Ex Parte Lu et al

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Apr 30, 2013

11082202 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Apr. 30, 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.
11/082,202 03/15/2005 Qi Lu 600189-359 2917
45969 7590 05/01/2013
DENTONS US LLP - Yahoo!, Inc
P. O. BOX 061080
CHICAGO, IL 60606-1080
EXAMINER
DAYE, CHELCIE L
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2161
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/01/2013 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 QI LU, ECKART WALTHER, DAVID KU, CHUNG-MAN TAM,
KEVIN LEE, ZHICHEN XU, ALI DIAB, KENNETH NORTON, and
JIANCHANG MAO1
____________

Appeal 2011-006210
Application 11/082,202
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before JOSIAH C. COCKS, JAMES B. ARPIN, and MIRIAM L. QUINN,
Administrative Patent Judges.

ARPIN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1, 4-15, 17-22, 25-39, 42-46, 48, and 50-55. Claims 2, 3,

1 Yahoo! Inc. is the real party-in-interest.
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16, 23, 24, 40, 41, 47, and 49 are cancelled. App. Br. 2.2 We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm.
INVENTION
Appellants’ invention relates to methods and computer systems,
which incorporate user annotations (e.g., metadata) regarding various pages
or sites, including annotations by a querying user and by members of a trust
network defined for the querying user, in searching and browsing a corpus of
documents, such as the World Wide Web. See generally Abstract. “A trust
network is defined for each user, and annotations by any member of a first
user’s trust network are made visible to the [querying] user during search
and/or browsing of the corpus.” Id. “Users also may limit searches to
content annotated by members of their trust networks or by members of a
community selected by the user.” Id. Claim 1 is illustrative and is
reproduced below with disputed limitations emphasized:
1. A method for responding to a user query, the method
comprising:

receiving a query submitted by a querying one of a plurality of
users;

searching a corpus comprising a plurality of documents to
identify one or more hits, wherein each hit is a document in the corpus
that is determined to be relevant to the query;

building a trust network for the querying user, the trust network
having as members a subset of the plurality of users including at least
one user other than the querying user explicitly identified by the

2 Throughout this opinion, we refer to (1) the Appeal Brief (App. Br.) filed
September 28, 2010; (2) the Examiner’s Answer (Ans.) mailed December 9,
2010; and (3) the Reply Brief (Reply Br.) filed February 9, 2011.
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querying user as a friend, wherein the members of the trust network
are members of a selected community of users, the selected
community being selected by the querying user;

providing a trust network interface operable by the plurality of
users to identify others of the plurality of users as friends;

receiving identifications of friends from a plurality of inputting
users, including the querying user, via the trust network interface;

storing a list of identified friends for each inputting user;

accessing a store of annotations created by the plurality of
users, each annotation being associated with a subject one of the
documents in the corpus and with a creating one of the plurality of
users, each annotation including user-specific metadata related to the
subject document, wherein the user-specific metadata included in each
annotation includes a rating of the subject document;

identifying, as an annotated hit, each of the hits that is the
subject document of at least one matching annotation, wherein the
creating user of each matching annotation is one of the members of
the trust network;

obtaining an annotation rating from each matching annotation,
the annotation rating being a rating of the annotation and computing
an average annotation rating;

generating a search report including a listing of the hits,
wherein for each annotated hit, the search report includes information
about at least one of the matching annotations, wherein an order for
the listing of the hits is determined based at least in part on the
average annotation ratings of the annotated hits;

providing in the search report, for a given annotated hit, a
control element operable by the querying user to request a display of
the user-specific metadata of at least one of the matching annotations;
and

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transmitting the search report and the user-specific metadata of
at least one matching annotation to the querying user.

