Ex Parte Kulack et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 29, 2016

13693073 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 29, 2016)

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.
13/693,073 12/04/2012 Frederick A. Kulack ROC920100167US2 4951
46797 7590 12/01/2016
Patterson Rr SheriHan T T P
EXAMINER
24 Greenway Plaza, Suite 1600
Houston, TX 77046
OHBA, MELLISSA M
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2164
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/01/2016 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):
Pair_eOfficeAction@pattersonsheridan.com
IBM@PATTERSONSHERIDAN.COM
rociplaw@us.ibm.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte FREDERICK A. KULACK, KEVIN G. PATERSON,
and SHANNON E. WENZEL
Appeal 2015-007723
Application 13/693,073
Technology Center 2100
Before JEAN R. HOMERE, NABEEL U. KHAN, and
KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, Administrative Patent Judges.
SZPONDOWSKI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final
Rejection of claims 1, 2, and 4—9, all claims currently pending in the
application. Claim 3 has been cancelled. Claims App’x. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
Appeal 2015-007723
Application 13/693,073
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants’ invention is directed to displaying logical statement
relationships between diverse documents in a research domain. Spec. 1 5.
Claim 1, reproduced below with the disputed limitations in italics, is
representative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A computer-implemented method of analyzing a document with
a managed research domain, comprising:
parsing text of a first document to identify one or more
assertions made by the text of the first document, wherein each
assertion comprises one or more premises and at least one
conclusion;
for each identified assertion:
generating assertion metadata describing a relationship
between one or more topics in the assertion, wherein the
assertion metadata further comprises a measure of strength of
the identified assertion, and
determining a set of documents stored by the managed
research domain that contain assertions regarding the topics
identified in the assertion; and
providing an indication to a user of the set of documents
that contain assertions regarding the topics identified in the one
or more assertions.
REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 2, and 4—9 stand provisionally rejected on the ground of
nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over
claims 1—16 of copending Application No. 13/035310. Final Act. 4
Claims 1 and 4—9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Willse et al. (US 2004/0059736 Al; published Mar. 25,
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Appeal 2015-007723
Application 13/693,073
2004) (“Willse”) and Rosenberg (US 2005/0203924 Al; published Sept. 15,
2005) . Final Act. 5—9.
Claim 2 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Willse, Rosenberg, and Yasin (US 2010/0114561 Al;
published May 6, 2010). Final Act. 9-10.
ANALYSIS
Double Patenting: Claims 1, 2, and 4—9
Claim 1 is provisionally rejected on the ground of non-statutory
obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 10 of
co-pending Application No. 13/035,310 and claims 2 and 4-9 over claims 11
and 14—18 of co-pending Application No. 13/035,310. Final Act. 3-4.
The Examiner’s Answer dated June 19, 2015 does not withdraw the
double patenting rejection, and thus maintains the rejection made in the
Final Rejection. See Ans. 2 (“Every ground of rejection set forth in the
Office action dated 9/22/2014 from which the appeal is taken is being
maintained by the examiner except for the grounds of rejection (if any) listed
under the subheading ‘WITHDRAWN REJECTIONS.’”). Appellants have
not acknowledged or traversed these rejections. We therefore affirm these
rejections, proforma, as no error has been demonstrated by Appellants.
35 U.S.C. § 103(a): Claims 1, 2, and 4-9
Issue'. Did the Examiner err in finding the combination of Willse and
Rosenberg teaches or suggests “the assertion metadata further comprises a
measure of strength of the identified assertion,” as recited in independent
claim 1?
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Appeal 2015-007723
Application 13/693,073
The Examiner finds Willse’s confidence and levels of concepts teach
or suggest the disputed limitation. Ans. 3—4, citing Willse Tflf 37, 82, 88, 99,
and 100; Final Act. 5, citing Willse 37, 82, 88, 99-103, and 137.
Specifically, the Examiner construes “measure of strength” as “confidence.”
Ans. 3. The Examiner states “[t]he confidence is an indication of the
‘strength’ of the relationship between the concept and the document.” Ans.
3; see also Ans. 4. The Examiner finds “[s]ince the concept of Willse is the
assertion of the claim, the confidence of the concept is the measure of
strength of the assertion.” Ans. 4.
Appellants contend Willse’s confidence measure is used to determine
how strongly latent concepts are believed to be represented in a document.
Br. 7. According to Appellants, Willse describes a measure of confidence in
the system’s own determinations, not a measure of a how strongly an
assertion is made by the content of the document. Br. 8. Appellants state a
“measure of strength” is “a measure of how strongly an assertion is made by
a given document.” Br. 9, citing Spec. 47, 48, and 50.
We are persuaded by Appellants’ arguments. “[D]uring examination
proceedings, claims are given their broadest reasonable interpretation
consistent with the specification. ” In re Hyatt, 211 F.3d 1367, 1372 (Fed.
Cir. 2000) (emphasis added). We find the Examiner’s interpretation of the
“measure of strength” unreasonably broad in light of the Specification and
inconsistent with both the Specification and the claim language. We note
that claim terms are not interpreted in a vacuum, devoid of the context of the
claim as a whole. See Hockerson-Halberstadt, Inc. v. Converse Inc., 183
F.3d 1369, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 1999). “The construction that stays true to the
claim language and most naturally aligns with the patent’s description of the
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Appeal 2015-007723
Application 13/693,073
invention will be, in the end, the correct construction.” Renishaw PLC v.
Marposs Societa’per Azioni, 158 F.3d 1243, 1250 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (citation
omitted).
Although Appellants do not explicitly define the “measure of
strength” in the Specification, the claim language requires the “measure of
strength of the identified assertion.'''’ Such terminology is consistent with
Appellants’ use of “strength” in the Specification. E.g., Spec. 120
(“strength of each of the assertions”); 146 (“strength of the assertion”); 147
(“strength of the overall assertion in each of the statements”); | 50 (“strength
328 describes the relationship 324 that is stated by the author of the
statement and characterizes the amount or degree of conviction of the
opinion of the author, as to the relationship 324 between the first topic 322
and second topic 526”).
Willse describes using text analysis to determine a concept
representation for a set of documents. Willse Abstract. Willse’s confidence
refers to the relationship between the concept and the document. Ans. 7.
Specifically, Willse describes the confidence that a concept is discussed in a
document. Willse 137. We agree with Appellants that such disclosure does
not teach or suggest the “measure of strength of an identified assertion.”
Rather, at most it teaches or suggests the presence of an identified assertion
in a document, not the strength of the identified assertion itself, as claimed.
Accordingly, we are persuaded the Examiner erred in finding the
combination of Willse and Rosenberg teaches or suggests the disputed
limitation. We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
independent claim 1 for the reasons set forth above, and the Examiner’s
rejection of dependent claims 2 and 4—9 for the same reasons.
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Appeal 2015-007723
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DECISION
The Examiner’s provisional rejections of claims 1, 2, and 4—9 on the
ground of non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting are affirmed.
The Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejections of claims 1, 2, and 4—9
are reversed.
Because we have affirmed at least one ground of rejection with
respect to each claim on appeal, the Examiner’s decision is affirmed. See
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(a)(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)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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