INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Aug 3, 2021

2020003665 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 3, 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.
14/921,504 10/23/2015 NNAEMEKA I. EMEJULU AUS920150336US1 6373
89553 7590 08/03/2021
Law Office of Anthony England SVL
IBM - Silicon Valley
2007 Raleigh Avenue
Austin, TX 78703
EXAMINER
GUILIANO, CHARLES A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3623
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/03/2021 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):
a@aengland.com
s@aengland.com
s@smaze.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
________________

Ex parte NNAEMEKA I. EMEJULU, ANDREW J. LAVERY,
MARIO A. MALDARI, and
KARTHIKEYAN RAMAMOORTHY1
________________

Appeal 2020-003665
Application 14/921,504
Technology Center 3600
________________

Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, ERIC B. CHEN, and
DAVID J. CUTITTA II, Administrative Patent Judges.

BAUMEISTER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1, 3, 5–8, 10, 12–15, 17, 19, and 20, which constitute all
claims pending in this application. Appeal Br. 4–18. 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 The word “Appellant” is used to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies International Business Machines
Corporation as the real party in interest. Appeal Brief filed November 15,
2019 (“Appeal Br.”) at 2.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Appellant describes the present invention as follows:
A technique for improving meeting participation in
electronically calendared meetings includes a data processing
system receiving an electronic invitation to a virtual meeting that
requires access to one or more referenced resources for a meeting
invitee to fully participate in the meeting. Whether the invitee
has access to the referenced resources is determined by a data
processing system. In response to determining that the invitee
does not have access to the referenced resources, access for the
invitee to the referenced resources is provisioned by a data
processing system. Finally, the meeting is added to an electronic
calendar associated with the invitee.
Abstract.
Independent claim 1 illustrates the subject matter of the appealed
claims. Claim 1 is reproduced below with paragraph designators added for
clarity and emphasis added to the disputed claim language:
1. A method of improving meeting participation in
electronically calendared meetings, comprising:
[(a)] creating, using a data processing system, an
electronic invitation to a virtual meeting that requires access to
one or more referenced resources for meeting invitees to fully
participate in the meeting;
[(b)] determining, using the data processing system,
whether each of the invitees has access to the referenced
resources required for the meeting by accessing a centralized
authentication service;
[(c)] in response to determining that one or more of the
invitees does not have access to the referenced resources required
for the meeting, provisioning, using the data processing system,
access for the one or more of the invitees to the referenced
resources by authenticating and authorizing the one or more of
the invitees for the referenced resources with the centralized
authentication service, wherein the referenced resources include
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a uniform resource locator (URL) to a resource that includes one
or more of a Wiki page, a confidential document in a team room,
and source code stored in a source code management system;
[(d)] initiating adding, subsequent to the provisioning and
prior to the meeting, using the data processing system, the
meeting to an electronic calendar associated with the one or
more of the invitees based on the electronic invitation;
[(e)] determining prior to the meeting, using the data
processing system, whether each of the invitees has access to
software required for the invitees to fully participate in the
meeting; and
[(f)] in response to determining prior to the meeting that at
least one of the invitees does not have access to the required
software, initiating installing prior to the meeting, using the data
processing system, the required software on a machine
associated with the at least one of the invitees.

DETERMINATIONS AND CONTENTIONS
Claims 1, 3, 5–8, 10, 12–15, 17, 19, and 20 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Muller (US 2012/0005278 A1;
published Jan. 5, 2012), Narayanaswamy (US 2011/0154204 A1; published
June 23, 2011), and Sandholm (US 2015/0304369 A1; published Oct. 22,
2015). Final Action mailed June 17, 2019 (“Final Act.”) at 7–15.
The Examiner finds Muller teaches a process to identify and remedy
any deficiencies on an invitee’s computer of computing resources required
to attend an electronic meeting. Final Act. 7–9 (citing Muller ¶¶ 17–19, 22–
25, 28). For example, the Examiner finds that Muller discloses scheduling
the meeting on the invitee’s electronic calendar, as recited in limitation (d)
of claim 1. Id. at 8 (citing Muller ¶¶ 18, 23). The Examiner concedes that
Muller does not fully disclose limitation (d) because Muller teaches adding
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the meeting to the invitee’s calendar upon receipt of an invitation as opposed
to adding the meeting to the calendar “subsequent to the provisioning [of
access for the one or more invitees to referenced resources required for the
meeting],” as recited. Id. at 8–9 (citing Muller ¶¶ 18, 23).
To cure this deficiency, the Examiner relies on Narayanaswamy and
determines that motivation existed to combine the references. Id. at 9–11
(citing Narayanaswamy ¶¶ 2–4, 51, 52). The Examiner additionally relies
on Sandholm for its teachings with respect to provisioning access for
invitees to the specific resources recited in limitation (c) and determines that
motivation existed to combine the references. Id. at 11–13.
More specifically, the Examiner finds that Narayanaswamy teaches a
subscription-based system for meetings in which users subscribe to various
meeting groups based on their interests and, thereafter, any meetings
organized for those groups are automatically added to their calendars. Final
Act. 9–10 (citing Narayanaswamy ¶¶ 5, 50–53). The Examiner further finds
that a meeting organizer, when scheduling a meeting, has the ability to
designate specific groups to attend the meeting. Id. (citing Narayanaswamy
¶ 52). In addition, the Examiner finds that Narayanaswamy discloses the
claimed “referenced resource” of limitation (c) because Narayanaswamy
teaches that a meeting group website with a distinct uniform resource locator
(“URL”) is provided in the invitations for a scheduled meeting. Id. at 10
(citing Narayanaswamy ¶ 51).
The Examiner determines that the overall scheme in Narayanaswamy
of controlling participants in relation to group meetings having a distinct
website address corresponds to “the provisioning,” step, as recited in
limitation (d). Examiner’s Answer mailed Feb. 13, 2020 (“Ans.”) at 6. The
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Examiner explains, “since, in Narayanaswamy, after the participants
subscribe to meeting groups (i.e. subsequent to provisioning), the subscribed
participants are then automatically invited to meetings by adding the
meeting to a calendar (i.e. initiating adding the meeting to a calendar) and
the participants that are subscribed to groups is controlled,” Narayanaswamy
teaches adding the meeting to an electronic calendar “subsequent to the
provisioning,” as further recited in limitation (d). Id.
Appellant asserts that Muller remains deficient with respect to
limitation (d) because Narayanaswamy merely teaches notifying subscribers
to a meeting group about a meeting and providing the notified subscribers
with a URL for the meeting. Appeal Br. 16–17 (citing Narayanaswamy
¶¶ 51, 52, 62, 63). According to Appellant, although Narayanaswamy
teaches automatically inviting subscribers to a group meeting and
automatically calendaring the meeting, Narayanaswamy does not disclose
adding the meeting to the calendar only subsequent to provisioning access to
a referenced resource for the invitee. Id. at 17. Appellant further argues that
Sandholm also does not cure the deficiency of Muller. Id.