The Examiner relies on the following as evidence of unpatentability:
Glance
Johnson

Badros

Dhillon

Sipusic

Yeager
US 2002/0147895 A1
US 2005/0027664 A1

US 2005/0131866 A1

US 2005/0182745 A1

US 2005/0234958 A1

US 7,203,753 B2
Oct. 10, 2002
Feb. 3, 2005 (filed July
31, 2003)
June 16, 2005 (filed
Dec. 3, 2003)
Aug. 18, 2005 (filed
July 30, 2004)
Oct. 20, 2005 (filed
Dec. 7, 2001)
Apr. 10, 2007 (filed
June 7, 2002)

THE REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 4-15, 17-22, 25-39, 42-46, 48, and
50-55 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Badros, Yeager,
Glance, Dhillon, and Sipusic.3 Ans. 4-19.

SUMMARY
Regarding representative claim 1, the Examiner finds that Badros
discloses a method for responding to a user query and discloses many of the
limitations recited in claim 1, including “identifying, as an annotated hit,
each of the hits that is the subject document of at least one matching
annotation.” Ans. 5 (citing Badros, ¶ [0085]). Badros, however, does not
adequately disclose other recited limitations of claim 1, such as those

3 The Examiner has withdrawn the rejections to claims 1, 4-15, 17-22, 25-
39, 42-46, 48, and 50-55 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Badros, Yeager, Glance, Dhillon, and Johnson. Ans. 3.
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relating to the building of a trust network of the querying user, including
“wherein the creating user of each matching annotation is one of the
members of the trust network.” Ans. 5-6. Nevertheless, the Examiner finds
that Yeager discloses the building of a trust network and, in particular, that
Yeager discloses “wherein the creating user of each matching annotation is
one of the members of the trust network.” Id. at 6 (citing Yeager, col.14,
ll. 58-62).
In addition, the Examiner notes that Badros does not teach or suggest
“computing an average rating and wherein an order for the listing of the hits
is determined based at least in part on the average ratings of the annotated
hits,” and that, although Yeager discloses building a trust network, Yeager
does not specifically describe the members of the trust network, as “friends.”
Ans. 6-7. The Examiner finds, however, that Glance discloses these recited
limitations of claim 1 relating to the computation and use of average ratings
(Ans. 6-7 (citing Glance, ¶¶ [0031]-[0032])) and that Dhillon identifies a
plurality of inputting users to a trust network, as “friends” (id. at 7-8 (citing
Dhillon, ¶¶ [0060], [0066])). The Examiner concludes that it would have
been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the relevant art to combine the
teachings of Badros, Yeager, Glance, and Dhillon to satisfy the recited
limitations of claim 1. Id. at 5-8.
Finally, the Examiner determines that the combination of Badros,
Yeager, Glance, and Dhillon may not provide a sufficiently detailed
description of “the obtained rating being a rating of the annotation and the
computing of an average rating, being an average annotation rating.” Ans. 8
(emphasis added). The Examiner finds, however, that Sipusic discloses
obtaining an annotation rating (Sipusic, ¶ [0037]) and “computing an
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average annotation rating” (id. at ¶ [0068]). Id. Further, the Examiner
concludes that it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the
relevant art to combine the teachings of Sipusic with those of the other
combined references to satisfy the recited limitations of claim 1. Id.
Appellants argue (1) that the combination of references proposed by
the Examiner fails to teach or suggest at least “identifying, as an annotated
hit, each of the hits that is the subject document of at least one matching
annotation, wherein the creating user of each matching annotation is one of
the members of the trust network,” as recited in claim 1 (App. Br. 10-12;
Reply Br. 3-4), and (2) that the Examiner has failed to demonstrate that a
person of ordinary skill in the relevant art would have reason to combine the
teachings of Badros, Yeager, Glance, Dhillon, and Sipusic to satisfy the
recited limitations of claim 1 (App. Br. 12-19; Reply Br. 4-6). In particular,
Appellants argue that the applied references represent non-analogous art;
such that their combination is improper, and teach away from the
combination proposed by the Examiner or that the proposed combination of
these references is based on impermissible hindsight, or both. App. Br. 12-
15, 18-19; Reply Br. 4-6.
ISSUES
1. Under § 103, has the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 by
finding that Badros and Yeager, collectively, teach or suggest “identifying,
as an annotated hit, each of the hits that is the subject document of at least
one matching annotation, wherein the creating user of each matching
annotation is one of the members of the trust network?”
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2. Are the Examiner’s reasons to combine the teachings of these
references supported by articulated reasoning with some rational
underpinning to justify the Examiner’s obviousness conclusion?
ANALYSIS
1. Claim Construction.
We begin by construing the disputed limitations of claim 1 which
calls for, in pertinent part, “identifying, as an annotated hit, each of the hits
that is the subject document of at least one matching annotation, wherein the
creating user of each matching annotation is one of the members of the trust
network.” In construing this limitation, we apply the broadest reasonable
meaning of the words in their ordinary usage, as those words would be
understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, taking into account any
