Ex Parte Speiser et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Oct 31, 2011

11405209 (B.P.A.I. Oct. 31, 2011)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte MICHAEL L. SPEISER and LEONARD SPEISER
____________

Appeal 2010-006753
Application 11/405,209
Technology Center 3600
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Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, HUBERT C. LORIN, and ANTON W.
FETTING, Administrative Patent Judges.

CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2010-006753
Application 11/405,209

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s
final decision rejecting claims 1 to 6, 14 to 16, 20 to 25, 33 to 40, 48, and 49.
We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
Claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A system, comprising:
one or more processors; and
a memory coupled to the processors,
wherein the memory stores program instructions
executable by the one or more processors to
implement a contest manager configured to:
collect an entry fee corresponding to
each entry of a plurality of entries submitted by a
plurality of entrants for a contest over a network
each entry including content related to the content;
provide a prize to a winning entry of
the contest based at least in part on a total amount
of entry fees collected for the contest;
license the content of the winning
entry to provide royalties to the entrant of the
winning entry; and
provide consolation prizes to the
plurality of entrants of non-winning entries.
Appellants appeal the following rejections:
1. Claims 14 to 16, 33 to 35, and 48 to 49 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
anticipated by Patchen (US Pub. No. 2002/0198050 A1, pub. Dec. 26,
2002).

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2. Claims 1 to 6, 20 to 25, and 36 to 40 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Nelson (US Pub. No. 2002/0004424 A1, pub. Jan. 10,
2002) in view of Walker (US Pub. No. 2003/0013516 A1, pub. Jan. 16,
2003).

ISSUES
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 14 because Patchen does not
disclose a memory which store program instructions to adjust a weight
associated with a vote of a particular voter based on the success of the
particular voter in predicting the outcome of previous contest rounds?
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 1 because Walker does not
disclose a memory which stores program instructions executable by one or
more processors configured to license the content of the winning entry to
provide royalties to the entrant of the winning entry?

FACTUAL FINDINGS
Patchen discloses a viewer interactive event system. Paragraph
[0031] of Patchen discloses that photographs of contestants in a contest are
posted on a page and rated by registered viewers on a number scale of 1 to
10. This rating is entered into a database and averaged after all ratings have
been submitted. Registered viewers can access the database and change
their ratings.
Walker discloses that the terms “‘products,’” “‘goods,’”
“‘merchandise,’” and “‘services’” shall be synonymous and may refer to
anything licensed, leased, sold, available for sale, available for lease,
available for licensing, and/or offered or presented for sale, lease or
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licensing (para. [0027]). The term merchant may refer to any entity who
may offer to sell, lease, and/or license one or more products to a consumer
(para. [0028]).

ANALYSIS
The Appellants argue that Patchen does not disclose a memory storing
program instructions to adjust a weight associated with a vote of a particular
voter based on the success of the particular voter in predicting the outcome
of previous contests rounds. The Examiner relies on paragraph [0031] of
Patchen for teaching this subject matter. However, this paragraph discloses
nothing about adjusting the weight associated with a voter much less
adjusting the weight based on the particular voter predicting the outcome of
the previous contests rounds. Rather, this paragraph merely discloses that
the viewers can rate a photograph and later change the rating.
In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of claim 14 and claims 15 and 16 dependent thereon. We will also not
sustain this rejection as it is directed to claims 33 and 48, claims 34 and 35
dependent on claim 33, and claim 49 dependent on claim 48 because claims
33 and 48 include similar recitations related to adjusting a weight associated
with a vote.
We agree with the Appellants that Walker does not disclose a memory
which stores program instructions executable by one or more processors
configured to license the content of the winning entry to provide royalties to
the entrant of the winning entry. Although Walker does mention licensing

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products, there is no disclosure of licensing the content of a winning entry to
provide royalties to the entrant of the winning entry. Therefore, we will not
sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1 to 6, 20 to 25, and 36 to 40.

DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision.

REVERSED

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