Ex Parte Kuehr-McLaren et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 10, 2018

14328486 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 10, 2018)

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.
14/328,486 07/10/2014 David G. Kuehr-McLaren RSW920070369US2
8152-0242
6861
73109 7590 01/12/2018
rWnnt Fnrsvfiie& Kim T T C EXAMINER
20283 State Road 7
Ste. 300
RAYYAN, SUSAN F
Boca Raton, EL 33498 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2167
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/12/2018 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):
ibmptomail@iplawpro.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DAVID G. KUEHR-McLAREN,
RANJAN KUMAR, KWABENA A. MIREKU, and
GOVINDARAJ S AMPATHKUMAR1
Appeal 2016-005730
Application 14/328,486
Technology Center 2100
Before DEMETRA J. MILLS, ERIC B. GRIMES, and
DEVON ZASTROW NEWMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
GRIMES, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35U.S.C. § 134 involving claims to claims to
a method, system, and program product for controlling access to privileged
content, which have been rejected as obvious. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify the Real Party in Interest as IBM Corporation. (Appeal
Br. 1.)
Appeal 2016-005730
Application 14/328,486
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Claims 16—33 are on appeal. Claim 16 is illustrative and reads as
follows:
16. A computer-implemented method for controlling access to
privileged content, stored within a computer system, of a first user by a
second user, comprising:
receiving a computer request, by the second user, to access the
privileged content of the first user;
determining whether the second user is included within a list
designating a privilege right for the privileged content;
retrieving, based upon the second user not being included within the
list, a threshold criteria;
permitting, within the computer system, the second user to access the
privilege content based upon a comparison between the threshold criteria
and social network statistics associated with the second user.
The claims stand rejected as follows:
Claims 16—33 for obviousness-type double patenting based on claims
1—5 and 10-15 of U.S. Patent 8,838,646 (Final Action2 4);
Claims 16—20, 22—26, and 28—32 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious
based on Pezaris3 and Cooley4 (Final Action 5); and
Claims 21, 27, and 33 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious based on
Pezaris, Cooley, and Wilson5 (Ans. 11).
2 Final Action mailed April 23, 2015.
3 Pezaris et al., US 2005/0198031 Al, Sept. 8, 2005.
4 Cooley et al., US 2008/0250471 Al, Oct. 9, 2008.
5 Wilson, Jr. et al., US 2006/0215690 Al, Sept. 28, 2006.
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I
The Examiner has rejected all of the claims on appeal for
obviousness-type double patenting based on claims in the ’646 patent.
(Final Action 4.) Appellants state that “[t]his rejection is not the subject of
the present appeal. Appellants will make a determination as to the filing of a
Terminal Disclaimer upon indication of allowable subject matter.” (Appeal
Br. 4, n.l.) Because Appellants have waived any arguments directed to the
double-patenting rejection, we affirm it. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv)
(Appeal Brief must contain “[t]he arguments of appellant with respect to
each ground of rejection, and the basis therefor.”); Hyatt v. Dudas, 551 F.3d
1307, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2008).
II
The Examiner has rejected claims 16—20, 22—26, and 28—32 as obvious
based on Pezaris and Cooley. The Examiner finds that Pezaris discloses a
method meeting most of the limitations of claim 16, including “a list
designating a privilege right for the privileged content ([0079] as the user
may either be explicit or vague regarding the users that may receive and
access the content.” (Final Action 6, emphasis omitted.) The Examiner finds
that Pezaris does not disclose permitting access to privileged content based
on a comparison of threshold criteria and social network statistics but Cooley
discloses this limitation: “([0058] as social networking characteristics
(metrics) and specify thresholds at which the stranger will be allowed,
blocked, or restricted).” (Id. at 6—7.)
The Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious “to modify
Pezaris with permitting, within the computer system, the second user to
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access the privilege content based upon a comparison between the threshold
criteria and social network statistics associated with the second user to
determine whether an on-line association is allowed as described by Cooley
at [0009].” (Id. at 7.)
