Ex Parte Meng et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 30, 2017

14095846 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 30, 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.
14/095,846 12/03/2013 Chao Feng Meng AB1-0230US 6305
29150 7590
LEE & HAYES, PLLC
601 W. RIVERSIDE AVENUE
SUITE 1400
SPOKANE, WA 99201
EXAMINER
FAROOQUI, QUAZI
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2491
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/04/2017 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):
lhpto@leehayes.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte CHAO FENG MENG, XIAO WEI CHEN,
LINGYUN CHEN, YAN XIA, MINGXING XU,
LEI WANG, FENG ZHU, and JI XU
Appeal 2017-0064281
Application 14/095,846
Technology Center 2400
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and
ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final
rejection of claims 1—4, 6, and 8—22. App. Br. 19; Final Act. 4—52. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellants identify Alibaba Group Holding Limited as the real party in
interest. See App. Br. 3.
2 Although the heading of the rejection indicates claims 5 and 7 stand
rejected, these claims were previously canceled by Appellants in an
amendment filed on Mar. 8, 2016.
Appeal 2017-006428
Application 14/095,846
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants’ disclosure relates to “a method and an apparatus of
account login to solve the problem of low efficiency of account login.”
Abstract. Claims 1, 9, and 14 are independent. Claim 1 is reproduced below
for reference (with emphasis added):
1. A method of account login, the method comprising:
capturing, by a client, an image of a first credential of a
user, the image of the first credential being at least one of a
front side or a back side of a physical card including
identification information of the user thereon;
recognizing, by the client, the user identification
information that is included in the captured image of the card;
including the recognized user identification information
into a login request for sending to a server to enable logging
into an account that corresponds to the user identification
information;
capturing, by the client, an image of a second credential
of the user when the user performs a password reset operation;
recognizing, by the client, verification information that is
included in the captured image of the second credential; and
including the user identification information recognized
from the image of the first credential and the verification
information recognized from the image of the second credential
in a request message corresponding to the password reset
operation for sending to the server.
The Examiner’s Rejection
Claims 1—4, 6, and 8—22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Hernandez (US 2012/0292388 Al; Nov. 22, 2012)
in view of Boback (US 2013/0185293 Al; July 18, 2013) and Kitlyar (US
2013/0340057 Al; Dec. 19, 2013). Final Act. A-5.
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Appeal 2017-006428
Application 14/095,846
ANALYSIS
Appellants argue the Examiner erred in the rejection of claim 1,
because “Boback does not teach or suggest the capturing of a second
credential, let alone that such occurs ‘when the user performs a password
reset operation. App. Br. 14. Appellants further argue:
even if the system in Kitlyar provides “an opportunity to a user”
(as in paragraph [0053]) to “facilitate resetting” a credential and
provides a means to “access another user authentication
credential” (as in paragraph [0011]), the fact remains that these
features are not the same as the recited features.
App. Br. 15.
We are persuaded by Appellants’ arguments. The Examiner finds that
Kitlyar
teaches a password reset system [with] multiple credential
images ([0009] lines 2-6, the disclosed subject matter provides
apparatuses, related systems, and methods associated with user
authentication credential generation, user authentication, and
user authentication credential recovery facilitated by images[)].
Ans. 4, (emphases omitted.) Kitlyar’s “user authentication credential
recovery facilitated by images,” however, uses “images presented to the
user” that are not images of user credentials, but rather images that the user
selects to match to a “user authentication credential.” Kitlyar | 53, see also
Kitlyar Fig. 5 steps 502, 504.
The Examiner further finds that Boback (when combined with
Hernandez) teaches “how to use [a] password reset function from multiple
identification card images” (Ans. 5, citing Boback | 65). We agree with
Appellants, however, that Boback’s methods are used to detect “whether a
client entity’s private data has been breached” and the combination of the
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Appeal 2017-006428
Application 14/095,846
references fails to disclose or suggest use of an image of a second credential
of the user when the user performs a password reset operation, as claimed.
Reply Br. 8, citing Boback H 64—65. In other words, the Examiner fails to
articulate a rationale underpinning of credential images being used for
resetting the user’s password.
We do not find the combination of Hernandez, Boback, and Kitlyar
teaches or suggests the claimed “capturing, by the client, an image of a
second credential of the user when the user performs a password reset
operation.” Independent claims 9 and 14 recite similar limitations which we
also do not find to be taught or suggested by the combination of Hernandez,
Boback, and Kitlyar. Thus, we are constrained by the record to reverse the
rejection of independent claims 1, 9, and 14, and the rejections of the claims
that depend therefrom.
DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—4, 6, and 8—22 is
reversed.
REVERSED
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