Ex Parte Speiser et alDownload PDFBoard of Patent Appeals and InterferencesOct 31, 201111405209 (B.P.A.I. Oct. 31, 2011) Copy Citation 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 ____________ 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 2 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). Appeal 2010-006753 Application 11/405,209 3 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 Appeal 2010-006753 Application 11/405,209 4 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 Appeal 2010-006753 Application 11/405,209 5 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 hh Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation