Ex Parte Mills et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 26, 2012

11327188 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 26, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte MICHAEL MILLS, PHILIP MCKAY, MICHAEL HOCH,
KUMIKO TANAKA TOFT, and ROD PERKINS
____________

Appeal 2011-006764
Application 11/327,188
Technology Center 2400
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Before MARC S. HOFF, CARLA M. KRIVAK, and
THOMAS S. HAHN, Administrative Patent Judges.

KRIVAK, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1-17 and 20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

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Application 11/327,188

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to facilitating an interaction
between messaging and television platforms, allowing interaction between
users of television and other entertainment or information media (Spec. ¶ ¶
[0003], [0007]).
Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative.
1. A computerized method of providing an informational
alert to a user in communications with a client device
configured to receive entertainment services or information
services from a content distribution system, the method
comprising:

presenting an entertainment service or an information
service on a client display to the user;

determining the context of a user using the client display,
the context comprising a notion of an action that a given user is
performing at a given point in time;

accessing instructions to display an informational alert
object during said presenting of the entertainment service or the
information service;

determining a plurality of related users representing a
social network in which the user is a member, based on user
profile information and a degrees of relationships between
users;

displaying the informational alert object at the client
device on the basis of the user profiles of the related users that
represent the social network in which the user is a member and
on the basis of the determined user context, the displaying
being concurrent with said presenting of the entertainment
service or the information service; and

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Application 11/327,188

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executing instructions to replace the informational alert
object with an expanded view of the informational alert object
when a request for the expanded view is received from the user.

REFERENCES and REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1-9, 13, 14, 17, and 20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) based upon the teachings of Schaefer (US Patent Application
Publication No. 2002/0124252 A1, Sep. 5, 2002) and Sezan (US Patent
Application Publication No. 2006/0174277 A1, Aug. 3, 2006, filed June 13,
2005).
The Examiner rejected claims 10, 11, 15, and 16 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) based upon the teachings of Schaefer, Sezan, and Schrader (US
Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0157099 A1, Oct. 24, 2002).
The Examiner rejected claim 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon
the teachings of Schaefer, Sezan, and Yen (US Patent No. 6,668,278 B1,
Dec. 23, 2003).

ANALYSIS
The Examiner finds Schaefer discloses all the elements of Appellants’
claimed invention except for determining a plurality of related users
representing a social network based on user profile information and degree
of relationship information (Ans. 3-4). The Examiner then finds Sezan
discloses this feature by teaching a collaborative information system for
networked video devices that include a plurality of related users as claimed
(Ans. 4).
Appellants contend Schaefer discloses simply identifying a user and
does not/cannot reasonably identify the context surrounding a user action, as
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Application 11/327,188

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does Appellants’ claimed invention (App. Br. 9-10). That is, “Schaefer does
not have any context from which to generate or display an information alert”
and further, does not display “alerts based on context, wherein context
comprises the current action of the user” (App. Br. 10-11). We agree with
Appellants that Schaefer does not disclose “determining the context of a user
using the client display, the context comprising a notion of an action that a
given user is performing at a given point in time” (emphasis added) as
claimed. As neither Sezan nor the remaining references cure the deficiencies
of Schaefer, these references do not render Appellants’ claims obvious.

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-17 and 20 is reversed.

REVERSED

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