Ex Parte Schultz et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 29, 2015

12256664 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 29, 2015)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte PAUL T. SCHULTZ, ROBERT A SARTINI, and
MARTIN W. MCKEE
____________________

Appeal 2012-009443
Application 12/256,664
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, BRUCE R. WINSOR, and
JAMES W. DEJMEK, Administrative Patent Judges.

DEJMEK, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims
1–24. We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants’ invention is directed to an approach “for creating a
workspace for automatically logging and storing heterogeneous
communication sessions and for accessing this workspace from a user-
designated environment.” Abstract. Representative claims 1 and 4 on
appeal are reproduced below with the disputed limitations emphasized in
italics:
1. A method comprising:
creating a workspace for a user;
logging a plurality of heterogeneous communication sessions
conducted by the user as a communication activity log; and
storing the log within the workspace for access by the user.

4. A method of claim 1, further comprising:
detecting establishment of one of the communication sessions;
recording the one communication session based on the
detection; and
storing the recorded communication session in the workplace.

Appellants’ Contentions
1. Appellants contend the “Weblogs” disclosed by Moore are not
communication activity logs of heterogeneous communication sessions by
the user. App. Br. 6–8; Reply Br. 2–4.
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2. Appellants further contend that Moore does not teach or suggest
detecting and recording the communication sessions of the claimed
invention. App. Br. 9.

Issues on Appeal
1. Did the Examiner err in finding Moore teaches or suggests
“logging a plurality of heterogeneous communication sessions conducted by
the user as a communication activity log,” as recited in claim 1?
2. Did the Examiner err in finding Moore teaches or suggests the
detection and recording of communication sessions as recited in dependent
claim 4?

References
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Han et al. (“Han”) US 2002/0143819 A1 Oct. 3, 2002
Moore et al. (“Moore”) US 2007/0061266 A1 Mar. 15, 2007

The Examiner’s Rejections
Claims 1–24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Moore and Han. Ans. 4–9.
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ANALYSIS1
Appellants argue the rejection of independent claims 1, 12, and 23
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) collectively. App. Br. 5–9. Appellants also argue
the rejection of dependent claim 4. Id. at 9. Separate patentability is not
argued for claims 2–3, 5–11, 13–22, and 24. “A statement which merely
points out what a claim recites will not be considered an argument for
separate patentability of the claim.” 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2010).
Further, merely restating with respect to a second claim an argument,
previously presented with respect to a first claim, is not an argument for
separate patentability of the two claims. Therefore, based on Appellants’
arguments, we decide the appeal of claims 1–3, and 5–24 based on claim 1
alone. See id. Claim 4 is addressed separately.

Claim 1
Appellants argue that the Examiner erred in “equat[ing] the claimed
‘communication activity logs’ of user ‘heterogeneous communication
sessions’ with the ‘Weblogs’ of Moore’s system.” App. Br. 6. Appellants
summarize the “Weblogs” presented in paragraph 274 of Moore (cited by
the Examiner) as an aggregation of feeds from various sources made
available through a single web site. Id. at 7. Appellants contend the data
feeds of Moore “consist[] of a one way feed of information (e.g., news,
technical information, political commentary, etc.) generally from a web
source.” Id. Appellants further contend that the Weblogs of Moore would

1 Throughout this opinion we refer to the Appeal Brief dated February 10,
2012, the Reply Brief dated May 30, 2012, and the Examiner’s Answer
mailed on April 27, 2012.
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not be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art as communication
activity logs of communication sessions by the user, as recited in claim 1,
because “a ‘session’ implies more than one party doing the sending, i.e., a
communication session implies a two-way conversation.” Id.; Reply Br. 3.
Appellants argue, “one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that the
‘communication sessions’ of the present claims correspond to interactive
information interchanges (e.g., conversations or conferences) between two
or more communicating devices, each of which is established at a certain
point in time and terminated at a later point in time.” App. Br. 7. As such,
Appellants conclude that the communication activity logs of claim 1 cannot
reasonably be interpreted as being equivalent to (or obvious in view of) the
Weblogs of Moore. Id.
Additionally, Appellants contend the data feeds of Moore are not
“conducted by the user” as required by the claim language. Id. at 8.
Appellants argue:
because Moore’s weblogs are data feeds that are simply
aggregated from multiple sources (for example, web sites
provided by many individuals or entities), where the user is not
engaged in a communication session with each such source
(individual or entity), the weblogs cannot constitute
“heterogeneous communicate sessions conducted by the user as
a communication activity log,” as recited in independent claim
1.
Id.
We have considered Appellants’ arguments. As set forth infra, we are
unpersuaded of Examiner error.
The Examiner finds that Moore discloses logging a plurality of
heterogeneous communication sessions conducted by the user as a
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communication activity log. Ans. 5, 9–12. We agree. As set forth in the
Specification, “heterogeneous communications” are “related communication
sessions that take place in many different forms over different
communication devices.” Spec. ¶ 1 (emphasis added). Examples of
communication sessions identified within the Specification include: voice
communication, text-based communication, video communication,
multimedia conferencing, or a combination thereof. Id. ¶¶ 23–24.
In paragraph 274, Moore describes a consumer-to-consumer model
306 wherein individual bloggers are “mostly communicating with each
other.” Moore ¶ 274; Ans. 5. Moore goes on to state the “source in this
space is an individual presenting aggregated feeds 302 in a Web site with
some common theme or themes of interest” and that, for non-commercial
Weblogs, “individuals aggregate data feeds 302 from a variety of sources
and include editorial commentary or other information.” Id. ¶ 274. We note
that Moore also identifies multiple examples of communication devices that
may act as a client device within the disclosed system. See, e.g., Id. ¶ 213
(“Although the personal computer is a typical client 102, the client 102 may
also be a workstation, mobile computer, Web phone, VOIP device,
television set-top box, interactive kiosk, personal digital assistant, wireless
electronic mail device, or other device capable of communicating over the
Internet.”).
In response to Appellants’ arguments, the Examiner further identifies
paragraph 635 of Moore for its disclosure. Ans. 10–12. In relevant part,
paragraph 635 states “legacy facility 7402 is a legacy e-mail client, [and] the
interface 7400 may convert the message or series of messages from the
legacy facility 7402 and publish it in an RSS feed.” Moore ¶ 635. Within
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this same paragraph, Moore teaches and suggests outgoing email transmitted
by the legacy facility 7402 to intended recipients (on the “to:”, “cc:”, or
“bcc:” lines) may be received by interface 7400 and published to the RSS
feed. Id. E-mail communication falls within the scope of the
“heterogeneous communication sessions conducted by the user.” See, e.g.,
Spec. ¶ 1. Moore further discloses a list of other communication sessions
that may be logged.
For example, in an enterprise, the DS-DBMS 7700 may be used
to track working versions of documents such as e-mail,
calendars, contacts, to-do items, organizational charts,
presentations, Web pages, data feeds 202, outlines,
spreadsheets, word processing files, diagrams, software code,
access control lists, financial data, images, videos, audio files,
URLs, and so forth.
Moore ¶ 654. Accordingly, on the record before us, we find that Moore
discloses logging a plurality of heterogeneous communication sessions
conducted by the user as a communication activity log, as recited in claim 1.
In their Reply Brief, Appellants argue Han does not teach storing a
log with the workspace for access by the user. Reply Br. 3. Appellants first
raise this argument in the Reply Brief. This argument was not in response to
a new issue brought up by the Examiner in the Answer and, to be
considered, should have been raised in the Appeal Brief, and therefore is
untimely and deemed waived. Ex parte Borden, 93 USPQ2d 1473, 1474
(BPAI 2010) (informative) (“[T]he reply brief [is not] an opportunity to
make arguments that could have been made in the principal brief on appeal
to rebut the Examiner’s rejections, but were not.”). Were we to
automatically consider such newly raised arguments, “[r]ather than
reviewing a record for error, the Board would be considering, in the first
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instance, findings of fact proposed by the Appellant, but not weighed by the
Examiner [in the Examiner’s Answer] against the other evidence of record.”
Borden, 93 USPQ2d at 1475.
Appellants further contend that the Examiner failed to provide a
proper rationale for obviousness. App. Br. 5; Reply Br. 3–4. Appellants’
contentions merely repeat the contentions discussed supra (see Reply Br. 3),
allege impermissible hindsight (see Reply Br. 4), and assert generally that
the Office’s burden has not been met (App. Br, 5). Appellants’ contentions
do not address the specific findings and conclusions articulated by the
Examiner to support the conclusion of obviousness. (See Ans. 5.)
Therefore, we are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments. We agree with
the Examiner’s rationale and findings as found in the Answer (see id.) and
we adopt them as our own without repeating them herein.
For the reasons supra, we sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims
1–3 and 5–24.

Claim 4
Regarding dependent claim 4, Appellants argue that the paragraphs of
Moore cited by the Examiner “bear no relation to communication services,
as presently claimed, much less any capability to detect and record these
communication sessions.” App. Br. 9. We disagree. In paragraph 544,
Moore lists a variety of features and capabilities that may be present in
certain security devices (e.g., fingerprint recognition, security systems,
access control devices, and digital rights management (DRM)). Moore
¶ 544. Moore further teaches and suggests these devices may be modified to
be syndication-capable devices and “[t]he syndication-capable security
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device may be adapted to publish RSS data or information to a LAN, WAN,
or Internet by wired or wireless communication or by communication
through another device.” Id. ¶ 545. Moore presents several scenarios
wherein the syndication-capable security devices detect and record a
communication session in response to a triggering event. Id. ¶¶ 546–554.
Additionally, paragraph 635 of Moore, also cited by the Examiner
(Ans. 10–13)2 is instructive on this point. Moore teaches and suggests
subscribing to RSS feeds such as a “sent mail” or “received mail” feed.
Moore ¶ 635. As such, when a new email is sent (or received), the email
communication session is detected. Id. (“The S-DBMS 7200 may subscribe
to this feed and may appropriately react to changes in the feed. . . . The S-
DBMS 7200 may have subscribed to the ‘sent mail’ RSS feed 202 of the
interface 7400 and may recognize a published update to this feed.”). As
described above, the email message or messages may be converted and
published as part of the feed (i.e., recorded and stored). Id.
Appellants further contend that paragraph 67 of Moore “cited for the
claimed storing step has no nexus to the functions of these security devices
[of Moore ¶ 544].” App. Br. 9. While we agree with the Appellants on this
point, we find Moore’s statement of publishing email messages as part of the
updated RSS feed in paragraph 635 necessarily teaches and suggests storing
the email communication session for inclusion as part of the feed.
For the reasons supra, we sustain Examiner’s rejection of claim 4.

2 In responding to Appellants’ argument regarding claim 4, the Examiner
states “[a]s explained above, Moore in paragraph [0636] discloses detecting
communication sessions, recording communication session[s] and storing
communication session[s] in the work space.” Ans. 12. The Examiner had
previously relied on paragraph 635 of Moore (not paragraph 636).
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CONCLUSION
We are not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1–3 and
5–24 by concluding the combination of Moore and Han teaches or suggests
the disputed limitations of those claims.
We are not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 4 by
concluding the combination of Moore and Han teaches or suggests the
disputed limitations of the claim.

DECISION
The rejection of claims 1–24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) 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)(1)(iv) (2011).

AFFIRMED

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