Ex Parte Jones et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Dec 11, 2009

10706352 (B.P.A.I. Dec. 11, 2009)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________________

Ex parte DUMONT M. JONES and VADIM M. KOGANOV
____________________

Appeal 2009-004118
Application 10/706,3521
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Decided: December 11, 2009
____________________

Before JEAN R. HOMERE, ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, and
JAMES R. HUGHES, Administrative Patent Judges.

HUGHES, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 Application filed Nov. 12, 2003. Appellants claim the benefit under
35 U.S.C. § 119 of provisional application 60/425,854, filed Nov. 12, 2002.
The real party in interest is Proximate Technologies, LLC. (App. Br. 3.)
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) (2006) from the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-24. Claims 6, 23, and 24 have been
indicated as allowable by the Examiner. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b) (2002).
We reverse.

Appellants’ Invention
Appellants invented a method for searching and evaluating the text
content of a database utilizing a distance function in combination with the
graphical display of multi-node nets. (Spec. 2, ll.15-20.)2

Claim
Independent claim 1 further illustrates the invention. It reads as
follows:
1. A method for evaluating the text content of a
document database with respect to a document
population, comprising the steps of:
(a) providing a computer system having a user
interface with a display;
(b) gathering documents from said database into
said system;
(c) normalizing said gathered documents;
(d) fingerprinting said gathered documents;

2 We refer to Appellants’ Specification (“Spec.”) and Appeal Brief (“App.
Br.”) filed October 4, 2007. We also refer to the Examiner’s Answer
(“Ans.”) mailed January 23, 2008.
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(e) determining a text criteria with respect to said
document population;
(f) forming a net comprising at least two nodes
associated by at least one interaction and displayable at
said display as two or more spaced apart nodes connected
by an interaction;
(g) loading said text criteria into at least one of
said nodes;
(h) for each document of said database, calculating
its geometric relative distance from a said node to derive
one or more node attractors;
(i) displaying said net at said display in
combination with one or more document symbols each
representing a said document located in correspondence
with said calculated relative distance;
(j) visually examining the display of said net and
document symbols; and
(k) determining from said document symbol
locations at said display those documents, if any, which
are more likely to correspond with said text criteria.

References
The Examiner relies on the following references as evidence of
unpatentability:

Crooks US 2004/0078366 A1 Apr. 22, 2004

Gallivan US 6,778,995 B1 Aug. 17, 2004

Nevin US 2005/0086238 A1 Apr. 21, 2005

Bluhm US 7,085,755 B2 Aug. 1, 2006

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Rejections
The Examiner rejects claims 1-12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious in view of Gallivan, Bluhm, and Nevin.
The Examiner rejects claims 13-21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious in view of Bluhm and Nevin.
The Examiner rejects claims 22-24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious in view of Crooks and Nevin.

Appellants’ Contention
Appellants contend that the claimed subject matter is not rendered
obvious by the Gallivan, Bluhm, and Nevin references because the
references do not teach calculating, for each document in a database, a
geometric relative distance from a node to derive one or more node
attractors. (App. Br. 16-18.)

Examiner’s Findings and Conclusions
The Examiner finds that the prior art teaches each feature of
Appellants’ claims (Ans. 4-17), and maintains that each of the claims is
properly rejected (Ans. 18-56, see “Response to Argument” section).

ISSUE
Based on Appellants’ contention, as well as the findings and
conclusions of the Examiner, the issue before us for review is as follows.
Did Appellants establish that the Examiner erred in finding the
Gallivan, Bluhm, and Nevin references teach calculating, for each document
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in a database, a geometric relative distance from a node to derive one or
more node attractors?

FINDINGS OF FACT (FF)
Appellants’ Invention
1. Appellants’ Specification explains that the “force” between a
node and a document is used to calculate the “geometric distance” from the
document to the node, and describes the interrelation of the terms:
The terms “potential”, “field”, “force”, or “attractor” as
used herein are intended to encompass any system element that
applies a force to a document. The force in turn is used to
calculate geometric distance from net nodes to documents. A
“force” has the conventional interpretation that an object
subjected to a force will obey a classical equation of motion
(i.e. F = ma).
(Spec. 7, ll. 3-7.)
2. Appellants’ Specification also explains that “a geometric
relative distance for each document within the document population will be
calculated from the node potentials and displayed at the computer display as
document symbols.” (Spec. 13, ll. 7-9.)

Nevin Reference
3. Nevin describes a system and method for storing data in nodes
and visualizing the data as linked nodes. The data may include text,
concepts, and documents. (p. 2, ¶[0018].)
4. Nevin describes that the nodes are linked and the links include
information including the connection strength of the link. (p. 2, ¶[0031];
p. 4, ¶[0084]; p. 9, ¶[0185].)
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PRINCIPLES OF LAW
Burden on Appeal
Appellants have the burden on appeal to the Board of the Patent
Appeals and Interferences (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 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)).

Obviousness
A claimed invention is not patentable if the subject matter of the
claimed invention would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill
in the art. 35 U.S.C. § 103(a); KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398,
406 (2007); Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 13 (1966). The
question of obviousness is resolved on the basis of underlying factual
determinations including (1) the scope and content of the prior art, (2) any
differences between the claimed subject matter and the prior art, (3) the level
of skill in the art. Graham, 383 U.S. at 17. See also KSR, 550 U.S. at 407
(“While the sequence of these questions might be reordered in any particular
case, the [Graham] factors continue to define the inquiry that controls.”)
In KSR, the Supreme Court emphasizes “the need for caution in
granting a patent based on the combination of elements found in the prior
art,” and stated that “[t]he combination of familiar elements according to
known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield
predictable results.” KSR, 550 U.S. at 415-16. The Court explained:
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When a work is available in one field of endeavor, design
incentives and other market forces can prompt variations of it,
either in the same field or a different one. If a person of
ordinary skill can implement a predictable variation, § 103
likely bars its patentability. For the same reason, if a technique
has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary
skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar
devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless
its actual application is beyond his or her skill.

Id. at 417. The operative question is thus “whether the improvement is more
than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established
functions.” Id.

ANALYSIS
Nevin describes a system and method for storing data, which may
include documents, into nodes and displaying the data as linked nodes. Each
of the linked nodes includes information concerning the connection strength
of the link. (FF 3 & 4.)
Appellants, however, contend that the combination of the Gallivan,
Bluhm, and Nevin references, and Nevin in particular, do not teach
calculating, for each document in a database, a geometric relative distance
from a node to derive one or more node attractors. (App. Br. 16-18.) The
Examiner maintains that “[d]ata is stored into nodes which are linked
together. All nodes contain variables, including descriptions, types,
magnitudes and timestamps,” and “can contain concepts or documents.”
“Links also contain information about themselves, including connection
strength of the link and descriptive information . . . .” (Ans. 28.) Thus,
Nevin describes documents in nodes and calculates “distance from a
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document node to a concept node.” (Id.) Accordingly, we decide the
question of whether Appellants have shown error in the Examiner’s finding
that Nevin teaches calculating a geometric relative distance from a node and
an attractor for each document in a database, as recited in claim 1, step h.
We determine the scope of the claims in patent applications not solely
based on the claim language, but upon giving claims “their broadest
reasonable interpretation consistent with the [S]pecification” and “in light of
the [S]pecification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the
art.” In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004)
(citations omitted). Appellants do not explicitly define the terminology
“geometric distance” or “attractor,” but do explain using an “attractor” to
calculate the “geometric distance” from a document to a node. (FF 1 & 2.)
Appellants do not provide any additional clarification as to the meaning of
the contested limitation. (See App. Br. 9, citing Spec. 20, ll.1-4.) Thus, we
interpret an attractor to mean the strength (force) of attraction between the
document and node, i.e., the similarity between the document and the criteria
of the node. Accordingly, we broadly but reasonable interpret this limitation
to mean calculating the strength of similarity of a document in a node to the
criteria of the node and representing the strength by the geometric relative
distance from node to the document for each document in the database.
After reviewing the record on appeal, we find Nevin describes
calculating the strength of attraction between nodes, i.e., their connection
strength or similarity, as well as representing the strength as the distance
between nodes. Nevin is silent, however, as to the documents within the
nodes. Although Nevin describes loading documents into nodes, it does not
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describe calculating the strength of attraction and representing the strength
as a distance for each document in the database as recited in claim 1.
If we analogize claim construction to a painting, then the Examiner
uses too broad a brush, construing the disputed limitation too broadly, and
glossing over its details. Claim 1, step h recites “for each document of said
database, calculating its geometric relative distance from a said node to
derive one or more node attractors.” Thus, the claim requires calculating the
geometric relative distance from a node, as well as an attractor for each
document. The Examiner’s finding that Nevin calculates “distance from a
document node to a concept node” (Ans. 28) does not meet this limitation.
Thus, we agree with Appellants that the combination of Gallivan, Bluhm,
and Nevin references does not teach calculating a geometric relative distance
from a node and an attractor for each document in a database – a limitation
recited in independent claim 1, and common to the other independent claims
on appeal (claims 13 and 22).
For the foregoing reasons, Appellants have persuaded us of error in
the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 1-24. Accordingly, we will
not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of the claims.

CONCLUSION OF LAW
On the record before us, we find that Appellants have established that
the Examiner erred in finding the Gallivan, Bluhm, and Nevin references
teach calculating, for each document in a database, a geometric relative
distance from a node to derive one or more node attractors.

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DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-24 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a).

REVERSED

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