Ex Parte Kalra et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 11, 2016

13538810 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 11, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/538,810 06/29/2012
11764 7590
Ditthavong & Steiner, P,C,
44 Canal Center Plaza
Suite 322
Alexandria, VA 22314
07113/2016
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Pavandeep Kalra
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.
P5331US01 1039
EXAMINER
NGUYEN, KIM T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2163
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/13/2016 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):
docket@dcpatent.com
Nokia.IPR@nokia.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte PAV ANDEEP KALRA and SERGERY BOLDYREV
Appeal2014-008259
Application 13/538,810 1
Technology Center 2100
Before THU A. DANG, JEFFREY A. STEPHENS, and CARL L.
SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1-20. App. Br. 3. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We AFFIRM.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The invention relates to real-time execution of computations of data
based on context information upon collection, storage, retrieval, or use of the
data. Abstract. Claim 1 is exemplary of the matter on appeal:
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Nokia Corporation.
App. Br.I.
Appeal2014-008259
Application 13/538,810
1. i\ .. method comprising:
determining context information associated with one or
more data items stored at one or more nodes at substantially a
time associated with a collection, a storage, a retrieval, a use, or
a combination thereof of the one or more data items;
detennining one or more computations for processing the
one or more data items based, at least in part, on the context
information;
causing, at least in part, a serialization of the one or more
computations, the context information, or a combination
thereof; and
determining to associate the serialization with the one or
more data items.
App. Br. 11 (Claims App.).
THE REJECTION
Claims 1-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being
anticipated by Chidlovskii (US 2012/0226651 Al; issued Sept. 6, 2012)
ANALYSIS
Appellants argue the Examiner provides inadequate basis to support
anticipation because there is "no substantive explanation of why the cited
passages [Figs. 3-8; i1i1 0013---0019] of Chidlovskii [] disclose the claimed
features of the independent claims." App. Br. 3-5 (referring to the Final
Action). Appellants argue Chidlovskii does not teach or suggest the claim 1
limitation "determining context information associated with one or more
data items stored at one or more nodes at substantially a time associated
with a collection, a storage, a retrieval, a use, or a combination thereof
of the one or more data items." Id. at 7.
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Application 13/538,810
Regarding paragraph 13 of Chidlovskii, i\.ppellants argue:
Chidlovskii simply suggests "integrating a number of different
entities and relations between them, using the relations to build
data models for different recommendation tasks, and finding the
optimal contribution of each relation to a given recommendation
task." However, clearly the above reproduced portion of
Chidlovskii fails to disclose[] or even remotely suggest any
determining at substantially a time associated with a
collection, a storage, a retrieval, a use, or a combination
thereof of one or more data items, much less in the context of
the claims.
App. Br. 8.
According to Appellants:
integrating different entities and relations or building data
models for different recommendation tasks does not disclose
determining the context information associated with the entities
or the relations at substantially a time associated with a
collection, a storage, a retrieval, a use, of the entities or the
relations because the context information associated with the
entities or the relations may be determined at another time not
associated with a collection, a storage, a retrieval, a use of the
entities or the relations.
App. Br. 8. Appellants additionally argue the Examiner has not established
the disputed claim limitation is inherently taught by Chidlovskii. Id. at 9.
In the Answer, the Examiner refers to the Specification description of
Real-time pattern recognition for tag generation and finds Chidlovskii
teaches personal profiles and data from separate social networks are
connected via common entities (such as common personal credentials). Ans.
3--4 (citing Spec. p 10; Fig. 3; ifif 14, 15).
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Application 13/538,810
The Examiner additionally finds:
For example, some social networking sites (such as
Facebook.RTM., MySpace.RTM., Google Friend
Connect.RTM.) provide an application programming interface
(API) that allows for determining common users across
platforms via social-network connectors. A recommendation
task may involve recommending a tag for an image (patterns
are determined from the image (or context information
determined) in order to recommend a tag for an image),
recommending a contact or group for a user, or recommending a
user for a user. Additionally, as used herein, an "entity" is a
description of single object about which data can be stored, and
an instance of an entity is a single occurrence of the entity. For
example, a social network may have a "user" entity, wherein an
instance of the user entity is "Bob Jones." To this end,
"instantiated" social media data refers to a collection of one or
more social media data instances.
Ans. 4--5.
In Reply, Appellants argue:
Chidlovskii does not explicitly disclose that any "patterns" are
determined from an image, either in paragraphs [0014] and
[0015] or in the remainder of Chidlovskii. Furthermore,
Chidlovskii explicitly discloses that "recommending a tag for an
image" does not require "patterns" or any other context
information. For example, in paragraph [0014], Chidlovskii
describes that tags may be applied to images by users of social
network site. The application of a tag to an image is determined
solely by the user.
Reply Br. 2.
We are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments and agree with the
Examiner's findings. The claim terms "context information" and
"substantially a time associated with a ... " are not explicitly defined in the
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Application 13/538,810
Specification, and i\~ppellants present no persuasive evidence \'l1hy the
Examiner's findings and interpretations are overly broad or unreasonable.
Claim terms in a patent application are given the broadest reasonable
interpretation consistent with the Specification, as understood by one of
ordinary skill in the art. In re Crish, 393 F.3d 1253, 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
However, our reviewing court cautions that great care should be taken to
avoid reading limitations of the Specification into the claims. E-Pass
Techs., Inc. v. 3Com Corp., 343 F.3d 1364, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2003).
Although Appellants contend "Chidlovskii does not explicitly disclose
that any 'patterns' are determined from an image," (Reply Br. 2), we note
that the claim does not require any determination of "patterns." Instead,
claim 1 merely requires "determining" any context information "associated
with" a data item. As broadly, but reasonably interpreted, we agree
Chidlovskii' s recommending a tag for a data item, such as an image,
comprises determining "context information associated with" the data item.
Ans. 4--5 (citing Fig. 3; i-fi-f 14--15); see also i-f 13. In particular, we agree that
Chidlovski necessarily determines "context information associated with" an
image (data item), including the context information within the tag itself, in
order to recommend the tag for the image. Id.
Also, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner's reliance on
Chidlovskii for disclosing that the tagging is done "at substantially a time
associated with a collection, a storage, a retrieval, a use, or a combination
thereof of the one or more data items." Id. (emphasis added). In particular,
tagging an image as in Chidlovskii necessarily requires collection, storage,
retrieval, or use of the image. See Fig. 3. Moreover, tagging the image is
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Application 13/538,810
necessarily done at "substantially" a time "associated \'l1ith" accessing the
image through collection, storage, retrieval, "or" use (claim 1 ).
In view of the above, we sustain the rejection of claim 1, and
independent claim 11 which recites the disputed limitation and is argued
together with claim 1. App. Br. 9. We also sustain the rejection of
dependent claims 2-10 and 12-20 as these claims are not argued separately.
See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-20.
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.
§ 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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