definitions supplied by Appellants’ Specification. In re Morris, 127 F.3d
1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
Initially, we note that, in the Specification, Appellants broadly define
several of the terms included in this limitation. Appellants define the terms
“hits” as “pages or sites (or references to pages or sites) that are determined
to have at least some relevance to the query.” Spec. 16:23-24 (emphasis
added). Further, Appellants define the term “page” as referring “to a unit of
content that is identifiable by a unique locator (e.g., a URL) and displayable
by a suitably configured browser program” and the term “site” as referring
“to a group of one or more pages related to a common subject matter and
located on the same server.” Id. at 20:18-21. Thus, we construe the term
“hits,” as used in the disputed limitation, to broadly describe units of content
that are identifiable by a unique locator and displayable by a browser
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program or a group of units of such content that are located on the same
server and have at least some relevance to the query.
Similarly, Appellants define the term “trust network” as “set of users
whose annotations are to be viewed by a first user [e.g., the querying user]
. . . and in preferred embodiments, each user may exercise at least some
degree of control over the membership of her trust network.” Spec. 25:22-
25; see also Spec. 3:27-4:3. Appellants also broadly define the term
“annotations” “to refer generally to any descriptive and/or evaluative
metadata related to a page or site (or other content item in a corpus) that is
collected from a user and thereafter stored in association with an identifier of
that user and an identifier of the page or site.” Id. at 20:9-12 (emphases
added). Appellants describe both ratings and keywords as examples of
annotations within this definition. Id. at 20:12-15; see also Spec. 22:5-9
(defining “keywords”), 22:17-28 (defining “ratings”). Thus, we construe the
term “annotation,” as used in the disputed limitation, to broadly describe any
descriptive metadata, such as keywords, and/or any evaluative metadata,
such as ratings, related in any way to any content item, such as a page or
site, in a corpus of documents, that is added to a unit of content by a
querying user and/or a member of a trust network. Moreover, we construe
an “annotated hit” to describe a hit with which an annotation has been
associated.
Turning to the disputed limitations, claim 1 recites the step of
“identifying, as an annotated hit, each of the hits that is the subject document
of at least one matching annotation.” Within the scope of the interpretations
of “annotated hits” and “annotations” described above, we construe this
portion of the disputed limitation to include, but not to be limited to, the
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identification of a hit, such as a page or site, related to a document located
by a search that includes an annotation, previously associated with that hit
by the querying user, that matches an annotation included in the user’s
query. App. Br. 4 (designating the subject matter of this limitation with
reference to Spec. 25:16-20). Further, claim 1 recites that “the creating user
of each matching annotation is one of the members of the trust network.”
Appellants describe that the annotation associated with the hit, e.g., the
“annotated hit,” may be created by the querying user or other users, who are
members of the same “trust network.” Id. (designating the subject matter of
this portion of the limitation with reference to Spec. 25:21-26). Thus, we
construe the disputed limitation to describe the step of identifying a hit on a
document, located as the result of a query, as an annotated hit when an
annotation, such as a rating or keyword, previously associated with the hit
by a querying user or another member of the querying user’s trust network,
matches an annotation included in the querying user’s query.
2. Teaching or Suggesting the “Identifying” Step.
Referring to Badros’s Paragraph [0085], Appellants argue that Badros
merely describes “providing means for searching an annotation and
returning URLs or [document identifiers (Docids)] that match the query.”
App. Br. 11. Nevertheless, Appellants maintain that “the hits returned by
Badros are not ‘annotated hits’, i.e., hits that have been annotated my [sic]
members of the trusted network.” Id. Appellants, therefore, conclude that
“Badros is only concerned with the querying user’s annotations and not
anyone else’s annotations.” Id. (emphasis in original). Finally, Appellants
argue that Badros fails to teach or suggest a trusted network. Id.
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Initially, we note that Badros teaches or suggests identifying a hit,
such as a URL (see Spec. 16:23-24; Spec. 20:18-19), based on matching
annotations in a query with annotations associated by the querying user with
the hit. Ans. 5. Further, as construed above, we note that the scope of the
“identifying” step of claim 1 encompasses the condition in which each of the
annotations associated with the hit, e.g., the annotated hit, and those
contained in the query originate with the querying user. The Examiner,
however, does not rely on Badros alone to teach or suggest the “identifying”
step recited in claim 1. Instead, the Examiner relies upon Badros and
Yeager to teach or suggest the disputed limitations. Ans. 5-6, 19-20. In
particular, while noting that Badros teaches that searching with annotations
may be done in a “community environment,” the Examiner relies upon
Yeager to teach or suggest that “the annotations for the hits are by members
