Ex Parte Veres et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Sep 13, 2010

10252126 (B.P.A.I. Sep. 13, 2010)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte ROBERT DEAN VERES and CHING-JYE LIANG
____________

Appeal 2009-013960
Application 10/252,126
Technology Center 3600
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Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, ANTON W. FETTING, and BIBHU R.
MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judges.

MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1

1 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, or for filing a request for rehearing,
as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 41.52, begins to run from the “MAIL DATE”
(paper delivery mode) or the “NOTIFICATION DATE” (electronic delivery
mode) shown on the PTOL-90A cover letter attached to this decision.

Appeal 2009-013960
Application 10/252,126

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 (2002) of the
final rejection of claims 18-26 and 52 which are all the claims pending in the
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) (2002).

SUMMARY OF THE DECISION
We AFFIRM.

THE INVENTION
The Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a method for
scheduling transaction listings at a network-based transaction facility (Spec.
[0002]). Claim 18, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter
of appeal.

18. A method to receive and schedule a plurality of transaction
listings, transmitted by a seller application, at a network-based
transaction facility, the method including;
receiving a data file at a network-based transaction facility from
a seller application executed at a client machine, the data file
including a plurality of transaction listings, each of the plurality of
transaction listings including an associated start time;
scheduling at the network-based transaction facility publication
of each of the plurality of transaction listings according to the
associated start time; and
publishing each of the plurality of transaction listings at the
network-based transaction facility according to a respective associated
start time.

Appeal 2009-013960
Application 10/252,126

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THE REJECTIONS
The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence in support of the
rejections:
Hammond US 2002/0082977 A1 Jun. 27, 2002
Thin Clients Pull in Car Customers; Auto auction company moves to
Web; Stacy Collett, Computerworld, page 41. Apr. 5, 1999 (PTO-892
Reference “X” (hereinafter “Collett”).
AuctionWatch.com, The Complete Auction Management Solution
Pages 1-30. (PTO-892 Reference “U” (hereinafter “AuctionWatch”).

The following rejections are before us for review:
1. Claims 18-20 and 52 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Auction Watch and Collett.
2. Claims 21-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Auction Watch, Collett, and Hammond.

THE ISSUES
At issue is whether the Appellants have shown that the Examiner
erred in making the aforementioned rejections.
This issue turns on whether it would have been obvious to modify
Auction Watch to receive, schedule, and publish, a plurality of transaction
listings at a network-based transaction facility.

FINDINGS OF FACT
We adopt the Examiner’s findings of fact made at page 3 of the
Answer. We also make the following additional finding of fact:
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Application 10/252,126

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The Appellants’ Specification at Fig. 1 discloses that the Network
Based Transaction Facility 10 includes several servers (12-14, 16, 18, 20,
22, 26, 28).

ANALYSIS
The Appellants argue that the rejection of claim 18 is improper (Br.
10-12). The Appellants argue that the Final Office Action’s position that
the capability of having various tasks performed at a network server versus a
client device is within the capabilities of one skilled in the art is in error
because the Auction Watch reference teaches away from the proposed
combination (Br. 10-11). The Appellants argue that “Auction watch is
designed to be an intermediary between a user and network-based
transaction facilities” and that “if all processing takes place at each
individual network-based facility, Auction Watch ceases to serve any
functional purpose” (Br. 11) so such a modification would not have been
obvious.
In contrast, the Examiner has determined that the rejection of record is
proper (Ans. 3-4, 7-10). The Examiner has determined that “[t]he capability
of having various tasks performed at a network server versus on a client
device is recognized as part of the ordinary capabilities of one skilled in the
art and would have been obvious (Ans. 4). (The Examiner’s rejection makes
the preceding rationale in the rejection without citation to the Collette
reference but then cites to the Collette reference as an example of this being
within the ordinary capabilities of one skilled in the art (Ans. 4)).
We agree with the Examiner. The Examiner has asserted that the
Auction Watch reference has disclosed the features of claim 18 with the
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exception of receiving, scheduling, and publishing, a plurality of transaction
listings at a network-based transaction facility (Ans. 4) and the Appellants
have not disputed this contention in the Brief. We agree with the Examiner
that one of ordinary skill in the art would have found modifying the Auction
Watch system to have those tasks performed on servers of the network-based
transaction facility instead of the user’s to have been an obvious, predictable,
modification if desired to let the network-based system process those tasks if
for instance those computer systems were faster and had more available
space.
“Section 103 forbids issuance of a patent when ‘the differences
between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such
that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the
invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said
subject matter pertains.’” KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 406
(2007). In KSR at 418 the Court noted that “the analysis need not seek out
precise teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged
claim, for a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a
person of ordinary skill in the art would employ.”
Here, one of ordinary skill in the art would have readily seen that
shifting some of the processing to larger systems network servers (a
network-based transaction facility) could free up speed for the user and
prevent the user from using up their hard drive space. The Appellants have
argued that it would not have been obvious to modify the Auction Watch
reference to do so because “if all processing takes place at each individual
network-based facility, Auction Watch ceases to serve any functional
purpose” (Br. 11) but we disagree with this contention.
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Claim 18 does not require that all processing takes place at the
network-based facility, only those functions specifically claimed. The
Auction Watch system could perform other processing functions or simply
act as a conduit for referring business and obtaining a commission of kind
necessitating its use in the system for some other functional purpose. For
these reasons the rejection of claim 18, and it dependent claims which have
not been separately argued, is sustained. The Appellants have provided the
same arguments for claim 52 and the rejection of this claim is sustained for
these same reasons.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
We conclude that Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred
in rejecting claims 18-20 and 52 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Auction Watch and Collett.
We conclude that Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred
in rejecting claims 21-26 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Auction Watch, Collett, and Hammond.

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 18-26 and 52 is sustained.

AFFIRMED

Appeal 2009-013960
Application 10/252,126

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MP

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