Ex Parte Ketola et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 19, 2016

10805678 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 19, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
10/805,678 03/18/2004
10949 7590 09/21/2016
Nokia Corporation and Alston & Bird LLP
c/o Alston & Bird LLP
Bank of America Plaza, 101 South Tryon Street
Suite 4000
Charlotte, NC 28280-4000
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Pekka Ketola
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
042933/417436 8566
EXAMINER
LU, HUA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2171
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/21/2016 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):
usptomail@alston.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte PEKKA KETOLA, WSSI MANTERE, and JURA KARTTUNEN
Appeal2015-001124
Application 10/805,678
Technology Center 2100
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., and
ADAM J. PYONIN, 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 1-3, 5-16, 18-30, 33-36, 38, and 40-44. 1 We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants' disclosure relates to "transferring data from a source
application to a target application" in which "an operation is traced" and "at
least one item is extracted." Abstract. Claims 1, 15, and 30 are independent.
1 Claims 4, 17, 31, 32, 37, and 39 have been canceled. See App. Br. 20-26.
Appeal2015-001124
Application 10/805,678
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative (with emphasis added):
1. A method for transferring data from a source application
to a target application, the method comprising:
tracing a latest operation relating to the source application
automatically right after said operation has occurred,
extracting at least one item from said operation, and
recording said extracted item into a file,
wherein said file is configured to be called by the target
application for selecting and pasting the item to said target
application.
The Examiner's Rejections
Claims 1, 3, 5-11, 15, 16, 18-23, 26-30, 33, 38, and 40-44 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Bennett (US
2002/0194379 Al; Dec. 19, 2002). Final Act. 2. 2
Claims 2, 12-14, 24, 25, and 34 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Bennett and Balthaser (US
2002/0004755 Al; Jan. 10, 2002). Final Act. 9.
Claim 35 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Bennett and Goh (US 2006/0155811 Al; July 13, 2006).
Final Act. 10.
Claim 36 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Bennett and Kumar (US 2005/0028008 Al; Feb. 3, 2005).
Final Act. 11.
2 Should there be further prosecution of the application, the Examiner may
wish to consider reviewing the claim 15 recitation "the apparatus" for
compliance with the antecedent basis requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 112,
second paragraph.
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Application 10/805,678
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments. We adopt the Examiner's findings and conclusions as our own,
and we add the following primarily for emphasis.
A. Rejection of Independent Claims 1, 15, and 30
Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting the independent
claims, because Bennett fails to disclose or suggest "tracing a latest
operation relating to the source application automatically right after said
operation has occurred," as recited in claim 1 and similarly required by
claims 15 and 30. App. Br. 7. Particularly, Appellants contend "[t]he
identification of certain information in a source document and subsequent
extraction of data representing the identified information by a server is not
equivalent to tracing a latest operation relating to the source application
automatically right after said operation has occurred." Id.
We are not persuaded the Examiner erred. During prosecution, claims
are given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the
Specification as they would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art.
In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
The Examiner finds, and we agree, that "[t]he 'requests' [to view e-mail or
web pages] of Bennett are synonymous with the 'operations' of the instant
application" (Ans. 3), and "the 'traced latest operation' is being interpreted
as a user request to check email or view a web page" (Ans. 7). See Bennett
i-f 40, 62, 63. Appellants' argument that in Bennett, "the queueing process at
the server may change the order in which the messages are processed, and
thus, is not occurring right after the operation occurs," is unpersuasive. App.
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Application 10/805,678
Br. 9 (referring to Bennett iii! 64---65); see also Reply Br. 4. Rather, we agree
with the Examiner that Bennett's processing of a queue having an item
would occur "automatically right after" the request, within the reasonable
meaning of the claim: Bennett discloses a facility receives a request to view
e-mail; the facility obtains the user's email from a server; the facility
automatically parses the email; the facility then delivers the data to the user.
See Ans. 4 (citing Bennett if 40); see also Fig. 2.
