Ex Parte Low et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 11, 2013

12237060 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 11, 2013)

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.
12/237,060 09/24/2008 Gak Wee Low 70481.50 9085
32605 7590 02/12/2013
Haynes and Boone, LLP
IP Section
2323 Victory Avenue
SUITE 700
Dallas, TX 75219
EXAMINER
FIELDS, BENJAMIN S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3684
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/12/2013 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte GAK WEE LOW and SALIL MODY
____________________

Appeal 2011-006703
Application 12/237,060
Technology Center 3600
____________________

Before ANTON W. FETTING, MEREDITH C. PETRAVICK, and
NINA L. MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judges.

MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-11, 13-26, and 28-35. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
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Application 12/237,060

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STATEMENT OF THE DECISION
We AFFIRM.1
BACKGROUND
Appellants’ invention relates to “online, Internet-based financial
transaction programs and commercial systems and more particularly to
conducting online financial transactions with an Internet browser
independent software application” (Spec., para. [001]).
Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on
appeal:
1. A method comprising:
verifying login credentials to authenticate a
user;
storing identification information
corresponding to the user;
presenting the user with a plurality of
buttons on a customizable Graphic User Interface
(GUI) based program, wherein the buttons
represent specific actions to perform and are
associated with different user information;
receiving from the user a selected button
from the plurality of buttons that is dragged-and-
dropped into a page of a merchant website with
one or more empty fields;
populating at least one of the empty fields
with user information associated with the selected
button; and
conducting, by an integration engine on a
server, transactions based on the received data
from one or more of the plurality of buttons
selected by the user on the GUI based program.

1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“Br.,”
filed November 5, 2010) and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed
December 3, 2010).
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Application 12/237,060

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THE REJECTION
The following rejection is before us for review:
Claims 1-2, 4-11, 13-26, and 28-35 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Schutzer (US 6,873,974 B1, iss.
Mar. 29, 2005).

ANALYSIS

Independent claims 1, 11, 20, and 25

Appellants argue claims 1, 11, 20, and 25 as a group (Br. 6-8). We
select claim 1 as representative. The remaining claims stand or fall with
claim 1. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).
We are not persuaded of error on the part of the Examiner by
Appellants’ argument that Schutzer does not disclose or suggest “presenting
the user with a plurality of buttons on a customizable Graphic User Interface
(GUI) based program, wherein the buttons represent specific actions to
perform and are associated with different user information,” as recited in
claim 1 (Br. 6-7).
Schutzer discloses a system and method whereby two electronic
wallets (i.e., a consumer wallet and a merchant wallet) communicate and
exchange information, and describes that in one embodiment, an internet
consumer registers with a web merchant’s electronic wallet and provides
information (e.g., credit card number, mailing address) to the merchant
wallet. This information is stored in a database on the merchant server.
When the user visits the merchant site again, and orders goods or services,
the merchant provides the merchant wallet showing the consumer
information previously provided by the consumer. The consumer wallet
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examines this information to determine if it conforms to the current
information in the consumer wallet. If the information does not conform,
the consumer wallet communicates the current consumer information to the
merchant wallet (See, e.g., Schutzer, Abstract and col. 2, ll. 25-46).
Appellants assert that “Schutzer teaches automatically filling in a
merchant form with a merchant wallet and comparing and updating a
merchant wallet with a user wallet.” And Appellants maintain that,
therefore, “there is no need [in Schutzer] for user buttons to select for
performing specific actions where the buttons are associated with different
user information” (Br. 7).
Appellants acknowledge that Schutzer refers at column 1, line 62 to a
mouse button and that Schutzer discloses a checkout button at column 7,
line 30, cited by the Examiner (Ans. 14). But Appellants argue that these
buttons are for selecting an item for purchase or for initiating a checkout
process, and are “not the same buttons as ones that ‘represent specific
actions to perform and are associated with different user information,’” as
recited in claim 1 (Br. 7).
Appellants’ argument is not persuasive because it is not
commensurate with the scope of the claim. By their argument, Appellants
seek to limit the claimed “specific actions” represented by the buttons to
actions to populate the merchant wallet. However, claim 1 only recites that
“the buttons represent specific actions to perform and are associated with
different user information.”
During prosecution, claims are to be given their broadest reasonable
interpretation consistent with the specification. See In re Amer. Acad. of Sci.
Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). In our view, the phrase
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“the buttons represent specific actions to perform and are associated with
different user information,” as reasonably broadly construed, covers the
“Ready to Check Out button” disclosed in Schutzer, which is displayed on
one of the web pages of the merchant website (Schutzer, col. 7, ll. 24-30).
The “Ready to Check Out button” represents a specific action to perform,
i.e., to finalize payment for the purchase transaction (see Schutzer, col. 7,
ll. 28-35), and is associated with different user information, i.e., responsive
to selection of the “Ready to Check Out button,” the form fields of the
merchant wallet are populated with the consumer’s personal information,
e.g., name, mailing address, e-mail address, etc., in order to complete the
purchase transaction (see Schutzer, col. 7, ll. 40-52 and col. 7, l. 65 – col. 8,
l. 30).
We also are not persuaded of error on the part of the Examiner by
Appellants’ further argument that Schutzer does not teach or suggest
“receiving from the user a selected button . . . that is dragged-and-dropped
into a page of a merchant website with one or more empty fields,” as recited
in claim 1 (Br. 7-8). The Examiner concluded that because Schutzer shows
a web-based system, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in
the art to configure the “Ready to Check Out button” to include drag and
drop functionality:
Buttons [i.e., the Ready to Check Out button] are shown with
Schutzer at least at Column 7, Lines 7-36; as Schutzer shows a
system which is used via websites, etc. a drag and drop
limitation would obviously be in course.

(Ans. 14).

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Appellants argue that Schutzer does not disclose or suggest this
limitation for the same reasons as outlined above, namely that the merchant
fields in Schutzer are automatically populated from a merchant wallet and,
therefore, “there is no reason for a user to selectively drag and drop a button
to populate a field” (Br. 7).
That argument is not persuasive because it does not specifically
address the Examiner’s obviousness finding and articulated reasoning.
Appellants argue that Schutzer does not disclose dragging and dropping a
button from a graphical user interface (GUI) onto a merchant website (Br. 7-
8), but Appellants provide no technical analysis or explanation in the Appeal
Brief why it would have been non-obvious to make Schutzer’s “Ready to
Check Out button” a GUI drag and drop button, as the Examiner proposes.2
In view of the foregoing, we will affirm the Examiner’s rejection of
claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). We also will affirm the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 11, 20, and 25, which stand or fall with claim 1.

Dependent claims 2, 4-10, 13-19, 21-24, 26, and 28-35

Each of claims 2, 4-10, 13-19, 21-24, 26, and 28-35 depends from one
of independent claims 1, 11, 20, and 25. Appellants did not present any
arguments for the separate patentability of these dependent claims.
Therefore, we also will sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2, 4-10,
13-19, 21-24, 26, and 28-35 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

2 Appellants did not file a Reply Brief.
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DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-11, 13-26, and 28-35 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) 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)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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