Ex Parte Maga et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 25, 201311347141 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 25, 2013) 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. 11/347,141 02/03/2006 Matteo Maga 10022/722 3249 28164 7590 09/26/2013 ACCENTURE CHICAGO 28164 BRINKS HOFER GILSON & LIONE P O BOX 10395 CHICAGO, IL 60610 EXAMINER NGUYEN, NGA B ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3684 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/26/2013 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 MATTEO MAGA, PAOLO CANALE, and ASTRID BOHE ____________ Appeal 2012-005982 Application 11/347,141 Technology Center 3600 ____________ Before: BIBHU R. MOHANTY, MICHAEL W. KIM, and JAMES A. TARTAL, Administrative Patent Judges. KIM, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2012-005982 Application 11/347,141 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is an appeal from the final rejection of claims 1-3 and 6-131. We have jurisdiction to review the case under 35 U.S.C. §§ 134 and 6. An oral hearing was held on September 12, 2013. The invention relates generally to analyzing and predicting churn within a business’ customer base so that steps may be taken to limit or otherwise manage churn (Spec. 1). Claim 1, reproduced below, is further illustrative of the claimed subject matter. 1. A system for managing churn among customers of a business having a statistically large customer base, the system comprising: a memory device configured to store a data mart; a processor in communication with the memory device; a population architecture executable by the processor to receive customer data from one or more data sources stored in the data mart, the customer data defining a plurality of customer attributes for each customer in the customer base; a data manipulation module executable by the processor to: calculate derived variable values based on the customer data, wherein each of the derived variable values is indicative of at least one customer characteristic; select a subset of the derived variable values in response to a preselected data mining function; and generate at least one analytical record containing the subset of the derived variable values, wherein the a 1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed October 12, 2011) and the Reply Brief (“Rep. Br.,” filed February 27, 2012), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed December 28, 2011). Appeal 2012-005982 Application 11/347,141 3 least one analytical record is associated with a plurality of customers; a data mining tool executable by the processor to perform the preselected data mining function, the preselected data mining function configure to: analyze the at least one analytical record; return results identifying clusters of customers sharing common customer attributes in response to the analysis of the at least one analytical record; and calculate, based on at least one analytical record, individual customers’ propensities to churn during a predefined period in the future, the data manipulation module storing the results in the data mart; and an end user access module executable by the processor to: access the results returned from the data mining tool; and present the results to a user. REJECTIONS Claims 1 and 6-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Eskandari (US 2004/0073520 A1, pub. Apr. 15, 2004). Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Eskandari and Marusak (US 6,470,335 B1, iss. Oct. 22, 2002). Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Eskandari and Reed (US 7,698,163 B2, iss. Apr. 13, 2010). We REVERSE. ANALYSIS We are persuaded the Examiner erred in asserting that Eskandari discloses calculating an individual customer’s propensity to churn based on an analytical record, where the analytical record includes a subset of derived variable values calculated based on customer data, as recited in independent claim 1 (App. Br. 7-10; Reply Br. 2-5). The Examiner appears to assert that Appeal 2012-005982 Application 11/347,141 4 the following aspects set forth in paragraphs [0037] to [0038] and [0048] to [0052] of Eskandari respectively correspond to the following aspects of independent claim 1: Eskandari Independent Claim 1 Customer information 210 [0037] Customer data Subset of customer information 210 [0038] Derived variable values Customer churn model used for each customer to calculate a likelihood of churn [0038], [0051] Individual customer’s propensity to churn However, as can be seen above, a subset of customer information 210 cannot correspond to derived variables values which are calculated based on customer information 210, as no calculations are performed on customer information 210 when forming the subset. Moreover, if the subset of customer information 210 of Eskandari corresponds to the derived variable values, then Eskandari does not disclose “select a subset of the derived variable values,” as recited in independent claim 1, as Eskandari does not disclose taking a subset of a subset of customer information. Appeal 2012-005982 Application 11/347,141 5 In the alternative, the Examiner also appears to assert that the following aspects set forth in paragraphs [0037] to [0038], [0048] to [0052], and [0063] to [0067] of Eskandari respectively correspond to the following aspects of independent claim 1: Eskandari Independent Claim 1 Customer information 210 [0037] Customer data Composite-customer-value index based on product-cost profitability measure and sales-cost profitability measure [0066] Derived variable values Customer churn model used for each customer to calculate a likelihood of churn [0038], [0051] Individual customer’s propensity to churn However, the Examiner has not shown how the composite-customer-value index, which is disclosed in paragraph [0066] of Eskandari, is used to calculate the customer churn model used for each customer to calculate a likelihood of churn, which is disclosed earlier in paragraphs [0038] and [0051] of Eskandari, as required by independent claim 1. DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-3 and 6-13 is REVERSED. REVERSED mls Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation