Ex Parte TOBIN

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 28, 2016

12761921 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 28, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
121761,921 04/16/2010
25537 7590 02/01/2016
VERIZON
PA TENT MANAGEMENT GROUP
1320 North Court House Road
9th Floor
ARLINGTON, VA 22201-2909
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Roger L. TOBIN
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.
02-8012Cl 2263
EXAMINER
JARRETT, SCOTT L
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3623
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/01/2016 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):
patents@verizon.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ROGER L. TOBIN
Appeal2014-000690
Application 12/7 61,921
Technology Center 3600
Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, and
BIBHU R. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judges.
CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner's
final decision rejecting claims 16-19, 30 and 31. We have jurisdiction over
the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We REVERSE.
Claim 16 is illustrative:
16. A method implemented by a computer system,
wherein the computer system comprises a processor and a
software module embodied on a computer-readable medium,
the software module comprising a set of instructions for
execution by the processor, for increasing sales revenue in a
sales region of a plurality of sales regions, comprising:
Appeal2014-000690
Application 12/7 61,921
developing, by the processor, a logarithmic model
relating a sales parameter and revenue to one or more
characteristics associated with each sales region of the plurality
of sales regions;
producing, by the processor, a sales parameter norm and
a revenue norm based on parameters determined by normalizing
the sales parameter and revenue using the logarithmic model;
comparing the sales parameter norm and the revenue
norm to actual sales parameters and actual revenue values; and
determining future targets for the actual sales parameters.
Appellant appeals the following rejection
1. Claims 16-19, 30, and 31under35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Cravens (Cravens et al., An Analytical Approach for Evaluating Sales
Territory Performance, JOURNAL OF MARKETING, vol. 36, pp. 31-37 (Jan.
1972)), ZS Associates (ZS Associates webpage, http://www.zsassociates.
com (Feb. 2002), retrieved May 19, 2009), and Official Notice.
ISSUE
Did the Examiner err in rejecting the claims because the prior art does
not disclose producing a sales parameter and revenue norm based on
parameters determined by normalizing the sales parameter and the revenue
using a logarithmic model?
ANALYSIS
The Appellant argues that the prior art does not disclose developing a
logarithmic model and using the model to normalize the sales parameter and
revenue using the model. We agree.
The Examiner relies on Craven for teaching modeling sales and
revenue parameters for each of the sales regions of a plurality of sales
2
Appeal2014-000690
Application 12/7 61,921
regions based on one or more characteristics associated with each of the
sales regions (Final Act. 7). The Examiner finds that Cravens does not
expressly teach producing a sales parameter norm and revenue norm by
normalizing the sales parameter and revenue using a logarithmic model.
(Final Act. 12). The Examiner takes Official Notice that normalizing
variables using logarithmic models are old and very well-known and that
such normalizations provide a plurality of well-known benefits. The
Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to use normalization
techniques in Craven because such would have performed the same function
as down separately and the person of ordinary skill in the art would have
recognized the results of the combination were predictable.
We agree with the Appellant that the Examiner has not established
that the prior art discloses a logarithmic model relating sales parameters and
revenue. The relied on portions of Craven do not disclose a logarithmic
model that relates sales parameters and revenue but rather applies a linear
regression analysis to a set of criteria to obtain a sales benchmark. There is
no disclosure in the portions relied on by the Examiner of a logarithmic
model. In addition, the analysis does not relate sales parameters (price, sales
force size (Spec. 2)) to revenue as required by the claims. Therefore, even if
the Examiner is correct that logarithmic models are old and well-known, the
Examiner has not established that a logarithmic model that relates sales
parameters to revenue was known, much less that it would have been
obvious to use such a model to produce a sales parameter norm and a
revenue norm.
In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain the Examiner's rejection
of claim 16 and claims 17-19 dependent therefrom. We will also not sustain
3
Appeal2014-000690
Application 12/7 61,921
this rejection as it is directed to claims 30 and 31 because both claims
require a system or computer-readable medium respectively that produces a
sales parameter norm and a revenue norm using a logarithmic model.
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner is reversed ..
REVERSED
msc
4