of a trusted network.” Id. at 20. Thus, we are not persuaded by Appellants’
arguments based on the alleged deficiencies of Badros, taken alone, with
respect to the disputed limitations.
Appellants acknowledge that Yeager teaches providing community
applications to member peers in a peer group as a peer group application.
Reply Br. 3-4 (citing Yeager, col. 30, ll. 28-32). Nevertheless, Appellants
argue that Yeager fails to teach either that members of a trust network create
annotations or that query annotations are matched with annotations created
by members of a trust network. Id. at 4. We disagree.
As the Examiner notes, Yeager states that “[t]he originating peer may
make a query to all members of all peer group tables that have keyword-
relevant content to find peer keyword matches. These matches may be for
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peer groups to which the originating peer does not belong or for which the
originating peer has no prior knowledge.” Ans. 6 (citing Yeager, col. 14,
ll. 58-62 (emphasis added)). As noted above, Appellants’ annotations
include keywords (Spec. 20:12-15); and, given the breadth of Appellants’
definition of a “trust network,” the Examiner adequately demonstrates that
Yeager’s peer groups teach or suggest the recited trust network. Moreover,
we agree with the Examiner that Yeager teaches or suggests that members of
a peer group may create annotations and that such peer-group created
annotations may be matched to annotations in a user’s query. Therefore, the
Examiner did not err by finding that Badros and Yeager, collectively, teach
or suggest “identifying, as an annotated hit, each of the hits that is the
subject document of at least one matching annotation, wherein the creating
user of each matching annotation is one of the members of the trust
network,” as recited in claim 1.
3. Reason to Combine.
Appellants argue that the Examiner has failed to identify a reason to
combine the teachings of these references supported by articulated reasoning
with some rational underpinning to justify the Examiner’s obviousness
conclusion. App. Br. 16-17; Reply Br. 6. In particular, Appellants argue
that the Examiner provides mere conclusory statements in support of the
combination of the teachings of these references, and that such statements
are insufficient to support an obviousness rejection. App. Br. 16-17.
As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the “Federal
Circuit”) has explained, “rejections on obviousness grounds cannot be
sustained by mere conclusory statements; instead, there must be some
articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal
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conclusion of obviousness.” In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006)
(citations omitted). Nevertheless, “the analysis need not seek out precise
teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for
a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of
ordinary skill in the art would employ.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550
U.S. 398, 418 (2007). Here, the Examiner has provided more than mere
conclusory statements in support of the combination of the applied
references. Ans. 6 (citing Yeager, col. 2, ll. 43-49 in support of the
combination of Badros and Yeager); 7 (citing Badros, ¶¶ [0035], [0041],
[0057], [0059] in support of combination of Badros, Yeager, and Glance), 7-
8 (citing Dhillon, ¶ [0004] in support of combination of Badros, Yeager,
Glance, and Dhillon). With regard to the combination of the teachings of
Sipusic with Badros, Yeager, Glance, and Dhillon, although the Examiner
does not provide a specific citation in support of this combination, the
Examiner explains that the reliance of Sipusic is merely to provide a more
detailed description of the rating of annotations and the computing of an
average rating, as already taught by Glance. Id. at 6-7 (citing Glance, ¶¶
[0031]-[0032]). Therefore, we are persuaded that the Examiner has
provided more than mere conclusory statements in support of the
combination of the teachings of these references.
a. Non-Analogous Art and Teaching Away Arguments.
Appellants further argue that Glance, Dhillon, and Sipusic are non-
analogous art with respect to Appellants’ recited invention and that,
consequently, these references “teach away” from their combination. The
Federal Circuit has set forth a two-prong test for determining whether a prior
art reference is analogous: (1) whether the reference is from the same field
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of endeavor as the claimed invention, and (2) if the reference is not within
the same field of endeavor, whether the reference is reasonably pertinent to
the particular problem with which the inventor is involved. In re Klein, 647
F.3d 1343, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2011).
With respect to Glance, Appellants argue that Glance is limited to
ratings for URLs. App. Br. 13. Because of Glance’s apparent focus on
URLs, Appellants argue that Glance is directed to non-analogous art and
teaches away from Appellants’ recited invention. Id. Appellants’ argument
is misplaced. As noted above, the claimed “hits” include “pages,” such as
URLs (Spec. 20:18-19), and an annotation may include a “rating” of a page
(id. at 22:17-18). Thus, the claims encompass within their scope rating of
URLs. See Ans. 20.
Glance generally describes prioritizing documents in a cache based on
values assigned to their content (Glance, Abstract). In particular, Glance
describes predicting a value for a URL based on the computation of a
weighted sum of the user’s ratings for a URL (Glance, ¶ [0032]), and, “[i]n
