Ex Parte Ur et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 9, 2017

13808889 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 9, 2017)

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.
13/808,889 01/07/2013 Shmuel Ur 2817.0432USWO 8522
89828 7590
Turk IP Law, LLC
c/o Xinova, LLC
701 5th Ave
Suite 4100
Seattle, WA 98104
EXAMINER
OBISESAN, AUGUSTINE KUNLE
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2156
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/13/2017 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):
docketing @ turkiplaw .com
Xinova-Docket @ clairvolex. com
c arlt @ turkiplaw .com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SHMUEL UR and SHAY BUSHINSKY
Appeal 2017-000084
Application 13/808,889
Technology Center 2100
Before JEFFREY S. SMITH, BETH Z. SHAW, and
JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judges.
SHAW, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1—27, which represent all the claims
pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
INVENTION
The invention relates to identifying a creator of a set of visual files.
See Spec. 13.
Appeal 2017-000084
Application 13/808,889
Claim 1 is representative and is reproduced below:
1. A computer-implemented method to attribute a
personal identity of a creator to a set of visual files in a
visual file database comprising:
determining a set of visual files that may have a common
creator from a visual file database having a plurality of visual
files and data associated with each of the visual files;
determining a list of multiple personal identities of
creators of the set of visual files by analyzing a content of the
set of visual files using facial recognition techniques and by
analyzing supplemental data including metadata
associated with the set of visual files;
determining a most likely personal identity of a creator
from the list of multiple personal identities of creators by
applying a weighting to the list of multiple personal identities
based on at least one of optimum names, objects, or locations
associated with the supplemental data;
attributing the most likely personal identity of the creator
to the set of visual files; and
including the most likely personal identity in the data
associated with each of the visual files in the set of visual files
in the visual file database.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 2, 4—22, and 24—27 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Malone et al. (US 2004/0125208 Al,
published July 1, 2004), Deodhar et al. (US 2012/0259849 Al, published
Oct. 11, 2012), and Gallagher et al. (US 2009/0046933 Al, published Feb.
19,2009). Final Act. 4—17.
The Examiner rejected claims 3 and 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Malone, Deodhar, Gallagher, and Patil et al. (US
2012/0278824 Al, published Nov. 1,2012). Final Act. 17—22.
2
Appeal 2017-000084
Application 13/808,889
ANALYSIS
We conclude the Examiner did not err in finding one skilled in the art
would have recognized the combination of references teaches or suggests the
disputed limitations in claims 1—27. We refer to, rely on, and adopt the
Examiner’s findings and conclusions set forth in the Final Rejection and
Answer (Final Act. 2—22; Ans. 2—9).
Appellants argue Malone does not teach or suggest “determining a list
of multiple personal identities of creators of the set of visual files by
analyzing a content of the set of visual files using facial recognition
techniques and by analyzing supplemental data including metadata
associated with the set of visual files.” Br. 5—6. The Examiner, however,
relies on Gallagher, and not Malone alone, as teaching this limitation. Final
Act. 7—8.
Appellants also argue that Gallagher fails to teach this limitation and
“also appears to teach away from the claimed subject matter.” Br. 7—8.
First, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that Gallagher teaches this
limitation because Gallagher describes how features from a digital object are
extracted and compared with appearance features stored in a database, along
with “face detection,” which teaches “analyzing a content of the set of visual
files using facial recognition techniques,” as recited in claim 1. Ans. 3
(citing Gallagher || 12—13, 37). Moreover, Gallagher describes capture
information such as time, location, focal length, number of rows and
columns of pixels, which teaches the claimed “analyzing supplemental data
including metadata associated with the set of visual files,” as recited in claim
1. Furthermore, we are not persuaded that Gallagher teaches away from the
3
Appeal 2017-000084
Application 13/808,889
claimed subject matter because Gallagher’s “disclosure of more than one
alternative does not constitute a teaching away from any of these alternatives
because such disclosure does not criticize, discredit, or otherwise discourage
the solution claimed . . In re Fulton, 391 F.3d 1195, 1201 (Fed. Cir.
2004).
Appellants also argue that Deodhar does not teach or suggest
“determining a most likely personal identity of a creator from the list of
multiple personal identities of creators by applying a weighting to the list of
multiple personal identities based on at least one of optimum names, objects,
or locations associated with the supplemental data,” as recited in claim 1.
However, the Examiner finds that Deodhar teaches this limitation because
Deodhar selects an inferred owner from a pool of users based on access
metrics. Ans. 4 (citing Deodhar H 6 and 8). We agree with the Examiner’s
findings and conclusions because Deodhar describes determining a most
likely personal identity of a creator (selecting an inferred file owner,
Deodhar || 6, 8) from a list of multiple personal identities (pool of related
users or owners, Deodhar || 6, 8) by applying a weighting to the list of
multiple personal identities based on at least one of optimum names, objects,
or locations associated with the supplemental data (examines file content to
determine ownership, determining a file type, a content group, filtering the
related files by the content grouping and the file type; the user who has the
most accesses of related files is the inferred owner; Deodhar | 8).
Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claim 1.
Remaining pending claims
With respect to the remaining pending claims, Appellants merely
4
Appeal 2017-000084
Application 13/808,889
reiterate substantially the same patentability arguments as those previously
discussed for the claim 1. See Br. 8—11. Consequently, we affirm the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—27.
DECISION
We affirm the rejections of claims 1—27.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
5