Ex Parte Borriello et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 2, 2016

13361033 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 2, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/361,033 01/30/2012
27350 7590 11/04/2016
LERNER GREENBERG STEMER LLP
Box SA
P.O. BOX 2480
HOLLYWOOD, FL 33022-2480
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Diego Borriello
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
2010Pl0075 6878
EXAMINER
MRABI, HASSAN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2144
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/04/2016 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):
boxsa@patentusa.com
docket@patentusa.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DIEGO BORRIELLO and NADIA GIUSTI
Appeal2015-006951
Application 13/361,033
Technology Center 2100
Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, JUSTIN BUSCH,
and NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) the Examiner's Final
Rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, and 5. 1 Claim 3 is cancelled. We have
jurisdiction over the pending rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify Siemens Aktiengesellschaft as the real party in interest.
(App. Br. 1.)
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Application 13/361,033
THE INVENTION
Appellants' disclosed and claimed invention is directed to enabling
information exchange while switching between a source page and a target
page on a drill-down navigation schema, developed with a .NET web
application. (Abstract.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the
subject matter on appeal:
1. A method for enabling information exchange while
switching between a source page and a target page in a drill-
down navigation schema, developed with a .NET web
application, wherein the target page can be loaded, at run-time,
when an end-user activates a next-page button located inside
the source page and the source page can be re-loaded, when, at
run-time, the end-user activates a back-page button located
inside the target page, which comprises the steps of:
providing a smart navigation service, in a form of a class
library to be configured at page developing time, for managing
information for smart navigation between the source page and
the target page;
locating the smart navigation service, at run-time, in a
given user-session and being able, upon-events, to collect, store
and provide required smart navigation information from and/or
to web-pages of the given user-session, the smart navigation
information containing parameter data, navigation status data
and user data;
configuring the smart navigation service at the page-
developing time with the following steps:
initializing the smart navigation service using the
user data within the source and target pages;
providing to the smart navigation service a first set
of parameter data to be collected and stored within the
source page;
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Application 13/361,033
requiring, from the smart navigation service, a
second set of parameter data to be utilized on the target
page to be loaded within the target page;
performing, at run time, the following steps:
collecting and storing, via the smart navigation
service, values of the first set of parameter from the
source page according to end-user selection;
performing, when the end-user switches from the
source page to the target page by activating the next page
button, the two following sub-sub steps:
collecting and storing, via the smart
navigation service, navigation status data from the
source page;
loading the target page with a desired view
depending on a value of a second set of parameter
data provided by the smart navigation service; and
if the end-user switches back from the target page to the
source page by activating the back page button, loading the
source page with a desired view depending on the value of the
first set of parameter data and of the navigation status data
previously collected from the source page, both of the data
being provided by the smart navigation service;
wherein the smart navigation service stores the smart
navigation information in the given user session.
REJECTION
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 2, 4, and 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Milic-Frayling et al. (US 7,774,721 B2 issued Aug. 10,
2010), Chess et al. (US 2003/0182357 Al, pub. Sep. 25, 2003), Good et al.
(US 2007/0094267 Al, pub. Apr. 26, 2007) and Elbaum, Karre, and
Rothermel, "Improving Web Application Testing With User Session Data,"
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Application 13/361,033
Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Software Engineering,
IEEE Computer Society (2003) (hereafter "Elbaum"). (Final Act. 3-8.)
ISSUE ON APPEAL
Appellants' arguments in the Briefs present the following issue: 2
Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Milic-
Frayling, Chess, Good, and Elbaum teaches or suggests the independent
claim 1 limitation "the smart navigation service stores the smart navigation
information in the given user session," and the similar limitations recited in
independent claims 4 and 5. (App. Br. 10-14.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection in light of Appellants'
arguments that the Examiner errs. We disagree with Appellants' arguments,
and we adopt as our own ( 1) the pertinent findings and reasons set forth by
the Examiner in the Action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 3-8)
and (2) the corresponding findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in
the Examiner's Answer in response to Appellants' Appeal Brief (Ans. 4--5).
We concur with the applicable conclusions reached by the Examiner and
emphasize the following.
For the claim limitation at issue, the Examiner relies on the disclosure
in Elbaum of a web application testing technique in which user interactions
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the findings of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Jan. 28, 2015); the Reply Brief
(filed July 20, 2015); the Final Office Action (mailed Aug. 29, 2014); and
the Examiner's Answer (mailed May 21, 2015) for the respective details.
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Application 13/361,033
are collected during a user session via, for example, logging all received user
requests, so as to accommodate "navigating backward and forward while
submitting a form." (Final Act. 7; Elbaum§ 3.2.)
Appellants argue the Examiner errs because the disclosure of
collecting client requests during a user session "does not mean that a smart
navigation service stores the smart navigation information in the given user
session." (App. Br. 11.) However, we agree with the Examiner that Elbaum
at least teaches or suggests storing the information in the user session, even
if it also suggests, for example, the alternative of storing the information in a
repository. (Final Act. 7.) We note that the Specification also provides for
these two alternatives as routine choices for session storage. (Spec. i-f 28.)
Furthermore, as the Examiner points out, the Specification does not define
"stores ... in the given user session" - therefore, the logging of user
requests during a session, as described in Elbaum, falls within the literal
language of that claim limitation as reasonably and broadly construed. (Ans.
4.)
Appellants further argue the combination of Elbaum with Milic-
Frayling is not motivated because Milic-Frayling provides for the ability to
navigate to targets from a previous browser session, which ability would
allegedly be lost if the information were stored in a user session. (App. Br.
10.) However, a broad but reasonable definition of "stores ... in the given
user session" does not exclude the possibility of storing through multiple
sessions. Therefore, this argument is unpersuasive.
Appellants also argue that the Examiner errs in combining these two
references because the "established function" of Milic-Frayling "is to enable
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the user of the web browser to quickly return to a desired resource without
navigating to previously visited intervening resources," in contrast to the
established function of Elbamn, which is testing web applications. (App. Br.
12-13.) However, we agree with the Examiner that the two references are
sufficiently related, and that the combination would have been obvious.
(Final Act. 7-8.) In re Klein, 647 F.3d 1343, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2011)
(reference is within the field of the inventor's endeavor.) Appellants do not
present sufficient evidence that the combination of the cited references was
"uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art" or
"represented an unobvious step over the prior art." Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v.
Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR Int'!
Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007)). The Examiner's findings are
reasonable because the skilled artisan would "be able to fit the teachings of
multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle" since the skilled artisan is
"a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton." KSR, 550 U.S. at 420-
21.
CONCLUSIONS
For the reasons stated above, we sustain the rejection of claims 1, 4,
and 5. We also sustain the rejection of claim 2, which rejection is not argued
separately with particularity. (App. Br. 8-9.)
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Application 13/361,033
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, and 5.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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