Ex Parte Zha et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 16, 201412416896 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 16, 2014) Copy Citation 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. 12/416,896 04/01/2009 Hongyuan Zha 50269-1166 5340 73066 7590 12/17/2014 HICKMAN PALERMO TRUONG BECKER BINGHAM WONG/Yahoo! 1 Almaden Boulevard Floor 12 San Jose, CA 95113 EXAMINER AL HASHEMI, SANA A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2156 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/17/2014 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte HONGYUAN ZHA and SEAN SUCHTER ____________ Appeal 2012-004708 Application 12/416,896 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before JEAN R. HOMERE, CARLA M. KRIVAK, and JOHNNY A. KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judges. KRIVAK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1–20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. Appeal 2012-004708 Application 12/416,896 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to “to associating documents with classification values, and ranking documents that are associated with classifications based on weights associated with the classification values” (Spec. ¶ 4). Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A method of associating nation information with a document, the method comprising the steps of: determining whether a top-level domain indicated in a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of a host is a national domain; and in response to determining that the top-level domain of the host is not a national domain: (a) determining which particular nations said host is associated with based on factors other than said top-level domain, and (b) associating the document with at least one of said particular nations; wherein the top-level domain is a suffix that follows a last period in a host name of the host in the URL; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices. REFERENCES and REJECTIONS The Examiner rejected claims 1–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Kerven (US 2002/0042784 A1, Apr. 11, 2002, filed Oct. 8, 2001) and Dooley (US 2002/0035611 A1, Mar. 21, 2002, filed Dec. 28, 2000) The Examiner rejected claims 1–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Kerven and Schneider (US 6,895,430 B1, May 17, 2005, filed June 21, 2000). Appeal 2012-004708 Application 12/416,896 3 ANALYSIS The Examiner finds Kerven discloses all the features of Appellants’ independent claims 1, 9, and 10 except for a top-level domain having a suffix following a last period in a host name of a host in a URL (Ans. 5, 8). The Examiner finds Dooley and Schneider disclose this feature (id.). Appellants contend the Examiner’s reliance on paragraphs 46 and 70 of Kerven to disclose the step of determining a top-level domain indicated by a URL of the host is a national domain, as recited in claim 1, is unfounded (App. Br. 6–9; Reply Br. 2–3). Appellants assert although the Examiner shows the existence of top-level domains, the teachings of Kerven, in combination with Dooley or Schneider, are insufficient to teach or suggest “determining whether a top-level domain indicated in a URL is or is not a national domain” (Reply Br. 3, 4). We agree with Appellants. We further agree the combination of Kerven and Dooley does not disclose determining which particular nations a host is associated based on factors other than a top-level domain (App. Br. 4-6; Reply Br. 5–6). We also agree with Appellants’ contentions regarding separately argued independent claim 10 (App. Br. 18–21; Reply Br. 7–9). Thus, for these reasons we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–20 over the cited combination of references. DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–20 is reversed. 1 1 Judge Homere concurs in the result only, but not the analysis in support thereof. Appeal 2012-004708 Application 12/416,896 4 REVERSED ELD Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation