2019002169 (P.T.A.B. May. 29, 2020)

Lovelace, Aaron F. et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 29, 2020

2019002169 (P.T.A.B. May. 29, 2020)

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. 14/725,593 05/29/2015 Aaron F. Lovelace TUP23254 6669 62439 7590 05/29/2020 SINORICA, LLC 20251 Century Blvd. Suite 140 Germantown, MD 20874 EXAMINER WANG, HARRIS C ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2439 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/29/2020 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): SINORICA@GMAIL.COM pair@sinorica.com sinorica@outlook.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte AARON F. LOVELACE, CIARÁN S. THOMPSON, and STEVEN M. MARKOWITZ Appeal 2019-002169 Application 14/725,593 Technology Center 2400 Before JASON V. MORGAN, ERIC B. CHEN, and SCOTT RAEVSKY, Administrative Patent Judges. RAEVSKY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1 and 3–8. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM IN PART. 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as the Applicant, Aaron F. Lovelace. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2019-002169 Application 14/725,593 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to a method of redirecting search queries from an untrusted search engine to a trusted search engine. Spec., Abstr. Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method of redirecting search queries from an untrusted search engine to a trusted search engine by executing computer- executable instructions stored on a non-transitory computer- readable medium, the method comprising: providing at least one trusted Uniform Resource Locator (URL) pattern and a plurality of untrusted URL patterns, the at least one trusted URL pattern and the plurality of untrusted URL patterns each comprising a plurality of URLs with wildcards; receiving a search query URL originated from a desired search engine by initiating a search query on the desired search engine, the search query URL corresponding to a search query; comparing the search query URL with the plurality of untrusted URL patterns; permitting the desired search engine to generate search results for the search query in response to the search query URL not complying with each of the plurality of untrusted URL patterns; recognizing the desired search engine as an untrusted search engine and redirecting the search query to a trusted search engine according to the at least one trusted URL pattern in response to the search query URL complying with one of the plurality of untrusted URL patterns; providing an update server; periodically polling the update server for untrusted pattern updates; retrieving the untrusted pattern updates from the update server; and incorporating the untrusted pattern updates into the plurality of untrusted URL patterns. Appeal 2019-002169 Application 14/725,593 3 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Guha US 8,250,080 B1 Aug. 21, 2012 Edwards Garbow Gorodyansky US 2006/0075499 A1 US 2009/0112805 A1 US 2012/0023570 A1 Apr. 6, 2006 Apr. 30, 2009 Jan. 26, 2012 REJECTIONS Claims 1 and 3–7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Garbow, Guha, and Edwards. Non-Final Act. 3. Claim 8 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Garbow, Guha, Edwards, and Gorodyansky. Id. at 9. ANALYSIS Claims 1, 3, 4, and 6–8 Appellant contends the combination of Garbow, Guha, and Edwards fails to teach or suggest “redirecting the search query to a trusted search engine,” as recited in claim 1. Appeal Br. 4 (emphasis omitted). Specifically, Appellant contends, Garbow does not “implicitly or inherently disclose that the anonymous proxy search service is a trusted search service.” Id. at 6 (emphasis omitted). The Examiner determines that the Specification describes “a trusted search engine” as “a search engine which does not store user search history or collect personal information.” Ans. 4–5 (citing Spec. ¶¶ 5, 21) (internal quotations omitted). The Examiner finds that Garbow teaches or suggests the disputed limitation because Garbow discloses that “[i]f the query is identified as unsafe, the user . . . can choose to submit the query Appeal 2019-002169 Application 14/725,593 4 anonymously through a proxy service . . . so that the search engine 128 cannot save it into the user’s history.” Id. at 5; see also Non-Final Act. 4. Appellant’s argument is unpersuasive because the disputed limitation is a conditional limitation in a method claim, which in this case, is not limiting. See Ex parte Schulhauser, 2016 WL 6277792, at *4–5 (PTAB Apr. 28, 2016) (precedential) (holding certain conditional limitations in a method claim not limiting under a broadest reasonable interpretation, and thus the Examiner need not apply prior art for those limitations). Claim 1 recites two mutually exclusive alternatives: “permitting the desired search engine to generate search results for the search query in response to the search query URL not complying with each of the . . . untrusted URL patterns,” and “redirecting the search query to a trusted search engine . . . in response to the search query URL complying with one of the . . . untrusted URL patterns.” (Emphasis added.) If the first claimed alternative is met, the second is not, and thus, “redirecting the search query to a trusted search engine” is not a limitation on the claim. As Appellant’s entire argument for claim 1 depends on a conditional limitation, a step that need not be performed in the broadest reasonable scenario (see Appeal Br. 4–8), we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 and dependent claims 3, 4, and 6–8, which Appellant does not argue separately. Dependent Claim 5 Appellant separately argues claim 5, which Appellant refers to together with its claim 1 arguments. Appeal Br. 5–6. Specifically, Appellant contends that Garbow does not teach or suggest “passing the search query to the trusted search engine and receiving trusted search results generated by the trusted search engine” in claim 5. Id. The Examiner Appeal 2019-002169 Application 14/725,593 5 groups the findings for claim 1 and this limitation of claim 5 together, thus making the same findings set forth above. Ans. 4–5; see also Non-Final Act. 7. The disputed limitation in claim 5 does not suffer from the same Schulhauser defect as claim 1 because claim 5 affirmatively requires redirecting the search query to the trusted search engine. In other words, although claim 1 includes two mutually-exclusive conditional steps, namely (1) permitting the desired search engine to generate search results or (2) redirecting the search query to a trusted search engine, claim 5 narrows claim 1 by requiring a scenario in which the second set of conditional steps would be performed. As claim 5 is limiting, we reach the merits of Appellant’s argument. When Garbow’s system identifies a query as safe, the system submits the query “directly to the search engine 128.” Garbow ¶ 26. If Garbow’s query is unsafe, “the user is prompted and can choose to submit the query anonymously through a proxy service, such as proxy server 127, so that the search engine 128 cannot save it into the user’s history.” Id. (emphasis added). In other words, Garbow’s system submits unsafe queries to the same search engine that accepts unsafe queries, except that the system submits those unsafe queries to the search engine through an anonymizing proxy server. We agree with Appellant that Garbow’s proxy service is not a trusted search engine because Garbow describes the proxy sevice as merely submitting queries to the search engine, not searching itself. See Appeal Br. 6; Garbow ¶ 26. Also, as we explained above, Garbow merely teaches a single search engine that receives safe queries directly and unsafe queries Appeal 2019-002169 Application 14/725,593 6 through the proxy service. Garbow ¶ 26. But claim 5 requires two search engines—a “desired search engine” and a “trusted search engine.” Appellant’s Specification likewise describes two separate search engines, stating, for example, “the present invention is a method of redirecting search queries from an untrusted search engine to a trusted search engine.” Spec. ¶ 2; see also Fig. 2 (depicting two search engines). As Garbow only discloses one search engine, Garbow does not teach or suggest claim 5’s “recognizing the desired search engine as the untrusted search engine and . . . passing the search query to the trusted search engine and receiving trusted search results generated by the trusted search engine.” The Examiner does not rely on any of the other cited references to teach or suggest the limitations of claim 5. We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 5. CONCLUSION In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § References Affirmed Reversed 1, 3–7 103 Garbow, Guha, Edwards 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 5 8 103 Garbow, Guha, Edwards, Gorodyansky 8 Overall Outcome 1, 3, 4, 6–8 5 No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). Appeal 2019-002169 Application 14/725,593 7 AFFIRMED IN PART