the simplest case, this prediction will simply be the average of all the ratings
received for a URL” (id.). See Ans. 6-7 (citing Glance, ¶ [0032]). Thus, we
are not persuaded that Glance is not in the same field of endeavor as the
claimed invention and that Glance is non-analogous art.
With respect to Dhillon, Appellants argue that Dhillon is directed to a
contact sharing system rather than to a system for searching a corpus
comprising a plurality of documents. App. Br. 13-14; Reply Br. 4-5.
Because of Dhillon’s focus on contact paths between senior executives at a
target company, Appellants argue that Dhillon is directed to non-analogous
art. Id. Nevertheless, Dhillon generally describes sharing information over
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a network (Dhillon, Abstract), and the Examiner is not relying upon Dhillon
for its teachings regarding contact paths. Instead, the Examiner relies on
Dhillon for its more specific teaching regarding “the plurality of users being
friends,” “receiving identifications of friends from a plurality of inputting
users,” and the storing of a list of identified friends for each inputting user.
Ans. 7 (citing Dhillon, ¶¶ [0017], [0060], [0066]). In view of the application
of Badros’s teachings regarding a community environment (Ans. 19 (citing
Badros, ¶ [0061])) and Yeager’s teachings regarding peer groups (id. at 6
(citing Yeager, col.14, ll. 58-62)) to teach or suggest Appellants’ trust
network, we are not persuaded that Dhillon’s teachings regarding “friends”
are not in the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention and that
Dhillon is non-analogous art. See Ans. 20.
Finally, with respect to Sipusic, Appellants argue that Sipusic is
directed to annotating time-based media (e.g., video) and, in particular, to
annotations as viewers react to something observed in a video. App. Br. 14-
15. Further, Appellants argues that, while the recited invention is directed to
the searching and annotating of a corpus of documents, “Sipusic solely
teaches or suggest video annotations used for commenting on a video and
rating the annotation content.” Id. at 15. Nevertheless, Sipusic generally
describes an iterative and collaborative system for receiving and storing
annotations with time-based media. Sipusic, Abstract. Moreover, Appellants
recited invention does not exclude video content. Spec. 10:22-23
(describing “documents (or other content items)”); Spec. 44:18-19 (“other
documents (e.g., pages or sites)”). Therefore, in view of the relatively broad
scope of the term “documents” in Appellants’ claim 1, we are not persuaded
that Sipusic’s teachings regarding annotating video and rating such video
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annotations are not in the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention
and that Sipusic is non-analogous art. See Sipusic, ¶¶ [0037], [0068]; see
Ans. 20.
A reference does not teach away if it does not “criticize, discredit or
otherwise discourage” investigation into the applicant’s claimed invention.
E.g., DePuy Spine Inc. v. Medtronic Sofamor Danek, 567 F.3d 1314, 1327
(Fed. Cir. 2009). With respect to Glance and Dhillon, Appellants present no
argument that either of those references would lead a person of ordinary skill
in the art in a direction divergent from the path that was taken by Appellants.
App. Br. 12-14. Instead, Appellants premise their teachings away arguments
on their contentions of non-analogous art. That premise is misplaced.
Whether a reference teaches away is a separate inquiry from whether the
reference is non-analogous art. On this record, we are not persuaded that
either Glance or Dhillon teach away from Appellant’s invention.
With respect to Sipusic, Appellants argue that “Sipusic explicitly
teaches away from using annotations for ranking or categorization (Sipusic,
¶30, lines 1-6) and instead, discusses video annotations solely used for
knowledge sharing in the form of dialogue and discussion (Sipusic, ¶ 36,
lines 7-27).” App. Br. 15. Nevertheless, as the Federal Circuit has
explained, “[t]he fact that the motivating benefit comes at the expense of
another benefit, however, should not nullify its use as a basis to modify the
disclosure of one reference with the teachings of another. Instead, the
benefits, both lost and gained, should be weighed against one another.”
Winner Int'l Royalty Corp. v. Wang, 202 F.3d 1340, 1349 n. 8 (Fed. Cir.
2000). Therefore, we are not persuaded that Sipusic teaches away from the
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rating of annotations (Sipusic, ¶ [0037]) or the computation of average
annotation ratings (id. at ¶ [0068]). See Ans. 8.
b. Reliance Upon Impermissible Hindsight.
As acknowledged by Appellants, citing a large number of references
does not negate the obviousness of their combination when the prior art uses
the various elements for the same purposes as they are used by Appellants,
making the claimed invention as a whole obvious in terms of § 103(a). App.
Br. 18; see In re Gorman, 933 F.2d 982, 987 (Fed. Cir. 1991). Nevertheless,
in view of the number of references combined in the rejection involved here,
Appellants argue that the Examiner has made an impermissible hindsight
reconstruction of Appellants’ claimed invention. We disagree.
Initially, we note that:
Any judgment on obviousness is in a sense necessarily a
reconstruction based on hindsight reasoning, but so long as it
takes into account only knowledge which was within the level
of ordinary skill in the art at the time the claimed invention was
made and does not include knowledge gleaned only from
applicant’s disclosure, such a reconstruction is proper.

In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 1395, (CCPA 1971). Although
Appellants argue that some of the combined references are from different
fields of endeavor (App. Br. 18), this argument alone does not demonstrate
that their combination is based solely on hindsight. Given the specific
citations to the disclosures of the combined references and the reasons for
their combination, as set forth above, we conclude that the Examiner has
taken into account knowledge which is within the level of ordinary skill in
the art at the time the claimed invention was made, and that Appellants fail
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to demonstrate persuasively where the Examiner relied solely on knowledge
gleaned from Appellant’s disclosure. In light of the record before us, we
conclude that the Examiner’s reasons to combine the teachings of these
references are supported by articulated reasoning with some rational
underpinning to justify the Examiner’s obviousness conclusion.
For the foregoing reasons, Appellants have not persuaded us of error
in the rejection of: (1) independent claim 1; (2) independent claims 39, 54,
and 55, which include commensurate limitations to those of independent
claim 1 (App. Br. 10-12); and (3) dependent claims 4-15, 17-22, 25-38, 42-
46, 48, and 50-53, which are not separately argued with particularity (id. at
20). Therefore, we sustain the obviousness rejection of these claims.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1, 4-15, 17-22, 25-39,
42-46, 48, and 50-55 under § 103(a).

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 4-15, 17-22, 25-39, 42-
46, 48, and 50-55 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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