Ex Parte RolfeDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 27, 201714051108 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 27, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 14/051,108 10/10/2013 Andrew Robert ROLFE 090850-1033606 3908 20350 7590 12/29/2017 KTT PATRTrK TOWNSFND fr STOrKTON T T P EXAMINER Mailstop: IP Docketing - 22 1100 Peachtree Street SU, SARAH Suite 2800 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER Atlanta, UA 5U5UV 2431 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/29/2017 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): ipefiling@kilpatricktownsend.com KT S Docketing2 @ kilpatrick. foundationip .com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ANDREW ROBERT ROLFE Appeal 2017-007735 Application 14/051,1081 Technology Center 2400 Before TERRENCE W. McMILLIN, KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, and SCOTT B. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judges. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 7 and 9—25, which constitute all of the claims pending in this application. Claims 1—6 and 8 have been cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 Appellant is the Applicant, Authentify, Inc., which, according to the Appeal Brief is the real party in interest. App. Br. 2. Appeal 2017-007735 Application 14/051,108 THE INVENTION The disclosed and claimed invention is directed to “web based login and transaction authentication, including web based signatures, using hardware plug-in devices compatible with desktop and/or laptop computers, and/or smart mobile communication” devices. Spec. I.2 Claim 7, reproduced below with the relevant language emphasized, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 7. A method of operating a server to securely convey information to a user via a network, comprising: receiving, from the user, a first user selected presentation form representing a user selected specific voice and a second user selected presentation form representing a user selected specific background image; receiving, from another user, information for presentation to the user; identifying a risk level for the received information; incorporating the received information, based on the identified risk level, into one of the first user selected presentation form and the second user selected presentation form; and transmitting the information incorporated in the one user selected presentation form to the user via the network. App. Br., Claims Appendix, 14. 2 We refer to the Specification filed Oct. 10, 2013 (“Spec.”); Final Office Action mailed Feb. 17, 2016 (“Final Act.”); Appeal Brief filed Dec. 5, 2016 (“App. Br.”); Examiner’s Answer mailed Feb. 27, 2017 (“Ans.”); and the Reply Brief filed Apr. 27, 2017 (“Reply Br.”). 2 Appeal 2017-007735 Application 14/051,108 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Golan Ishikawa Brown Wilson US 2005/0097320 A1 US 2007/0297644 A1 US 2008/0141353 A1 US 2012/0246079 A1 May 5, 2005 Dec. 27, 2007 June 12, 2008 Sept. 27, 2012 REJECTIONS Claims 7, 9, 10, 12, 14—16, 18, 20-22, and 24 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Brown, Wilson, and Golan. Final Act. 5. Claims 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, and 25 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Brown, Wilson, Golan, and Ishikawa. Final Act. 12. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner erred. In reaching this decision, we have considered all evidence presented and all arguments made by Appellant. We are persuaded by Appellant’s arguments regarding the pending claims. The Examiner finds Golan teaches identifying a risk level allows for the level of authentication required to be adjusted accordingly, and “using a risk to present information in order to provide different levels of authentication according to the level of risk.” Final Act. 7 (citing Golan 124). The Examiner finds Golan teaches assessing the risk level of the transaction, and then based on the risk level, “different sets of authentication details required of the user (i.e. different presentation forms) are communicated with the user.” Ans. 14 (citing Golan 124). “It is the 3 Appeal 2017-007735 Application 14/051,108 [EJxaminer’s position that Golan’s request for different authentication details are thus different presentations to the user, where the transaction information is considered to be incorporated since it has been used to determine what details are needed.” Ans. 15. Appellant argues that Golan “lacks any disclosure whatsoever relating to varying the form in which information (transaction information) is presented to a user, much less varying the form based on an identified risk level.” App. Br. 9 (emphasis added). Appellant contends that “Golan merely associates a risk with a transaction type,” but does not “even remotely suggest presenting any information to a user in a different form based on the level of risk of a transaction.” App. Br. 10 (emphasis added); see Reply Br. 2. We are persuaded by Appellant’s arguments as the Examiner has not identified sufficient evidence or provided sufficient explanation as to how Golan’s adjusting the level of authentication required based on the assessed level of risk of a transaction teaches “incorporating the received information, based on the identified risk level, into one of the first user selected presentation form and the second user selected presentation form,” as recited in in claim 7 (emphasis added). The cited section of Golan describes a request to begin a transaction, including a financial transaction, assessing the risk level of the transaction, and then setting the level of authentication for the transaction based on the risk level. The resulting authentication level based on the assessed risk level is “used to determine a set of authentication details required of a user — for example, a password, additional information such as a social security number or answer to a security question, etc.” Golan. 124 (emphasis added). In other words, Golan teaches assessing the risk level of a 4 Appeal 2017-007735 Application 14/051,108 transaction, and based on the risk level, requesting authentication details such as passwords. However, Golan does not teach requesting authentication details using different formats or presentation forms based on the risk level of a transaction. Therefore, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner’s finding that Golan teaches the disputed limitation is in error because it is not supported by a preponderance of the evidence. See In re Caveney, 761 F.2d 671, 674 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (holding that the Examiner’s burden of proving non-patentability is by a preponderance of the evidence); see also In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011,1017 (CCPA 1967) (“The Patent Office has the initial duty of supplying the factual basis for its rejection. It may not, because it may doubt that the invention is patentable, resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions or hindsight reconstruction to supply deficiencies in its factual basis.”). Accordingly, we are constrained on the record before us, to reverse the Examiner’s § 103 rejection of claim 7, along with the § 103 rejection of claims 14 and 20, which recite limitations commensurate in scope to the disputed limitation discussed above, and dependent claims 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18, 21, 22, and 24. See App. Br. 10-11. Moreover, because the Examiner has not shown that the additional references cure the foregoing deficiency regarding the rejection of the independent claims 7, 14, and 20, we will not sustain the obviousness rejections of dependent claims 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, and 25. See App. Br. 11— 13. DECISION For the above reasons, we reverse the Examiner’s decisions rejecting claims 7 and 9-25. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation