Ex Parte Matejka et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 29, 201813530003 (P.T.A.B. May. 29, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/530,003 06/21/2012 107456 7590 05/31/2018 Artegis Law Group, LLP John Carey 7710 Cherry Park Drive Suite T #104 Houston, TX 77095 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Justin Frank MATEJKA 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. AUT0/1257 5262 EXAMINER VU,THANHT ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2175 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/31/2018 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): algdocketing@artegislaw.com kcruz@artegislaw.com rs mi th @artegislaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex Parte JUSTIN FRANK MATEJKA, TOVI GROSSMAN, and GEORGE FITZMAURICE Appeal2018-000588 Application 13/530,003 Technology Center 2100 Before MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, JEREMY J. CURCURI, and BETH Z. SHAW, Administrative Patent Judges. SHAW, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL 1 Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner's final rejection of claims 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 26, and 27. Claims 2, 5, 6, 9, 11, 14, 15, 18, and 21-25 are canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We affirm. 1 Throughout this Decision we have considered the Appeal Brief filed June 12, 2017 ("App. Br."), the Specification filed June 21, 2012 ("Spec."), the Examiner's Answer mailed August 25, 2017 ("Ans.") and the Final Rejection mailed October 6, 2016 ("Final Act."). Appeal2018-000588 Application 13/530,003 INVENTION Appellants' invention is directed to visualizing relationships between a subset of publications stored in a digital repository. Spec. i-f 1. Claim 1 is illustrative of the claims at issue and reproduced below: 1. A computer-implemented method for displaying one or more relationships between objects on a display device, the method compnsmg: generating an image that includes a graphical representation for each object in a set of objects; selecting a first object in the set of objects based on user input; determining a subset of two or more ancestor objects included in the set of objects, wherein each ancestor object is an ancestor of the first object; overlaying on the image, for each ancestor object, an ancestor connector that indicates an ancestor relationship between the first object and the ancestor object; determining a subset of two or more descendent objects included in the set of objects, wherein each descendent object is a descendent of the first object; overlaying on the image, for each descendent object, a descendent connector that indicates a descendent relationship between the first object and the descendent object, wherein the ancestor connectors for the ancestor objects comprise a different appearance than the descendent connectors for the descendent objects; selecting a second object in the set of objects based on user input; and overlaying on the image a set of one or more connectors indicating a shortest path from the first object to the second object, wherein the set of connectors indicating the shortest path comprise a different appearance than both the ancestor connectors for the ancestor objects and the descendent connectors for the descendent objects. 2 Appeal2018-000588 Application 13/530,003 REJECTIONS The Examiner rejected claims 1, 7, 10, 16, 19, 26, and 27 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Liu et al., Web Mining based Patent Analysis and Citation Visualization ("Liu"), and Gephi Tutorial Visualization ("Gephi"). Final Act. 3---6. The Examiner rejected claims 3, 8, 12, 17, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Liu, Gephi, and Zhang (US 2007/0239706 Al). Final Act. 7-8. The Examiner rejected claims 4 and 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Liu, Gephi, Zhang, and Rivette (US 2003/0046306 Al). Final Act. 8-9. ANALYSIS We have reviewed Appellants' arguments in the Brief, the Examiner's obviousness rejections, and the Examiner's response to the Appellants' arguments. Appellants do not proffer sufficient argument or evidence for us to find error in the Examiner's findings. See Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). We agree with and adopt the Examiner's findings and conclusions in the Final Action and Answer. Appellants argue Liu and Gephi fail to teach "the specific relationships between the appearance of the shortest path connectors and the appearances of the ancestor connectors and descendent connectors recited in the independent claims." App. Br. 12; Reply Br. 4. Appellants argue that, although Liu teaches ancestor and descendent connectors having different appearances and Gephi teaches a set of connectors indicating a shortest path, 3 Appeal2018-000588 Application 13/530,003 the combination of Liu and Gephi does not disclose that the appearance of the shortest path connectors is different than the appearances of both the ancestor connectors and descendent connectors. Reply Br. 4. However, the Examiner rejects claim 1 over the combined teachings of Liu and Gephi, and what the combined teachings would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. One cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). The Examiner finds the combination of Liu and Gephi teaches the shortest path connectors have a different appearance than both the ancestor connectors and descendent connectors. Ans. 9. We agree because Liu discloses red arrows are used as forward citations and blue arrows are used for backward citations, and Gephi discloses a "Shortest Path Tool" for visualizing the shortest path between two nodes by selecting a first node and then a second node and indicating a shortest path by overlaying connectors that are colored to reveal the path. Id. 8-9 (citing Liu§ 4.5, Gephi, p. 19). As the Examiner explains, Gephi discloses the user has the freedom to color, change size, highlight, and label nodes and connectors. Id. (citing Gephi pp. 7, 10, 11, and 18). Therefore, Gephi teaches a user can design the shortest path to have a particular appearance. For these reasons, we agree that the combination of Liu and Gephi teaches or suggests the disputed limitation of the "shortest path has a different appearance than both the ancestor connectors and the descendent connectors." Appellants also argue Gephi is an improper publication, i.e., has not been shown to have a sufficiently early publication date to qualify as a prior 4 Appeal2018-000588 Application 13/530,003 art reference under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). App. Br. 13. We are not persuaded by this argument because the Examiner explains Gephi: is [a] printout of a PDF document which has the "updated" date of 0512512010 clearly printed on the first page of the document. The "updated" date is considered by the examiner to be a publication date which is prior to the instant application effective filing dale of 06/21/12. Thus, [the] Gephi document is a proper prior art reference. Furthermore, it is noted that Gephi reference link (https :// gephi.org/tutorials/ gephi-tutorial-visualization. pdf) was first archived by Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org) on 11/21/2010. It is clear that Gephi reference was saved by Wayback Machine on 11/21/2010 which is also prior to the instant application effective filing date of 06/21/12. Thus, even using the archived date of 11/21/2010, the Gephi document is still a proper prior art reference. Ans. 10. Absent persuasive rebuttal, we agree with the Examiner's findings. Accordingly, for these reasons and for the reasons stated in the Final Rejection and Answer, we sustain the§ 103 rejection of claim 1. For the same reasons, we sustain the rejections of independent claims 10 and 19, and the pending dependent claims, for which Appellants present the same arguments as claim 1. DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 26, and 27 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)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation