Ex Parte Lindberg et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 24, 201713654976 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 24, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 13/654,976 10/18/2012 Erik M. Lindberg TRGR(R&D-LEG)_002_US 1 1015 90879 7590 11/28/2017 Thomson Reuters c/o Intellectual Property 3 Times Square New York, NY 10036 EXAMINER KERZHNER, ALEKSANDR ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2165 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/28/2017 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): IPDocketing @ thomsonreu ters .com IPDocketing@clarivate.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ERIK M. LINDBERG, ANDREW CHRISTIAN PUZDER, ISABELLE MOULINIER, DIETMAR H. DORR, and BENJAMIN D. ANDERSON Appeal 2017-007773 Application 13/654,976 Technology Center 2100 Before ALLEN R. MACDONALD, JEREMY J. CURCURI, and MICHAEL M. BARRY, Administrative Patent Judges. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 3—7, and 9-12. See Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Claims 1, 3—7, and 9-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Kapur (US 2004/0199498 Al; Oct. 7, 2004). Final Act. 4—7. We reverse. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants’ invention relates to “providing a search result using segment constraints.” Spec. 2:10-11. Claim 1 is illustrative and reproduced below: Appeal 2017-007773 Application 13/654,976 1. A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving a user query comprising one or more query keywords; in response to receiving the user query, automatically determining, using a processor, a set of segment candidates based on the user query and an indexing structure, the indexing structure comprising one or more segment constraints associated with a corresponding segment candidate, the one or more segment constraints being one of a critical segment constraint, an exclusionary segment constraint and a supplemental segment constraint, wherein each of the one or more segment constraints comprises a listing of one or more critical keywords and at least one of one or more exclusionary keywords and one or more supplemental keywords, said critical segment constraints comprising one or more textual words conveying a concept synonymous to the corresponding segment candidate, said exclusionary segment constraint comprising one or more textual words conveying a concept not synonymous to the corresponding segment candidate; said determining comprising matching the one or more query keywords with the one or more critical keywords and the at least one of the one or more exclusionary keywords and the one or more supplemental keywords of the corresponding segment candidate; ranking, using the processor, the set of segment candidates based on the total number of segment constraints for each of the set of segment candidates to generate a ranked set of segment candidates stored in a memory and retrievable by a set of program code executed by the processor; and providing a result associated with the ranked set of segment candidates. ANALYSIS Contentions The Examiner finds Kapur describes all limitations of claim 1. Final Act. 4—6. In particular, the Examiner finds Kapur describes the recited (claim 1) “wherein each of the one or more segment constraints comprises a 2 Appeal 2017-007773 Application 13/654,976 listing of one or more critical keywords and at least one of one or more exclusionary keywords and one or more supplemental keywords.” Final Act. 5 (citing Kapur || 29-31, 36—37, 51, and 55) (finding “[Kapur discloses] segments constraints may include critical segment constraints, which identify keywords associated with a concept, exclusionary segment constraints^] which identify keywords which are used to filter content (e.g. are disallowed or known to be unrelated to the concept), and supplemental wildcard segment constraints.”) Appellants present the following principal argument: [T]he claimed “determining” of segment candidate requires a matching of the query keywords with a combination of (i) the critical keywords and (ii) the exclusionary keywords or the supplemental keywords, or both, that corresponds to the segment candidate; such matching using additional keywords is clearly not taught by the simple components of the keyword itself. App. Br. 6. “Kapur’s filtering on suggestions [(Kapur | 51)] is not the same as the claimed segment constraint (e.g., critical, exclusionary and supplemental) of each individual segment candidate, which then generates keywords used to determine a match to query keywords.” App. Br. 6. Our Review We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues identified by Appellants, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPA1 2010) (precedential). The Examiner erred in finding Kapur describes the recited (claim 1) “wherein each of the one or more segment constraints comprises a listing of 3 Appeal 2017-007773 Application 13/654,976 one or more critical keywords and at least one of one or more exclusionary keywords and one or more supplemental keywords.” Kapur (151) discloses “[t]he suggestion generation process then processes each identified unit [in the query] to determine whether any associations and extensions are present in the suggestion file for the unit.” Kapur (151) further discloses “[t]hose extensions and associations that are not appropriate for some reason are filtered out.” See also Kapur Figs. 7 and 8 (depicting query extensions and associations) and H 55—58 (describing Figs. 7 and 8). Thus, in a sense, for a particular extension, the unit forming the root for the extension constitutes (claim 1) “one or more critical keywords” associated with the extension (the segment candidate) because the unit is in the query and is also the root for the extension. That said, on the record before us, it is not clear what exactly constitutes the (claim 1) “at least one of one or more exclusionary keywords and one or more supplemental keywords” that cause the extension (or similarly, the association) to be filtered out (or not filtered out). The Examiner’s further explanation in the Examiner’s Answer does not remedy this deficiency. See Ans. 6—7 (“Kapur [] plainly explains that the search queries are decomposed into segment candidates which represent concepts of the query, wherein the segment candidates may be determined by referencing an indexing structure created from query logs which indicate frequencies and keywords associated with different concepts.”). Specifically, it remains unclear as to what exactly constitutes the (claim 1) “at least one of one or more exclusionary keywords and one or more supplemental keywords” that cause the extension (or similarly, the association) to be 4 Appeal 2017-007773 Application 13/654,976 filtered out (or not filtered out). Put another way, to the extent a portion of the extension itself constitutes one or more critical keywords of a constraint associated with that extension, it remains unclear as to what exactly constitutes one or more exclusionary keywords or supplemental keywords of the constraint associated with that extension (or similarly, association). We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. We also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 3—6, which depend from claim 1. Claim 7 also recites “wherein each of the one or more segment constraints comprises a listing of one or more critical keywords and at least one of one or more exclusionary keywords and one or more supplemental keywords.” For the same reasons discussed above when addressing claim 1, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 7. We also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 9—12, which depend from claim 7. ORDER The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 3—7, and 9-12 is reversed. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation