Facebook, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Feb 10, 2021

2019004269 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 10, 2021)

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.
15/277,385 09/27/2016 Changhao Jiang 079894.4199 5546
91230 7590 02/10/2021
BAKER BOTTS L.L.P./FACEBOOK INC.
2001 ROSS AVENUE
SUITE 900
DALLAS, TX 75201
EXAMINER
LE, JESSICA N
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2169
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/10/2021 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):
Cal-PTOmail@bakerbotts.com
judy.wan@bakerbotts.com
ptomail1@bakerbotts.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
________________

Ex parte CHANGHAO JIANG and XIAOLIANG WEI1
________________

Appeal 2019-004269
Application 15/277,385
Technology Center 2100
________________

Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, JASON V. MORGAN, and
PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges.

BAUMEISTER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of claims 1–18. Appeal
Br. 6. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
The Board conducts a limited de novo review of the appealed
rejections for error based upon the issues identified by Appellant, and in
light of the arguments and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye,
94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential).
We REVERSE.

1 Appellant identifies Facebook, Inc., as the real party in interest. Appeal
Brief filed November 6, 2018 (“Appeal Br.”), 3.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Appellant describes the present invention as “[r]elat[ing] generally to
serving structured documents (such as web pages) to remote clients and,
more particularly, to using predictive resource identification and phased,
partial delivery of structured documents for use in efficiently rendering
structured documents and decreasing perceived rendering time.” Spec. ¶ 2.
“Particular embodiments relate to accessing a resource utilization log to
predict what resources may be required for a particular web page before the
web page is actually generated and transmitted to a client computing device,
or even requested by a client computing device.” Id. ¶ 9.
[W]hen a request for a particular web page is received by
the host server or system, the host checks a data array to identify
the resources that are likely to be required in rendering the web
page. In particular embodiments, the host transmits these
resources, or references to these resources, in a first response or
first response portion that corresponds to a first portion of the
requested web page. Subsequently, the host proceeds to generate
the remainder of the requested web page and formulates a second
response or second response portion that includes the rest of the
web page and resources, or references to such resources, not
transmitted in the first response portion. . . . In this way, the client
device may start downloading the resources identified in the first
response portion, such as embedded scripts and style sheets, while
the rest of the web page is being generated by the host, thereby
potentially reducing the time required to render the web page at
the client device.
Spec. ¶ 10.
Independent claim 1, reproduced below with disputed claim language
emphasized, illustrates the subject matter of the appealed claims:
1. A method comprising:
sending, by a client device, a request to a computer server
system for a target structured document;
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receiving, by the client device in a first response phase, a
first response portion from the computer server system, wherein
the first response portion comprises one or more first resources
associated with the target structured document or references to
the one or more first resources, wherein for each of the one or
more first resources, a likelihood that the first resource will be
included in a response to a future request for the target structured
document exceeds a first predetermined threshold;
processing, by the client device, the first resources for
rendering as part of the target structured document at the client
device, wherein the processing comprises:
parsing one or more of the first resources, or
executing one or more of the first resources; and
receiving, by the client device in a second response phase
that is subsequent to the first response phase and the processing,
a second response portion from the computer server system,
wherein the second response portion comprises one or more
second resources associated with the target structured document
or references to the one or more second resources, wherein for
each of the one or more second resources, the second resource
is not comprised by the first response portion.
Appeal Br. 13.

STATEMENT OF THE REJECTIONS2
Claims 1, 3–7, 9–13, and 15–18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lahav (US 2010/0023475 A1; published

2 Initially, the Examiner had additionally rejection claims 1–18 under
35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to a judicial exception to patent eligible
subject matter without reciting significantly more. Final Act. 2–4.
However, the Examiner subsequently withdrew this rejection. Examiner’s
Answer mailed March 21, 2019 (“Ans.”), 3.
The Examiner also rejected claims 1–18 on the ground of nonstatutory
double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1–15 of Jiang
(US 8,108,377 B2; issued Jan. 31, 2012) and over claims 1–21 of Jiang
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Jan. 28, 2010) and Davison (US 2003/0037069 A1; published Feb. 20,
2003). Final Action mailed May 18, 2018 (“Final Act.”), 6–10.3
Claims 2, 8, and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Lahav, Davison, and Colton et al. (US 8,639,743; issued
Jan. 28, 2014) (“Colton”). Final Action mailed May 18, 2018 (“Final Act.”),
10–11.

DETERMINATIONS AND CONTENTIONS
The Examiner finds that Lahav discloses most of the limitations of
independent claim 1, with the exception of failing to teach that the
processing of the resources for rendering entails the recited parsing and
executing steps. Final Act. 6–8. The Examiner relies on Davison for
teaching these steps (id. at 8) and determines that motivation existed to
combine the references’ teachings (id. at 9).
The Examiner acknowledges, “the overall concept of the claim[ed]
invention is directed to the delivery of [sic: a] structured document (e.g.,
web page) to the client.” Examiner’s Answer mailed Mar. 23, 2019
(“Ans.”), 6. But the Examiner then proceeds to map the claimed first

(US 9,471,705 B2; issued Oct. 18, 2016). Final Act. 4–5. Appellant
subsequently filed a terminal disclaimer to obviate these rejections. Reply
Br. 2 (May 8, 2019). Accordingly, we understand the double-patenting
rejections to be moot.
3 The heading of the obviousness rejection over Lahav and Davison states
that only claims 1, 3–7, 10, 12–15, and 18 are rejected. Final Act. 6.
However the body of the rejection further states, “[c]laims 7, 9–13, 15–18
are rejected in the analysis of above claims 1, 3–6.” Final Act. 10.
Accordingly, we understand the heading of the rejection to contain a clerical
error and that all of claims 1, 3–7, 9–13, and 15–18 are rejected under the
combination of Lahav and Davison.
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resource and second resource of a single structured document to objects,
such as hyperlinks, that are contained, respectively, in first and second web
pages. Id. at 8 (“links . . . receive HTTP requests from the plurality of
[surfer terminals] 110, and deliver web pages in respon[se] with HTML
files”) (emphasis omitted).
Appellant argues that the cited passages of Lahav do not teach or
suggest receiving a second response portion of a target structured document
by the client device in a second response phase that is subsequent to the first
response phase and the processing, as recited in claim 1. Appeal Br. 10.
Appellant further argues that Davison does not cure this deficiency. Id.

ANALYSIS
Appellant’s arguments are persuasive. Lahav is directed to “a system
and method for creating a predictive model to select an object from a group
of objects that can be associated with a requested web page.” Lahav, Abst.
“For each content object presented over a requested web page, a predictive
model with relevant predictive factors is processed such that the predicted
objective, the probability of success for example, is calculated.” Id.
“Subsequently, the objects with the highest predictive expected utility are
selected to be associated with the links in the web page requested by the
[internet] surfer.” Id.
That is, Lahav is concerned with a different problem—predicting
which objects should be placed in a given web page. The Examiner does not
cite to any passage of Lahav that discloses receiving the objects of a given
web page in two consecutive phases. See generally Final Act.
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Furthermore, the examiner has not established why it would be
reasonable to interpret “a target structured document” (in the singular form),
as recited in claim 1, as reading on two separate web pages. To be sure, it is
well settled that the indefinite article “a” or “an” means “one or more” in
open-ended claims containing the transitional phrase, “comprising.” KCJ
Corp. v. Kinetic Concepts, Inc., 223 F.3d 1351, 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2000). But
“[w]hen the claim language and specification indicate that ‘a’ means one and
only one, it is appropriate to construe it as such even in the context of an
open-ended ‘comprising’ claim.” Harari v. Lee, 656 F.3d 1331, 1341 (Fed.
Cir. 2011). Here, though, claim 1 subsequently sets forth “the first response
portion comprises one or more first resources associated with the target
structure document” and “the second response portion comprises one or
more second resources associated with the target structure document.” Read
as a whole, claim 1 is reasonably clear that while the method may entail
sending one or more target structured documents, the claimed first and
second responses pertain to only one individual document of the potentially
multiple documents.
As such, the Examiner has not established that it would be reasonable
to interpret the claim requirement of sending two portions of a single target
structured document as reading on sending objects consecutively in two
separate web pages. Ans. 8. We, therefore, reverse the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of independent claim 1, and also of claims 3–7, 9–13,
and 15–18, which either depend from claim 1 or otherwise set forth similar
limitation.
With respect to the remaining obviousness rejection of dependent
claims 2, 8, and 14, the Examiner does not rely on the additional teachings
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of Colton to the deficiency of the obviousness rejection explained above.
Final Act. 10–11. Accordingly, we reverse the obviousness rejection of
these claims for the reasons set forth in relation to independent claim 1.

DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:

REVERSED

Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference Affirmed Reversed
1, 3–7, 9–13,
15–18
103 Lahav, Davison 1, 3–7, 9–13,
15–18
2, 8, 14 103 Lahav, Davison 2, 8, 14
Overall
Outcome
1–18