ANALYSIS
As an initial matter, we understand the Examiner’s position to be that
Narayanaswamy teaches the claimed “referenced resources” because it
teaches that a URL for a meeting website is included in the invitations sent
to the subscribers. See Ans. 6 (citing Narayanaswamy ¶¶ 51, 62). That is,
we understand the Examiner to be interpreting the meeting website as
corresponding to the “referenced resource.” We further understand the
Examiner’s position to be that it is the meeting organizer’s designation of a
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meeting group to attend a meeting, as further taught by Narayanaswamy
(and not simply a subscriber’s receipt of the invitation itself) that discloses
the claimed “provisioning” of a referenced resource. Id. at 5 (citing
Narayanaswamy ¶¶ 52, 63).
Limitation (d) requires that the meeting be added to a calendar
subsequent to “the provisioning.” The term “provisioning” in limitation (d)
thus does not refer to simply any form of provisioning but to its antecedent
basis in limitation (c), which requires “provisioning . . . access for the one or
more of the invitees to the referenced resources by authenticating and
authorizing the one or more of the invitees for the referenced resources.”
Muller, the primary reference, teaches checking for the presence of
required resources for an electronic meeting after the meeting has already
been added to the invitee’s electronic calendar. Muller ¶¶ 17–18. The
checked resources include hardware and software resources installed on the
invitee’s computer. Id. ¶ 19. In response to detecting a deficiency, Muller
teaches notifying the invitee of the deficiency in order that it be addressed.
Id. ¶ 22. To render claim 1 obvious, Narayanaswamy, in addition to having
to teach that a meeting is added to the calendar after provisioning access to
meeting resources (limitation (d)), must also teach provisioning access to
resources required for a meeting by authenticating the invitees “for the
referenced resources” (limitation (c)).
Narayanaswamy teaches designating certain groups of subscribers to
receive an invitation containing a URL for a website. However, simply
receiving an invitation with a URL does not teach authenticating the
subscribers for the website that is referenced by the URL. At best, it
indicates that the subscribers are authorized to receive the invitation. While
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the recipient of such an invitation may be able to click on the URL, they
would not necessarily be able to gain access to the resource content if
authentication is required. The invitee would then have to resort to the same
last minute troubleshooting that proper provisioning would have been
designed to avoid.
And even if one interprets Narayanaswamy’s act of designating
groups to receive an invitation containing a URL as corresponding to the
claim step of provisioning access to the referenced resources, such an
interpretation still does not overcome the deficiencies of Muller. The URLs
are included in Narayanaswamy’s calendaring invitations. The Examiner
has not established that Narayanaswamy discloses initiating adding the
meeting to an electronic calendar subsequent to sending the URLs or
provisioning of access to the referenced resources, as claimed.
Because the Examiner has not established that Narayanaswamy
teaches or suggests authenticating and authorizing the subscribers for the
meeting website itself and that this is done prior to the meeting being added
to a calendar, the Examiner has not established a prima facie showing of
obviousness. We, therefore, reverse the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of
claim 1, and of independent claims 8 and 15, which recite similar language.
See Appeal Br. 21–24. We, likewise, reverse the obviousness rejection of
claims 3, 5–7, 10, 12–14, 17, 19, and 20, which depend from claims 1, 8,
and 15.

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DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:

REVERSED

Claim(s)
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 3, 5–8, 10,
12–15, 17,
19, 20
103 Muller,
Narayanaswamy,
Sandholm
1, 3, 5–8,
10, 12–15,
17, 19, 20