Ex Parte Zamani et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 27, 2016

12061547 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 27, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/061,547 04/02/2008
26379 7590 09/29/2016
DLA PIPER LLP (US )
2000 UNIVERSITY A VENUE
EAST PALO ALTO, CA 94303-2248
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Pa yam Zamani
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.
353952-991001 8689
EXAMINER
ULLAH MASUD, MOHAMMAD R
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3687
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/29/2016 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):
PatentDocketing US-PaloAlto@dlapiper.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte PAY AM ZAMAN!, WILLIAM J. BROWN,
and ERNEST RODRIGUES Jr.
Appeal2014-005616
Application 12/061,547
Technology Center 3600
Before BIBHU R. MOHANTY, JAMES A. WORTH, and
BRADLEY B. BAY AT, Administrative Patent Judges.
MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final
rejection of claims 1-39, which are all the claims pending in the application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
SUMMARY OF THE DECISION
We REVERSE.
Appeal2014-005616
Application 12/061,547
THE INVENTION
The Appellants' claimed invention is directed to a lead marketplace
system and method (Spec. 1, lines 12, 13). Claim 1, reproduced below, is
representative of the subject matter on appeal.
1. A lead marketplace system, comprising:
a storage system that stores a plurality of leads wherein each
lead is an electronic contact and transactional information that
provides an opportunity to sell a good or service to a
prospective customer;
a Lead Seller unit that stores one or more selling campaigns for
one or more Lead Sellers, each selling campaign enabling the
association of one or more leads to be sold in the lead marketplace
system;
a Lead Buyer unit that stores one or more buying campaigns for
one or more Lead Buyers, each buying campaign including one or
more parameters specifying the characteristics of leads to be bought
by the Lead Buyer associated with the buying campaign;
an auction manager that performs a time period limited auction
for each lead stored in the storage system for sale by a Lead Seller to
one or more Lead Buyers; and
the auction manager further comprising a lead auction thread
for each lead that sets a time period for an auction of each leads
associated with the selling campaign, that accepts bids from the one or
more Lead Buyers and that sells the leads associated with the selling
campaign to a group of Lead Buyers that generate the greatest amount
of money.
THE REJECTIONS
The following rejections are before us for review:
1. Claims 1, 2, 4--13, 21-23, 25-32, and 39 are rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by Razletovskiy (US 2006/0200360 Al,
Sept. 7, 2006).
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Appeal2014-005616
Application 12/061,547
2. Claims 3, 14, 15, 17-19, 24, 33, 34, 36, and 37 are rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Razletovskiy and Tivey (US
2004/0143473 Al, Jul. 22, 2004).
3. Claims 16, 20, 35, and 38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Razletovskiy, Tivey, and Official Notice.
FINDINGS OF FACT
We have determined that the findings of fact in the Analysis section
below are supported at least by a preponderance of the evidence1.
ANALYSIS
The Appellants argue that the rejection of claim 1 is improper because
the claim limitation for an auction manager that performs "a time period
limited auction for each lead" is not disclosed by the cited prior art (App. Br.
6-8, Reply Br. 2-5).
In contrast, the Examiner has determined that the cited claim
limitation is found in Razletovskiy at Figures 1, 7, 12 (item 84a), and
paragraphs 28 and 37 (Ans. 2, 3).
We agree with the Appellants. The argued claim limitation recites
an auction manager that performs a time period limited auction for
each lead stored in the storage system for sale by a Lead Seller to one
or more Lead Buyers.
1 See Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988)
(explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the
Patent Office).
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Appeal2014-005616
Application 12/061,547
(Claim 1, emphasis added). Here, the limitation requires that the auction
manager perform a time period limited auction for each lead. Support for
this claim limitation is found in the Specification drawings for instance at
Figure 6 which show that a closing time closes the auction. In contrast,
Razletovskiy at the above citations fails to disclose this. For example,
Razletovskiy at Figure 12 does disclose Leads that are Submitted "Real-
Time (up to 12 hours)" but this is for the Leads that may be bid on, not a
"time period limited auction for each lead" in the manner claimed in light of
the Specification, which is a time limit for the auction in some manner.
Razletovskiy at para. 37 does disclose a daily budget filter for purchasing the
leads but this is a monetary limit rather than a time period limited auction.
The Examiner in the response section has cited to page 29 of the
Appellants' Specification2 as stating that "[t]he budget may specify the
maximum number of leads and/or the maximum amount of money to spend
on leads during one or more time periods and the budget may be associated
with the particular buying campaign or with a particular Lead Buyer
account" (Ans. 3). However, this citation to the Appellants' Specification
fails to show that the cited prior art meets the argued claim limitation for "a
time period limited auction for each lead."
As the above cited claim limitation has not been shown in the cited
prior art, this rejection is not sustained. The remaining claims contain a
similar limitation and the rejection of these claims is not sustained for the
same reasons given above.
2 This citation by the Examiner is considered to refer to the priority
document 61/021,292.
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Appeal2014-005616
Application 12/061,547
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
We conclude that Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred in
rejecting the claims as listed in the Rejections section above.
DECISION
The Examiner's rejection of claims 1-39 is reversed.
REVERSED
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