Ex Parte Zernik et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 22, 2017

12300494 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 22, 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.
12/300,494 04/28/2009 Dror Zernik P-74373-US 9768
49443 7590 02/24/2017
Pearl Cohen Zedek Latzer Baratz LLP
1500 Broadway
12th Floor
New York, NY 10036
EXAMINER
ANDERSON, FOLASHADE
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3623
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/24/2017 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):
US PTO @ PearlCohen .com
Arch-USPTO @ PearlCohen. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DROR ZERNIK, MOSHE AVLAGON, and HOVAV LAPIDOT
Appeal 2015-001044
Application 12/3 00,4941
Technology Center 3600
Before BIBHU R. MOHANTY, CYNTHIA L. MURPHY, and
ROBERT J. SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
decision rejecting claims 12—31. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b). Oral arguments were presented on February 14, 2017, by telephone.
We REVERSE.
1 The Appellants identify Nice-Systems Ltd. as the real party in interest.
Appeal Br. 1.
Appeal 2015-001044
Application 12/300,494
ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM
12. A method for offering products to customers of a call
center, implemented in a customer relation management (CRM)
system, the method comprising:
receiving, during a specific interaction between a
customer and a call center agent, one or more interaction-
specific parameters values;
during the interaction, determining by a data-mining
model engine based on statistical methods, one or more selected
parameters for which a value associated with the customer is
not stored in the CRM system, using data stored in model tables
that rank customer parameters according to relative contribution
to purchasing of a plurality of products, wherein the model
tables are formed based on results of statistical analysis;
sending instructions to the call center agent to obtain
from the customer, one or more customer-specific values for the
one or more selected parameters, for which a value associated
with the customer is not stored in the CRM system and
receiving from the call center agent the one or more customer-
specific values by the model engine;
during the interaction, choosing by the data-mining
model engine based on statistical methods, one or more of the
plurality of products as a selected product using the model
tables, the stored data and the one or more customer-specific
values for the one or more selected parameters; and
during the interaction, sending instructions to the call
center agent to suggest the selected product as on offer to the
customer.
CITED REFERENCES
The Examiner relies upon the following references:
Wright US 2003/0200135 A1 Oct. 23, 2003
Quatseetal. US 2005/0010472 A1 Jan. 13,2005
(hereinafter “Quatse”)
2
Appeal 2015-001044
Application 12/300,494
Hightower et al. US 2006/0123331 A1 June 8, 2006
(hereinafter “Hightower”)
Prigogin et al. US 7,519,566 B2 Apr. 14, 2009
(hereinafter “Prigogin”)
Ramchandani et al. US 7,962,361 B2 June 14, 2011
(hereinafter “Ramchandani”)
REJECTIONS
I. Claims 12—31 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to
ineligible subject matter.2
II. Claims 12—18 and 22—28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Ramchandani and Hightower.
III. Claims 19 and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Ramchandani, Hightower, and Quatse.
IV. Claims 20 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Ramchandani, Hightower, and Prigogin.
V. Claims 21 and 31 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Ramchandani, Hightower, and Wright.
FINDINGS OF FACT
The findings of fact relied upon, which are supported by a
preponderance of the evidence, appear in the following Analysis.
ANALYSIS
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter
According to the Examiner, following the two-part analytical
framework of Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2355
(2014), claims 12—31 are “directed to the abstract idea of a method of
2 The rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 was added as a New Ground of
Rejection in the Answer (pages 2—3).
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Appeal 2015-001044
Application 12/300,494
organizing human activities to a mathematical relationship or formula” and
the claim language does not “provide meaningful limitation(s) to transform
the abstract idea into a patent eligible application of the abstract idea such
that the claim(s) amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.”
Answer 2—3.
Yet, the Appellants persuasively argue for error because, on the
present record, the rejection does not show that the claimed features fail to
“‘transform the nature of the claim’ into a patent-eligible application.”
Alice, 134 S. Ct. at 2355. As explained by the Appellants, on account of the
ordered combination of the recited features, a call center agent “may be
informed in real time regarding which information related to the customer is
most valuable to the company in order to determine the product which has
the highest probability to be purchased by the customer of a specific call.”
Appeal Br. 4; see also Reply Br. 4. Although the rejection mentions a
“combination of elements” (Answer 2), there are no findings in the record
indicating that these real-time activities constitute generic computer
functions — or, for that matter, any analysis of whether the particular
claimed combination might nevertheless yield a patent-eligible application
of the purported abstract idea. See Bascom Global Internet Services, Inc. v.
AT&T Mobility LLC, 827 F.3d 1341, 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“The inventive
concept inquiry requires more than recognizing that each claim element, by
itself, was known in the art. . . . [A]n inventive concept can be found in the
non-conventional and non-generic arrangement of known, conventional
pieces.”)
Therefore, the rejection of claims 12—31 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 is not
sustained.
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Application 12/300,494
Obviousness
The Appellants argue, among other things, that the cited references do
not teach or suggest claim 12’s use of “data stored in model tables that rank
customer parameters according to relative contribution to purchasing of a
plurality of products.” See Appeal Br. 4—7; Reply Br. 8—9. Independent
claim 22 recites a similar limitation and is likewise argued.
The Appellants’ argument is persuasive of error in the rejection.
The Examiner finds that Ramchandani teaches the identified
limitation of claim 12, in its disclosure of “cataloguing customer behavior”
and its customer relationship management database containing “tables
relating to customer information and customer preferences based on prior
transactions.” See Answer 7—8 (quoting Ramchandani, col. 5,11. 43—50, col.
17,11. 25—35); see also Advisory Action 2 (stating that Ramchandani “ranks
(cataloguing) the customers [sic] interactions as a basis of making
engagement recommendations.”)
Yet, as the Appellants explain, Ramchandani does not disclose the
claimed “rank[ed] customer parameters” because merely catalogued data
about a customer is not the same as the claimed ranked data (see Reply
Br. 8) — let alone ranked “according to relative contribution to purchasing
of a plurality of products” and in real time (i.e., “during the interaction”), as
set forth in claim 12.
In addition, the Final Office Action (pages 3^4 (citing Hightower
117, 31)) states that Hightower teaches the above-identified limitation, but
the cited portions of Hightower do not disclose the claimed “ranking]”
feature (see Appeal Br. 6—7).
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Appeal 2015-001044
Application 12/300,494
In view of the foregoing, the rejection of independent claims 12
and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is not sustained. The Examiner’s further
findings and determinations with respect to the dependent claims and the
additional prior art references do not cure the above-noted shortcomings of
Ramchandani and Hightower, and so the rejections of dependent claims 13—
21 and 23—31 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) are also not sustained.
DECISION
We REVERSE the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 12—31 under
35 U.S.C. § 101.
We REVERSE the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 12—31 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
REVERSED
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