Ex Parte TOBINDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 28, 201612761921 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 28, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 121761,921 04/16/2010 25537 7590 02/01/2016 VERIZON PA TENT MANAGEMENT GROUP 1320 North Court House Road 9th Floor ARLINGTON, VA 22201-2909 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Roger L. TOBIN 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. 02-8012Cl 2263 EXAMINER JARRETT, SCOTT L ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3623 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/01/2016 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): patents@verizon.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ROGER L. TOBIN Appeal2014-000690 Application 12/7 61,921 Technology Center 3600 Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, and BIBHU R. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judges. CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner's final decision rejecting claims 16-19, 30 and 31. We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We REVERSE. Claim 16 is illustrative: 16. A method implemented by a computer system, wherein the computer system comprises a processor and a software module embodied on a computer-readable medium, the software module comprising a set of instructions for execution by the processor, for increasing sales revenue in a sales region of a plurality of sales regions, comprising: Appeal2014-000690 Application 12/7 61,921 developing, by the processor, a logarithmic model relating a sales parameter and revenue to one or more characteristics associated with each sales region of the plurality of sales regions; producing, by the processor, a sales parameter norm and a revenue norm based on parameters determined by normalizing the sales parameter and revenue using the logarithmic model; comparing the sales parameter norm and the revenue norm to actual sales parameters and actual revenue values; and determining future targets for the actual sales parameters. Appellant appeals the following rejection 1. Claims 16-19, 30, and 31under35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Cravens (Cravens et al., An Analytical Approach for Evaluating Sales Territory Performance, JOURNAL OF MARKETING, vol. 36, pp. 31-37 (Jan. 1972)), ZS Associates (ZS Associates webpage, http://www.zsassociates. com (Feb. 2002), retrieved May 19, 2009), and Official Notice. ISSUE Did the Examiner err in rejecting the claims because the prior art does not disclose producing a sales parameter and revenue norm based on parameters determined by normalizing the sales parameter and the revenue using a logarithmic model? ANALYSIS The Appellant argues that the prior art does not disclose developing a logarithmic model and using the model to normalize the sales parameter and revenue using the model. We agree. The Examiner relies on Craven for teaching modeling sales and revenue parameters for each of the sales regions of a plurality of sales 2 Appeal2014-000690 Application 12/7 61,921 regions based on one or more characteristics associated with each of the sales regions (Final Act. 7). The Examiner finds that Cravens does not expressly teach producing a sales parameter norm and revenue norm by normalizing the sales parameter and revenue using a logarithmic model. (Final Act. 12). The Examiner takes Official Notice that normalizing variables using logarithmic models are old and very well-known and that such normalizations provide a plurality of well-known benefits. The Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to use normalization techniques in Craven because such would have performed the same function as down separately and the person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized the results of the combination were predictable. We agree with the Appellant that the Examiner has not established that the prior art discloses a logarithmic model relating sales parameters and revenue. The relied on portions of Craven do not disclose a logarithmic model that relates sales parameters and revenue but rather applies a linear regression analysis to a set of criteria to obtain a sales benchmark. There is no disclosure in the portions relied on by the Examiner of a logarithmic model. In addition, the analysis does not relate sales parameters (price, sales force size (Spec. 2)) to revenue as required by the claims. Therefore, even if the Examiner is correct that logarithmic models are old and well-known, the Examiner has not established that a logarithmic model that relates sales parameters to revenue was known, much less that it would have been obvious to use such a model to produce a sales parameter norm and a revenue norm. In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 16 and claims 17-19 dependent therefrom. We will also not sustain 3 Appeal2014-000690 Application 12/7 61,921 this rejection as it is directed to claims 30 and 31 because both claims require a system or computer-readable medium respectively that produces a sales parameter norm and a revenue norm using a logarithmic model. DECISION The decision of the Examiner is reversed .. REVERSED msc 4 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation