12982626 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 9, 2016)

Ex Parte McCollum et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 9, 2016

12982626 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 9, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/982,626 12/30/2010 46321 7590 09/13/2016 CRGOLAW STEVEN M. GREENBERG 7900 Glades Road SUITE 520 BOCA RATON, FL 33434 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Lorelei M. McCollum 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. CAM920100049US1 (265) 8738 EXAMINER SINHA, RA VIK ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2192 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/13/2016 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): docketing@crgolaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte LORELEI M. McCOLLUM, STEVEN F. BEST, JANICE M. GIROUARD, and TIMOTHY B. SNOW Appeal2015-003549 1 Application 12/982,626 Technology Center 2100 Before JOHN P. PINKERTON, CARLL. SILVERMAN, and KAMRAN JIVANI, Administrative Patent Judges. PINKERTON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) of the Final Rejection of claims 1, 2, 4--7, and 9. Claims 3 and 8 are canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We reverse. 1 Appellants identify International Business Machines Corp. as the real party in interest. App. Br. 2. Appeal2015-003549 Application 12/982,626 We have reviewed Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief and Reply Brief, and the Examiner's Answer. We concur with Appellants' contention the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claims 1, 5, and 6 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) because Bruch does not teach or suggest "determining a popularity of use for each of the different blocks of code according to the popularity of use by other developers," as recited in claim 1, and as similarly recited in claims 5 and 6.2 App. Br. 8-10; Reply Br. 2---6. Citing page 12 of Bruch at paragraphs 4 and 5, the Examiner finds Bruch teaches the disputed limitation of claim 1. Ans. 3--4. In particular the Examiner finds Bruch teaches the user provides feedback regarding whether examples of code snippets are helpful or not based on "what the user actually looked at and liked or disliked." Id. The Examiner also finds "in order for a user to determine if a block of code is 'helpful,' the user must have "used the code in some manner." Id. at 4. Appellants argue "Bruch describes creating a partial ranking based on what a user looked at and liked or disliked, not what the user used." App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 5. Appellants also argue "'look' and 'use' are not equivalent as look does not imply use--the actually act of using something." App. Br. 10; Reply Br. 6. We are persuaded by Appellants' arguments that the Examiner has erred. Regarding claim construction, we apply the broadest reasonable interpretation of claim terms, consistent with the specification, as would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech 2 Although Appellants make other arguments in the Briefs, we do not address them because we find this issue is dispositive. 2 Appeal2015-003549 Application 12/982,626 Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (citations omitted). Here, in describing Figure 2, Appellants' specification states the code suggestion module 300 can be enabled to process a code snippet 270 input into the IDE 230 by locating portions of source code files that include common or similar terms to those of the code snippet 270. See Spec. i-f 18. In regard to Figure 3, the specification describes inputting in block 320 a code snippet for the source code for a project loaded into an IDE, comparing in block 330 the terms of the code snippet to blocks of code in different files for the project, and determining in block 340 different matches of code to include one or more terms of the code snippet and, optionally, determining the popularity of past use of those matching blocks of source code. See Spec. i-f 19. Considering the claim language in view of the specification, we conclude the broadest reasonable interpretation of the phrase determining "the popularity of use" includes inputting code snippets and processing them to compare terms of the snippets with terms of different blocks of code. We further conclude the Examiner's interpretation of determining "a popularity of use" of blocks of code as looking at code snippets and finding them helpful "in some manner" is unreasonably broad. Because Bruch does not teach or suggest loading or inputting code snippets and processing them to compare terms with blocks of code to determine "the popularity of use," we agree with Appellants that Bruch does not teach or suggest the disputed limitation of claim 1. Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1, and claims 5 and 6, which recite similar limitations. For the same reasons, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 2, 4, 7, and 9, which depend variously from claims 1 and 6 and are not separately argued. 3 Appeal2015-003549 Application 12/982,626 DECISION We reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 4--7, and 9. REVERSED 4