Ex Parte Shaban et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 24, 2016

12683269 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 24, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/683,269 01/06/2010 Marwan Shaban
86548 7590 06/28/2016
Garlick & Markison (IH)
ATTN: MELANIE MURDOCK
P.O. Box 160727
Austin, TX 78716-0727
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.
133-LAN-07-2009 2728
EXAMINER
BOYCE, ANDRE D
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3623
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/28/2016 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):
MMurdock@TEXASPATENTS.COM
ghmptocor@texaspatents.com
bpierotti@texaspatents.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MAR WAN SHABAN and LESLIE A. CULPEPPER
Appeal2014-005562 1
Application 12/683,2692
Technology Center 3600
Before JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, AMEE A. SHAH, and
MATTHEWS. MEYERS Administrative Patent Judges.
SHAH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
The Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
decision finally rejecting claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b ).
We REVERSE.
1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to the Reply Brief ("Reply Br.," filed
Mar. 24, 2014), the Appeal Brief ("Appeal Br.," filed Oct. 15, 2013), the
Examiner's Answer ("Ans.," mailed Jan. 30, 2014), the Final Office Action
("Final Act.," mailed July 15, 2013), and the Specification ("Spec.," filed
Jan. 6, 2010).
2 According to the Appellants, the real party in interest is Clear Channel
Management Services, Inc. Appeal Br. 3.
Appeal2014-005562
Application 12/683,269
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellants' invention "generally relates to information analysis,
and more specifically to a method of aggregating, organizing and presenting
data pertaining to radio stations, particularly ratings information." Spec. 1,
11. 6-8.
Claims 1, 7, and 13 are the independent claims on appeal. Claim 1 is
exemplary of the subject matter on appeal and is reproduced below
(bracketing added for reference):
1. A computer-implemented method of analyzing markets,
compnsmg:
enabling a computer system to:
[a] obtain location information from a first source;
[b] obtain book information from a second source
different from the first source, wherein book information
comprises ratings data for a specified period of time;
[ c] display at least a portion of a template on a
display device of a computer system, the template having
a plurality of entries, each entry in the template
corresponding to a media station, and each entry in the
template has associated therewith a unique station
identifier associated with a media station and multiple
fields that provide attributes of the media station, wherein
the attributes comprise location attributes based on the
location information and ratings attributes indicated by the
book information;
[ d] accept a user selection of one or more filter
attributes;
[ e] filter the template to display filtered media
stations satisfying the one or more filter attributes;
[ f] accept user input selecting a subset of the filtered
media stations;
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Appeal2014-005562
Application 12/683,269
[g] tag the subset of the filtered media stations to
generate tagged media stations;
[h] accept user input indicating a user-specified map
category; and
[i] display, on the display device, a geographic map
having a plurality of markers, each of the plurality of
markers corresponding to a physical location of a tagged
media station that matches the user-specified map
category.
Appeal Br. 14, Claims App.
REJECTIONS
Claims 1-19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Gosselin (US 7 ,082,434 B2, iss. July 25, 2006), Ceresoli
(US 6,934,508 B2, iss. Aug. 23, 2005), and Montgomery
(US 2007/0061199 Al, pub. Mar. 15, 2007).
Claim 20 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Gosselin, Ceresoli, Montgomery, and Official Notice.
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
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).
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Appeal2014-005562
Application 12/683,269
ANALYSIS
The Appellants contend the Examiner's rejection of independent
claims 1, 7, and 13 because the combination of Gosselin, Ceresoli, and
Montgomery does not teach every limitation of the claims. See Appeal
Br. 9.
We find persuasive the Appellants' argument that Montgomery, upon
which the Examiner relies for the displaying limitation [i] 4, does not disclose
displaying a plurality of markers corresponding to locations of tagged
stations. See Appeal Br. 1 O; see also Reply Br. 4. The Examiner finds that
Montgomery discloses the displaying limitation [i] at Figures 4 and 5 and
paragraphs 46 and 47. Ans. 2; Final Act. 5. Montgomery's Figure 4 depicts
a web site listing stations within a selected location (see Montgomery i-f 46),
and Figure 5 depicts a locator tool for a user to add stations to the locator
feature to the web site (see id. i-f 47). The Examiner finds Montgomery
meets the claimed limitation in disclosing that a viewer can find local radio
stations by entering location information, that a map tool allows a user to
search a particular region for radio stations, or obtain a list of stations by
entering a zip code, and that the user can pre-select the genre, peruse the
resulting list, and select stations to be added to the locator feature of the web
site of Figure 4 (i.e., tagging the subset of filtered stations). See Ans. 2;
Final Act. 5.
However, the Examiner does not adequately show that Montgomery
displays a map with a plurality of markers that correspond to locations of
tagged stations. The Examiner does not indicate what in Montgomery
4 Each of the independent claims 1, 7 and 13 requires, in one form or
another, limitation [i].
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Appeal2014-005562
Application 12/683,269
corresponds to the markers that correspond to the tagged/selected stations, as
required by the claims. At best, the Examiner shows that Montgomery
displays information regarding the locations of selected stations.
Thus, we are persuaded the Examiner's rejection of independent
claims 1, 7, and 13 is in error. Therefore, we do not sustain the rejection of
independent claims 1, 7, and 13, and their dependent claims 2---6, 8-12, and
14--19. The Examiner's Official Notice of displaying different colors (see
Final Act. 11-12) does not cure the deficiency of independent claim 7 from
which claim 20 depends, and thus, we also do not sustain the rejection of
claim 20.
DECISION
The Examiner's rejections of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
are reversed.
REVERSED
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