Ex Parte Sandholm et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 22, 2016

13384705 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 22, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
13/384,705 01/18/2012 Thomas Sandholm
56436 7590 09/26/2016
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
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.
82919355 1005
EXAMINER
UDDIN, MDI
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2169
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/26/2016 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):
hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com
mkraft@hpe.com
chris.mania@hpe.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte THOMAS SANDHOLM and BERNARDO HUBERMAN
Appeal2015-005634
Application 13/384,705
Technology Center 2100
Before TERRENCE W. MCMILLIN, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and
KAMRAN JIVANI, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1-22. 1 We have jurisdiction over the pending
rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part.
1 Appellants identify Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP as the
real party in interest. (App. Br. 1.)
Appeal2015-005634
Application 13/384,705
THE INVENTION
Appellants' disclosed and claimed invention is directed to ranking
identifiers of online documents based on recommendation information and
associated geographic information submitted from client network nodes.
(Abstract.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A method, comprising:
receiving a respective submission from each of multiple
recommending client network nodes over a network, wherein
each of the submissions comprises respective recommendation
information in association with a respective online document
identifier identifying a respective online document and a
respective geographic location identifier identifying a respective
geographic location;
for each of multiple of the received submissions, indexing
the respective recommendation information and the respective
online document identifier in association with the respective
geographic location identifier in a database stored on at least one
computer-readable medium;
in response to receipt of location information from a
searching client network node, ascertaining ones of the online
document identifiers that are associated with respective ones of
the geographic location identifiers in the database that
correspond to the received location information, and ranking the
ascertained ones of the online document identifiers based on the
recommendation information respectively associated with the
online document identifiers; and
providing a list of the ranked online documents identifiers
to the searching client network node over the network.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 2, 11, 16, and 22 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Julliard et al. (US 2004/0034631 Al;
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Application 13/384,705
pub. Feb. 19, 2004) and Ruhl et al. (US 2006/0143158 Al; pub. June 29,
2006). (Final Act. 4--7.)
The Examiner rejected claims 3, 4, 7-10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, and 20
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Julliard, Ruhl, and
Scott et al. (US 2010/0280920 Al; pub. Nov. 4, 2010). (Final Act. 7-10.)
The Examiner rejected claims 5, 6, 14, 19, and 21under35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Julliard, Ruhl, and Barker et al. (US
2005/0251432 Al; pub. Nov. 10, 2005). (Final Act. 10-11.)
ISSUES ON APPEAL
Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following
dispositive issues:2
Issue One: Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of
Julliard and Ruhl teaches or suggests the independent claim 1 limitations:
receiving a respective submission from each of multiple
recommending client net\'l/ork nodes over a net\'l/ork, \'I/herein
each of the submissions comprises respective recommendation
information in association with a respective online document
identifier identifying a respective online document and a
respective geographic location identifier identifying a respective
geographic location [hereafter, the "receiving" limitation];
in response to receipt of location information from a
searching client network node, ascertaining ones of the online
document identifiers that are associated with respective ones of
the geographic location identifiers in the database that
correspond to the received location information, and ranking the
ascertained ones of the online document identifiers based on the
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the findings of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Sep. 27, 2014); the Reply Brief
(filed May 12, 2015); the Final Office Action (mailed Jul. 28, 2014); and the
Examiner's Answer (mailed Mar. 13, 2015) for the respective details.
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Application 13/384,705
recommendation information respectively associated with the
online document identifiers [hereafter, the "ascertaining and
ranking" limitation];
and the similar limitations recited in independent claims 11 and 16. (App.
Br. 8-13.)
Issue Two: Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of
Julliard and Ruhl teaches or suggests the additional limitation of dependent
claim 22. (App. Br. 12-13.)
Issue Three: Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination
of Julliard, Ruhl, and Barker teaches or suggests the additional limitations of
dependent claims 5, 6, 14, 19, and 21. (App. Br. 15-18.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments that the Examiner errs. As to claims 1--4, 7-13, 15-18, 20, and
22; we disagree with Appellants' arguments; and we adopt as our own ( 1) the
pertinent findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Action from
which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 4--10) and (2) the corresponding
reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in response to
Appellants' Appeal Brief (Ans. 2-6). We concur with the applicable
conclusions reached by the Examiner and emphasize the following.
Issue One
In finding Julliard and Ruhl teach or suggest the "receiving" and the
"ascertaining and ranking" limitations at issue for claim 1, the Examiner
relies on the disclosure in Julliard of a document recommender system that
allows users to input reviews of documents, such as a web pages, contained
in a repository, and to review a list of those documents with associated
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Application 13/384,705
ratings reflecting the reviews. (Final Act. 5; Julliard Abstract, Figs. 2, 3, iii!
5, 10, 31, 34.) The Examiner also relies on the disclosure in Ruhl of
collecting product reviews from the Internet, including provisions for
entering search terms to search for reviews of products, determining and
displaying product ratings based on the reviews, and sorting the results of
the search in various ways, including sorting by location. (Final Act. 5---6;
Ruhl Abstract, Fig. 6C, iii! 55, 103-104, 118, 113-114.)
With respect to the "ascertaining and ranking" limitation, Appellants
argue the Examiner errs because Ruhl concerns product reviews extracted
from the Internet, rather than recommendations regarding online documents.
(App. Br. 8-9.) Appellants state:
[T]he ratings described in Ruhl do not rank the review-related
web sites (i.e., online documents); instead, the reviews rank the
products that are the subject of the reviews .... Ruhl's teaching
that the product reviews may be sorted based on location does
not present to a searching client network node a list of ranked
online document identifiers associated \'l1ith location information
received from the searching network node as recited in claim 1;
instead, Ruhl's system provides a location based sorting of the
extracted product reviews independent of the original online
documents from which the reviews were extracted.
(App. Br. 9.)
This argument is unpersuasive because it focuses on Ruhl alone,
whereas the Examiner's rejection is based on the combination of Julliard and
Ruhl. In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986); In re
Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981) (the test for obviousness is whether
the combination of references, taken as a whole, would have suggested the
patentee's invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art). As
discussed above, Julliard provides for a repository of user recommendations
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of on-line documents, and the ability to review the recommendations, while
Ruhl teaches searching for product reviews based on location and ranking
products based on the reviews. (Final Act. 5---6)
In particular, Ruhl specifically discloses the ability to search for a
review of a "hotel room in Hawaii," which teaches or suggests the claimed
"ascertaining ... associated with the geographic location," and also
discloses assigning ratings to reviews, which teaches or suggests the claimed
"ranking ... based on recommendation information." (Ans. 2--4; Ruhl i-fi-12,
9, 103-104, 107-108, 113-114.) We are not persuaded by Appellants'
attempt to distinguish Ruhl based on its focus on product reviews, as
compared to the claimed "recommendation" associated with an "online
document." (App. Br. 9.) First, the Examiner relies on Julliard as teaching
or suggesting recommendations regarding online documents. (Finals Act.
5.) Second, we note the Specification defines "online document" as "any
type of resource of information that is accessible over a network using a
[URL]" and provides as an example "online documents associated with
particular restaurants" - comparable to the explicit disclosure in Ruhl of
Internet reviews of services such as restaurants. (Cf., Spec. i-fi-120, 64; Ruhl
i-fi-19, 114.) We are not persuaded the difference between reviewing a
restaurant itself, versus reviewing that restaurant's web page, is of any
significance in this context.
With respect to the "receiving" limitation of the independent claims,
Appellants argue the Examiner errs because Ruhl discloses collecting
preexisting reviews found on the Internet, as opposed to the claimed
receiving of recommendations submitted from client nodes. (App. Br. 10.)
Again, this argument is unpersuasive as focusing on Ruhl alone- as
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Application 13/384,705
discussed above, the Examiner relies on Julliard, which discloses user input
of reviews of documents, in combination with Ruhl. (Final Act. 5; Ans. 4--
5.)
Appellants further argue Ruhl does not teach or suggest receiving "a
respective geographic location identifier" as required by the "receiving"
limitation. (App. Br. 10-11.) However, Ruhl discloses, as an example of
searching for reviews, searching for "a hotel room in Hawaii," and discloses
the capability of sorting reviews "by location (e.g., for reviews of
restaurants, local businesses, movies or other products near a particular
location, such as by address, city, region, or mailing or zip code)." (Ans. 5;
Ruhl i-fi-12, 114.) This disclosure at least teaches or suggests collecting
location information associated with reviews. And as already discussed, it
follows that Ruhl in combination with Julliard correspondingly teaches or
suggests receiving location information as part of clients submitting
recommendations.
In the Reply Brief, Appellants argue, "[ e ]ven if the Examiner's
interpretation of the disclosures of Julliard and Ruhl are accepted, there is no
apparent reason to combine their teachings to achieve the pending claims."
(Reply Br. 3.) This argument is untimely and is waived. 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.41(b)(2); Ex parte Borden, 93 USPQ2d 1473, 1474 (BPAI 2010). In
any event, this argument is unpersuasive. (See Final Act. 3; Ans. 5.)
Issue Two
In regard to the Examiner's finding that Julliard and Ruhl teach or
suggest the claim 22 limitation, "wherein the geographic location identifiers
are specified by respective ones of the recommending client network nodes,"
Appellants argue, "searching through an aggregation of previously submitted
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product reviews extracted from product review related web sites [disclosed
in Ruhl] does not constitute submitting reviews." (App. Br. 13.) This
argument is unpersuasive for the reasons discussed above. (See also,
Ans. 6.)
Issue Three
Dependent claims 5, 6, 14, 19, and 21 variously require taking into
account an amount of "submission credit" associated with a user as a
condition for submitting recommendations, or to be allocated to
recommendations. The Examiner relies on the disclosure in Barker of a
"Business Requirements Review" process that is deemed successfully
completed if a threshold "Overall Review Score" is met. (Final Act. 10-11;
Barker i-fi-173-74.)
Appellants argue "the Overall Review Score described in ... Barker
does not constitute an amount of submission credit associated with a user
identifier to allocate to recommendation information associated with an
online document." (App. Br. 16.) This argument is persuasive. The
Examiner's finding that Barker discloses the concept of a "predetermined
threshold score" is not sufficient to support a finding that the cited art
teaches or suggests the submission credit limitations of the claims. (Ans. 7.)
Therefore, on the record before us, we do not sustain the Examiner's
rejection of claims 5, 6, 14, 19, and 21.
CONCLUSIONS
For the reasons stated above, we sustain the obviousness rejections of
claims 1, 11, 16, and 22 over Julliard and Ruhl. We also sustain the
obviousness rejections of claim 2 over Julliard and Ruhl, and of claims 3--4,
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7-10, 12-13, 15, 17-18, and 20 over Julliard, Ruhl, and Scott, which
rejections are not argued separately with particularity. (App. Br. 12, 14.)
Also for the reasons stated above, we do not sustain the obviousness
rejections of claims 5, 6, 14, 19, and 21 over Julliard, Ruhl, and Barker.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims 1--4, 7-13, 15-18, 20,
and 22.
We reverse the Examiner's rejections of claims 5, 6, 14, 19, and 21.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
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