Quertle LLCDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 4, 20212020000546 (P.T.A.B. May. 4, 2021) 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. 14/484,130 09/11/2014 Jeffrey D. Saffer QTL-9-0001 5291 102472 7590 05/04/2021 Lightbulb IP, LLC 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Suite 160-205 Las Vegas, NV 89135 EXAMINER NGUYEN, LOAN T ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2158 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/04/2021 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 JEFFREY D. SAFFER and VICKI L. BURNETT ____________ Appeal 2020-000546 Application 14/484,130 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, SCOTT B. HOWARD, and STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges. SZPONDOWSKI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1, 2, and 7–20, which constitute all of the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 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 Quertle LLC. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2020-000546 Application 14/484,130 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant’s invention generally “relates to indexing, searching, and data mining information and in particular to systems and methods for the same that are capable of handling term variants.” Spec. ¶ 1. Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A term variant discernment system comprising: one or more processors; one or more memory devices comprising instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to: identify a term and a variant of the term in some content, wherein the term and the variant may differ in capitalization, alphabet, or representation; determine a meaning of the term and the variant by executing a plurality of case-sensitive discernment processes on the term and the variant; and assign distinct identifiers to the term and the variant when the term and the variant differ only in capitalization of one or more characters and a preponderance of the plurality of case-sensitive discernment processes indicate the term and the variant have distinct meanings, or assign a single identifier to both the term and the variant; one or more storage devices storing the term and the variant and the term’s and the variant’s assigned identifiers; and one or more communication interfaces that receive one or more queries from a user, wherein the one or more processors also execute instructions to: identify one or more query terms in the one or more queries; determine a meaning of the one or more query terms; assign a new identifier to the one or more query terms if the one or more query terms’ meaning differs from that of the term and the variant; and assign an existing identifier to the one or more query terms if the one or more query terms’ meaning is the same as that of the term or the variant. Appeal 2020-000546 Application 14/484,130 3 REJECTIONS2 Claims 1, 2, and 7–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) as failing to comply with the written-description requirement. Final Act. 6. Claims 1, 2, and 7–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter regarded as the invention. Final Act. 7.3 Claims 1, 2, and 7–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over the combination Saitoh et al. (US 2007/0162281 A1; published July 12, 2007) (“Saitoh”), Stuhec (US 2007/0283252 A1; published Dec. 6, 2007), Abdelali (US 2017/0147679 A1; published May 25, 2017), and Bates et al. (US 2007/0271089 A1; published Nov. 22, 2007) (“Bates”). Final Act. 9. ANALYSIS Section 112(a) Rejection The Examiner finds that the claimed “determining the meaning of the term and the variant by executing a plurality of case-sensitive discernment processes on the term and the variant” is not supported by the original disclosure. Final Act. 6. Specifically, the Examiner finds that the 2 The Examiner initially rejected claims 1, 2, and 7–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as “directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.” Final Act. 7 (emphasis omitted). In the Answer, the Examiner withdrew the rejection. Ans. 3. 3 Although the heading of the rejection does not identify claims 19 and 20, the Examiner sets forth a rejection in the body. See Final Act. 7 (setting forth that the “dependent claims are . . . rejected along the same rationale as” described for the independent claims 1, 8, and 15). We treat the exclusion from the heading as a typographical error. Appeal 2020-000546 Application 14/484,130 4 Specification describing “Contextual Analysis” only “shows that the capitalized term is preferentially used in specific contexts,” but does not show the “process possess[es] the nature of being case-sensitive.” Ans. 4. The Examiner also finds that the claimed assigning distinct identifiers to the term and variant when they “differ only in capitalization of one or more characters and a preponderance of the plurality of case-sensitive discernment processes indicate the term and the variant have distinct meaning” is not supported by the original disclosure. Final Act. 6. Specifically, the Examiner finds that the Specification describes “the term and variant differ only in capitalization,” but not “any indication that the term and variant have distinct meanings.” Ans. 5–6. Appellant argues that the Specification provides support for case- sensitive discernment processes, such as those disclosed by the “Dictionary” and “Contextual Analysis.” Appeal Br. 7 (citing Spec. ¶¶ 57–60, Fig. 2); see Reply Br. 3–4 (citing Fig. 2). According to Appellant, a “showing that a capitalized term is preferentially used in specific contexts is a case-sensitive process at least for the reason that it accounts for and is sensitive to capitalization.” Reply Br. 4. Appellant also argues that the Specification provides support for terms being assigned distinct identifiers when the case form differs and when “three of four discernment processes” indicate the term and variant have different meanings. Appeal Br. 8 (citing Spec. ¶¶ 60, 28–43). According to Appellant, the Specification is “replete with disclosure connecting the determining meaning with each of the named discernment processes.” Reply Br. 5 (citing Spec. ¶¶ 46–52, 57–60, Figs. 1–4). Appeal 2020-000546 Application 14/484,130 5 We agree with Appellant. Whether a Specification complies with the written-description requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) is a question of fact and is assessed on a case-by-case basis. See, e.g., Purdue Pharma L.P. v. Faulding, Inc., 230 F.3d 1320, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (citing Vas-Cath Inc. v. Mahurkar, 935 F.2d 1555, 1561 (Fed. Cir. 1991)). The disclosure, as originally filed, does not need to literally describe the claimed subject matter (i.e., using the same terms or in haec verba) in order to satisfy the written- description requirement, but the Specification must convey with reasonable clarity to those skilled in the art that, as of the filing date, Appellant was in possession of the claimed invention. See id. Here, the Specification discloses term variants and methods of discerning their meanings that a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand indicates the inventors had possession of the claimed subject matter. For example, Appellant’s Specification describes that “Term Variants may be due to capitalization.” Spec. ¶ 28; see also id. ¶¶ 29–31. The Specification further discloses methods for discerning the meanings of “different types of term[s] . . . to determine if they are different or the same.” Id. ¶ 46; see also id. ¶¶ 47–51, ¶¶ 57–61. The Specification provides an example for the term “no” with “two variants of ‘no’, one lowercase and one uppercase.” Id. ¶ 57, Fig. 2. “Each term is run through one or more discernment processes” to “provide[] information that the two forms should” or “should not be identified as the same.” Id. ¶ 57; see also id. ¶ 58 (“in this example, there is information from the discernment processes that there is likely a difference in meaning between ‘no’ and “NO’”). Appeal 2020-000546 Application 14/484,130 6 Accordingly, we are persuaded the Examiner erred. We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) rejection of claims 1, 2, and 7–20. Section 112(b) Rejection Appellant does not address the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b). See generally Appeal Br.; Reply Br.; Final Act. 7. Accordingly, we summarily sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, and 7–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) as indefinite. See Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) § 1205.02 (2018) (“If a ground of rejection stated by the examiner is not addressed in the appellant’s brief, appellant has waived any challenge to that ground of rejection and the Board may summarily sustain it.”); Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential) (“If an appellant fails to present arguments on a particular issue — or, more broadly, on a particular rejection — the Board will not, as a general matter, unilaterally review those uncontested aspects of the rejection.”). Section 103 Rejection Appellant contends that the combination of Saitoh, Stuhec, Abdelali, and Bates does not teach “assign distinct identifiers to the term and the variant when the term and the variant differ only in capitalization of one or more characters and . . . the term and the variant have distinct meanings, or assign a single identifier to both the term and the variant” and “assign a new identifier to the one or more query terms if the one or more query terms’ meaning differs from that of the term and the variant,” as recited in claim 1 and commensurately recited in claims 8 and 15. Appeal Br. 22–24; Reply Br. 8–10. Appeal 2020-000546 Application 14/484,130 7 The Examiner relies on Abdelali to teach “assign distinct identifiers to the term and the variant when the term and the variant differ only in capitalization of one or more characters and . . . the term and the variant have distinct meanings, or assign a single identifier to both the term and the variant” and on Stuhec to teach “assign a new identifier to the one or more query terms if the one or more query terms’ meaning differs from that of the term and the variant.” Final Act. 10–12. The Examiner finds that Abdelali’s “determining the likely language or language variant of the search query by providing related search terms using semantic information associated with the language or language variant of the search query” teaches “assign[ing] distinct identifiers to the term and the variant when the term and the variant differ only in capitalization of one or more characters . . . or assign a single identifier to both the term and the variant.” Final Act. 12 (citing Abdelali ¶¶ 76, 77, 87, 89, 92). Specifically, the Examiner finds that Abdelali teaches that “a single term used in a search query . . . may have a different meaning in the information resources.” Ans. 6 (citing Abdelali ¶ 6). Appellant argues that Abdelali teaches receiving “a search term to ‘output an expanded search query including the search terms and an additional search term’” but not the claimed assigning “distinct identifiers for each semantic meaning.” Appeal Br. 22. Appellant also argues that Abdelali does not teach assigning identifiers to “both content and query terms,” as claimed. Id. at 23. We are persuaded by Appellant’s arguments. Abdelali generally describes a query expansion system using language and language variants. Abdelali ¶ 1, code (54). The cited sections of Abdelali disclose a Appeal 2020-000546 Application 14/484,130 8 classification module “determin[ing] a likely language or language variant used in at least part of the search query.” Abdelali ¶ 77. Abdelali also describes “options” including “a user selectable list of language and/or language variants” for the “search query.” Id. ¶ 89. Abdelali strives to “provide better search results . . . for a given search query” by “providing related search terms using semantic information associated