Digitech Systems Private Reserve, LLC

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

May 25, 2021

2019006215 (P.T.A.B. May. 25, 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.
14/194,063 02/28/2014 Karim Ghessassi 7570-3 7245
22442 7590 05/25/2021
Sheridan Ross PC
1560 Broadway
Suite 1200
Denver, CO 80202
EXAMINER
AHMED, SABA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2154
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/25/2021 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):
e-docket@sheridanross.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_______________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
_______________

Ex parte KARIM GHESSASSI
_______________

Appeal 2019-006215
Application 14/194,063
Technology Center 2100
_______________

Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, DAVID M. KOHUT, and
JON M. JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1–20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.2

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant(s)” as defined in 37
C.F.R. § 1.42. The real party in interest is Digitech Systems Private Reserve
LLC. (Appeal Br. 2.)
2 Our Decision refers to the Specification (“Spec.”) filed February 28, 2014,
the Final Office Action (“Final Act.”) mailed February 25, 2019, the Appeal
Brief (“Appeal Br.”) filed April 3, 2019, the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”)
mailed June 20, 2019, and the Reply Brief filed August 20, 2019 (“Reply
Br.”).
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Application 14/194,063

2
The claims are directed to methods and systems for automated
document clustering and reconstruction by which occurrences of similar
objects (e.g., text objects/words, picture objects, graphic objects, logo
objects, numbers, or symbols) at locations between scanned documents are
determined, a sorting algorithm generates a score for each of the scanned
documents based on the number of occurrences of the similar objects
between the documents, and the documents’ scores are used to identify a
template document among the scanned documents. (Spec. ¶¶ 2, 19; Title;
Abstr.)
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A method comprising:
scanning, by an electronic scanner, a plurality of
documents to produce electronic representations of the plurality
of scanned documents;
receiving, by a microprocessor, the electronic
representations of the plurality of scanned documents;
for each of the electronic representations of the plurality
of scanned documents, identifying, by the microprocessor, a
plurality of objects and physical locations of each of the
plurality of objects within the electronic representations of the
plurality of scanned documents;
determining, by the microprocessor, occurrences of
objects in same identified physical locations of each of the
plurality of objects between the electronic representations of the
plurality of scanned documents, wherein the objects comprise at
least one of: a same text, a same letter, a same word, a same
picture, a same logo, a same phrase, a same number, a same
capitalization, a same case, and a same punctuation mark;
applying, by the microprocessor, a document sorting
algorithm to generate a score for each of the electronic
representations of the plurality of scanned documents, wherein
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the score for each of the electronic representations of the
plurality of scanned documents is generated based on a number
of occurrences of objects in the same identified physical
locations between the plurality of scanned documents; and
comparing, by the microprocessor, the generated score of
each of the electronic representations of the plurality of scanned
documents to identify a template document, wherein the
template document is one of the plurality of scanned
documents.
(Appeal Br. 19 (Claims App.).)

REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Name Reference Date
Jonker et al. (“Jonker”) US 2006/0116994 A1 June 1, 2006
Chang et al. (“Chang”) US 2011/0137900 A1 June 9, 2011

REJECTION
The Examiner made the following rejection:
Claims 1–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Chang in view of Jonker. (Final Act. 3–28.)

ANALYSIS
With respect to claim 1, the Examiner finds Jonker teaches
“comparing, by the microprocessor, the generated score of each of the
electronic representations of the plurality of scanned documents to identify a
template document, wherein the template document is one of the plurality of
scanned documents,” as claimed. (Final Act. 7–8 (citing Jonker ¶¶ 90, 116,
119, Figs. 2A and 7).) Particularly, the Examiner finds Jonker’s “template
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module 57” teaches the claimed “template document,” Jonker’s paragraph
116 teaches the claimed template identification by “comparing, by the
microprocessor, the generated score of each of the electronic representations
of the plurality of scanned documents,” and Jonker’s paragraph 119 teaches
that the identified template document is one of the plurality of scanned
documents that were scored. (See Final Act. 7–8.) We do not agree.
We agree with Appellant that Jonker does not teach or suggest the
claimed “comparing . . . the generated score of each of the electronic
representations of the plurality of scanned documents to identify a template
document, wherein the template document is one of the plurality of scanned
documents.” (Appeal Br. 10–11, 19 (emphasis added); Reply Br. 4–6.)
Jonker’s “template module 57” (which the Examiner identifies as the
claimed “template document,” see Final Act. 7) is merely a module of a
visualization tool 12 (a piece of computer hardware or software that
processes a collection of information sources), the module “providing a
structured layout of the excerpts in Sandbox area.” (See Jonker ¶¶ 14, 36,
90.) Thus, Jonker’s “template module 57” does not teach the claimed
“template document [that] is one of the plurality of scanned documents.”
(Appeal Br. 10–11; Reply Br. 4–5.) Jonker’s paragraphs 116 and 119,
although referencing electronic representations of documents, fail to
describe an identification of a template document from among a plurality of
documents, as recited in claim 1. (Appeal Br. 10–11; Reply Br. 5–6.) For
example, Jonker’s paragraph 116 describes a “side-by-side comparison of
results among queries” (e.g., comparison of “documents returned from many
queries” performed by an analyst on content provided by, e.g., BBC,
Bloomberg News, and CNN) to “allow the rapid, parallel scanning of results
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to yield greater amounts of information in less time,” and Jonker’s paragraph
119 describes sorting documents by a number of occurrences of entities (i.e.,
terms referencing people, organizations, or places), and generating
histograms to show a frequency of occurrences. (See Jonker ¶¶ 99, 115–
116, 119, 121; Appeal Br. 10–11.)
In the Answer, the Examiner asserts:
Jonker [0109–0119] teaches parallel searching of multiple
documents for comparison, which inherently searches
connections between physical locations of text objects in the
relevant documents to provide the template document with the
most similar occurrences of text objects from the scanned
plurality of documents.
(Ans. 8 (emphasis added).) Appellant responds:
nothing in the newly cited portions of Jonker, or anywhere else
in Jonker for that matter discloses, teaches or even remotely
suggests the template document is one of the plurality of scanned
documents as claimed. . . .
The additional citations of Jonker fail to remedy the
rejection of the claim. Having documents clustered based on a
threshold as taught in Jonker’s paragraph [0109] is not the same
as identifying a template document. Creating a user-defined
dimension to search documents as taught in Jonker’s paragraphs
[0110]–[0113] is also not the same as identifying a template
document. In addition, providing a parallel display of search
results to show connections between search documents as taught
in Jonker’s paragraphs [0114], [0115], [0117] and [0118] is also
not the same as identifying a template document.
Moreover, the Examiner’s statement that parallel
searching of multiple documents for comparison “inherently
searches connections between physical locations of text objects
. . . to provide the template document with the most similar
occurrences of the text objects” is not what is claimed. The
Examiner is again reading elements into Jonker that are clearly
not disclosed.

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(Reply Br. 4–5.) We agree with Appellant. The cited portions of Jonker
(e.g., paragraphs 109–119) do not support the Examiner’s finding that
“Jonker . . . provide[s] the template document with the most similar
occurrences of text objects from the scanned plurality of documents.” (See
Ans. 8.)
The Examiner also has not shown that the additional teachings of
Chang make up for the above-noted deficiencies of Jonker. Although Chang
uses stored documents to determine a “document template” (see Chang
¶ 18), Chang does not identify a document template as one of a plurality of
scored documents, as recited in claim 1. Instead, Chang uses a “template
creation tool” to generate a template from “hidden structures [discovered] in
the documents of interest” and “common template structures that are
otherwise hidden in text formatting.” (See Chang ¶¶ 61, 106; see also
Chang ¶¶ 18, 50, 55, 94, 96–97.)
As the Examiner has not shown that the references teach identification
of a template document as “one of the plurality of scanned documents” (as
recited in claim 1, and similarly in claims 11 and 20), we do not sustain the
Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection of independent claims 1, 11, and 20. We also
do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 2–10 and 12–
19 depending from one of claims 1 and 11. Because the issues discussed
above with respect to claims 1, 11, and 20 are dispositive as to the rejections
of all claims, we do not reach additional issues raised by Appellant’s
arguments as to the rejections of claims 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, and 20. (See Appeal
Br. 9, 11–17; Reply Br. 3, 6–10.)
CONCLUSION
The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1–20 based upon obviousness.
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DECISION
For the above reasons, we REVERSE the Examiner’s obviousness
rejection of claims 1–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–20 103(a) Chang, Jonker 1–20

REVERSED