INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Oct 19, 2021

2021001554 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 19, 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.
15/680,582 08/18/2017 Raphael Ezry END920170078US1 1448
133758 7590 10/19/2021
Roberts Calderon Safran & Cole, P.C.
Intellectual Property Department
P.O. Box 10064
McLean, VA 22102-8064
EXAMINER
TUNGATE, SCOTT MICHAEL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3628
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/19/2021 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):
Docketing@rcsc-ip.com
lgallaugher@rcsc-ip.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte RAPHAEL EZRY and MUNISH GOYAL
____________

Appeal 2021-001554
Application 15/680,582
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, ANTON W. FETTING, and
TARA L. HUTCHINGS, Administrative Patent Judges.

FETTING, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2021-001554
Application 15/680,582

2

STATEMENT OF THE CASE1
Raphael Ezry and Munish Goyal (Appellant2) seeks review under
35 U.S.C. § 134 of a final rejection of claims 1–4, 6–8, 10, 11, and 13–20,
the only claims pending in the application on appeal. We have jurisdiction
over the appeal pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
The Appellant invented a way of predicting un-capacitated freight
demand3 on a multi-hop shipping route. Specification para. 1.
An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of
exemplary claim 1, which is reproduced below (bracketed matter and some
paragraphing added).
1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
[1] receiving, by a computing device,
daily real-time customer booking data
for multiple dispersed ports
along a shipping route of a shipping vessel
from remote servers in a network;
[2] determining,

1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“Appeal
Br.,” filed September 8, 2020) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed December
28, 2020), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed October 27, 2020),
and Final Action (“Final Act.,” mailed April 8, 2020).
2 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as
International Business Machines Corporation (Appeal Br. 2).
3 Capacitated demand is defined as the portion of the given demand that can
be served by a network without violating capacity constraints on any of the
network’s facilities. Spec. para. 3. Un-capacitated demand is the demand
when the shipping network capacity is infinite and, as such, is generally
unobserved. Spec. para. 20.
Appeal 2021-001554
Application 15/680,582

3

by the computing device,
an estimated customer arrival pattern
for each port on the shipping route
based on the real-time customer booking data;
[3] determining,
by the computing device,
an estimated blocking probability
for each of the ports on the shipping route
due to shipping capacity constraints, upstream
bookings and downstream bookings
utilizing an Erlang-B formula:
𝑃𝑃𝐵𝐵𝑖𝑖(𝑡𝑡) = max 𝜌𝜌𝑖𝑖 (1 −
(1−ρ)ρ𝐶𝐶
1−ρ𝐶𝐶+1
),
wherein
PBi(t) represents a blocking probability (PB) for a
port (i) at a given time (t),
a variable (ρ) represents demand divided by
capacity (