We agree with the Examiner that the method of claim 16 would have
been obvious based on Pezaris and Cooley. Pezaris discloses “[mjethods
and systems for . . . controlling access to information in a social networking
environment based on user-defined and/or system-generated parameters.”
(Pezaris 11.) Pezaris’ method includes “receiving, by the processor, access
request information via the communications network, and transmitting the
content to the second computer system if the access request information
corresponds to the access control criterion.” (Id. 121.)
Pezaris states that “a user may wish to direct content to other users
having user-specified relationships with the user or the user’s social
network. Additionally or alternately, the user may wish to direct content to
groups or specified individuals.” (Id. 178.) “The user may either be
explicit or vague regarding the users that may receive and access the content.
. . . For example, the user may wish to have personal information only
available to friends and family.” (Id. 179.)
Pezaris states that its method can include
assigning a value to content by a first user, generating, by a social
networking environment, a proximity index denoting a strength
of a relationship between the first user of the social networking
environment and a second user of the social networking
environment, and permitting the second user to access content of
the first user if the proximity index is greater than the value.
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(Id. 120.) Pezaris discloses that “[t]he access control criterion may further
include a tier designator.” (Id. 121.)
Pezaris states that “a combination of designators and proximity index
may be used to define access. For example, the user may designate ‘Very
Close or first tier family, ’ which may permit access to first tier contacts that
are family members and to members of the user’s social network that are
Very Close to the user.” (Id. 197.)
Cooley discloses “a system and method of using social metrics in a
parental control application.” (Cooley 12.) Cooley states that “a parent
defines friend rules for on-line association, e.g., IM communication, with
their child. Upon a request of an on-line stranger to be a new friend of the
child, stranger information about the on-line stranger is retrieved and
compared to the friend rules to determine whether the stranger is allowed,
blocked or restricted from being a friend with the child.” (Id. | 8.) “[OJnly
if the on-line stranger satisfies the criteria established by the parent, the on­
line association between their child and the on-line stranger is allowed.
Otherwise, the on-line association between their child and the on-line
stranger is blocked or restricted.” (Id. 19.)
“In one example, friend rules are based on specific social networking
characteristics (metrics) and specify thresholds at which the stranger will be
allowed, blocked, or restricted.” (Id. 158.) “[EJxamples of friend rules to
be a friend include: 1) the stranger must be a friend of more than N, e.g., ten,
of the child’s friends; 2) the stranger must be a friend of more than N, e.g.,
ten, of friends of the child’s friends; 3) the stranger must have X%, e.g.,
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70%, of friends in common with the child; 4) the stranger must have Y, e.g.,
ten, exact friends as the child.” {Id. 1 59.)
These disclosures would have made obvious the method of claim 16.
Pezaris discloses a method of controlling access to the computer content of a
first user by a second user, upon receiving a request to access that content,
by determining whether the second user is in a list designating users who are
privileged to access that content. Specifically, Pezaris discloses that the first
user can explicitly direct content to, e.g., friends and family (Pezaris 179),
which implicitly requires, or at least would have made obvious, a list of
individuals who will be recognized as friends or family. Pezaris also
discloses that the first user can direct content to “specified individuals,”
which also implicitly requires a list specifying which individuals will be
allowed access.
Pezaris also discloses generating a proximity index by a social
networking environment and allowing access if the proximity index value is
greater than a (threshold) value. {Id. 120.) As relevant to claim 16, Pezaris
discloses that a first user can designate certain content as accessible to users
who are Very Close to the first user or first-tier family members of the first
user. {Id. 197.) This disclosure reasonably suggests a method in which it is
first determined whether a second user is a first-tier family member (based
on a list of family members) and, if not, whether the second user’s proximity
index value is above the threshold required to qualify as Very Close to the
first user.
Cooley suggests specific social network statistics to use in
determining whether a second user (stranger) should be allowed access to
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privileged content (IM communication with the user’s child). (Cooley | 8.)
Cooley suggest that such statistics could include the number or percentage of
friends that the second user has in common with the child. {Id. 159.)
Based on these disclosures it would have been obvious to modify
Pezaris’ method to include using social networking statistics (e.g., friends in
common) to determine whether a second user meets a threshold for
accessing privileged content when the second user is not on a list of users
(e.g., family members) who are designated to access the content.
Appellants argue that paragraph 79 of Pezaris “makes no mention of a
list. Instead, paragraph [0079] refers to ‘access control may be used to
delimit access to any or all content within the social networking
environment.’ Access control does not inherently (i.e., necessarily) teach a
list, and thus, paragraph [0079] fails to teach the limitations at issue.”
(Appeal Br. 10.6)
This argument is not persuasive. Pezaris expressly discloses that a
user can “explicitly]” designate personal information as being “only
available to friends and family.” (Pezaris 179.) The social networking
environment could potentially determine friends of the user via social
6 In the Reply Brief, Appellants present arguments that “[n]one of the
Applied Art references teach or suggest the Whitelist S/N Trust Integration
Language.” (Reply Br. 2—8.) These arguments were not presented in the
Appeal Brief and are not responsive to anything in the Examiner’s Answer.
Therefore, we will not consider them. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.41(b)(2) (“Any
argument raised in the reply brief which was not raised in the appeal brief, or
is not responsive to an argument raised in the Examiner’s answer, including
any designated new ground of rejection, will not be considered by the Board
for purposes of the present appeal.”).
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networking statistics, but determining family members of the friend
reasonably would seem to require, or at least make obvious, a list
specifically designating such individuals. In addition, Pezaris discloses that
a user can direct content to “specified individuals” {id. 178), which even
more clearly requires a list of the individuals who are allowed to access the
content.
Appellants also argue that, in claim 16, “the retrieval of the ‘threshold
criteria’ is based upon the second user not being included within the list” and
that, “[wjhile Pezaris could be argued as teaching a threshold criteria (i.e.,
the proximity index), Pezaris does not teach that this alleged threshold
criteria is retrieved based upon a user not being on a list. Instead, the
threshold criteria of Pezaris is used in place of the claimed list.” (Appeal Br.
10.)
This argument is also unpersuasive. Pezaris states that a user can
direct content to others based on their relationship with the user’s social
network, and “[additionally or alternately” can direct content to specified
individuals.” (Pezaris 178.) Pezaris also states that a user can use a
combination of designators (e.g. first tier family) and proximity index (e.g.,
Very Close member of the user’s social network) to control access. {Id.
197.) Even if these descriptions do not expressly disclose checking a list
(e.g., of specified users or first tier family members) before determining
whether social network statistics meet a threshold criterion, Pezaris’
teachings regarding sending directed content to specific individuals would
have suggested to the skilled artisan to design a system that would check a
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finite list of designated individuals before calculating social network
statistics and comparing the result to a threshold.
We therefore affirm the rejection of claim 16 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) based on Pezaris and Cooley. Claims 17—20, 22—26, and 28—32
have not been argued separately and fall with claim 16. 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
The Examiner rejected claims 21, 27, and 33 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as obvious based on Pezaris, Cooley, and Wilson. Appellants have waived
arguments based on Wilson. (See Appeal Br. 12—13.7) We therefore affirm
this rejection for the reasons discussed above. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (Appeal Brief must contain “[t]he arguments of appellant
with respect to each ground of rejection, and the basis therefor.”); Hyatt v.
Dudas, 551 F.3d 1307, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2008).
SUMMARY
We affirm all of the rejections on appeal.
7 Although Appellants state that “even if one having ordinary skill in the art
did modify Pezaris in view of Cooley and Wilson, the proposed combination
of references would not yield the claimed invention” (Appeal Br. 12), this
conclusory statement does not constitute separate argument of the claims.
See In reLovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“[T]he Board [has]
reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to require more substantive arguments in
an appeal brief than a mere recitation of the claim elements and a naked
assertion that the corresponding elements were not found in the prior art.”).
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TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).
AFFIRMED
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