Ex Parte Renz et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 31, 2017

11612499 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 31, 2017)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte ALEX RENZ, KRISTIAN TORNING,
and BJARNE SCHON
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Appeal 2015-000621
Application 11/612,499
Technology Center 3600
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Before HUBERT C. LORIN, ANTON W. FETTING, and BIBHU R.
MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judges.

MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

The Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final
rejection of claims 1-16 and 21-24 which are all the claims pending in the
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Oral arguments
were presented on January 26, 2017 by telephone.

SUMMARY OF THE DECISION
We REVERSE.

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THE INVENTION
The Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to facilitating gathering
data related to network communication to generate context (Spec., para. 5).
Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on appeal.

1. A system that facilitates utilizing data within a network,
comprising:
a memory storing computer-executable instruction of:
an interface that receives data associated with a target data
communication sent to a resource within network; and
an enterprise resource track (ERT) component that analyze data
communications accessible via the network to identify topics of the
data communications, each data communication accessible via the
network having been sent to the resource;
associates with each of a plurality of resources topics of the
data communications sent to that resource such that each resource
has one or more associated topics; and
upon receiving via the interface the data associated with the
target data communication, analyzes the received data to identify a
target topic of the data;
identifies resources that are associated with the target topics[sic,
topic] selects one of the identified resources as a target resource to
send the target data communication to be efficiently directed to the
target resource;
sends the target data communication to the target resource for
processing such that data communications are automatically directed
to target resources based on previously received data
communications with the same topic as the target topic having been
sent to the target resource; and
a processor for executing the computer-executable instructions
stored in the memory.

THE REJECTIONS
The following rejections are before us for review:
1. Claims 1–15 and 21–23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)
as anticipated by Gropper (US 6,883,000 B1, iss: Apr. 19, 2005).
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2. Claims 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Gropper and Petrovykh (US 2002/0055975 A1, pub. May 9, 2002).
3. Claims 24 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Gropper and Gutierrez et al. (US 2007/0288298 A1, pub. Dec. 13,
2007).

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 evidence1.

ANALYSIS
The Appellants argue that the rejection of claim 1 is improper because
it fails to disclose specific limitations directed to a claimed feature of the
enterprise resource track (ERT) component (App. Br. 12-14, Reply Br. 7, 8).
In contrast, the Examiner has determined that these cited claim
limitations are found in Gropper in the Abstract, Figures 1B-1D, 2A-2D, 3,
6, and col. 3:45-60, col. 9:4-10:49, col. 10:14-33, col. 11:61-12:34, and col.
13:29-50 (Final Rej. 7, 8, Ans. 9-13).
We agree with the Appellants. Here, an argued claim limitation of the
system requires that it:
analyzes data communications accessible via the network to identify
topics of the data communications, each data communication
accessible via the network having been sent to the resource.

1 See Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988)
(explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the
Patent Office).
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(Claim 1). Here the cited claim limitation requires in part “analyz[ing] data
communications…to identify topics of the data communications” with each
data communication “having been sent to the resource”. The above citations
to Gropper fail to disclose this. For example, Gropper at col. 9:25-31
discloses the user identifying companies and people for a news-tracker list
but this is not generated from data communications that have been sent to
the resource. Gropper at col. 9:49-51 does disclose that news content is
passed to the client program during the current or subsequent
communications sessions, but this fails to disclose “analyz[ing] the data
communications” that have been sent to the resource as claimed. The
remaining above citations fail to disclose this cited claim limitation as well.
For these reasons the rejection of claim 1 and its dependent claims is
not sustained. Claim 21 and 22 contain a similar limitation and the rejection
of these claims is sustained for the same reasons given above.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
We conclude that Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred in
rejecting the claims as listed in the Rejections section above.

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-16 and 21-24 is reversed.

REVERSED