Ex Parte Vdovjak et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 22, 2016

13132951 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 22, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
13/132,951 06/06/2011 Richard Vdovjak
24737 7590 08/24/2016
PHILIPS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & STANDARDS
465 Columbus A venue
Suite 340
Valhalla, NY 10595
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.
2008P01103WOUS 9283
EXAMINER
LULTSCHIK, WILLIAM G
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3626
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/24/2016 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):
marianne.fox@philips.com
debbie.henn@philips.com
patti. demichele@Philips.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte RICHARD VDOVJAK and ANCA IOANA DANIELA BUCUR
Appeal2014-003489
Application 13/132,951 1
Technology Center 3600
Before HUBERT C. LORIN, BART A. GERSTENBLITH, and
BRUCE T. WIEDER, Administrative Patent Judges.
WIEDER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the
Examiner's rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8-17, and 21-26. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM-IN-PART.
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Appellants' claimed invention relates generally to a method "to
reconcile records in a healthcare environment." (Spec., Abstract.)
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Koninklijke Philips
Electronics, N.V. (Appeal Br. 1.)
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Application 13/132,951
Claim 1 is illustrative and is reproduced below (emphasis
added):
1. A method of reconciling customer records between a
plurality of sites comprising:
assigning a unique record number to a customer record
with one or more processors;
with the one or more processors, retrieving demographic
information for a customer record to match said demographic
information against demographic information in a collection of
records in other systems to find records that belong to the same
customer stored in a database;
comparing the customer record demographic information
with at least one other record demographic information in the
collection of records in at least one other system to derive a
likelihood ratio for each compared record with the one or more
processors;
comparing each likelihood ratio to a defined accept
threshold and to a defined reject threshold with the one or more
processors, the comparing including:
rejecting the compared customer records if the
likelihood ratio falls below a reject threshold ratio;
accepting the compared customer records if the
likelihood ratio falls above an accept threshold ratio; and
identifying the customer records for a manual
review if the likelihood ratio falls between the accept
threshold and the reject threshold;
attaching an assertion for the compared customer records
based on at least one likelihood ratio comparison with the one or
more processors;
with the one or more processors, placing the customer
records to be manually reviewed on an exceptions list and
distributing the exception list electronically to the plurality of
sites; and
recording a determination of an accept or reject results
made by manual review at each relevant site.
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REJECTIONS2
Claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11-17, and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Rotter (WO 03/021485 A2, pub. Mar. 13,
2003) and Borthwick (WO 01/22285 A2, pub. Mar. 29, 2001).
Claims 10 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Rotter, Borthwick, and Ross (US 5,823,948, iss.
Oct. 20, 1998).
Claims 23-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Rotter and Lepien (US 6,636,850 B2, iss. Oct. 21, 2003).
Claim 1 is provisionally rejected for nonstatutory obviousness-type
double patenting as unpatentable over claims 1 and 14 of copending U.S.
Patent Application No. 13/132,949 ("the '949 application") and Lepien.
Claim 15 is provisionally rejected for nonstatutory obviousness-type
double patenting as unpatentable over claim 10 of the '949 application and
Lepien.
ANALYSIS
Claims l, 2, and 11-14
In response to the rejection of claim 1 under§ 103, Appellants argue
that Rotter "does not teach placing the records to be manually reviewed on
an exception list and distributing the exception list to the relevant sites, and
2 A rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8-14 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and
distinctly claim the subject matter the inventor regards as the invention, and
a rejection of claims 22 and 24 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, for
failure to comply with the written description requirement were withdrawn
in the Advisory Action mailed June 10, 2013.
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recording a determination of an accept or reject result made by manual
review at each relevant site." (Appeal Br. 10.) Specifically, Appellants
argue that "Rotter does not teach the entire list of records to be reviewed
being distributing [sic] to a plurality of sites." (Id.)
Rotter discloses a method for "identifying first and second records and
applying record matching criteria to compare data element content of the ...
records to determine commonality data" and, if commonality is found,
merging the records. (Rotter, Abstract.) Rotter further discloses that users
may manually determine if the records should be merged and that a record
set may be sent to multiple users to make the determination. (See Rotter 12,
Fig. 6.) "A user also employs the Figure 10 comparison menu to assign a
user determinable status to a record set using item 734. Such status may
indicate 'Not enough information', 'Needs review by a supervisor', or 'To
be merged'," or "Mark Not Duplicate." (Rotter 13, Fig. 10.)
We agree with the Examiner's findings with regard to "Argument A"
on pages 18-20 of the Answer. Specifically, we agree that "Rotter specifies
on page 12 that an administrator may assign records to users via icons such
as the one shown in Figure 5 element 51 O" and that under a broadest
reasonable interpretation, the term "'site' may encompass locations such as
facilities, departments, or any other individual location. A 'site' would
therefore include an individual terminal at which a user is assigned to match
and merge records." (Answer 19.) Appellants do not persuasively argue
why the Examiner's interpretation of "site" is not correct.
We also agree with the Examiner that records to be manually
reviewed as "described on page 12 [of Rotter] and as shown in Figure 6 ...
may be interpreted as being placed on an exceptions list." (Id.) We also
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agree with the Examiner that "assigning a user determinable status as to
whether records should be merged ... may be reasonably interpreted as
reject or accept determinations." (Id.) We also agree with the Examiner that
the claim does not recite reviewing "the entire list of records," as argued by
Appellants. (See id.; see also Appeal Br. 10.) Regardless, if the entire list of
customer records to be reviewed consisted of only one set of customer
records, Rotter teaches reviewing such records. (See Rotter 13.)
Therefore, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claim 1 under§ 103. Claims 2 and 11-14 depend from claim 1 (see Appeal
Br. 11) and are not separately argued. Thus, they fall with claim 1.
Claim 4
Claim 4 depends from claim 2. Claims 2 and 4 recite:
2. The method according to claim 1, further including:
making a positive assertion in response to a recorded
accept result, the positive assertion asserting that the t\'l/O
compared records are related to the same customer; or
making a negative assertion in response to a recorded
reject result, the negative assertion asserting that the two
compared records are not related to the same customer.
4. The method according to claim 2, wherein the assertions
for a pair of records are made at a plurality of sites.
Appellants argue that Rotter "does not teach or suggest assertions
being made for a pair of records" or that "the various users are located at
various sites." (Appeal Br. 11.) Specifically, Appellants argue that merging
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records, as taught by Rotter, "is not the same as making assertions."
(Reply 3.)
We agree with the Examiner's finding that "[o]n page 13,
paragraph 3, Rotter discloses a user initiating the merging of two records
after determining that the records correspond to the same person (i.e., an
accept decision)." (Answer 20.) Additionally, as discussed above, Rotter
discloses in Figure 10 that a compared pair of records may be marked as not
being duplicates, i.e., a reject decision. Appellants do not persuasively argue
why so designating pairs of records "is not the same as making assertions."
(See Reply 3.) Also, for the reasons discussed above, Appellants' argument
that Rotter does not teach various users located at various sites is not
persuasive. Therefore, we affirm the rejection of claim 4 under § 103.
Claims 6 and 8
Claim 6 recites: "The method of claim 2, wherein the assertions are
recorded in lists of assertions."
Claim 8 recites: "The method of claim 2, wherein the assertions are
stored in a database in at least one of a central repository and a plurality of
sites."
The Examiner finds that "Rotter describes recording assertions as
whether or not two records correspond to the same patient" and that
"Borthwick describes manually marking each record pair on a list of
possibly linked records with an assertion as to whether the pair should be
linked." (Final Action 8, citing Borthwick, p. 20, 11. 24--26.) Additionally,
the Examiner finds that Rotter discloses storing assertions in a central
repository. (Id., citing Rotter 13, Fig. 2.) Specifically, element 217 in
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Figure 2 shows a "Clinical Data Repository." (Rotter, Fig. 2.) Appellants
do not persuasively argue why the Examiner's finding is in error.
Moreover, the Examiner determines that in view of Rotter and
Borthwick
[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at
the time the invention was made to arrange sets of manually
generated assertions into lists in order to simplify the process of
marking each record for the human analysts and to make it easier
for analysis to visually track which records have assertions
associated with them.
(Final Action 8.)
Appellants argue that Rotter teaches merging records into a single
record and, thus, does not record assertions. (Appeal Br. 12.) But Rotter
also teaches to "Mark Not Duplicate" a pair of compared records, i.e., Rotter
teaches recording at least negative assertions. (See Rotter, Fig. 10.)
Appellants further argue that "[t]he manual annotation described in
Borth\'l1ick relates to generating a training or testing corpus" and that this
training corpus "does not distinguish between decisions made at different
sites." (Appeal Br. 12.) But neither claim 6 nor 8 recite distinguishing
between decisions made at different sites.
Moreover, Appellants attack Rotter and Borthwick individually.
Nonobviousness is not established by attacking references individually when
the rejection is based, as here, on a combination of references. See In re
Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). A reference "must be
read, not in isolation, but for what it fairly teaches in combination with the
prior art as a whole." Id.
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Therefore, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claims 6 and 8 under § 103.
Claims 9 and 10
Claim 9 recites: "The method of claim 2, wherein the step of making
the acceptance or rejection assertion is performed at a plurality of user sites
and further including: notifying the user sites when two sites make
conflicting assertions about a common record."
Appellants argue that Rotter "does not teach resolving the customer
records with multiple users let alone notifying the user sites when two sites
make conflicting assertions about a common record." (Appeal Br. 13.)
Rotter discloses that "records falsely identified as being potential
duplicate records that are in fact associated with different patients are
indicated as being different records by data entry in a designated record
table. This table is checked during subsequent record matching to prevent
repetition of such a false positive match." (Rotter 6.) The Examiner finds
that "[t]his record table ... is sent to the other sites, including at least the
algorithm site" and that "[i]n the event that a user at a different site attempts
to indicate that the two records correspond to the same patient, the table will
prevent the error." (Final Action 9.) Claim 9 specifies no time period
between making the conflicting assertions.
In Rotter, after a record pair is falsely identified as being duplicative,
Rotter makes a table entry of the error such that when a user attempts to
make the same error, the algorithm checks the table and the relevant table
entry prevents the error. In other words, under the scenario proposed by the
Examiner, a first user identifies a record pair as duplicative, a table entry is
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set, and a second user makes the same false identification, i.e., the conflict is
between the table entry and the user. Although the Examiner finds that the
algorithm that identifies duplicative record pairs is a user (see id.), the
Examiner does not find that the table entry is a user. Thus, we are persuaded
that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 9 under§ 103. Claim 10 depends
from claim 9. Therefore, for the reasons discussed with regard to claim 9,
we are persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 10 under§ 103.3
Claims 15 and 16
Claim 15 recites:
15. An apparatus for reconciling customer records
compnsmg:
a [sic] input device which receives an input customer
record and accompanying demographic data;
a database which stores customer records and
accompanying demographic data;
one or more processors which:
derive a unique customer record number from the
demographic data;
compare at least one customer record demographic
data of at least one customer record with other record
demographic data in a collection of records to derive a
likelihood ratio for each compared record;
compare each likelihood ratio to a defined accept
threshold and to a defined reject threshold and performing
one of:
rejecting the at least one customer record if
the likelihood ratio falls below a reject threshold;
and
3 Claim 10 depends from claim 9. Appellants do not separately argue
claim 10 and indicate that claim 10 stands or falls with claim 1. (See Appeal
Br. 11.) However, in view of our decision reversing the rejection of claim 9,
we also reverse the rejection of claim 10.
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accepting the at least one customer record if
the likelihood ratio falls above an accept threshold;
and
identifying the at least one customer record
for a manual review if the likelihood ratio falls
between the accept threshold and the reject
threshold; and
recording in a central repository whether the at least
one customer record was rejected, accepted, or identified
for manual review and recording whether an assertion is
made by an institution concerning a pair of the customer
records.
Appellants argue that Rotter does not teach: 1) "recording an
assertion which is made by an institution concerning a pair of customer
records," 2) "recording the assertion made by the various users," and
3) "recording an assertion which is made by an institution concerning a pair
of customer records and enable participating sites to independently decide
whether the relevant records submitted for manual review belong to the
same patient." (ii .. ppeal Br. 14.)
With regard to argument 1, for the reasons discussed above with
regard to claims 6 and 8, we are not persuaded of error. With regard to
arguments 2 and 3, claim 15 does not recite "recording the assertion made
by the various users" nor "recording an assertion which is made by an
institution concerning a pair of customer records and enable participating
sites to independently decide whether the relevant records submitted for
manual review belong to the same patient." (See id.; see also Claim 15.)
These arguments are not commensurate with the scope of the claim and,
thus, are not persuasive of error. Claim 16 depends from claim 15.
Appellants do not separately argue claim 16. Therefore, claim 16 falls with
claim 15.
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Claims 17 and 21
Claim 17 depends from claim 16. Claims 16 and 17 recite:
16. The apparatus according to claim 15, wherein the assertion
is defined as positive if the two compared records are determined
to be related to the same customer; and the assertion is defined
as negative ifthe two compared records are determined not to be
related to the same customer.
17. The apparatus according to claim 16, wherein a user of a
user group performs at least one of:
assessing the records and assertions stored in the central
repository and notifying when two conflicting assertions are
made about one record.
Appellants argue that claim 17 "calls for assessing the records and
assertions stored in the central repository and notifying when two conflicting
assertions are made about one record." (Appeal Br. 15.) Although
Appellants correctly quote the majority of claim 17, they omit that the claim
only requires "at least one of assessing the records and assertions stored in
the central repository and notifying when two conflicting assertions are
made about one record" (emphasis added). Claim 17 does not require
performing both assessing and notifying. Appellants' argument, that both
are required, is not commensurate with the scope of the claim and, thus, is
not persuasive.
Moreover, as discussed above with regard to claims 1, 6, and 8, Rotter
teaches assessing records and assertions stored in a central repository. (See,
e.g., Rotter 12-13, Fig. 2.)
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Therefore, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claim 17 under § 103. Claim 21 depends from claim 17. Appellants do not
separately argue claim 21. Therefore, claim 21 falls with claim 17.
Claim 22
Claim 22 recites:
22. The apparatus according to claim 15, further including:
a plurality of the input devices and the database disposed
at a plurality of medical facilities;
a plurality of site specific databases at the plurality of
medical facilities;
a group database accessible from the plurality of medical
facilities; and
wherein the one or more processors are configured to place
the manually reviewed records in a group specific exception list
in the group database and a site specific exceptions list in at least
one of the plurality of site specific databases.
Appellants argue that "Rotter does not teach a group specific
exception list and a site specific exceptions list. Specifically, Rotter does
not teach or suggest an exception list in at least one of the plurality of site
specific databases." (Reply Br. 7.) Appellants also argue that "Borthwick
does not teach distributing the exception list to the relevant sites, and
recording a determination of an accept or reject result made by manual
review at each relevant site." (Appeal Br. 16.)
The Examiner finds, and we agree, that Rotter teaches "a group
database accessible by sites." (Final Action 14, citing Rotter Fig. 2.) The
Examiner also finds, and we agree, that Rotter "teaches a plurality of site
specific databases in [discussing] the background to the invention." (Id.,
citing Rotter 2.) The Examiner then determines that
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it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the [art] at
the time of invention to combine the system of Rotter with the
plurality of site specific databases taught in the known prior art
of its system since each individual element and its function are
shown in the prior art, and although shown in separate references,
the difference between the claimed subject matter and the prior
art rests not on any individual element or function but in the very
combination itself. That is, in the substitution of a plurality of
site specific databases as disclosed as prior art for the central
database of the system itself. Thus, the simple substitution of
one known element for another producing a predictable result
renders the claim obvious.
(Id. at 14--15.)
As discussed above, a reference "must be read, not in isolation, but for
what it fairly teaches in combination with the prior art as a whole." In re
Merck & Co., 800 F.2d at 1097. Here, the Examiner determines that the
claimed invention would have been obvious in view of the combination of
the disclosure of the invention of Rotter with the "site specific databases
taught in the knov,rn prior art of [Rotter's] system." (Final 1A .. ction 14.)
Appellants do not persuasively argue why the Examiner's suggested
combination would not have been obvious. Therefore, we are not persuaded
that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 22 under§ 103.
Claims 23, 25, and 26
Claim 23 recites:
23. A system for matching customers records between a
plurality of sites, the system including:
a global exception list containing a plurality of entries,
each entry containing a plurality of local patient identifiers
referencing a plurality of the customer records that potentially
match;
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a global assertion list which stores a list of assertions of
matching or non-matching records of said plurality of records,
represented by said patient identifiers;
one or more processors which distribute the global
exception list and the global assertion list to the plurality of sites,
taking into account locally relevant information;
wherein each one of the plurality of sites includes one or
more processor programmed to:
resolve the local exception list of the one of the
plurality of sites by making assertions about matches or
non-matches for potentially matching customers [sic]
records in the local exception list; and
propagate said assertions into the global assertion
list.
Appellants argue that Rotter
does not teach each one of the plurality of sites resolving the local
exception list of the one of the plurality of sites by making
assertions about matches or non-matches for potentially
matching customers [sic] records in the local exception list and
propagate said assertions into the global assertion list.
(Appeal Br. 17.)
Appellants do not explain why the "local exception list" does not
include a record pair such as that shown in Figure 10 of Rotter. (See Final
Action 17.) Moreover, Figure 10, as discussed above, discloses that a
compared pair of records may be marked as not being duplicates, i.e., a
reject decision, made by the user at one of a plurality of sites, with that
decision being propagated back to the record table. (See Rotter, Fig. 10; see
also id. at 6, 13.)
Appellants further argue that "Rotter does not teach the entire list of
records to be reviewed being distributing [sic] to a plurality of sites."
(Appeal Br. 17.) However, claim 23 does not recite that the entire list of
records must be distributed to a plurality of sites. Regardless, as discussed
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above, if the entire list of customer records to be reviewed consisted of only
one set of customer records, i.e., the records shown in Figure 10, Rotter
teaches reviewing such records. (See Rotter 13.)
Appellants also argue that "Lepien does not teach or suggest resolving
a local exception list of one of the plurality of sites by making assertions
about matches or non-matches for potentially matching customers." (Appeal
Br. 18.)
The Examiner finds, and we agree, that
[i]n Column 2 lines 5 through 17 and Column 4 lines 14 through
26, Lepien describes performing a comparison through use of at
least one processor of two customer records by applying positive
and negative thresholds and determining whether two records are
equivalent based on a comparison of accumulators to the
thresholds.
(Answer 33.) Thus, Lepien resolves the local exception list for that site, e.g.,
where the list consists of the record pair compared, through use of a
processor, by making a determination as to \'l1hether the records match.
Therefore, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claim 23 under § 103. Claims 25 and 26 depend from claim 23. Appellants
do not separately argue claims 25 and 26. Therefore, claims 25 and 26 fall
with claim 23.
Claim 24
Claim 24 recites: "The system according to claim 23, wherein the
assertions propagated into the global assertion list indicate that for the
particular site that made the assertion, the provided assertion constitutes a
local ground truth."
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With regard to the term "local ground truth," the Specification states
that "[i]ndividual assertions are maintained for every institution, serving as a
local ground truth with respect to the institution that issued them, but not
necessarily for other institutions." (Spec. 5.)
Appellants argue that Rotter "does not teach placing the records to be
manually reviewed on an exception list and distributing the exception list to
the relevant sites, and recording a determination of an accept or reject result
made by manual review at each relevant site which is then stored in a global
assertion list." (Appeal Br. 18; see also Reply Br. 8-9.)
Claim 24 does not recite "placing the records to be manually reviewed
on an exception list." Appellants' argument is not commensurate with the
scope of the claim and, thus, is not persuasive of error.
Appellants' other arguments have been considered but are not deemed
persuasive of reversible error.
The provisional obviousness-type double patenting rejections
Claims 1 and 15 are provisionally rejected for obviousness-type
double patenting. (Final Action 19-25.) Appellants do not address these
rejections in the Appeal Brief. Therefore, we summarily affirm the
provisional obviousness-type double patenting rejections of claims 1 and 15.
DECISION
The Examiner's rejections of claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 11-17, and 21-26
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) are affirmed.
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The Examiner's rejection of claims 9 and 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
is reversed.
The Examiner's provisional rejections of claims 1 and 15 for
nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting are affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal maybe extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv)(2013).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
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