Ex Parte Liu et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 31, 201613052622 (P.T.A.B. May. 31, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/052,622 03/21/2011 22879 7590 06/02/2016 HP Inc. 3390 E. Harmony Road Mail Stop 35 FORT COLLINS, CO 80528-9544 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Samson J. Liu 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. 82564444 6803 EXAMINER MCINTOSH, ANDREW T ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2176 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/02/2016 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): ipa.mail@hp.com barbl@hp.com yvonne.bailey@hp.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SAMSON J. LIU, SUK HWAN LIM, and JERRY J. LIU Appeal2014-006479 1 Application 13/052,622 Technology Center 2100 Before JOHNNY A. KUMAR, LINZY T. McCARTNEY, and MONICA S. ULLAGADDI, Administrative Patent Judges. ULLAGADDI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a final rejection of claims 1-11 and 13-15. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Claim 1, reproduced below with disputed limitations emphasized, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for providing a uniform resource locator, compnsmg: 1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP. App. Br. 1. Appeal2014-006479 Application 13/052,622 identifying, by a processor, a tag in a webpage's source code indicating a uniform resource locator on the webpage; determining, by a processor, a language associated with the webpage; selecting, by a processor, a list of text associated with a type of uniform resource locator based on the determined language; determining, by a processor, whether text associated with the identified tag is related to a the list of text; identifying, by a processor, a uniform resource locator as being associated with the identified tag if it is determined that the text associated with the identified tag is related to the list of text; and providing, by a processor, the identified uniform resource locator. REFERENCES and REJECTIONS The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Morgan Rousso et al. Schultz et al. US 2006/0156299 Al July 13; 2006 US 2010/0287049 Al Nov. 11, 2010 US 2009/0113282 Al Apr. 30, 2009 Claims 1-5, 7, 9-11, and 13 stand rejected under 35 USC§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Morgan in view of Rousso. Claims 6, 8, 14, and 15 stand rejected under 35 USC§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Morgan, in view of Rousso, further in view of Schultz. 2 Appeal2014-006479 Application 13/052,622 ANALYSIS Claims 1-5, 7, 9-11, and 13 The Examiner cites Morgan as teaching a portion of the "selecting" limitation of claim 1 - "selecting, by a processor, a list of text associated with a type of uniform resource locator," but finds Morgan is silent as to the preceding "determining" limitation and thus, is also silent with respect to the portion of the "selecting" limitation that specifies the selecting is "based on the determined language." Final Act. 3--4. The Examiner cites Rousso as teaching the "determining" limitation and "that a list of text is selected based on the determined language." Id. at 4 (citing Rousso, Figs. 2, 3, i-fi-144, 51); see also Ans. 9-10. Based on these findings, the Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled artisan to combine the teachings of Morgan and Rousso to tailor "software services for more efficient searches based on language preferences to find language specific results." Final Act. 4. We adopt the findings, reasoning, and conclusions set forth in the Final Rejection and the Answer to the extent consistent with the analysis below. Appellants argue (i.) Rousso does not teach the "selecting" limitation of claim 1 because the language search schemas retrieved by Rousso' s natural language search system are not "associated with a type of uniform resource locator." App. Br. 7; see also id. at 6. Appellants further argue (ii.) Morgan does not teach the "selecting" limitation because Morgan teaches selecting a document or webpage "before ... [the] printing method searches for the indicator of a printer-friendly version." Id. at 8 citing Morgan i1 44. Finally, Appellants argue (iii.) the combination of Morgan and Rousso does not result in the "selecting" limitation because "[ o ]ne skilled in the art would 3 Appeal2014-006479 Application 13/052,622 not have had any apparent reason to move ... [Rousso's] search schemas from the database 353 to a printer-friendly version of a webpage or document," as taught by Morgan. Id. With regard to argument (i. ), the Examiner finds Morgan describes "us[ing] a list of text such as 'Print This,' 'Printer-Friendly,' and other variations to search a document or web page for the specific URLs" and thus, teaches "selecting ... a list of text associated with a type