with the language or language variant of the search query.” Id. ¶ 92. In other words, Abdelali teaches identifying further search terms for a search query based on language variants. The Examiner has not sufficiently explained how Abdelali’s identifying additional search terms for a search query teaches or suggests “assign[ing] distinct identifiers to the term and the variant when the term and the variant differ only in capitalization of one or more characters . . . or assign a single identifier to both the term and the variant.” The Examiner finds that Stuhec’s determining whether the first and second terms exist in the collection and providing a new tag to any term in the tag name that does not exist teaches “assign[ing] a new identifier to the one or more query terms if the one or more query terms’ meaning differs from that of the term and the variant.” Final Act. 10–11 (citing Stuhec ¶¶ 4– 6, 36); Ans. 7. According to the Examiner, Stuhec’s “first term” teaches the claimed “query term,” “second term” teaches the claimed “variant term,” “existing tag” teaches the claimed “existing identifier,” and “new tag” name teaches the claimed “new identifier.” Ans. 7 (citing Stuhec ¶¶ 4–6, 36); Final Act. 10–11. Appellant argues that Stuhec teaches that “various replacements for the term are tested until one of the replacement terms is within the synonyms database,” but not “assigning a new identifier to a previously undefined Appeal 2020-000546 Application 14/484,130 9 term.” Appeal Br. 24 (emphasis added). According to Appellant, in Stuhec, no “new identifier [is] assigned to a term that does not already have an existing identifier,” in contrast to the claimed “existing or new identifiers are assigned to query terms based on the meaning of the query terms relative to the meaning of the term and the variant.” Reply Br. 9–10. Appellant also argues that Stuhec does not teach providing “a new tag name,” and instead teaches “receiving, in a computer system, a new tag name.” Id. at 8 (citing Stuhec ¶ 5) (emphasis omitted). We find the Examiner has not sufficiently explained how Stuhec teaches or suggests the limitation. Stuhec is generally directed to “[a]dding a new tag name to a collection of tag names.” Stuhec code (57). Stuhec describes that adding a tag name to a collection “includes receiving, in a computer system, a new tag name that is to be added to a collection of existing tag names . . . , the new tag name including at least first and second terms.” Id. ¶ 5 (emphasis added). Then, “it is determined whether the collection already includes any of the first and second terms, wherein each term included in the existing tag names is associated with one of several unique identifiers.” Id. “[F]or any of the first and second terms that is already included in the collection, a corresponding one of the several unique identifiers associated therewith is selected.” Id. In other words, “the new tag name is provided with a unique identifier code” and for “any term in the tag name that already exists in the collection, the existing unique identifier is used in the code.” Id. ¶ 4. If a term does not already exist in the collection, Stuhec discloses use of a synonyms database to check for synonyms of the term, and changing the unavailable term to the synonym. Id. ¶¶ 6, 38. Appeal 2020-000546 Application 14/484,130 10 Stuhec discloses “determining whether a code is available for the received terms.” Stuhec ¶ 36. If the code is available for the received terms, a “tag name management module may . . . concatenate . . . the available identifiers . . . to complete the code” for the received tag name. Id. In other words, Stuhec teaches receiving new tag names (which may consist of one or more terms) and associating those terms with available identifiers to complete a code. The Examiner has not sufficiently explained how this disclosure teaches “assign[ing] a new identifier to the one or more query terms if the one or more query terms’ meaning differs from that of the term and the variant” as claimed (emphasis added). In particular, the Examiner finds that Stuhec’s “new tag” corresponds to the claimed “new identifier” (Ans. 7), but the “new tag” is received by the computer system, not “assign[ed] . . . to the one or more query terms.” Indeed, the “new tag” includes the “one or more query terms.” See Stuhec ¶ 5. Therefore, on this record, the Examiner has not sufficiently explained how the cited sections of Abdelali and Stuhec teach “assign[ing] distinct identifiers to the term and the variant when the term and the variant differ only in capitalization of one or more characters and a preponderance of the plurality of case-sensitive discernment processes indicate the term and the variant have distinct meanings” and “assign[ing] a new identifier to the one or more query terms if the one or more query terms’ meaning differs from that of the term and the variant” as claimed. Accordingly, on this record, we do not sustain the Examiner’s § 103 rejection of independent claims 1, 8, and 15, and dependent claims 2, 7, 9– 14, and 16–20. See Appeal Br. 24. Appeal 2020-000546 Application 14/484,130 11 CONCLUSION We reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, and 7–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a). We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, and 7–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b). We reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, and 7–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Because we affirm at least one ground of rejection with respect to each claim on appeal, we affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject all of the pending claims. In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 2, 7–20 112 Written Description 1, 2, 7– 20 1, 2, 7–20 112 Indefiniteness 1, 2, 7–20 1, 2, 7–20 103 Saitoh, Stuhec, Abdelali, Bates 1, 2, 7– 20 Overall Outcome 1, 2, 7–20 TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f) (2018). AFFIRMED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation