VCVC III LLC

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 2, 2021

2019006339 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 2, 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.
15/204,943 07/07/2016 Jisheng Liang EVRI-1-2525 4332
25315 7590 03/02/2021
LOWE GRAHAM JONES, PLLC
701 FIFTH AVENUE
SUITE 4800
SEATTLE, WA 98104
EXAMINER
KIM, PAUL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2169
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/02/2021 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-patent@lowegrahamjones.com
patentdocketing@lowegrahamjones.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JISHENG LIANG, WILL HUNSINGER, and SATISH BHATTI
Appeal 2019-006339
Application 15/204,943
Technology Center 2100
Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., ERIC B. CHEN, and
MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges.
ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 32–51, which are all of the claims pending in the
application. Claims 1–31 are cancelled. See Claim Appendix. 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(a). Appellant identifies VCVC III LLC as the real party in
interest. Appeal Br. 1.
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TECHNOLOGY
The application relates to “recommending mobile applications and/or
mobile Websites based on context of the mobile device,” such as an “activity
recommendation system” that “recommends mobile applications based on
content items (e.g., Web pages, images, videos) that are being currently
accessed via the mobile device.” Spec. ¶¶ 1, 11.
ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM
Claim 32 is illustrative and reproduced below with certain limitations
in dispute emphasized:
32. A computer-implemented method for discovering mobile
applications for use with a mobile device, the method
comprising:
generating in a data store of a computing system an index
of semantic information for multiple mobile applications from a
plurality of sources including at least one of a Web site, a blog,
a news feed, a video feed, a social network, an application store,
and/or an information service, the generating including:
identifying semantic information related to each of
the multiple mobile applications from electronically stored
meta-information about each of the multiple mobile
applications, wherein the identifying semantic information
for each of the multiple mobile applications includes
determining an entity and/or a category referenced by the
meta-information and wherein the identification is
performed using natural language processing techniques
that use a natural language parser to parse the meta-
information to recognize and disambiguate entities; and
for each of the multiple mobile applications,
generating and storing a relationship between the
determined entity and/or category referenced by the meta-
information and a corresponding entity and/or category
previously stored in the data store, the relationship stored
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in the index as semantic information associated with each
respective mobile application;
receiving a semantic search query, the query specifying at
least one entity or category;
determining from the stored relationships in the index of
semantic information one or more of the multiple mobile
applications that have associated semantic information matching
the received semantic search query or that have associated
semantic information that is related to the received semantic
search query indirectly through an entity and/or category that is
related to an entity and/or category stored in the index of
semantic information; and
transmitting indications of the determined one or more
mobile applications m response to the semantic search query.
REFERENCES
The Examiner relies on the following references as prior art:
Name Reference Date
Au US 8,135,660 B2 Mar. 13, 2012
Matheny US 2008/0222105 A1 Sept. 11, 2008
Park US 2006/0184616 A1 Aug. 17, 2006
Thorkelsson US 2011/0208801 A1 Aug. 25, 2011
REJECTIONS
After withdrawing the rejection under § 101 (Ans. 3), the Examiner
maintains the following rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103:
Claims References Final Act.
32, 35–46, 48–51 Matheny, Park, Thorkelsson, Au 5
33, 34, 47 Matheny, Park, Thorkelsson, Au, Official Notice 13
ISSUES
1. Did the Examiner err in finding that Park teaches or suggests
the “semantic information” including “an entity and/or category” and “a
relationship between the determined entity and/or category referenced by the
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meta-information and a corresponding entity and/or category previously
stored,” as recited in independent claim 32?
2. Did the Examiner err in finding a person of ordinary skill in the
art would have had reason to combine Park with the other references for
purposes of independent claim 32?
3. Did the Examiner err in taking Official Notice for dependent
claim 34?
4. Did the Examiner err in finding Thorkelsson teaches or
suggests locating applications “about an entity or category that is related to
the specified entity or category even though the located one or more mobile
applications are not directly related to the specified entity or category,” as
recited in dependent claim 38?
ANALYSIS
Claims 32, 33, 35–37, and 39–51
Independent claim 32 recites “semantic information” including “an
entity and/or category” and “a relationship between the determined entity
and/or category referenced by the meta-information and a corresponding
entity and/or category previously stored.” Independent claims 42 and 50
recite commensurate limitations.
Appellant argues that “in the natural language processing field” the
claimed “entity and/or category” refers to a noun whereas the claimed
“relationship” refers to a verb, in particular a verb linking two nouns.
Appeal Br. 12. For the claimed “entity and/or category,” Appellant asserts
that “[i]n natural language terms, nouns can be entities – verbs are not.” Id.
For example, “entities include people places, organizations, events,
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concepts, products, and the like.” Id. (citing Spec.2 ¶ 12, Table 1). On the
other hand, “[r]elationships in the context of natural language processing and
Appellant’s Specification refer to ‘relationships between subjects and
objects,’ which in common vernacular means storing which actions or verbs
linking the various subjects and/or objects.” Id. (citing Spec. ¶¶ 21–22).
To illustrate Appellant’s argument, the Specification discusses the
following example:
For example, given a sentence such as “Sean Connery starred in
Goldfinger,” the content ingester 211 may identify “Sean
Connery” as the sentence subject [i.e., a noun], “starred” as the
sentence verb, and “Goldfinger” as the sentence object [i.e., a
noun]. The identified subjects [i.e., “Sean Connery”] and objects
[i.e., “Goldfinger”] are then added as disambiguated entities . . . .
The identified verbs [i.e., “starred”] can then be used to define
relationships between the identified entities. These defined
relationships (e.g., stored as subject-verb-object or SAO triplets,
or otherwise) are then stored . . . .
Spec. ¶ 22.
We agree with the Examiner that “the features upon which applicant
relies (i.e., storing which actions or verbs linking the various subjects and/or
objects) are not recited in the rejected claim.” Ans. 4. As seen in the
quotation above, the Specification provides an example using “subject-verb
object or SAO triplets,” not a definition or a limitation. As presently
written, independent claim 32 is not limited to the “subject-verb-object”
format. Notably, claim 34, which depends from claim 32, adds the further
limitation that “the stored relationship for each of the multiple mobile

2 Our citations to “Spec.” are to the Specification as originally filed on
July 7, 2016. A paragraph was later added to the Specification, so the
paragraph numbering in later versions may differ slightly.
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applications is stored as a subject-verb-object triplet,” which further
confirms that claim 32 is not so limited.
Even if we were to adopt Appellant’s constructions for these terms,
we also agree with the Examiner that Park teaches or suggests them. The
Examiner finds that “Park does register actions and verbs which would read
upon Appellant’s supposed assertion that the claims require a relationship
defined by action/verb” and “Park discloses the comparison of a previously-
stored context information or service information (i.e. a previously stored
entity) with an action that is to be added (i.e. a determined entity referenced
by metainformation) to an action semantic ontology.” Ans. 5–6 (citing Park
¶¶ 42–43, Fig. 3). Park’s Figure 3 and description of it are reproduced
below:

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FIG. 3 depicts an example of the action semantic ontology 142
according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
The ontology is a definition or a specification of vocabularies or
concepts, and represents components (concepts) corresponding
to the contents of the system. In the exemplary embodiment of
the present invention, the ontology abstracts and represents the
services, which are defined by actions of the application, by
indicating the effect of actions on the context information.
Park ¶ 43. As can be seen in Figure 3, Park’s ontology uses verbs (e.g.,
“increase” or “has”) to link subjects (e.g., “Action” or “Service”) and objects
(e.g., “Context” or “State”). For example, one depicted relationship between
entities shown in Park’s Figure 3 can be described as “Service has State” and
another as “Action increase Context.” Thus, we are not persuaded the
Examiner erred in finding that Park teaches or suggests the disputed
limitations, even under Appellant’s claim constructions.
Appellant next argues that “it is not at all clear from the Examiner’s
comments how Park’s ontology could even be integrated into the entity
recommendation framework of Matheny.” Appeal Br. 13–14. However,
given our findings above, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in
determining that “Park discloses the comparison of a previously-stored
context information or service information (i.e. a previously stored entity)
with an action that is to be added (i.e. a determined entity referenced by
metainformation) to an action semantic ontology in order to detect a
conflict.” Ans. 6. We are also not persuaded the Examiner erred in
determining that it would have been obvious to perform a similar check of
existing service/app information with the service/app recommendations of
Thorkelsson or search recommendations of Matheny. Id. at 7.
Finally, Appellant argues that “Thorkelsson’s alternative actions (for
example to execute an available native application instead of an internet
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based one) have nothing to do with the recited claim language” of an “entity
and/or category” and a “relationship” between entities or categories. Appeal
Br. 14. However, as discussed above, the Examiner relies on Park for these
features, not Thorkelsson. See Ans. 5–6. Instead, the Examiner relies on
Thorkelsson for disclosing “the determination of suggest[ed] client
applications which may be retrieved in response to a user input.” Id. at 7;
Final Act. 9.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of
independent claims 32, 42, and 50, and their dependent claims 33, 35–37,
39–41, 43–49, and 51, which Appellant argues are patentable for similar
reasons. See Appeal Br. 15; 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
Claim 34
Dependent claim 343 recites “the stored relationship for each of the
multiple mobile applications is stored as a subject-verb-object triplet.”
According to Appellant, “[t]he Examiner takes Official Notice[] that it
would be obvious that the stored relationships for each of the multiple
mobile applications may be stored in this manner,” but “since the
combination of Mathews and Thorkelsson does not include the stored
relationships defined by Appellant’s claims, it is incorrect for the Examiner
to take Official Notice of something that is more than a mere gap filler or
insubstantial.” Appeal Br. 16.
This argument is moot, however, in light of our determinations above
regarding the claimed “relationships” and the Examiner providing a prior art

3 As the Examiner notes (Ans. 8), Appellant mistakenly argues this under
“claim 33.” Appeal Br. 16. The limitation is instead found in claim 34.
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reference teaching the disputed limitation. Ans. 9 (citing US 2011/0161070
¶¶ 2, 32).
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 34.
Claim 38
Dependent claim 38 recites locating applications “about an entity or
category that is related to the specified entity or category even though the
located one or more mobile applications are not directly related to the
specified entity or category.” The claim similarly recites “receiving a search
query that requests mobile applications that are indirectly related to a
specified entity or category.”
Appellant argues that “the Examiner has not met his burden of
articulating a prima facie case of obviousness” because “[t]he Examiner
again relies on Thorkelsson’s ‘suggesting alternate actions to access service
content’ as somehow teaching this aspect without any explanation of how
this occurs since relatedness in Thorkelsson does not use a semantic index,
and certainly not one that matches applications/services based upon
entities/categories.” Appeal Br. 17.
However, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred. First, as
discussed above, the Examiner relies on Park for the details of “the index of
semantic information,” including “entities and/or categories” and
“relationships” between them. See Ans. 5–6. Second, “Thorkelsson
discloses the determination of suggest[ed] client applications which may be
retrieved in response to a user input,” such as detecting that a user has
entered “www.facebook.com” in a browser and then suggesting “a list of
client applications that can be retrieved and installed,” including but not
limited to “a local Facebook client application.” Id. at 7; Thorkelsson ¶¶ 28,
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34. For claim 38, the Examiner further finds that Thorkelsson uses indirect
contextual information to determine the appropriate mobile applications,
which teaches or suggests the further limitations of this dependent claim.
Ans. 11 (“Thorkelsson does not disclose a specific direct relationship
between a mobile application and an entity, but rather utilizes contextual
information to determine the appropriate mobile application, Thorkelsson
would have sufficiently read upon the negative limitation of ‘the specified
entity or category even though the located one or more mobile applications
are not directly related to the specified entity or category.’”). Appellant does
not sufficiently address the Examiner’s determination about Thorkelsson’s
recommendations being “indirect” to convince us of Examiner error.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 38.
OUTCOME
The following table summarizes the outcome of each rejection:
Claim(s)
Rejected
35
U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
32, 35–46,
48–51
103 Matheny, Park, Thorkelsson,
Au
32, 35–46,
48–51

33, 34, 47 103 Matheny, Park, Thorkelsson,
Au, Official Notice
33, 34, 47
Overall
Outcome
32–51
TIME TO RESPOND
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.
§ 1.36(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED