Ex Parte Sanaullah et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 26, 201813764466 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 26, 2018) Copy Citation 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. 13/764,466 02/11/2013 Abu Shaher Sanaullah 016295.4842 6544 31625 7590 BAKER BOTTS L.L.P. PATENT DEPARTMENT 98 SAN JACINTO BLVD., SUITE 1500 AUSTIN, TX 78701-4039 EXAMINER STEVENS, ROBERT ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2164 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/30/2018 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): juli.luong@BakerBotts.com tracy. engberg @ bakerbott s. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ABU SHAHER SANAULLAH, JAMES WEBSTER CLARDY, CLAUDE LANO COX, WILLIAM B. QUINN, ROCCO ANCONA, and ROY W. STEDMAN Appeal 2017-007602 Application 13/764,4661 Technology Center 2100 Before DEBRA K. STEPHENS, DANIEL J. GALLIGAN, and DAVID J. CUTITTA II, Administrative Patent Judges. GALLIGAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Introduction Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1, 3-8, 10-15, and 17-21, which are all of the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Claims 2, 9, and 16 have been cancelled. We AFFIRM.2 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Dell Products L.P. App. Br. 3. 2 Our Decision refers to Appellants’ Appeal Brief filed December 19, 2016 (“App. Br.”), Appellants’ Reply Brief filed April 21, 2017 (“Reply Br.”), Appeal 2017-007602 Application 13/764,466 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Claims on Appeal Claims 1, 8, and 15 are independent claims. Claim 1 is reproduced below: 1. An information handling system for managing an event, the information handling system comprising: an environmental data engine stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium and configured to gather an environmental context associated with a user of the event, the environmental context comprising social-media reports by other users regarding issues with a travel route; a context engine stored on a non-transitory computer- readable medium and configured to gather a personal context associated with the user; a recommendation engine stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium and configured to: determine a context mismatch based at least on the environmental context and the personal context; and generate a plurality of event management options for managing the context mismatch; and a notification engine stored on a non-transitory computer- readable medium and configured to notify a plurality of users of the event of a chosen option, the chosen option being one of the plurality of event management options. References Coughlin Zhang Grigsby US 2012/0059580 A1 Mar. 8, 2012 US 2014/0067455 A1 Mar. 6, 2014 US 8,712,675 B2 Apr. 29, 2014 Examiner’s Answer mailed February 24, 2017 (“Ans.”), and Final Office Action mailed August 16, 2016 (“Final Act.”). 2 Appeal 2017-007602 Application 13/764,466 Examiner’s Rejection Claims 1, 3-8, 10-15, and 17-21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Coughlin, Zhang, and Grigsby. Final Act. 4-10. ANALYSIS “social-media reports ” Appellants contend Grigsby does not teach “gather[ing] an environmental context associated with a user of the event, the environmental context comprising social-media reports by other users regarding issues with a travel route,” as recited in claim 1 and similarly recited in claims 8 and 15. App. Br. 7-9; Reply Br. 2. Specifically, Appellants argue Grisby does not “disclose any issue or incident reports sathered through social media from other users that the CRS uses in this process.” App. Br. 9. Rather, according to Appellants, “Grigsby appears to get all of its information about ‘current traffic congestion conditions’ from ‘a real-time traffic database,’ rather than from social media.” App. Br. 9 (citations omitted). Additionally, Appellants argue Grigsby’s “historical traffic databases” are not “social- media reports” because “‘social[-]media reports’ constitute social data and not traffic data” and because “social data is current and not historical.” Reply Br. 2. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments that Grigsby does not teach gathering traffic conditions from social media. App. Br. 9. The Examiner finds Grigsby’s disclosure of using social networking software to improve route recommendations “teaches the use of social media reports by other users regarding issues with a travel route.” Final Act. 6 (emphasis omitted) (citing Grigsby, 4:41-66). We agree with this finding because 3 Appeal 2017-007602 Application 13/764,466 Grigsby discloses that the community routing system (CRS) “may interface with social networking software stored on an external network (e.g., network 142, FIG. 1) to better facilitate carpool or route recommendations amongst GPS devices 202a-n subscribed to the social networking software.” Grigsby, 4:56-60. Grigsby states that “[a] social network is a group of users whose GPS devices 202a-n are collectively registered with CRS 102,” and it discloses that CRS may use “information of routes actually travelled by GPS devices 202<2-«” “to better calculate future Optimized Routes 206a-n.” Grigsby, 4:27-29, 4:47 48. As the Examiner correctly points out (Ans. 4), Grigsby discloses that “Optimized Routes 206a-n serves to minimize traffic conditions for a community of vehicles for a multiple routes travelling towards a similar destination.” Grigsby, 3:43-45. We agree with the Examiner that minimizing traffic conditions teaches taking into account “traffic issues.” Ans. 4. Thus, Grigsby discloses using data from GPS devices of users in a social network to improve a travel route, and we agree with the Examiner that this disclosure teaches or suggests “social-media reports by other users regarding issues with a travel route,” as recited in claim 1. See Final Act. 6. Furthermore, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in additionally concluding that it would have been obvious to gather traffic conditions using social network user reports. Ans. 5. Grigsby teaches recommending travel routes using information gathered about traffic conditions and gathered from social networks. Grigsby 3:31-44, 3:52-54, 4:56-59. As such, the Examiner’s conclusion that it would have been obvious to gather route information using traffic information from social 4 Appeal 2017-007602 Application 13/764,466 networks, i.e., “social-media reports by other users regarding issues with a travel route,” constitutes articulated reasoning with rational underpinning. Additionally, we are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument that “‘social[-]media reports’ constitute social data and not traffic data.” Reply Br. 2. To the contrary, Appellants’ Specification teaches social-media reports include traffic data. Spec. 12:5-6 (“users . . . report[] issues with a particular travel route (e.g., through social networking software, social media gathering, etc.)”); see also Spec. 8:4-13 (“social data” includes “other users of a possible transportation route are experiencing difficulties over that route (e.g., whether users report unusually high traffic, an accident that has not yet been reported, etc.)”). Nor are we persuaded by Appellants’ argument that “social data is current and not historical” data. Reply Br. 2. Appellants’ argument does not address the Examiner’s conclusion that it would have been obvious to provide real-time traffic conditions based on social networking reports. See Ans. 5. Moreover, neither the claims nor the Specification define social network reports, much less exclude historic data from the scope of social network reports or even distinguish when report data is “current” or “historic.” Instead, Appellants highlight examples, rather than limiting definitions, of arguably “current” social network reports. Reply Br. 2 (citing Spec. 7:13-17 (“For example”), 8:1-19 (“In such an example”), 11:28-12:6 (“the illustrative example”)).3 3 Appellants’ Reply Brief cites the publication of the instant Application (Reply Br. 2); our citations are to the corresponding pages and lines of the originally filed Specification of the instant Application. 5 Appeal 2017-007602 Application 13/764,466 Accordingly, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in concluding Grigsby renders obvious “gather[ing] an environmental context associated with a user of the event, the environmental context comprising social-media reports by other users regarding issues with a travel route,” within the meaning of claims 1, 8, and 15. Motivation to Combine Appellants argue the Examiner improperly combined Coughlin, Zhang, and Grisby. Specifically, Appellants argue “one of ordinary skill in the art would not have had any reason or motivation to combine Grigsby with Coughlin and Zhang to arrive at Appellants’ invention” because “Grigsby is not directed to calendar management.” Reply Br. 3 (emphasis omitted); App. Br. 9. We are not persuaded. Appellants’ discussion of Grigsby’s “field of endeavor” (App. Br. 9; Reply Br. 3) does not persuasively address the Examiner’s stated motivation for the combination, namely, “providing] a designer with options for implementing a system for determining an optimized travel route” (Ans. 7; Final Act. 6). We agree with the Examiner that one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to consider various methods for gathering route information — e.g., through social network reports — when calculating travel routes. Indeed, the Examiner has articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning, and Appellants have not persuaded us of error. Accordingly, we are not persuaded the Examiner improperly combined Coughlin, Zhang, and Grisby. Therefore, we sustain the 6 Appeal 2017-007602 Application 13/764,466 Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 and claims 3-8, 10-15, and 17-21, which Appellants argue are patentable for similar reasons. See App. Br. 9-10; 37C.F.R. §41.37(c)(l)(iv). DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 3-8, 10-15, and 17-21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Coughlin, Zhang, and Grigsby No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation