retrieving, from a database stored on the computer, a group of
additional records having identifiers similar to the identifiers in the
received data;
analyzing each identifier of the retrieved group of records for a
match to at least a portion of the received data;
matching at least a portion of the received data with at least one
analyzed record of the retrieved group of records that is determined to
reflect a record having identifiers representing an identical one of the
plurality of entities;
analyzing whether at least one identifier is included in the at
least a portion of the received data that was not previously stored in
Appeal 2010-010314
Application 11/221,622

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the at least one analyzed record of the retrieved group of records that
is determined to reflect a record having identifiers representing an
identical one of the plurality of entities;
re-analyzing each identifier of the retrieved group of records for
a match to:
at least a portion of the received data; and
the analyzed record of the retrieved group of records that
is determined to reflect a record having identifiers representing
an identical one of the plurality of entities; and
storing the matched records as the processed data in the
database;
(c) receiving, in the computer, data queries for retrieving at least a
portion of the data stored in the database; and
(d) performing, in the computer, the algorithm to process the queries
and retrieve at least a portion of the data stored in the database for
presentation to a user.

The Examiner’s Rejections
The Examiner relies on the following prior art references to show
unpatentability:
Reiner US 6,289,334 Sep. 11, 2001
Skeen US 6,931,392 B1 Aug. 16, 2005
(filed Dec. 7, 1998)

Claims 1-8, 10-14, 16-19, 21-54, 56-60, 62-65, and 67-116 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Skeen.1,2
Claims 9, 15, 55, and 61 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Skeen in view of Reiner.

1 The Examiner has withdrawn the 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph,
rejection of claims 33, 34, 79, and 80 (Ans. 2).
2 The Examiner has inadvertently included canceled claim 66 in the list of
claims subject to this rejection.
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Application 11/221,622

4

ANALYSIS
35 U.S.C. § 102(e) REJECTION
With respect to the anticipation rejection of independent claims 1, 47,
93, and 105, we agree with Appellant’s contention (App. Br. 12-15; Reply
Br. 2-11) that the relied upon portions of Skeen do not disclose each and
every element of the claims in the manner specifically recited. We find that
the Examiner, in purportedly addressing the language of the claims, has
merely repeated the claim language and made references to large portions of
Skeen (Ans. 4-5, 14-15). The Examiner, however, has not adequately
explained how and in what manner such portions are interpreted as
corresponding to the specific claimed elements.
We agree with Appellant that the cited portions (e.g., col. 3, ll. 5-25;
col. 6, ll. 1-30; col. 9, ll. 12-65) of Skeen merely describe the receiving of
queries and the providing of results when data sources satisfy query
constraints. Appellant further contends (App. Br. 14-15; Reply Br. 4), and
we agree, that, while Skeen discloses the incremental updating of search
results as new data is received, no analysis or matching is performed to
enhance the received data by querying for additional identifiers to
supplement the received data, a feature present in each of the appealed
independent claims.
In view of the above discussion, we find that the Examiner has relied
upon conclusory statements which do not adequately address the specific
claimed limitations and are not sufficient to support a rejection based on
anticipation. Accordingly, since we find that all of the claim limitations are
not present in the disclosure of Skeen, we do not sustain the Examiner’s
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Application 11/221,622

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35 U.S.C. § 102(e) rejection of independent claims 1, 47, 93, and 105, nor
the rejection of claims 2-8, 10-14, 16-19, 21-46, 48-54, 56-60, 62-65, 67-92,
94-104, and 106-116 dependent thereon.

35 U.S.C. § 103(a) REJECTION
We also do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of
dependent claims 9, 15, 55, and 61 in which the Examiner has combined
Reiner with Skeen to address the “names root list” and “hash key” creation
features of the rejected claims. We find nothing in the disclosure of Reiner
which overcomes the innate deficiencies of Skeen discussed supra.

CONCLUSION
Based on the analysis above, we conclude that Appellants have shown
that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-8, 10-14, 16-19, 21-54, 56-60,
62-65, and 67-116 for anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e), and in rejecting
claims 9, 15, 55, and 61 for obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-8, 10-14, 16-19, 21-54,
56-60, 62-65, and 67-116 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) and claims 9, 15, 55, and
61 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is reversed.

REVERSED

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