Ex Parte Powers et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 6, 201612345853 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 6, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 12/345,853 12/30/2008 William Powers 23550 7590 06/08/2016 HOFFMAN WARNICK LLC 540 Broadway 4th Floor ALBANY, NY 12207 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. VRDX-0007 8435 EXAMINER MOONEYHAM, JANICE A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3689 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/08/2016 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): PTOCommunications@hoffmanwarnick.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte WILLIAM POWERS, JOHN ZOGBY, JAMES SHAREN, ANDREW STEMMER, QIANQING REN, and JASON POWERS Appeal2014-003512 1 Application 12/345,8532 Technology Center 3600 Before: PHILIP J. HOFFMANN, CYNTHIA L. MURPHY, and AMEE A. SHAH, Administrative Patent Judges. SHAH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL The Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's final decision rejecting claims 1, 3, 4, 6-8, 10, 11, 13-15, 17, 18, and 20-22. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to the Appeal Brief ("Appeal Br.," filed Aug. 19, 2013), the Reply Brief ("Reply Br.," filed Dec. 18, 2013), the Examiner's Answer ("Ans.," mailed Oct. 23, 2013), the Final Office Action ("Final Act.," mailed Mar. 20, 2013), and the Specification ("Spec.," filed Dec. 30, 2008). 2 The Appellants do not identify the real party in interest in the Briefs. Therefore, we assume the named inventors are the real party in interest. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(i). Appeal2014-003512 Application 12/345,853 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Appellants' invention "relates generally to profiling individuals participating in a legal process, and more specifically relates to a system and method of profiling jurors using demographic attributes, survey data and models." Spec. i-f 1. Claims 1, 8, 15, and 22 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1 is exemplary of the subject matter on appeal, and is reproduced below: 1. A profiling system for profiling prospective jurors, compnsmg: at least one computing device configured to perform processes including: generating a case specific scoring table based on a set of survey data, wherein the survey data includes attribute data for a set of respondents and liability findings from the set of respondents for at least one hypothetical case, wherein the case specific scoring table provides a score for each of a plurality of attribute data combinations, wherein the generating of the case specific scoring table further includes generating a confidence interval indicating an accuracy of each of the plurality of attribute data combinations; storing a set of attributed juror records in an attributed jury pool database; selecting a single potential juror from the attributed jury pool database, using an interface; and scoring the single potential juror by comparing attributes of the single potential juror with the attribute data combinations in the case specific scoring table, wherein the scoring further includes: comparing each selected single potential juror in a set of selected potential jurors to a group of unselected potential jurors in a potential jury pool, generating a pool comparison percentage assigned to each selected single potential juror indicating a likelihood that each selected 2 Appeal2014-003512 Application 12/345,853 single potential juror will have a higher score than a juror in the group of unselected potential jurors; wherein the scoring of the single potential juror further includes the following: determining whether attributes of the single potential juror match all of the attribute data combinations in the case specific scoring table, in the case that attributes of the single potential juror do not match all of the attribute data combinations in the case specific scoring table, iteratively removing an attribute from the attribute data combinations in the case specific scoring table to form a subset of the attribute data combinations until the subset of attribute data combinations match the attributes of the single potential juror; and scoring the single potential juror by comparing attributes of the single potential juror with the subset of the attribute data combinations. Appeal Br. 17-18, Claims App. THE REJECTION Claims 1, 3, 4, 6-8, 10, 11, 13-15, 17, 18, and 20-22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Powers (US 2006/0212341 Al, pub. Sept. 21, 2006), Young (US 7,092,844 Bl, iss. Aug. 15, 2006), Pratte (US 2003/0163363 Al, pub. Aug. 28, 2003), and Portnoy (US 2008/0162459 Al, pub. July 3, 2008). 3 Appeal2014-003512 Application 12/345,853 FINDINGS OF FACT We have determined that the findings of fact in the Analysis section below are supported at least by a preponderance of the evidence. 3 ANALYSIS The Appellants argue all of the claims as a group. See Appeal Br. 8 and 13-15. Independent claims 1, 8, 15, and 22 recite substantially similar limitations. See Claims App. We select claim 1 as representative of the group; independent claims 8, 15, and 22, and dependent claims 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, and 21 stand or fall with claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). The Appellants contend, in relevant part, that the combination of Powers and Portnoy does not teach the limitation of scoring the potential juror with the subset of attribute combinations determined by iteratively removing an attribute until a match is found, as required by claim 1. See Appeal Br. 13-14; see also Reply Br. 7. The Examiner finds "Powers teaches scoring a juror by matching/comparing attribute combinations, but does not expressly teach using the subset of attribute combinations to score a juror." Final Act. 15. The Examiner determines it would have been obvious to "perform Powers' juror scoring again while utilizing the subset of attribute combinations formed by iteratively eliminating attributes (as by the combination of Powers and Portnoy)," because it "would be useful so that a score can be 3 See Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the Patent Office). 4 Appeal2014-003512 Application 12/345,853 obtained for jurors even when few if any of the original attribute combination sets match the prospective juror." Id. After careful consideration and review of the Examiner's findings and reasoning (see id.; see also Ans. 7-8), we agree that the Examiner does not adequately show how Portnoy is combined with Powers to disclose the limitation when taken in context of the claim. See Reply Br. 7-8. Although the Examiner finds that Powers teaches scoring that is based on comparing the juror's attributes to cluster attributes (Final Act. 15 (citing Powers, i-fi-127, 34)) and that Portnoy teaches a subset of attribute data combinations formed by iteratively removing attributes (see id; Ans. 5), the Examiner does not sufficiently explain how Portnoy' s subset of criteria for which the desired number of matches is found (i.e., subset of attribute data combinations) can be used in Powers' s scoring based on the juror profile based on the cluster to which the juror's attributes are matched. Thus, we are persuaded of error on the part of the Examiner, and we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1. We also do not sustain the rejection of claims 3, 4, 6-8, 10, 11, 13-15, 17, 18, and 20-22 as they stand with claim 1. DECISION TheExaminer'srejectionofclaims 1, 3, 4, 6-8, 10, 11, 13-15, 17, 18, and 20-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is reversed. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation