Ex Parte Kasower

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 13, 2013

11173440 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 13, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte SHELDON KASOWER
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Appeal 2011-000733
Application 11/173,440
Technology Center 3600
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Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, BIBHU R. MOHANTY, and
MEREDITH C. PETRAVICK, Administrative Patent Judges.

CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2011-000733
Application 11/173,440

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1, 3-12, 14, 16, and 17. We have jurisdiction over the
appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM-IN-PART.

BACKGROUND
Appellant’s invention is directed to a method for monitoring and
reporting real estate valuation (Spec., para. [0001]).
Claim 1 is illustrative:

1. A method to monitor real estate values comprising:
monitoring the local real estate market periodically near a
property of interest for a recent completed local sale via an
electronic monitoring service comprising a processor, a
database and a server;
determining whether the recent completed local sale
affects the real estate value of the property of interest via the
electronic monitoring service; and
notifying clients of the monitoring service electronically
of said recent completed local sale.

The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1, 16, and 17 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Raveis (US 2002/0049624 A1; pub. Apr. 25, 2002),
Florance (US 2003/0078897 A1; pub. Apr. 24, 2003), and Ford (US
2004/0133493 A1; pub. Jul. 8, 2004).
Claims 3-5, 8, 10, and 11 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Raveis, Florance, Ford, and Dugan (US 5,857,174; iss.
Jan. 5, 1999).
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Claims 6, 7, and 9 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Raveis, Florance, Ford, and Cheetham (US 6,115,694; iss. Sep. 5,
2000).
Claim 12 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Raveis, Florance, Ford, and Jost (US 5,361,201; iss. Nov. 1, 1994).
Claim 14 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Raveis, Florance, Ford, and Bernard (US 2004/0243450 A1; pub. Dec. 2,
2004).

FACTUAL FINDINGS
We find the following facts by a preponderance of the evidence.
Additional facts may appear below in the Analysis.
1. Florance discloses:
[p]rior to the system of the present invention, however, there
has been no unified way of storing an investor’s investment
criteria and continually monitoring the market so as to have the
ability to provide a real-time alert when a property matching the
investor’s investment criteria has become available. This
advantage is achieved because databases containing leasing
information are linked with databases concerning buildings for
sale, which are linked to databases that store a particular
investor’s investment criteria, which are linked to databases that
store the data necessary to determine market conditions, and so
on.
(Para. [0270]).
2. Florance states that “[a]s the for-sale researcher polls data sources
A10 and records properties that have been sold, data mining applications
A12 determines that that sale information is relevant to comparable sales
information as well.” (Para. [0292]).
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ANALYSIS
Claims 1, 16, and 17 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Raveis, Florance, and Ford.
Independent claim 1
We are persuaded of error by Appellant’s argument that the
combination of Raveis, Florance, and Ford fails to teach or suggest
determining whether the recent completed local sale affects the real estate
value of the property of interest, as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 11; Reply
Br. 8. The Examiner relies on paragraphs [0289] – [0291] of Florance to
address this limitation, however, we find this portion of Florance teaches
determining whether information provided by one researcher is relevant to a
second researcher (para. [0288]), which is not the same as determining
whether a recent completed local sale affects the real estate value of the
property of interest.
While the Examiner may be correct that “a completed sale nearby a
property of interest may or may not affect the assessment of that property”
(Ans. 6), the Examiner has not adequately articulated how determining
whether information is relevant to a sale renders obvious a determination as
to whether the recent completed local sale affects the real estate value of the
property of interest, as required by independent claim 1. See In re Kahn,
441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (“rejections on obviousness grounds
cannot be sustained by mere conclusory statements; instead, there must be
some articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the
legal conclusion of obviousness”).
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In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) and claim 16 dependent
thereon.

Independent claim 17
We are not persuaded of error on the part of the Examiner by
Appellant’s argument that the combination of Raveis, Florance, and Ford
fails to teach or suggest “monitoring the local real estate market periodically
near a property of interest for a recent completed local sale via the electronic
monitoring service,” as recited by independent claim 17. Br. 8-11; Reply
Br. 5-7. We agree with the Examiner that Raveis discloses a method for
monitoring activity related to a real estate listing (Ans. 4; citing Raveis at
para. [0055]). Additionally, we agree with the Examiner that Florance
teaches data mining applications which track comparable sales information
(Ans. 13-14; See FF 2).
In addition, Florance describes that its system continually monitors
the market to provide real-time alerts when a property matching an
investor’s investment criteria has become available using inter alia
databases concerning buildings for sale which are linked to databases that
store a particular investor’s investment criteria, which are linked to
databases that store the data necessary to determine market conditions
(FF 1). While we acknowledge that monitoring the market to alert an
investor when a property becomes available, is not the same as monitoring
the market for completed sales, one of ordinary skill in the art would
appreciate that the investor’s investment criteria could simply be to monitor
the local real estate market near a property of interest for a recent completed
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local sale using Florance’s databases. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc.,
550 U.S. 398, 421 (2007). (“A person of ordinary skill is . . . a person of
ordinary creativity, not an automaton.”).
Therefore, given the Examiner’s broad, but reasonable interpretation
of “‘monitor’” as “‘to watch, keep track of, or check usually for a special
purpose’” (Ans. 13; citing http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monitor),
in light of Raveis’s ability to monitor activity related to a real estate listing
using MLS data and Florance’s tracking comparable sales information,
which the Examiner points out are the same as completed sales (Ans. 14),
we find the combination of Raveis, Florance, and Ford teaches or suggests
the step of “monitoring the local real estate market periodically near a
property of interest for a recent completed local sale via the electronic
monitoring service,” as presently recited by independent claim 17.
In view of the foregoing, we will sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
independent claim 17.

Claims 3-5, 8, 10, and 11 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Raveis, Florance, Ford, and Dugan, claims 6, 7, and 9 rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Raveis, Florance, Ford, and
Cheetham, claim 12 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Raveis, Florance, Ford, and Jost, claim 14 rejected under 35 U.S.C. §
103(a) as unpatentable over Raveis, Florance, Ford, and Bernard.
These rejections are directed to claims dependent on independent
claim 1, whose rejection we have reversed above. For the same reasons, we
will not sustain the rejections of claims 3-12, 14, and 16 over the cited prior
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art. Cf. In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (“[D]ependent
claims are nonobvious if the independent claims from which they depend are
nonobvious.”).

DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection of claim 17.
We reverse the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejections of claims 1, 3-12, 14,
and 16.
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.
§ 1.136(a)(1) (2011).

AFFIRMED-IN-PART

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