Ex Parte Ong

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jul 21, 2005

10099121 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 21, 2005)

The opinion in support of the decision being entered today was not
written for publication in a law journal and is not binding precedent
of the Board.
Paper No. 16
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte PING-WEN ONG
____________
Appeal No. 2004-1128
Application No. 10/099,121
____________
ON BRIEF
____________
Before BARRETT, RUGGIERO, and GROSS, Administrative Patent Judges.
GROSS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal from the examiner's final
rejection of claims 1 through 15, which are all of the claims
pending in this application.
Appellant's invention relates to a method for providing an
electronic document, the electronic document having multiple
versions each having a time-stamp indicating a creation time
thereof. The method includes steps of receiving a request for
one version of the electronic document, the request including a
relative time-stamp indicating a time offset from a predefined
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Application No. 10/099,121
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time and transmitting the version of the electronic document
corresponding to the relative time-stamp. Claim 1 is
illustrative of the claimed invention, and it reads as follows:
1. A method for providing an electronic document, said
electronic document having multiple versions, each of said
versions having a time-stamp indicating a creation time of a
corresponding version, said method comprising the steps of:
receiving a request for one of said versions of said
electronic document, said request including a relative time-stamp
indicating a time offset from a predefined time; and
transmitting said version of said electronic document
corresponding to said relative time-stamp.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the
examiner in rejecting the appealed claims are:
Eisenberg et al. (Eisenberg) 5,504,879 Apr. 02, 1996
Morris 5,634,052 May 27, 1997
Wlaschin 5,790,848 Aug. 04, 1998
Fehskens et al. (Fehskens) 5,832,224 Nov. 03, 1998
Kisor et al. (Kisor) 5,978,847 Nov. 02, 1999
(filed Dec. 26, 1996)
Shnelvar 6,374,266 Apr. 16, 2002
(effectively filed Jul. 28, 1998)
“Building a digital library for the future” printout (Archive97),
http://archive.org, published 01/26/1997, pages 1-21.
(Archive97)
Kahle, "Archiving the Internet," issued 11/1996, pages 1-8.
Claims 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, and 15 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Archive97 in
view of Kahle and Fehskens.
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Application No. 10/099,121
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Claims 2 and 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Archive97 in view of Kahle, Fehskens, Shnelvar,
and Wlaschin.
Claims 5 and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Archive97 in view of Kahle, Fehskens, and
Kisor.
Claims 7 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Archive97 in view of Kahle, Fehskens,
Eisenberg, and Morris.
Reference is made to the Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 10,
mailed July 11, 2003) for the examiner's complete reasoning in
support of the rejections, and to the appellant's Brief (Paper
No. 8, filed May 21, 2003) and Reply Brief (Paper No. 14, filed
March 4, 2004) for the appellant's arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
We note that appellant indicates on page 3 of the Brief that
claims 2 and 9 and claims 7 and 14 do not stand or fall with the
rest of the claims. In accordance with this indication,
appellant provides separate arguments regarding the additional
references applied against claims 2 and 9 and claims 7 and 14.
However, appellant further indicates on page 2 of the Reply Brief
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that "[a]ppellant concedes solely for purposes of limiting the
issues on appeal that claims 7 and 14 stand and fall with the
independent claims." No arguments have been proffered as to the
combinability of Kisor with Archive97, Kahle, and Fehskens for
claims 5 and 12. Thus, the only arguments we have before us as
to claims 1, 3 through 8, and 10 through 15 are those directed to
the rejection of independent claim 1. Therefore, in accordance
with 37 C.F.R. § 1.192(c)(7), which was in effect at the time of
the Brief, we will treat claims 1, 3 through 8, and 10 through 15
as a single group, with claim 1 as representative, and claims 2
and 9 as a second group, with claim 2 as representative.
We have carefully considered the claims, the applied prior
art references, and the respective positions articulated by
appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of our review, we
will affirm the obviousness rejections of claims 1 through 15.
The examiner asserts (Answer, pages 4-5) 1) that page 9 of
Archive97 shows the January 26, 1997, version of www.archive.org,
which allows people to visit archived versions of Web sites,
2) that page 11 shows the dialogue box that appears after
clicking on "The Libertarian Web" at line 21 of page 9, and
3) that page 12 shows the URL for "The Libertarian Web." The
examiner concludes that the URL includes a time-stamp because it
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includes in the address "pres96." Appellant argues (Brief, page
4, and Reply Brief, pages 3-4) that "'Pres96' merely indicates
the subject matter of the archived document." Appellant further
states that "the Examiner has acknowledged that Archive97 does
not disclose that the 'time-stamp' indicates a creation time of
said version."
We agree with appellant that "pres96" indicates the subject
matter and not the creation time of the document. However, the
examiner is correct that the URL for "The Libertarian Web" on
page 12 of Archive97 includes a time-stamp. Specifically, the
string of numbers "19971011050541" indicates that the website
shown is the version that existed on October 11, 1997, at 5:05
and 41 seconds in the morning. Further, as shown on page 11,
clicking on "The Libertarian Web," or rather requesting the
version of the website that relates to the presidential election
of '96, brings up a dialogue box which shows that the URL for
that website includes a time-stamp. In other words, a request
for that version of the website includes a time-stamp.
The examiner (Answer, page 5) applies Kahle for a teaching
to include a time-stamp indicating a creation time of the
requested webpage. Appellant argues (Reply Brief, page 4) that
Kahle fails to suggest that "a request for a version of an
Appeal No. 2004-1128
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electronic document should include a time-stamp indicating a
creation time of a corresponding version." Further, appellant
argues (Brief, pages 4-5) that Kahle fails to teach a "relative
time-stamp indicating a time offset from a predefined time."
As explained supra, Archive97 not only includes URLs with
time-stamps indicating a creation time of a webpage, but also
includes requests for websites wherein the requests include the
time-stamps. Accordingly, Kahle is merely cumulative regarding a
time-stamp indicating a creation time of a webpage and a request
for the webpage including the time-stamp. Regarding relative
time-stamps, the examiner applied Fehskens, not Kahle.
Appellant argues (Brief, page 5) that "the requests in
Fehskens are not for electronic documents having multiple
versions, where each of the versions have a 'time-stamp
indicating a creation time of said corresponding version.'"
Appellant continues, "Fehskens interprets a request for
information 'at or before' a given time, as a 'request for any
information with a time stamp at or before the given time,'"
rather than just the one version that corresponds to a relative
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time-stamp. Appellant adds (Reply Brief, page 3) that the
relative time-stamps in Fehskens of "at or before," "at,"
"every," and "yesterday" return all information with a time-stamp
satisfying the constraint, not one version with a time-stamp that
represents a time offset from a predefined time, as required by
the claims.
As indicated by the examiner (Answer, page 12), Fehskens
discloses (column 30, lines 44-48) that for "historical data
stored in historical data file, the timestamp indicates the
instant of time at which a given data item had a particular
value. . . . [A] timestamp can be considered as a key or index."
Fehskens continues (column 30, lines 48-50) that "[a] scope of
interest time specification 123 may be used to request the
retrieval of a particular piece of stored information with a
given key or index." Fehskens explains (column 30, lines 62-65)
that such "[t]ime scopes of interest can be indicated by either
an absolute instant, a sequence of absolute instants, an interval
(start time 'START' and duration 'DUR'), a repetition of
instants, or a repetition of an interval." Further, "[i]ntervals
whose begin and end points are equal resolve into instants (e.g.
(TODAY, TODAY))" and " [i]ntervals in the past may have begin
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points denoted by the keyword YESTERDAY, or an absolute time in
the past" (see column 31, lines 18-19).
Thus, Fehskens teaches that a time-stamp indicating a
creation time can be used to index a particular piece of
information stored in an archive, that a scope of interest time
may be used to request the piece of information from the archive,
and that a scope of interest time may be either an interval or a
particular instant. Fehskens suggests that a particular instant
can be represented either by an absolute time or by an interval
that begins and ends with the a relative term such as
"yesterday." In other words, Fehskens suggests that a relative
time-stamp representing an absolute time may be used to request
from an archive a document corresponding to the time-stamp.
Accordingly, we will sustain the rejection of claim 1 and the
claims grouped therewith, claims 3 through 8 and 10 through 15.
Claims 2 and 9 require a pointer to a previous version of
the electronic document when the previous version is
"substantially identical." The examiner adds Shnelvar and
Wlaschin to the base combination for the additional limitation.
Appellant provides no arguments regarding Shnelvar in the Brief.
In the Reply Brief (page 5) appellant states that "[t]he Examiner
acknowledges that Snelvar does not explicitly disclose
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Application No. 10/099,121
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'substantially identical' files." Appellant asserts (Brief, page
7 with similar statements at page 5 of the Reply Brief) that
Wlaschin teaches a pointer to a previous version of the document
"if said electronic document is updated from the previous
version. . . . Thus, Wlaschin teaches away from the present
invention" (emphasis ours). Appellant thus concludes that
neither Shnelvar nor Wlaschin teaches the limitation of claims 2
and 9.
First, we note that the examiner states (Answer, page 7)
that Shnelvar teaches using a pointer to a previous version when
there is a duplicate document so as to reduce the amount of
material stored. Appellant does not contest the combination of
Shnelvar with the main references to teach a pointer in place of
a duplicate copy of a document.
Second, we note that the examiner explains (Answer, pages 7-
8) that Wlaschin is required for the rejection because
"substantially identical" means that there has been an update
such that the two documents are different (i.e., not duplicates).
Since appellant's argument that Wlaschin teaches away from using
a pointer for documents that are "substantially identical,"
appellant apparently interprets the phrase "substantially
identical" to mean duplicates (and/or near duplicates).
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Therefore, Shnelvar satisfies the limitation of claims 2 and 9,
with Wlaschin being merely cumulative. Therefore, we will
sustain the rejection of claims 2 and 9 over Archive97, Kahle,
Fehskens, Shnelvar, and Wlaschin.
CONCLUSION
The decision of the examiner rejecting claims 1 through 15
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in
connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 CFR
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED
LEE E. BARRETT )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO ) APPEALS
Administrative Patent Judge ) AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
ANITA PELLMAN GROSS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
AGP/rwk
Appeal No. 2004-1128
Application No. 10/099,121
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