Ex Parte Sweet et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

May 14, 2012

10608591 (B.P.A.I. May. 14, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
_____________

Ex parte JAMES M. SWEET, STEVEN J. HARRINGTON, RHYS PRICE
JONES, and ANDREAS SAVAKIS
_____________

Appeal 2010-000698
Application 10/608,591
Technology Center 2100
______________

Before, KALYAN K. DESHPANDE, DAVID M. KOHUT, and
MICHAEL R. ZECHER, Administrative Patent Judges.

KOHUT, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the non-final
rejection of claims 1-15. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of these claims.

INVENTION
The invention is directed to a method and system for identifying the
hyperlinked components of a hypertext document. See generally Spec: 4-7.
Claim 11 is representative of the invention and reproduced below:
11. A system identification methodology for assembling a
document representation for subsequent viewing or printing of
a given hyperlinked hyperdocument by gathering related
hyperlinked page content comprising:
performing a page-level link analysis that identifies those
hyperlinks on a page linking to a candidate document page
further comprising a methodology of:
searching page data to create a list of links in the
hyperdocument;
analyzing each link in conjunction with each other link in
the list of links to identify link pairings;
assembling link pairings in order to form clusters of
links; and,
examining the links in the cluster of links for locality;
performing a recursive application of the page-level link
analysis to the linked candidate document page and any further
nested candidate document pages thereby identified, until a
collective table of content set of identified candidate document
pages is assembled; and
performing a document-level analysis that examines the
collective table of content set of identified candidate document
pages for grouping into one or more documents[;]
examining the collective table of content set of identified
candidate document pages to weed out links from the collective
table of content set which have properties that are not
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characteristic of intra-document links, to provide a resultant set
of identified candidate document pages; and
grouping the content found in the resultant set of candidate
document pages by an automated system into a document
representation stored in memory by the automated system; and,
printing, or viewing on a display by a user, the document
representation.

REFERENCES
Earl US 5,924,104 July 13, 1999

Bharat US 6,112,203 Aug. 29, 2000

Min US 6,633,868 B1 Oct. 14, 2003
(filed July 28, 2000)

REJECTIONS AT ISSUE
Claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Bharat and Earl. Ans. 3-7.
Claims 3, 5, 8, 10, 13, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Bharat, Earl, and Min. Non-Final Rej. 6-7.
ISSUE
Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Bharat and
Earl teaches or suggests examining the collective set of identified candidate
document pages to weed out links from the collective table of content set
which have properties that are not characteristic of intra-document links, to
provide a resultant set of identified candidate document pages?
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ANALYSIS1
We select claim 11 as representative of the group comprising claims
1-15 as Appellants have not argued these claims with particularity. 37
C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). Appellants initially argue that Bharat does not
teach or suggest examining “‘the collective set of identified candidate
document pages to weed out links which have properties that are not
characteristic of intra-document links,’” as required by claim 11. App. Br.
16. However, the Examiner uses Earl to disclose this limitation. Ans. 7-8.
We agree with the Examiner and find this argument to be unpersuasive.
Appellants then argue that Earl does not teach or suggest the above
referenced limitation because Earl’s definition of intra-document is the
Appellants’ definition of intra-page. App. Br. 17. Therefore, Appellants
assert that Earl’s inter-document is what Appellants mean by inter-page.
App. Br. 17. Appellants provide declarations by Sweet and Harrington to
demonstrate that the skilled artisan would agree with this assertion. Sweet
Declaration, pg. 2; Harrington Declaration, pg. 2. We have considered this
evidence and do not consider it to be persuasive that the Examiner erred in
finding that Earl’s inter-document links read on Appellants’ links that have
properties that are not characteristic of intra-document links. Ans. 8-9.
Appellants’ evidence concerning the understanding of a skilled artisan is
premised on the experts’ conclusions without identification of what
particular evidence was relied on for those opinions. Additionally, the
Examiner finds that Appellants’ claims require “links which have properties

1 We note that Appellants have filed a Reply Brief. However, the Reply
Brief presents a new issue not presented before in the Appeal Brief and will,
therefore, not be considered. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.41(a)(2).
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that are not characteristic of intra-document links” and Appellants’
Specification does not specifically define this limitation. Ans. 8. Appellants
fail to specifically address the Examiner’s finding. Thus, we find that the
Examiner has given the claim its broadest reasonable meaning consistent
with the Specification, In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997),
and properly relies on Earl’s inter-document links to meet the claimed
limitation of “links which have properties that are not characteristic of intra-
document links.”
Appellants also argue that Earl does not disclose the above recited
limitation since Earl does not weed out any links, but rather keeps all of
them but displays them differently. App. Br. 18. Appellants argue that the
term “weed out” requires the links to be discarded, or as indicated by the
Sweet Declaration on page 4, “filtered out.” App. Br. 18. Similar to the
explanation above, Appellants’ Specification does not specifically define the
term “weed out” and the declaration does not provide particular evidence
that was relied on for the expert’s opinion. Thus, we find that the Examiner
has given the claim its broadest reasonable meaning consistent with the
Specification, In re Morris, 127 F.3d at 1048, and properly relies on Earl’s
visual discrimination between intra-document and inter-document links
“meet the definition of separating out, weeding out, or filtering out, the links
visually on the screen.” Ans. 10.
Lastly, Appellants argue that neither of the references teach or suggest
“a table of contents.” App. Br. 18. As such, Appellants are merely restating
the limitation and arguing that the reference fails to disclose the limitation.
App. Br. 18-19. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (“A statement which
merely points out what a claim recites will not be considered an argument
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for separate patentability of the claim.”); In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357
(Fed. Cir. 2011) (“[W]e hold that the Board reasonably interpreted Rule
41.37 to require more substantive arguments in an appeal brief than a mere
recitation of the claim elements and a naked assertion that the corresponding
elements were not found in the prior art.”). Even so, the Examiner finds that
Earl’s Figure 2 teaches or suggests this limitation. Ans. 6. We agree with
the Examiner’s finding and note that column 2, lines 36-39 of Earl discloses
that the documents A and B (200) include multiple chapters and appendixes
as would be found in a table of contents.
Thus, for the reasons stated supra, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of claims 1-15.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in finding that the combination of Bharat
and Earl teaches or suggests examining the collective set of identified
candidate document pages to weed out links from the collective table of
content set which have properties that are not characteristic of intra-
document links, to provide a resultant set of identified candidate document
pages.
SUMMARY
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1-15 is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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