Ex Parte Naick et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 24, 2014

10992517 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 24, 2014)

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.
10/992,517 11/18/2004 Indran Naick AUS920040548US1 9463
48916 7590 02/24/2014
Greg Goshorn, P.C.
9600 Escarpment
Suite 745-9
AUSTIN, TX 78749
EXAMINER
NGUYEN, THU N
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2161
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/24/2014 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
__________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
__________

Ex parte INDRAN NAICK and JEFFREY K. WILSON1
__________

Appeal 2011-009311
Application 10/992,517
Technology Center 2100
__________

Before DEMETRA J. MILLS, ERIC B. GRIMES, and
MELANIE L. MCCOLLUM, Administrative Patent Judges.

GRIMES, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 involving claims to a method
of manipulating tables from a server at a client, which have been rejected as
obvious. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1 Appellants identify the Real Party in Interest as International Business
Machines Corp. (App. Br. 3).
Appeal 2011-009311
Application 10/992,517

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Specification states that
[a]fter a client generates a request for information, and receives
an XML or HTML document, often within the XML or HTML
documents, tables are generated that display information in a
format that is not in an order desired by the user. For example,
in searching for a product on a Web site, . . . a user viewing a
table in a document often would like to reorder the table based
on the table content, such as data pricing, product name and the
like.
(Spec. 2, ¶ 7.)
The Specification also states that “[c]urrent methods addressing table
reordering are cumbersome” (id.) and “require awkward techniques” (id. at
3, ¶ 7). The Specification discloses a “method for providing a browser
functionality to determine the existence of a table, identify data therein and
manipulate the data according to a user’s input” (id. at 4, ¶ 8).
Claims 1-5, 8-14, and 17-20 are on appeal. Claim 1 is illustrative and
reads as follows (emphasis added):
1. A method for manipulating tables from a server machine at a client
machine, the method comprising:
determining at the client machine, existence of a table for display on a
loaded graphical user interface on the client machine wherein
the table is displayed with a markup language;
extracting data from the table on the client machine;
storing the data from the table in a local cache on the client machine;
manipulating the data in the local cache to produce manipulated data;
and
displaying the manipulated data in the table by altering the markup
language.

Claims 10, 18, and 20, the only other independent claims, also require
extracting data from a table at a client machine (see App. Br., Claims App’x).
Appeal 2011-009311
Application 10/992,517

3
DISCUSSION
The Examiner has rejected claims 1, 8, 10, and 18 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable based on Lang2 and Kahn3 (Ans. 4). The Examiner
has also rejected the remaining claims on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a):
Claims 2, 3, 9, 11, 12, 17, 19, and 20 based on Lang, Kahn, and Cosic4
(Ans. 7), and claims 4, 5, 13, and 14 based on Lang, Kahn, Cosic, and
McBrearty5 (Ans. 11). The same issue is dispositive for all of the rejections.
The Examiner finds that Lang discloses each of the steps of claim 1
except for the “storing” step, and that Kahn discloses that step (id. at 4). The
Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious “to incorporate the
feature of store the data from the table in a local cache, as disclosed in
Kahn[,] to Lang system to provide users with additional flexibility and
control over the process” (id. at 4-5).
Appellants argue that the claims require that “data is extracted form
[sic] the same table in which the data is ultimately displayed. Lang simply
does not disclose this feature.” (App. Br. 13.) Appellants argue that the part
of Lang cited by the Examiner as disclosing this limitation “does not
describe extracting data from a table that has already been transmitted to the
client machine but from another table stored in a database in the tax
reporting system” (id. at 14-15).
We agree with Appellants that the Examiner has not provided
sufficient evidence to support the finding that Lang discloses extracting data,

2 Lang, US 2004/0254927 A1, Dec. 16, 2004
3 Kahn, US 2002/0184148 A1, Dec. 5, 2002
4 Cosic, US 2005/0149517 A1, July 7, 2005
5 McBrearty, US 6,744,452 B1, June 1, 2004
Appeal 2011-009311
Application 10/992,517

4
on a client machine, from a table for display with a markup language, as
required by claim 1. Lang discloses a “system and method for tax reporting
of taxable and non-taxable distributions, gains and losses of investments”
(Lang, abstract).
The Examiner finds that Lang discloses extracting data from a table
on the client machine in its paragraphs 75, 76, and 104 (Ans. 4). Lang states
that “the viewer may view updated account tax information available for
viewing on daily updated basis. Data needed for the account profile screen
may be extracted from information included in, for example, a
tax/investment information database.” (Lang 8, ¶ 75.) Lang illustrates tax/
investment information database 130 as being in communication with tax
reporting system 100, which itself is in communication with client 110 (see
id. at Figure 1). Thus, the data extraction described at paragraph 75 is not
done from a table on the client machine.
Lang also states that “the user can enter account identification
information, such as an account number, into the data fields to obtain the
account profile in the tax reporting system for that account” (id. at 8, ¶ 76).
Lang states that “[o]nce the account number is validated, the appropriate
stored procedure may be called from a program to extract the data” (id.).
However, since the data are extracted from the tax reporting system, which
is in communication with client 110 (see id. at Figure 1), the data extraction
described at paragraph 76 is also not done from a table on the client
machine.
Finally, Lang states that “entering an account number field 1120 and
clicking on the ‘submit’ icon 1160 may trigger the system to extract account
information associated with that account number and populate the remaining
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Application 10/992,517

5
fields of the screen 1100 with the account information” (id. at 11, ¶ 104).
Lang’s paragraph 104 describes its Figure 11, which “illustrates an example
of a Year End Valuation (YEV) Summary screen” (id. at 11, ¶ 103).
However, Lang states that the requested screens are generated by the Tax
Reporting System: “In response to a selection of a particular screen for the
account by, for example, receiving a hyperlinked request, the tax reporting
system may generate and transmit to the user’s client the requested screen”
(id. at 9, ¶ 81). Lang also states that the “stored procedure(s) queries the
tables of the tax and/or investment information databases for the tax and/or
investment information needed to generate the requested screen” (id. at 9,
¶ 86). Thus, in this instance as well, the data extraction described by Lang at
paragraph 104 is not done from a table on the client machine.
In summary, the Examiner has not provided evidence to support the
finding that Lang discloses extracting data, on a client machine, from a table
for display with a markup language, as required by claim 1. The Examiner
does not provide a reasoned basis for concluding that this limitation would
nonetheless have been obvious based on Lang or Kahn, and therefore has not
provided evidence sufficient to support a prima facie case of obviousness.
The other independent claims also require extracting data from a table
at a client machine, and the other rejections on appeal rely on the same
erroneous fact-finding discussed above. We therefore reverse all of the
rejections on appeal.
DECISION
The rejection of claims 1-5, 8-14, and 17-20 is reversed.
REVERSED
Vsh