Ex Parte SANKARASUBRAMANIAM et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 14, 2016

12938394 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 14, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/938,394 11/03/2010
22879 7590 03/16/2016
HP Inc,
3390 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 35
FORT COLLINS, CO 80528-9544
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Y ogesh SANKARASUBRAMANIAM
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.
82262804 3347
EXAMINER
AKHA V ANNIK, MOHAMMAD H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2613
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/16/2016 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):
ipa.mail@hp.com
barbl@hp.com
yvonne.bailey@hp.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte YOGESH SANKARASUBRAMANIAM,
KRISHMAN RAMANATHAN, and
ANBUMANI SUBRAMANIAN
Appeal2014-000378
Application 12/938,394
Technology Center 2600
Before JEFFREY S. SMITH, DANIEL N. FISHMAN, and
NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
FISHMAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON i\.PPEi\L
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims
1--4, 6-11, and 15. 1 Claims 12-14 are allowed (Final Act. 7-8) and claim 5
is objected to as dependent from a rejected claim (Final Act. 8). We have
jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 In this Opinion, we refer to the original Specification ("Spec.", filed
November 3, 2010); the Final Office Action ("Final Act.," mailed March 4,
2013); Appellants' Appeal Brief ("App. Br.," filed June 28, 2013); the
Examiner's Answer ("Ans.," mailed July 22, 2013); and Appellants' Reply
Brief ("Reply Br.," filed September 18, 2013).
Appeal2014-000378
Application 12/938,394
THE INVENTION
Appellants' invention is directed to extracting and displaying a
summarized version of digital content. See Spec. Abstract. "In one
embodiment, a summary size of content is computed based on a usability
cost function and an information loss function." Id. An information loss
function ("ILF") represents the resultant loss of information due to the
summarization. See Spec. i-fi-f 17, 20-22.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter.
1. A method of adaptive content summarization, comprising:
computing a summary size of content based on a usability
cost function (UCF) and an information loss function (ILF);
extracting a summary of the content based on the summary
size; and
displaying the extracted summary on a display device;
in which the ILF measures the loss of information in
consuming the summary when compared with the entire content.
THE REJECTIONS
Claims 1--4, 6, 7, 11, and 15 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)
as anticipated by Lee et al. (US 2009/0106653 Al, pub. Apr. 23, 2009)
("Lee"). Final Act. 3-5.
Claims 8-10 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the
combined teachings of Lee and Hwang et al. (US 2002/0078090 Al, pub.
June 20, 2002) ("Hwang"). Final Act. 5-7.
ANALYSIS
Only those arguments actually made by Appellants have been
considered in this Opinion. Arguments Appellants did not make in the
2
Appeal2014-000378
Application 12/938,394
Briefa have not been considered and are deemed to be waived. See 37
C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
We are not persuaded by Appellants' contentions of Examiner error.
App. Br. 9--14; Reply Br. 4--9. We agree with the findings and reasons set
forth in the Examiner's rejections in the action from which this appeal is
taken (Final Act. 2-8) and the Examiner's Answer (Ans. 3-9) in response to
Appellants' Appeal Brief. We highlight specific arguments and findings for
emphasis as follows.
SECTION 102 REJECTION
Regarding independent claim 1, the Examiner finds Lee teaches when
the length of a summary (created from original content) is calculated, the
difference between the original content and the summary inherently
represents the claimed "information loss." Final Act. 2; Ans. 8-9 (citing Lee
i-fi-131, 45--46, 54, 58, 63). Appellants argue Lee fails to disclose that the
claimed information loss function (ILF) measures the loss of information.
App. Br. 10; Reply Br. 5 ("It is not inherent that 'measuring the loss of
information' is a 'feature of determining the appropriate length of a variable
summary"'). Appellants refer to Specification paragraph 19 for the
definition of the ILF. Reply Br. 5 ("IPL is derived 'based on parameters
such as user-specific parameters and content-specific parameters"'). 2
Appellants' quoted portion of the Specification (i-f 20) as well as claim
1, interpreted broadly but reasonably in view of the Specification, provides
that the term ILF is a measure (i.e., a value or parameter) that represents loss
2 We observe the quotation Appellants identify in paragraph 19 (Reply Br. 5)
appears to be from paragraph 20 of Appellants' Specification.
3
Appeal2014-000378
Application 12/938,394
of information. We agree with the Examiner that Lee teaches such a
measure of information loss as a "relationship between the summary length
and the entire content to determine a variable summary length." Final Act.
3.3
"In relying upon the theory of inherency, the examiner must provide a
basis in fact and/or technical reasoning to reasonably support the
determination that the allegedly inherent characteristic necessarily flows
from the teachings of the applied prior art." Ex parte Levy, 17 USPQ2d
1461, 1464 (BPAI 1990); see also In re Napier, 55 F.3d 610, 613 (Fed. Cir.
1995) (affirmed a 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection based in part on inherent
disclosure in one of the references). We agree with the Examiner that
generating a summary inherently involves loss of information. Final Act. 2,
Ans. 8-9. In other words, when a summary is generated from original
content, it necessarily follows that certain information that was in the
original content not carried over to the summary is lost. We are not
persuaded by Appellants' argument to rebut the Examiner's finding of
inherency.
Appellants further argue Lee fails to teach an ILF that is derived based
on parameters such as user-specific parameters and content-specific
parameters. Reply Br. 5. We remain unpersuaded because such features are
not recited in the claim.
In view of the above, we are unpersuaded of error in the Examiner's
rejection of independent claim 1. Appellants present essentially the same
3 Furthermore, we note claim 1 does not positively recite a step of measuring
the information loss but, instead, merely requires such a value exists and is
used in the step of "computing a summary size."
4
Appeal2014-000378
Application 12/938,394
arguments for the rejection of independent claim 15 (App. Br. 11-13) and,
thus, for the same reasons as claim 1 we are unpersuaded of error.
Therefore, we sustain the rejection of independent claims 1 and 15 and
dependent claims 2--4, 6-7, and 11, not separately argued (App. Br. 11, 13).
SECTION 103 REJECTION
Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 8-10 for the
same reasons as claim 1 from which they depend (App. Br. 13) and, thus, for
the same reasons as claim 1 we remain unpersuaded of Examiner error and
sustain the rejection of claim 8-10.
DECISION
For the above reasons, the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1--4,
6-11, and 15 is affirmed.
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
5