10106096 (B.P.A.I. Jun. 5, 2012)

Ex Parte Adar et al

Board of Patent Appeals and InterferencesJun 5, 2012

10106096 (B.P.A.I. Jun. 5, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS AND INTERFERENCES ____________ Ex parte EYTAN ADAR, RAJAN MATHEW LUKOSE, JOSHUA ROGERS TYLER, and CAESAR SENGUPTA ____________ Appeal 2009-014264 Application 10/106,096 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before LANCE LEONARD BARRY, ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, and GREGORY J. GONSALVES, Administrative Patent Judges. GONSALVES, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2009-014264 Application 10/106,096 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of claims 1-43. (App. Br. 4.) We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. The Invention Exemplary Claim 1 follows: 1. A method for knowledge management, comprising: accessing a set of data targets pertaining to activity of a user; collecting data target information from the data targets; generating a client profile from the data target information; storing the client profile on a client computer; receiving a message at the client computer; and scoring the message with respect to the client profile, wherein the data targets include emails and the data target information includes use behavioral data with respect to the emails, the user behavioral data includes which emails the user reads and stores and which emails the user ignores and deletes. The Examiner rejected claims 1-7, 10-12, 15, 18, 19, 22-26, 28, 29, 34, 38, and 43 under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Dedrick (U.S. Patent 5,710,884) , Subramonian (U.S. 6,701,362 B1), and Tucciarone (U.S. Patent Pub. 2004/0122730 A1) (Ans. 3-13). Appeal 2009-014264 Application 10/106,096 3 The Examiner rejected claim 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Dedrick, Subramonian, Tucciarone, and Dragulev (U.S. Patent Pub. 2001/0037407 A1) (Ans. 13-14). The Examiner rejected claim 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Dedrick, Subramonian, Tucciarone, and Reiner (U.S. Patent Pub. 2003/0023715) (Ans. 14-15). The Examiner rejected claims 8, 9, 16, 17, 20, 21, 27, 39 and 40 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Dedrick, Subramonian, Tucciarone, and Rawat (U.S. Patent Pub. 2002/0174185 A1) (Ans. 15-20). The Examiner rejected claims 32, 33, 36, and 37 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Dedrick, Subramonian, and Rawat (Ans. 20-27). The Examiner rejected claim 30 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Dedrick, Payton (U.S. 6,681,247 B1) and Subramonian (Ans. 27-28). The Examiner rejected claims 31 and 35 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Dedrick and Rawat (Ans. 28-31). The Examiner rejected claims 41 and 42 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Dedrick, Subramonian, Tucciarone, and Gilmour (U.S. 6,154,783) (Ans. 31-32). ISSUES Appellants’ responses to the Examiner’s positions present the following issues: 1. Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Dedrick, Subramonian, and Tucciarone teach collecting “user behavioral Appeal 2009-014264 Application 10/106,096 4 data [that] includes which emails the user reads and stores and which emails the user ignores and deletes,” as recited in claim 1 and as similarly recited in claims 29 and 34? 2. Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Dedrick, Subramonian, and Tucciarone teach “which files stored in the client computer were modified by the user and which files stored on the client computer were deleted by the user,” as recited in claim 28? 3. Did the Examiner err in finding that Dragulev teaches that cached data is used to create the user profile, as required by claim 13? 4. Did the Examiner err in finding that there was a motivation to combine Dedrick, Subramonian, Tucciarone, and Gilmour to render claims 41 and 42 obvious? 5. Did the Examiner err in finding that Subramonian teaches scoring messages at the client computer, as required by claims 32-33 and 36- 37? 6. Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Dedrick, Payton, and Subramonian teach or suggest that “data target information includes information on files transmitted to and downloaded from a network,” as required by claim 30? 7. Did the Examiner err in finding that Rawat teaches that “filtering criteria are inserted by a message sending client to target selected receiving clients,” as recited by claims 31 and 35? ANALYSIS We disagree with Appellants’ conclusion regarding the Examiner’s rejection of the claims on appeal. We adopt as our own (1) the findings and Appeal 2009-014264 Application 10/106,096 5 reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer (Ans. 3-36) in response to arguments made in the Appellants’ Appeal Brief and Reply Brief. We concur with the conclusion reached by the Examiner. We highlight and address certain findings and arguments below. 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) Rejection Of Claims 1-29, 34, and 38-43 Appellants assert that the Examiner erred in finding that independent claims 1, 29, and 34 are obvious because Dedrick, Subramonian, and Tucciarone do not teach collecting “user behavioral data [that] includes which emails the user reads and stores and which emails the user ignores and deletes” (App. Br. 18-19 (emphasis omitted)). Appellants also argue that Tucciarone does not teach generating a client profile from behavioral data (Id. at 19). Appellants also assert that the Examiner erred in finding that independent claim 28 is obvious because Dedrick, Subramonian, and Tucciarone do not teach “which files stored on the client computer were modified by the user and which files stored on the client computer were deleted by the user” (App. Br. 19-20). We agree with the Examiner’s response to these assertions (See Ans. 32-25). As explained by the Examiner (Ans. 32-33), Tucciarone’s system keeps a record of a user’s behavioral responses to email files such as reading, opening, deleting, ignoring, and forwarding emails (Tucciarone, pp. 15-17). As also explained by the Examiner (Ans. 33-34), Dedrick teaches generating a client profile from a user’s activity and behavior (Dedrick, col. 5, l. 39 – col. 6, l. 4). Therefore, we do not find any error in the Examiner’s Appeal 2009-014264 Application 10/106,096 6 obviousness rejection of independent claims 1, 28, 29, and 34 or the claims dependent therefrom (i.e., claims 2-27 and 38-43) because Appellants did not set forth any separate patentability arguments for those claims (See App. Br. 18-21). Appellants also contend that the Examiner erred in concluding that claim 13 is obvious because Dragulev does not teach that cached data is used to create the user profile (App. Br. 21). We agree with the Examiner’s discussion of Dragulev and the response provided to this assertion (Ans. 35). As explained by the Examiner (Ans. 35), Dedrick teaches capturing data for a user profile and Dragulev teaches capturing cached data (Dedrick, col. 5, l. 52- col. 6, l. 21; Dragulev, ¶¶ [0095] and [0104]). Therefore, we do not find any error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claim 13. Appellants also contend that the Examiner erred in concluding that claims 41 and 42 are obvious based on the combination of Dedrick, Subramonian, Tucciarone and Gilmour because “no teaching or suggestion exists to make the combination because the references are directed to completely different inventions” (App. Br. 23). Appellants argue that Gilmour teaches that a knowledge profile is generated on a server while Subramonian teaches that the profile is constructed on a client computer (Id. at 24). But Gilmour and Subramonian are in the same field because both construct profiles of a user’s behavior (see e.g., Gilmour, col. 7, ll. 53-65 and col. 24, l. 48 – col. 25, l. 22; Subramonian, col. 9, ll. 17-22) and they are not considered to be directed to completely different inventions merely because they happen to construct the profiles on different computers. Moreover, as explained by the Examiner, one or ordinary skill in the art would have combined Gilmour’s teachings with those of Subramonian and Appeal 2009-014264 Application 10/106,096 7 the other references to score a relevance of a message to a user to determine whether the message should be sent to that user (Ans. 32). Thus, we do not find any error in the Examiner’s rejection of claims 41 and 42. 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) Rejection Of Claims 32, 33, 36, and 37 Appellants assert that the Examiner erred in concluding that claims 32, 33, 36, and 37 are obvious because Subramonian does not “teach or even suggest scoring messages at the client computer” (App. Br. 22). We agree with the Examiner’s discussion of Subramonian and the response provided to Appellants’ assertion (See Ans. 33-34). As explained by the Examiner (Ans. 33-34), Subramonian teaches determining a user’s level of interest in a concept by incrementing or decrementing a weight of the concept in the user’s profile (Subramonian, col. 9, ll. 54-67). Thus, we do not find any error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 32, 33, 36, and 37. 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) Rejection Of Claim 30 Appellants assert that the Examiner erred in concluding that claim 30 is obvious because Dedrick, Payton, and Subramonian do not teach or suggest that “data target information includes information on files transmitted to and downloaded from a network,” as recited in claim 30 (App. Br. 22). We agree with the Examiner’s discussion of Payton and the response provided to Appellants’ assertion (See Ans. 27-28, 35-36). As explained by the Examiner (Ans. 27-28, 36), Payton teaches scoring files in relation to a user profile using information on the files from a network (Payton, col. 5, ll. 15-49; col. 8, ll. 1-9). Thus, we do not find any error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claim 30. Appeal 2009-014264 Application 10/106,096 8 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) Rejection Of Claims 31 and 35 Appellants assert that the Examiner erred in concluding that claims 31 and 35 are obvious because Rawat does not teach that “filtering criteria are inserted by a message sending client to target selected receiving clients,” as recited in the claims (App. Br. 23). We agree with the Examiner’s discussion of Rawat and the response provided to Appellants’ assertion (See Ans. 36). As explained by the Examiner (Ans. 36), Rawat, for example, teaches that “incoming electronic correspondence may be parsed for content, filtered according to use preferences, and forwarded to appropriate destination addresses based upon the content” (Rawat, ¶ [0023]). Thus, we do not find any error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 31 and 35. DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-43.1 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). AFFIRMED peb 1 Although we conclude that some portions of the prior art references cited by the Examiner teach all of the claim elements as explained in detail in this Opinion, we also note that other portions that the Examiner cited do not relate to the claim elements. Accordingly, we advise the Examiner, in the future, to designate the particular part of the references relied upon as nearly as practicable, as required by 37 C.F.R. § 1.104(c)(2).