Ex Parte Marin

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 15, 2017

13350992 (P.T.A.B. May. 15, 2017)

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.
13/350,992 01/16/2012 Mike A. Marin SVL920070147US2 1477
46157 7590 05/17/2017
EDELL, SHAPIRO, & FINNAN, LLC
9801 Washingtonian Blvd.
Suite 750
Gaithersburg, MD 20878
EXAMINER
GARCIA-GUERRA, DARLENE
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3683
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/17/2017 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):
epatent@usiplaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MIKE A. MARIN
Appeal 2015-0058031
Application 13/350,9922
Technology Center 3600
Before MICHAEL C. ASTORINO, NINA L. MEDLOCK, and
BRUCE T. WIEDER, Administrative Patent Judges.
MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1—21. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
1 Our decision references Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed
November 14, 2014) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed May 20, 2015), and
the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed March 26, 2015) and Final Office
Action (“Final Act.,” mailed June 19, 2014).
2 Appellant identifies International Business Machines Corporation as the
real party in interest. App. Br. 2.
Appeal 2015-005803
Application 13/350,992
CLAIMED INVENTION
Appellant’s claimed invention “relates to computer-based generation
of a three-dimensional virtual reality environment, and particularly to
generating a three-dimensional virtual reality environment from a business
process model” (Spec. 11).
Claims 1, 8, and 15 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1,
reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving a business process model including one or more
nodes and one or more arcs to represent one or more activities
and at least one transition criterion for the one or more activities
within a business process;
analyzing the nodes and arcs of the business process model
via a processor and mapping the one or more activities to one or
more virtual rooms and the at least one transition criterion to one
or more virtual access points of the one or more virtual rooms;
and
generating, via a processor, a navigable virtual reality
environment corresponding to the business process of the
business process model, wherein the virtual reality environment
includes the one or more virtual rooms representing the one or
more activities and the one or more virtual access points to the
one or more virtual rooms representing the at least one transition
criterion.
REJECTIONS
Claims 1—4, 8—11, and 15—18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Nonemacher et al. (US 2008/0120153 Al, pub. May 22,
2008) (hereinafter “Nonemacher”), Bennett et al. (US 2006/0190926 Al,
pub. Aug. 24, 2006) (hereinafter “Bennett”), Glazer et al.
(US 2007/0179867 Al, pub. Aug. 2, 2007) (hereinafter “Glazer”), and
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Dupont et al. (US 2003/0215779 Al, pub. Nov. 20, 2003) (hereinafter
“Dupont”).
Claims 5—7, 12—14, and 19-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Nonemacher, Glazer, Bennett, Dupont, and
Chheda et al. (US 2008/0183515 Al, pub. July 31, 2008) (hereinafter
“Chheda”).
ANALYSIS
Independent Claim 1 and Dependent Claims 2—4
We are persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the Examiner erred in
rejecting independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because Glazer, on
which the Examiner relies, does not disclose or suggest “analyzing the nodes
and arcs of the business process model via a processor” and “wherein the
virtual reality environment includes the one or more virtual rooms
representing the one or more activities and the one or more virtual access
points to the one or more virtual rooms representing the at least one
transition criterion,” as recited in claim 1 (App. Br. 11—13; see also Reply
Br. 3-6).
Glazer is directed to a method and system for allowing a user to shop
online in a three-dimensional virtual reality (“VR”) setting (Glazer,
Abstract). Glazer discloses that the VR mall may be configured to look like
an actual shopping mall, e.g., with escalators, elevators, help booths,
direction signs, etc., and that a directory may be presented to show the user
the layout of the mall and the location of stores {id. 130). The directory
may support navigation through the mall such that a user is transported to
the front of a desired store by clicking the store on the directory {id.). A user
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Application 13/350,992
also may click on a storefront and be directed to the virtual reality portion of
the merchant’s website (id. 1 66).
Glazer discloses that the shopper’s virtual reality shopping experience
may begin with navigating, i.e., traveling, to the mall (id. 127), and
discloses that, in one embodiment, the user may be able to traverse a graph,
e.g., a directed graph, where the nodes of the graph correspond to locations
in the world or virtual world and the arcs of the graph depict highways (id.
128).
In rejecting independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), the
Examiner relies on Glazer’s disclosure that a user may traverse a directed
graph, where the nodes correspond to locations in the world or virtual world
and the arcs of the graph depict highways, as disclosing “analyzing the
nodes and arcs of the business process model” (Ans. 35—36). And the
Examiner cites Glazer’s disclosure of a virtual mall, as disclosing that “the
virtual reality environment includes the one or more virtual rooms
representing the one or more activities and the one or more virtual access
points to the one or more virtual rooms representing the at least one
transition criterion” (id. at 33—35 (citing Glazer H 30, 66)).
The difficulty with the Examiner’s analysis, as Appellant observes, is
that the “one or more activities” and the “at least one transition criterion,”
which are represented by the “one or more virtual rooms” and “one or more
virtual access points” in the claimed “virtual reality environment,” are the
activities and transition criteria within the business process (Reply Br. 5). In
other words, the virtual rooms correspond to the business process activities
in the business process model (which are represented by the nodes of the
business process model) and the access points to the virtual rooms are the
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Application 13/350,992
“one or more . . . transition criterion” for the business process activities
(which are represented by the arcs of the business process model).
The Examiner relies on Glazer’s disclosure that a user may traverse a
directed graph (having nodes corresponding to geographical locations in the
virtual world and arcs depicting highways) as teaching “analyzing the nodes
and arcs of the business process model” (Ans. 35—36). Yet the stores and
locations in Glazer’s virtual mall, which the Examiner compares to the
claimed “virtual rooms” and “access points to the . . . virtual rooms,” are not
generated from, i.e., based on an analysis of, the geographical locations and
highways, i.e., the nodes and arcs, of the directed graph that the Examiner
relies on as teaching the business process model (see Reply Br. 5—6).
In view of the foregoing, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). For the same reasons, we also do not
sustain the rejection of dependent claims 2—\. Cf. In re Fritch, 972 F.2d
1260, 1266 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (“dependent claims are nonobvious if the
independent claims from which they depend are nonobvious”).
Independent Claims 8 and 15 and Dependent Claims 9—11 and 16—18
Independent claims 8 and 15 include language substantially similar to
the language of independent claim 1, and stand rejected based on the same
rationale applied with respect to claim 1 (Final Act. 23—24). Therefore, we
do not sustain the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of independent
claims 8 and 15, and claims 9—11 and 16—18, which depend therefrom, for
the same reasons set forth above with respect to claim 1.
Dependent Claims 5—7, 12—14, and 19—21
Each of claims 5—7, 12—14, and 19-21 depends from one of
independent claims 1, 8, and 15. The Examiner’s rejection of these
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dependent claims does not cure the deficiency in the Examiner’s rejection of
independent claims 1, 8, and 15. Therefore, we do not sustain the
Examiner’s rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of claims 5—7, 12—14, and
19—21 for the same reasons set forth above with respect to the independent
claims.
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
are reversed.
REVERSED
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