of uniform resource." Final Act. 3 (emphasis added) citing Morgan Figs. 6, 7, i-fi-f 12, 44--46. Appellants' argument (i.) impermissibly attacks the references individually and fails to address the Examiner's specific findings regarding Morgan. Thus, we are not persuaded by this argument. With regard to argument (ii.), claim 1 recites a webpage, but does not require that the "selecting, by a processor, a list of text" is limited with respect to the webpage. Claim 1 also does not specify that the webpage is selected. As such, claim 1 does not limit the contested "selecting" limitation based on the relative timing of selecting a webpage. Thus, contrary to Appellants' argument (ii.), claim 1 does not preclude selecting a webpage prior to searching for the indicator, as Appellants allege is taught by Morgan. See App. Br. 8. Moreover, claim 1 also does not preclude the "list of text" from being selected from the "webpage." Thus, we are not persuaded that claim 1 excludes Morgan's teaching of "search[ ing] a document or web page for an indicator of a printer-friendly version that may be demarcated by HTML tags with associated hyperlinks." Id. With regard to argument (iii.), we are not persuaded of Examiner error in the rejection. The Supreme Court has indicated that: 4 Appeal2014-006479 Application 13/052,622 [It is error to] ass um[ e] that a person of ordinary skill attempting to solve a problem will be led only to those elements of prior art designed to solve the same problem .... Common sense teaches ... that familiar items may have obvious uses beyond their primary purposes, and in many cases a person of ordinary skill will be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle. KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 420 (2007) (citation omitted). The Examiner finds, and we agree, that it would have been obvious to the ordinarily skilled artisan to combine the teachings of Morgan and Rousso to tailor "software services for more efficient searches based on language preferences to find language specific results." Final Act. 4. Thus, we find the Examiner has articulated a valid reasoning with "some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness." See KSR, 550 U.S. at 418 (citing In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006)). For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Morgan and Rousso teaches or suggests the contested limitation as recited in independent claim 1, the commensurate limitations of independent claims 7 and 10, as well as the limitations of dependent claims 2-5, 7, 9, 11, and 13, which are not separately argued. Therefore, we sustain the rejection of claims 1-5, 7, 9-11, and 13 under 3 5 U.S.C. § 103(a) for obviousness over Morgan and Rousso. Claims 6, 8, 14, and 15 With regard to dependent claim 6, Appellants argue Morgan does not show "confirming that the extracted text includes a uniform resource locator with a domain consistent with the domain of the webpage" because the cited paragraph "does not even hint that Morgan's system performs and [sic] type 5 Appeal2014-006479 Application 13/052,622 of confirmation regarding the consistency between the domain of a URL and the domain of the webpage from which the URL is extracted." App. Br. 10. The Examiner finds that Morgan teaches the "confirming" limitation. Final Act. 7 citing Morgan Figs. 3, 7 i-fi-f 18, 46; see also Ans. 11 citing Fig. 7. We concur with the Examiner's finding. Morgan depicts the tags designating a printer friendly version of a webpage using a URL that includes the domain of the webpage. See Morgan, Figs. 3, 7. Even assuming, arguendo, Appellants' argument regarding the "confirming" limitation was persuasive, claim 6 requires "at least one of confirming that the extracted text includes a uniform resource locator with a domain consistent with the domain of the webpage; and updating the identified uniform resource locator to form a uniform resource locator with a full directory path." The Examiner cites Schultz as teaching the "updating" limitation. Final Act. 7; see also Ans. 11. Appellants do not address the cited teachings of Schultz and as such, fail to persuasively rebut the Examiner's prima facie case of obviousness. For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Morgan, Rousso, and Schultz teaches or suggests the limitations recited in claim 6 and the limitations recited in claims 8, 14, and 15, which depend from claim 6 and are not separately argued. Therefore, we sustain the rejection of claims 6, 8, 14, and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for obviousness over Morgan, Rousso, and Schultz. 6 Appeal2014-006479 Application 13/052,622 DECISION The Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-11 and 13-15 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). AFFIRMED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation