Ex Parte Singh

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 21, 2015

11476435 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 21, 2015)

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.
11/476,435 06/28/2006 Mona Singh I405/US 4107
52354 7590 04/21/2015
SCENERA RESEARCH, LLC
JENKINS, WILSON, TAYLOR & HUNT, P.A.
5400 Trinity Road
Suite 303
Raleigh, NC 27607
EXAMINER
GUTIERREZ, ANDRES E
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2141
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/21/2015 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 MONA SINGH
__________

Appeal 2012-008305
Application 11/476,435
Technology Center 2100
__________

Before ERIC B. GRIMES, JEFFREY N. FREDMAN, and
ELIZABETH A. LAVIER, Administrative Patent Judges.

FREDMAN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal1 under 35 U.S.C. § 134 involving claims to a method
for grouping tabbed portions of a display object based on content
relationships and user interaction levels. The Examiner rejected the claims
as anticipated and as obvious. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1 Appellant identifies the Real Party in Interest as Scenera Technologies,
LLC (see App. Br. 4).

Appeal 2012-008305
Application 11/476,435

Statement of the Case
Background
“The subject matter described herein relates to controlling display of
information via a computer display device” (Spec. 1, ll. 7–8).
The Claims
Claims 1–35 are on appeal. Independent claim 1 is representative and
reads as follows:
1. A method for grouping tabbed portions of a display
object based on content relationships and user interaction
levels, the method comprising:
providing a display object including one or more
tabbed portions for display to a user via a computer display
device;
monitoring a level of user interaction associated with
each of the tabbed portions;
receiving user input for adding new information to the
display object;
determining, without user input, a level of content
relationship between the new information and information
included in at least one of the tabbed portions; and
creating a new tabbed portion including the new
information and grouping the new tabbed portion with the at
least one tabbed portion based on the determined level of
content relationship and the level of user interaction
associated with the at least one tabbed portion.

The Issues
A. The Examiner rejected claims 1–3, 7, 8, 14–20, 24, 25, and 31–35
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Diorio2 (Ans. 4–9).
2 Diorio et al., US 2004/0093562 A1, published May 13, 2004.
2

Appeal 2012-008305
Application 11/476,435

B. The Examiner rejected claims 4–6 and 21–23 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as obvious over Diorio and Adjali3 (Ans. 10–11).
C. The Examiner rejected claims 9–13 and 26–30 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as obvious over Diorio and Stark4 (Ans. 12–17).
A. 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) over Diorio
The issue with respect to this rejection is: Does the evidence of record
support the Examiner’s conclusion that Diorio teaches “monitoring a level of
user interaction associated with each of the tabbed portions” as recited by
independent claims 1, 18, 34, and 35?
Findings of Fact
1. Figure 5 of Diorio is reproduced below:

“The currently selected HTab determines the page displayed by the system
1. In FIG. 5, open tabs from FIG. 2 are shown in addition to the actively
displayed web page in the browser window” (Diorio 3 ¶ 71).
3 Adjali et al., US 2007/0117557 A1, published May 24, 2007.
4 Stark et al., US 2006/0041927 A1, published Feb. 23, 2006.
3

Appeal 2012-008305
Application 11/476,435

2. Diorio teaches that:
In the system 1, a mouse click on a hyperlink is treated the
same as with existing web browsers; the hyperlink is
followed and the current web page is replaced by the newly
loaded page. Hyperlinks can also be opened in a new page.
In most browsers, this is accomplished by pressing the
SHIFT key while clicking on the hyperlink with the mouse.
The System 1 opens a link in a new page in the same way.
In addition to opening the new link, the system’s 1 HTab
GUI records the newly open page as a child HTab.
Therefore, the hierarchical relationship between the original
parent page (containing the hyperlink) and the child page is
recorded.

(Diorio 3 ¶ 72).
3. Figure 6 of Diorio is reproduced below:

“In FIG. 6, there are three open child links in the System 1 (Yahoo
Auctions, Yahoo Autos, and Yahoo Shopping). These three pages are child
links of the original Yahoo page. The child pages were created by pressing
the SHIFT key while clicking on each link with the mouse” (Diorio 3 ¶ 73).
4. Diorio teaches:
HTab Bookmark System-Web browser GUI bookmark
system that (1) defines local browsing settings for each
individual page within a tabbed-based browsing
environment. (2) Allows hierarchical relationships that exist
within an HTab GUI to be saved and loaded. (3) Allows
common settings within a bookmark group to be edited
collectively. (4) Provides workgroup sharing of bookmarks
according to defined bookmark sharing rules within a
networked computing environment. Netscape, being the
4
Appeal 2012-008305
Application 11/476,435

first commercially accepted web browser, started the basic
bookmark system used in most browsers. The structure is a
standard tree interface with folders, sub folders and
hyperlink bookmarks. Only minor innovation has occurred
in this bookmark system. For example, a feature that
notifies the user 10 when a web page has been updated, or a
feature that adds visual separators into the bookmark tree.
However, the basic structure of the bookmark system has
not changed; they consist of a page title, hyperlink,
description, and keywords.

(Diorio 4 ¶ 92).
Principles of Law
Anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102 requires that “‘each and every
element as set forth in the claim is found, either expressly or inherently
described, in a single prior art reference.”’ In re Robertson, 169 F.3d 743,
745 (Fed. Cir. 1999).
Analysis
Appellant contends that “[d]efining local browsing setting does not
disclose or even suggest monitoring a level of user interaction with each of
the tabbed portions” (App. Br. 32). Appellant contends that the “parent-
child relationship is recorded regardless of the content in either the new tab
or the existing tab. Opening a new link in a new tab and automatically
recording the relationship does not teach or suggest monitoring a level of
user interactions associated with each of the tabbed portions” (App. Br. 33).
Appellant contends that “[n]o teaching or suggestion could be found in
Diorio that discloses the recited elements of monitoring a level of user
interaction associated with each of the tabbed portions” (App. Br. 33).
5
Appeal 2012-008305
Application 11/476,435

The Examiner responds that
when a link in an existing web page in an existing tab is
selected from the existing webpage, the Diorio system opens
the link in a new tab and automatically records the
relationship between the new tab as a child of the existing
tab. The parent-child relationship is recorded regardless of
the content in either the new tab or the existing tab.
Furthermore, the determination is performed without user
input as required by the claims. The monitoring of a user
interaction is the hierarchical level associated with the
parent-child tabbed portions.

(Ans. 17).
We find that Appellant has the better position. The Examiner broadly
interprets the phrase “monitoring a level of user interaction associated with
each of the tabbed portions” as encompassing the determination of the
hierarchical level based on paragraph 92 of Diorio (see Ans. 5, 17).
However, as Appellant points out, the cited portions of Diorio do not teach
monitoring user interactions, and paragraph 92 simply teaches “a feature that
notifies the user 10 when a web page has been updated, or a feature that adds
visual separators into the bookmark tree” (FF 4). Neither the notification or
separator addition features can reasonably be interpreted as “monitoring a
level of user interaction associated with each of the tabbed portions” as
required by claim 1. “The protocol of giving claims their broadest
reasonable interpretation during examination does not include giving claims
a legally incorrect interpretation. This protocol is solely an examination
expedient, not a rule of claim construction.” In re Skvorecz, 580 F.3d 1262,
1267 (Fed. Cir. 2009).
6
Appeal 2012-008305
Application 11/476,435

Conclusion of Law
The evidence of record does not support the Examiner’s conclusion
that Diorio teaches “monitoring a level of user interaction associated with
each of the tabbed portions” as recited by independent claims 1, 18, 34, and
35.
B-C. 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejections
These rejections rely upon the underlying anticipation rejection over
Diorio. Having reversed the anticipation rejection over Diorio, we also
necessarily reverse these obviousness rejections because none of the
additionally cited prior art is relied upon to teach “monitoring a level of user
interaction associated with each of the tabbed portions” as required by the
independent claims.
SUMMARY
In summary, we reverse the rejection of claims 1–3, 7, 8, 14–20, 24,
25, and 31–35 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Diorio.
We reverse the rejection of claims 4–6 and 21–23 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as obvious over Diorio and Adjali.
We reverse the rejection of claims 9–13 and 26–30 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as obvious over Diorio and Stark.

REVERSED

dm
7