Ex Parte Ruvolo et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 27, 2014

11094031 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 27, 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.
11/094,031 03/30/2005 Joann Ruvolo LOT920040100US1_033 2628
51835 7590 02/27/2014
IBM Lotus & Rational SW
c/o Schmeiser, Olsen & Watts LLP
5 Mount Royal Avenue
Mount Royal Office Park
Marlborough, MA 01752
EXAMINER
BULLOCK, JOSHUA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2162
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/27/2014 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 JOANN RUVOLO,
STEFAN BENGT EDLUND,
VIKAS KRISHNA,
JUSTIN THOMAS LESSLER, and
CARL J. KRAENZEL
__________

Appeal 2011-011414
Application 11/094,031
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before HUBERT C. LORIN, ANTON W. FETTING, and
NINA L. MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judges.

LORIN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Joann Ruvolo et al. (Appellants) seek our review under 35 U.S.C.
§ 134 of the final rejection of claims 1-11, 23, and 26-33. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) (2002).

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SUMMARY OF DECISION
We REVERSE.1

THE INVENTION
Sole independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the
subject matter on appeal.
1. A method for tracking interests of users based on personal
information, the method comprising:
monitoring a stream of documents from more than one user to
obtain therefrom a plurality of electronic documents each belonging to
one of the users;
generating, for each obtained electronic document, a dynamic
interest profile (DIP) document based on information obtained from
that electronic document;
associating each generated DIP document with one of the
plurality of users;
uniquely assigning a document queue to each of the users;
selecting, for each DIP document, one of the document queues
into which to place that DIP document based on the user with which
that DIP document is associated;
polling each document queue to detect changes to that
document queue;
determining, in response to detecting a change to that document
queue of each user, at least one person of importance to that user and
one term of importance to that user based on the DIP documents in the
document queue uniquely assigned to that user;

1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App.
Br.,” filed Jan. 10, 2011) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed May 17, 2011),
and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed Mar. 18, 2011).
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3
generating an interest profile of each user that includes each
person and each term of importance of that user; and
storing the interest profiles of the users in a DIP database.

THE REJECTION
The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of
unpatentability:
Eichstaedt
Lawrence

US 6,654,735 B1
US 2005/0071328 A1
Nov. 25, 2003
Mar. 31, 2005
The following rejection is before us for review:
Claims 1-11, 23, and 26-33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Eichstaedt and Lawrence.

ISSUE
Did the Examiner err in finding that the claimed subject matter would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the
invention?

FINDINGS OF FACT
We rely on the Examiner’s factual findings stated in the Answer.
Additional findings of fact may appear in the Analysis below.

ANALYSIS
The Examiner takes the position that Eichstaedt discloses all the claim
limitations but for

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polling each document queue to detect changes to that
document queue;
determining, in response to detecting a change to that document
queue of each user, at least one person of importance to that user and
one term of importance to that user based on the DIP documents in the
document queue uniquely assigned to that user
(claim 1) and for which Lawrence is relied upon. Ans. 6. The Examiner
found that
[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the
time of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Lawrence into the
system of Eichstaedt. One of ordinary skill in the art would be
motivated to provide results which emphasize items that are most
likely to be of interest to a particular user. Further, it would be
desirable for such a system to require minimal input from individual
users, operating largely or completely without explicit input from the
user with regard to the user's preferences and interests. (Lawrence
[0008])
Ans. 8.
The Appellants disagree on the grounds that Lawrence does not
disclose the polling and determining steps. App. Br. 5-7.
In relying on Lawrence as evidence that the claimed polling and
determining steps were known in the prior art, the Examiner specifically
cites paragraphs [0030]-[0032] as teaching the polling step and Fig. 2 as
teaching the determining step. Ans. 6-7.
The claimed polling step calls for “polling each document queue to
detect changes to that document queue” (claim 1). In ordinary and
customary usage, “polling” means canvassing to collect certain information,
here, “changes to that document queue.” The Specification provides no
express definition for “polling.”
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According to Lawrence ([0031]), “[i]t is [sic] has been observed that a
search engine user’s past search activities provide useful hints about the
user’s personal search preferences.” These search results and, for example,
any associated documents, are recorded to form a user profile. See Fig. 2.
Lawrence also indicates that “[a]s time goes on, the user’s interests may
change. This change may be reflected by the search queries submitted by
the user, or by the user’s handling of the search results, or both” [0030].
Since the user profile includes search results, these changes will also be
reflected in corresponding changes to the user profile. In observing changes
to the user profile, polling, as that term is reasonably broadly construed, can
be said to occur. This is the Examiner’s position. See Ans. 6.
In associating the claimed “polling” with the changes to the user
profile, the Examiner necessarily equates Lawrence’s user profile with the
claimed “document queue.” This is so because the claim limitation at issue
is “polling each document queue to detect changes to that document queue.”
Consistent therewith, the Examiner states that “given the broadest
reasonable interpretation of document queue, a document queue is anything
that stores documents. Lawrence teaches [0030] a user profile server . . . .”
Ans. 7.
The Appellants disagree. “[T]he user profile server 108 is not
uniquely associated with a user, [and as a result] the user profile server 108
cannot be the equivalent of the Appellants’ claimed ‘document queue,’
which is uniquely associated with a user.” App. Br. 6. Claim 1 does include
the limitation of “uniquely assigning a document queue to each of the users”
and therefore, as claimed, the “document queue” is uniquely associated with
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a user as the Appellants have argued. However, the Examiner cited
Eichstaedt, not Lawrence, as evidence that it was known to uniquely assign a
document queue to a user. See Ans. 4.
But the claim does not simply call for uniquely assigning a document
queue to a user. It is the subject of the determining step; that is, “in response
to detecting a change to that document queue of each user, at least one
person of importance to that user and one term of importance to that user
based on the DIP [dynamic interest profile] documents in the document
queue uniquely assigned to that user” are determined. Claim 1, emphasis
added.
In that regard, according to the Examiner, “Lawrence teaches (FIG. 2)
that the user profile identifies terms and people of interest to the user.”
Ans. 7. The Examiner cites [0042] for an example of a user entering
“Michael Jordan” into a search entry and being able to review documents
associated with “Michael Jordan” which would be utilized to generate a term
based profile for that particular user. Ans. 18-19.
But this example does not appear in [0042] of Lawrence. And simply
because one can enter a person’s name such as “Michael Jordan” does not
mean one has determined “at least one person of importance to that user,” let
alone “at least one person of importance to that user and one term of
importance to that user based on the DIP [dynamic interest profile]
documents in the document queue uniquely assigned to that user” in
response to detecting a change to that document queue for that user. In
doing so one obtains results for the term but not the “person of importance to
that user” as claimed.
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Moreover, we can find no disclosure in Lawrence whereby at least
one person of importance based on DIP documents in the document queue
uniquely assigned to the user is determined. While Lawrence does teach
entering a search query containing a user’s age, education, phone number,
income level, cultural background, or any subset of these (see [0035]), none
of these instances represents a user’s name. In fact, Lawrence teaches that
this collection of personal information facilitates in more correctly
interpreting certain queries submitted by the user. See [0035].
See also [0037] (“term-based profile”). While this personal information may
be useful in determining a term of importance to the user; it does not lead
one of ordinary skill to determine “at least one person of importance to that
user and one term of importance to that user based on the DIP [dynamic
interest profile] documents in the document queue uniquely assigned to that
user” (claim 1) as claimed.
For the foregoing reasons, a prima facie case of obviousness has not
been made out in the first instance. Accordingly, the rejection is not
sustained.
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-11, 23, and 26-33 is
reversed.

REVERSED
Vsh