Target Brands, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 28, 2021

2020004481 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 28, 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.
15/168,967 05/31/2016 James Patrick Tully 201600200 6086
67260 7590 09/28/2021
TARGET BRANDS, INC.
1000 NICOLLET MALL, TPS-3165
MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55403
EXAMINER
STORK, KYLE R
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2144
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/28/2021 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):
USPTO.MAIL@TARGET.COM
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD

Ex parte JAMES PATRICK TULLY, MARCUS MALCOLM ROSENOW,
JORGE ALBERTO TRUJILLO, DAKOTA REESE BROWN,
MATTHEW DARREN DORDAL,
CHRISTOPHER EDWARD JOHNSON, and SHANNON BLANDFORD

Appeal 2020-004481
Application 15/168,967
Technology Center 2100

Before JAMES R. HUGHES, JOHN A. EVANS, and
MICHAEL T. CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–5, 7–13, and 21–25. Appeal Br. 1.
Claims 6, 14–20, and 26 have been cancelled. Id. at 13–14 and 16 (Claims
App.). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

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 Target
Brands, Inc. Appeal Br. 3.
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We REVERSE.
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claimed subject matter generally relates to allowing a webpage
designer to designate effective start and end dates for different versions of
webpages. Spec. ¶ 19. According to Appellant, this prevents the need for
employees to work at odd hours to alter the website during periods of
minimal usage. Id. Appellant’s technique involves altering the individual
items that comprise the webpage to reflect the chosen start and end time of
the selected version of the web page. Id. ¶ 35. For each item associated
with the selected web page version, a page ID is stored in a database for that
item. Id. ¶ 39. Consequently, when the webpage is desired to become
effective, the system may automatically search for all items having that ID
and include those items on the webpage. Id. ¶¶ 39–40.
Independent claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
comparing, by a webpage design server, a current date to a start
date associated with a version of a webpage; and
when the current date is after the start date, the webpage design
server automatically altering a webpage delivery system so that
the version of the webpage is returned by the webpage delivery
system when the webpage is requested, wherein the webpage
design server alters the webpage delivery system by accessing
at least one rule associated with the version of the webpage for
populating the webpage with items to purchase, using the at
least one rule to identify a plurality of items that are to populate
the version of the webpage, and for each item in the plurality of
items, automatically modifying a respective database entry for
the item because the item was identified by the rule such that
the entry includes an identifier for the webpage and such that
each item in the plurality of items that is to populate the version
of the webpage can be located by searching the database for the
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identifier for the webpage for each request for the webpage
without executing the rule separately for each request for the
webpage.
Appeal Br. 12 (Claims App.). Independent claims 9 and 21 each recite a
server having substantially similar limitations to those in claim 1. Id. at 13–
15. Dependent claims 2–5, 7, 8, 10–13, and 22–25 each incorporate the
limitations of their respective independent claims. Id. at 12–16.
REFERENCES
Name Reference Date
Wing et al.
(“Wing”)
US 2008/0109808 A1 May 8, 2008
Holt et al.
(“Holt”)
US 2012/0233528 A1 Sept. 13, 2012
Morris US 2016/0224550 A1 Aug. 4, 2016

REJECTIONS
Claims 1–3, 5, 7–10, 12, 13, 21–23, and 25 are rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over the combination of Holt and Morris.
Claims 4, 11, and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
obvious over the combination of Holt, Morris, and Wing.

OPINION
Appellant argues that the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claim 1
is deficient because the combination of the applied references does not teach
or suggest
automatically modifying a respective database entry for each of
a plurality of items that are to populate a version of a web page
such that each entry includes an identifier for a webpage and
such that each item in the plurality of items that is to populate
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the version of the webpage can be located by searching the
database for the identifier for the webpage.
Appeal Br. 5.
Examiner’s Findings
The Examiner finds Holt to teach or suggest a webpage delivery
system that provides a webpage version based on a set start date of that
version. Final Act. 3 (citing Holt ¶¶ 20–21). The Examiner further finds
Holt to teach searching, based on a rule, a database to identify each item that
is to populate that version of the database. Id. (citing Holt ¶¶ 35–37). The
Examiner finds Holt to lack any teaching of automatically modifying a
database entry for the item because the item was identified such that the
entry includes an identifier for the webpage. Id. at 4. The Examiner finds
Holt to further lack any teaching of populating the database by searching the
database for the identifier of the webpage. Id.
The Examiner finds Morris to teach appending an identifier to a
database object to identify the version of the page version in which the
database object is used. Final Act. 4–5 (citing Morris ¶¶ 32–33). The
Examiner further finds Morris to teach that each item can be located by
searching the database for the identifier for the webpage. Id. (citing Morris
Fig. 2, ¶¶ 32–33). The Examiner finds that it would be obvious to combine
the teachings of Holt and Morris to provide a user the ability to differentiate
versions of objects within a database. Id. at 5.
Appellant’s Contentions
Appellant argues that neither Holt, Morris, nor their combination
teaches using an identifier for each item to be used in the version of a
webpage, where the identifier reflects the webpage version, and the
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identifier is stored in a database entry of each item. Appeal Br 6. Appellant
first cites to the Examiner’s statement that Holt does not teach such a
feature. Id. at 5. Appellant then characterizes Morris as using an identifier
to identify different versions of the file, such as by appending a numeric tag
or date and time of the version. Id. at 6–7 (citing Morris Figs. 2 and 3).
Appellant argues that Morris teaches only identification of the file version,
not the webpage version, and that neither Morris, Holt, nor their
combination teaches identifying the webpage version with an identifier in
each item’s database entry. Id.
Analysis
We are persuaded by Appellant’s argument. Holt teaches tracking
and viewing different versions of a page over time. Holt ¶ 51. Holt also
provides a user interface in which a user can enter search terms to find
content items to populate a page. Id. ¶ 37. However, as the Examiner
found, Holt does not teach modifying the content items with the associated
webpage version.
Morris teaches that, for any given content item, different versions of
that item may be tagged with an identifier. Morris Fig. 2. However, the
Examiner has not pointed to any description in Morris of webpages, or of
modifying a version of an item with an identifier relating to a particular
webpage version. Although the Examiner characterizes Morris as describing
modifying items that are to populate a web page, the Examiner concludes
that Morris adds additional information in the form of a “timestamp
identifier,” not a webpage identifier. Ans. 12. Furthermore, the Examiner
does not provide any supporting citation for a description of a webpage, and
we are unable to discern any in Morris.
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The Examiner’s rejection is based upon the combination of Morris
and Holt. However, the Examiner has not provided sufficient explanation as
to how the modification of a content item to include a webpage identifier, if
not provided in either individual reference, would be taught or suggested by
the combination. Holt tracks webpage versions and facilitates user searches
for content. Morris tracks individual content items with modified tags based
on the version of the content items. The Examiner does not sufficiently
explain how the combination would result in modifying content items to
identify webpage versions. Accordingly, we are persuaded by Appellant of
error the Examiner’s rejection, and do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of claim 1.
The Examiner relies on the same reasoning in arguing rejecting the
remaining dependent and independent claims. For the reasons expressed
above, we are not persuaded by that reasoning. Nor does the Examiner point
to teaching of the claimed identifying the webpage version with an identifier
in each item’s database entry in the additional Wing reference relied upon in
the rejections of claims 4, 11, and 24. Accordingly, we reverse the
obviousness rejections of claims 1–5, 7–13, and 21–25 over the applied art.

CONCLUSION
For the above-described reasons, we reverse the Examiner’s
obviousness rejections of claims 1–5, 7–13, and 21–25 over the applied art,
as summarized below.

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DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claim(s)
Rejected
35
U.S.C. §
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–3, 5, 7–
10, 12, 13,
21–23, 25
103 Holt, Morris 1–3, 5, 7–10,
12, 13, 21–23,
25
4, 11, 24 103 Holt, Morris, Wing 4, 11, 24
Overall
Outcome
1–5, 7–13,
21–25

REVERSED