Ex Parte Kishon et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 22, 2017

12981621 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 22, 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.
12/981,621 12/30/2010 Amir Kishon P-WLR-7325-US 6837
91924 7590 02/24/2017
NAOMT ASSTA
EXAMINER
32 Habarzel Street REYES, REGINALD R
Tel-Aviv, 6971048
ISRAEL ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3686
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/24/2017 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):
naomih@computer-law.co.il
adi@computer-law.co.il
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte AMIR KISHON and ELAD LEVRAN
Appeal 2014-008007
Application 12/981,621
Technology Center 3600
Before ANTON W. FETTING, NINA L. MEDLOCK, and
AMEE A. SHAH, Administrative Patent Judges.
FETTING, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE1
Amir Kishon and Elad Levran (Appellants) seek review under
35 U.S.C. § 134 of a final rejection of claims 1—10, the only claims pending
in the application on appeal. We have jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant
to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
The Appellants invented a method and system for an online health
community based on “Structured Dialogs.” Specification 1:5—6.
1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“Br.,”
filed January 16, 2014) and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed May 6,
2014), and Final Action (“Final Act.,” mailed April 19, 2013).
Appeal 2014-008007
Application 12/981,621
An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of
exemplary claim 1, which is reproduced below (bracketed matter and some
paragraphing added).
1. A system
for an online community based on Structured Dialogs
that provides a plurality of subscribing organizations the
opportunity
to create online communities
and
have a dialog with a plurality of users/patients on
at least one website and/or mobile Web/app of one
of said plurality of organizations,
without the risk of unnoticed adverse event reports
by users/patients,
said system comprising:
[1] an interface wherein said plurality of users/patients can only
communicate with Structured Dialogs elements comprising at
least one of pop-ups, drop downs, sliders and other preset
screen controls,
said interface providing for user displays of personal
health and wellness management tools,
the tools comprising a personal component, a community
component, and a system component,
wherein
[2] said personal component administers the inputs of
users/patients enabling the users/patients to track and
achieve their health activities and goals;
[3] said community component enables comparisons of
the users/patients inputs with the inputs of other
users/patients suffering from the same or similar
infirmities;
and
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Application 12/981,621
[4] said system component that [sic] can offer articles
relevant to the users/patients.
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art:
Richardson US 2010/0070554 A1 Mar. 18,2010
Dalton US 2010/0076786 A1 Mar. 25, 2010
Line US 2011/0161095 A1 June 30, 2011
Claims 1—6, 9, and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Dalton and Line.
Claims 7 and 8 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Dalton, Line, and Richardson.
ISSUES
The issues of obviousness turn primarily on the scope of structured
dialogs elements and whether electronic questionnaires as in Dalton
generally rely on controls such as drop downs, pop-ups, and text boxes.
TACTS PERTINENT TO THE ISSUES
The following enumerated Findings of Fact (FF) are believed to be
supported by a preponderance of the evidence.
Facts Related to Claim Construction
01. The disclosure contains no lexicographic definition of
“structured dialog.”
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Appeal 2014-008007
Application 12/981,621
02. The disclosure contains no lexicographic definition of “preset
screen controls.”
03. The phrase “preset screen control” is not a term of art.
04. The phrase “screen controls” is not a term of art.
Facts Related to the Prior Art
Dalton
05. Dalton is directed to personalized health information. Dalton
para. 5.
06. Dalton describes prior art use of secure messaging, electronic
mail, text messages, and instant messages. Dalton para. 3.
07. Dalton describes a patient using an electronic questionnaire to
enter data. Dalton paras. 6, 27, 41, 46, 52.
08. Because Dalton’s patient profile is updated and modified over
time, as the patient receives care, experiences and reports
symptoms and outcomes of care using electronic interfaces or
clinical visits, the personalized health information is updated
periodically. Therefore, the patient or caregiver receives up to
date personalized health information when the information is
accessed. For example, a patient may report symptoms, which in
turn can be used to access recommendations for managing those
symptoms in the context of the rest of the patient’s medical
condition, history and treatment regimen. Patient responses to
questionnaires, which facilitate the integration of valuable data
from multiple health care providers, also may prompt
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Application 12/981,621
recommendations for lifestyle modifications or different
medicines and treatments. Dalton para. 6.
Line
09. Line is directed to a personal health management system. Line
para. 6.
10. Line’s PHR Assistant provides a patient with decision support
and process automation based on data existing in a patient’s
privately maintained personal health record. Using the patient’s
existing medical and insurance data, combined with direct input
from the patient’s clinicians and from the patient himself or
herself, the PHR Assistant builds a care plan for the patient. The
PHR Assistant system then helps the user determine the best way
to execute that plan. Next, the PHR Assistant helps the user
execute the plan, such as by interfacing with other systems,
providing reminders to the patient, etc. At the same time, the
PHR Assistant can track the patient’s progress in executing the
plan and provide the progress information to any interested
parties. Line para. 22.
11. Line’s PHR Assistant system can combine the user’s personal
goals, quality of life criteria, etc., to provide an outlook of the
user’s current trend of health versus a prediction of the user’s
health in the future. This can be socially compared to other
persons with the same or similar data and/or goals to present the
user with recommendations regarding things to change, stop
doing, or alter to re-align his or her current health trend with a
target wellness trend. Line para. 35.
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Application 12/981,621
ANALYSIS
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument that Dalton and Line
fail to describe a communication only with structured dialogs elements.
Br. 4—7. The issue comes down to whether an electronic questionnaire as in
Dalton is a communication only with structured dialogs elements.
There is no definition in the Specification for a structured dialog.
Fact 1. The claims recite that its elements comprise at least one of pop-ups,
drop downs, sliders and other preset screen controls. The use of selection
choice drop down boxes and explanatory pop-ups like tool tips in online
questionnaires is too well known for their use per se to be an issue. Rather,
the issue is whether electronic questionnaires would predictably use only
structured dialog elements.
The claims recite that the set of elements comprise at least one of pop-
ups, drop downs, sliders and other preset screen controls. We find in
particular that the use of the word “comprises” allows additional elements
beyond those listed. Invitrogen Corp. v. Biocrest Mfg., L.P., 327 F.3d 1364,
1368 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (“The transition ‘comprising’ in a method claim
indicates that the claim is open-ended and allows for additional steps.”)
The recitation of communicating only with structured dialog elements
therefore is open-ended as to the scope of such elements. The scope must
include at least one of pop-ups, drop downs, sliders and other preset screen
controls, but this does not mean the dialog itself must use at least one of
these elements, only that the scope of the set of elements that are available
for use in the dialog includes such elements. Again, the use of pop-ups and
drop downs is too notorious to seriously contend they would not be
immediately envisaged as among the controls a programmer would select.
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Application 12/981,621
But even were we to narrowly construe the set of elements to be only
that consisting of at least one of pop-ups, drop downs, sliders and other
preset screen controls, the fact that a preset screen control is among those
choices leads us to a similar conclusion. The disclosure does not define a
preset screen control and it is not a recognized term of art. Facts 2—A. The
plain meaning is something that controls some aspect of the screen and that
is set at some point prior to its initial use in a dialog. Thus, even a
conventional text box for free form text entry is a windows control used to
control presentation on a screen of data entry and that is set by the graphical
user interface prior to use.2 Any area in an electronic questionnaire for free
form text is going to be controlled generally by some form of text box,
particularly after the advent of the Windows operating system and the visual
programming languages3 that rely on such controls for building interactive
applications such as questionnaires. Thus, we find Appellants’ contention
that free form text input is not allowed in such structured dialogs elements to
be unpersuasive. Br. 5—6.
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument that one of ordinary
skill would not have combined the references. Br. 7—8. Appellants have not
shown why the combining of old elements would not lead to predictable
results, as reasoned by the Examiner (Final Act. 4). Appellants instead posit
some results and contend one of ordinary skill would not have foreseen
them. Both references are directed to personal health information. Line
2 A text box is a standard control in Microsoft applications. Microsoft,
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Add-or-delete-a-text-box-6cbd2c67-
2c40-4096-9dcb-9ad6ddbb2b25.
3 Microsoft Word, for example, uses Visual Basic for Applications (VBA),
with a full suite of screen controls.
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describes the reason for incorporating its community component teachings
with Dalton’s individual component teachings as being the desire to
compare similar data with other persons to present recommendations.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
The rejection of claims 1—6, 9, and 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Dalton and Line is proper.
The rejection of claims 7 and 8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Dalton, Line, and Richardson is proper.
DECISION
The rejection of claims 1—10 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). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(l)(iv) (2011).
AFFIRMED
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