Appellants argue the Examiner erred, because "Bennett's disclosure
of using multiple templates to structure different types of data from
documents fails to disclose, teach, or suggest extracting at least one item
from a traced latest operation of a source application." App. Br. 11,
emphasis in original. We are not persuaded of error. The Examiner finds,
and we agree, that Bennett's "templates themselves are not interpreted as
performing the extraction of data" but rather "the system extracts the data
and places the extracted data into templates." Ans. 7.
Appellants argue the Examiner erred, because "Bennett discloses
utilizing multiple templates which are populated with the data extracted
from the source documents, not recording data extracted from a latest
operation of a source application into a file." App. Br. 11. We agree with
the Examiner, however, that "[t]he 'template' is interpreted as equivalent to
the 'file' of the instant claims." Ans. 8. Appellants have made conclusory
arguments regarding the failure of the Examiner's findings, and do not
persuade us the disputed limitations distinguish over the disclosure of
Bennett.
Appellants further argue the Examiner erred, because "Bennett fails to
disclose, teach, or suggest the file (of data extracted from traced operations)
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Application 10/805,678
being called by the target application so that an item of the recorded data
may be selected and pasted to the target application." App. Br. 13.
Appellants contend "it is not the target client application that is calling the
completed template to use the data, but rather either the server or a separate
client component using the client application API to integrate the data." Id.
14. We are not persuaded of Examiner error. We agree with the Examiner
that Bennett's template is configured to be called by the target application,
as required by the independent claims. See Ans. 8-9 (citing Bennett i-fi-f 12,
36).
Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner's rejection of independent
claims 1, 15 and 30, and claims 2, 3, 6, 7, 9-14, 16, 19, 20, 22-29, 33-36,
38, and 41--44 that depend therefrom and are not separately argued.
B. Claims 5, 8, 18, 21, and 40
Regarding claims 5 and 18, Appellants argue the Examiner erred,
because Bennett fails to disclose or suggest the limitation "wherein the file is
a log file." App. Br. 15. We are not persuaded of error. The Examiner
reasonably finds that "[t]he template structure of Bennett is being interpreted
as the 'log file' of the instant claims," because Appellants' disclosure "does
not specifically define a 'log file"' but "only states that the log file is
'sequential."' Ans. 9; see also Specification 4. Appellants' contentions that
Bennett may use multiple templates based on the "type of information
identified in a source document" (Reply Br. 6) does not persuasively address
the Examiner's findings. See Final Act. 3; Ans. 9.
Regarding claims 8 and 21, Appellants argue the Examiner erred,
because "Bennett clearly cannot disclose, teach, or suggest the source
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Application 10/805,678
application and target application residing in one application program."
App. Br. 16, emphasis in original. Particularly, Appellants contend "Bennett
discloses the identification, extraction, and template generation occurring at
the server and the structured template data then being sent to the client
device to be used." Id. Bennett, however, describes the use of "Outlook
from Microsoft Corporation" (Bennett i-f 47); we agree with the Examiner
that "an organizer such as Microsoft Outlook performs the functions of an
email source application and calendar/task-list/contact-list target
application." Ans. 9-10 (citing Bennett i-fi-147--48).
Regarding claim 40, Appellants argue "Bennett does not disclose,
teach, or suggest that these servers which may manage applications and
application data for a client are the same servers as the service facility server
which provides for the identification and extraction of unstructured data and
generation of structured data." Reply Br. 7. We are not persuaded the
Examiner erred. The Examiner finds, and we agree, that in Bennett, "client
devices may not have resident applications" and "applications may be
separate applications." (Ans. 10, citing Bennett i-fi-1 48, 57). As discussed
above, Bennett discloses use of Microsoft Outlook, which contains a
plurality of source applications, and when residing on the server, "the server
may store both the email source application and the target calendar
application." Ans. 10.
Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 5, 8, 18,
21, and 40.
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Application 10/805,678
DECISION
The Examiner's rejection of claims 1-3, 5-16, 18-30, 33-36, 38 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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