Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Feb 25, 2022

2020006796 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 25, 2022)

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. 15/887,869 02/02/2018 Kathleen Rae Thompson 403623-US-NP 5327 69316 7590 02/25/2022 MICROSOFT CORPORATION ONE MICROSOFT WAY REDMOND, WA 98052 EXAMINER ABDI, AMARA ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2668 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/25/2022 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): chriochs@microsoft.com ljohnson@microsoft.com usdocket@microsoft.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ________________ Ex parte KATHLEEN RAE, HAYLEY STEPLYK, and JOSEPTH PATRICK MASTERSON1 ________________ Appeal 2020-006796 Application 15/887,869 Technology Center 2600 ________________ Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, and MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges. BAUMEISTER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-20, which constitute all of the pending claims. Appeal Br. 8-21. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). The Board conducts a limited de novo review of the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues identified by Appellant, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). We REVERSE. 1 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, as the real party in interest. Appeal Brief 1, filed July 7, 2020 (“Appeal Br.”). Appeal 2020-006796 Application 15/887,869 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Appellant describes the presently claimed subject matter as “technology [that] can improve user access to image or other types of files included as email attachments by automatically classifying such files.” Spec. ¶ 5. Independent claim 1, reproduced below, illustrates the subject matter of the appealed claims: 1. A method for automatic image classification in a computing system having one or more email servers interconnected to client devices by a computer network, the method comprising: scanning an inbox on the one or more email servers for emails containing one or more image files; and upon detecting that an email in the inbox contains an image file, retrieving, via the computer network, an identification photo of a user from a data store containing entries of user identifications and corresponding identification photos; determining, via facial recognition, whether the image file in the email contains at least a partial image of the user based on the retrieved identification photo of the user; and in response to determining that the image file in the email contains at least a partial image of the user, inserting a metadata value into the image file indicating that the image file contains at least a partial image of the user and storing the image file along with the inserted metadata value in the inbox on the one or more email servers. Appeal Br. 22. Appeal 2020-006796 Application 15/887,869 3 REFERENCES The Examiner relies on the following references as prior art: Name Reference Date Luoffo US 2006/0031309 A1 Feb. 9, 2006 Suzuki US 2006/0044635 A1 Mar. 2, 2006 Banjara US 2009/0077182 A1 Mar. 19, 2009 Cassanova US 2009/014438 A1 June 4, 2009 Steplyk US 2018/0006983 A1 Jan. 4, 2018 Mitkar US 2017/0083517 A1 Mar. 23, 2017 Park KR 2012/0040483 A Apr. 27, 2012 STATEMENT OF THE REJECTIONS Claims 1-5, 8, and 10-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Cassanova, Suzuki, Mitkar,2 and Official Notice of that which was well known.3 Final Act. 5-26. Claims 6 and 7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Cassanova, Suzuki, Mitkar, Official Notice, and Park. Final Act. 26-28. Claim 9 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Cassanova, Suzuki, Mitkar, Official Notice, and Luoffo. Final Act. 28- 29. 2 The Examiner and Appellant alternatively refer to Mitkar as “Mtkar.” E.g., Final Act. 8; Appeal Br. 12. 3 The heading of the rejection states that the rejection is over the combination of Cassanova, Suzuki, and Mitkar. Final Act. 5. But the body of the rejection indicates that the rejection is further based on the Examiner taking Official Notice of a fact that was “exceedingly well-known and practiced in the art,” as evidenced by Steplyk and Banjara. Id. at 9. Appeal 2020-006796 Application 15/887,869 4 DETERMINATIONS AND CONTENTIONS The Examiner finds that Cassanova discloses a method that includes (1) detecting that an incoming email has arrived at an email server, (2) determining that an image file is attached to the incoming email, and (3) retrieving these attached image files and then storing them, both at an email log and at a front-end processing system. Final Act. 5 (citing Cassanova ¶ 34, Fig. 4). The Examiner finds that Cassanova further discloses, at step 425 the [set top box identifier (STB ID)] for each STB 130 that is associated with the [internet protocol television (IPTV)] subscriber’s IPTV account is retrieved from the IPTV processing infrastructure 125 and returned to the back-end processing system 115A, [i.e., inserting an STB ID into the image file indicating that the image file contains at least a partial image of the user, in response to determining that the image file in the email contains at least a mage of the user]. Final Act. 7-8 (citing Cassanova ¶ 35). The Examiner finds, “Suzuki discloses . . . database 32, for example, is a personal address book with a picture of the object face, in which the information showing the characteristics of the object on image (face-area image data) and the personal keyword are stored by being related to each other.” Final Act. 6 (citing Suzuki ¶¶ 75-76). The Examiner finds, “the personal keyword, [i.e., entries of user identifications], can be added to the accompanying information of the image file, such that the image file 10 can be retrieved from the data managing unit 34 by using the personal keyword.” Id. (citing Suzuki ¶ 81). The Examiner reasons, “the data store encompass[es] a personal address book with a picture of the object face.” Id. Appeal 2020-006796 Application 15/887,869 5 The Examiner further finds, “Suzuki further discloses . . . performing image recognition processing on the obtained image file 10 so as to extract, as the characteristic information, partial image data[,] such as ‘face’ or the like, which is characteristic information of the object on image (S22).” Final Act. 6 (citing Suzuki ¶ 75). The Examiner reasons that it would have been obvious to include Suzuki’s object identifying unit 31 with Cassanova’s email-message delivery system “in order to extract, as characteristic information, partial image data[,] such as ‘face.’” Final Act. 7 (citing Suzuki ¶ 75). The Examiner further finds that the combination of Cassanova and Suzuki does not expressly disclose a metadata value being inserted into the image file. Final Act. 8. The Examiner finds that Mitkar teaches a method for automatic image classification in a computing system that includes a computer network interconnecting email servers and client devices. Final Act. 7 (citing Mitkar ¶ 82). The Examiner finds that Mitkar’s primary data objects, including image files, are associated with corresponding metadata. Id. The Examiner determines that it would have been obvious to change the metadata of the combined teachings of Cassanova and Suzuki, so as to indicate that the image file contains at least an image of the user based on the metadata. Id. The Examiner finds that the cited combination of Cassanova, Suzuki, and Mitkar does not disclose scanning an inbox of one or more email servers. Final Act. 8. The Examiner takes Official Notice that scanning an email inbox of one or more email servers was “exceedingly well-known and practiced in the art.” Id. at 9. To support this Official Notice, the Examiner cites Steplyk and Banjara. Final Act. 9. The Examiner determines “it would Appeal 2020-006796 Application 15/887,869 6 have been obvious . . . to scan an email inbox of one or more email servers[] in order to determin[e] whether the email inbox contains an image file.” Id. Appellant argues, inter alia, none of Cassanova, M[i]tkar, and Suzuki teach or suggest the combination of “retrieving, via the computer network, an identification photo of a user from a data store containing entries of user identifications and corresponding identification photos” and “determining, via facial recognition, whether the image file in the email contains at least a partial image of the user based on the retrieved identification photo of the user.” Appeal Br. 17. According to Appellant, Cassanova’s email log 120 and the front-end processing system 110A do not contain “entries of user identifications and corresponding identification photos.” Instead, the foregoing components of Cassanova’s system contains images attached to emails to an IPTV user. Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that the email log 120 could correspond to the data store of claim 1, Cassanova still does not teach or suggest retrieving an image of a user from the email log 120. Instead, Cassanova teaches retrieving an image attached to an email, not necessary[il]y an image of a user. Id. at 17-18. Appellant also argues that the Examiner errs in finding that Suzuki’s disclosure of a database that contains an image and a user keyword reasonably can be interpreted “as corresponding to the datastore ‘containing entries of user identifications and corresponding identification photos.’” Appeal Br. 18. Appellant alleges, Assuming, for the sake of argument, that Suzuki’s image and user keyword could correspond to an identification photo and a user identification, respectively, nowhere does either Cassanova or Suzuki teach or suggest determining, via facial recognition, whether a detected image file in an email of Cassanova contains Appeal 2020-006796 Application 15/887,869 7 at least a partial image of the user based on the retrieved photo of the user from Suzuki. Id. Appellant summarizes the argument, as follows: neither Cassanova nor Suzuki teach or suggest comparing an image included in an email as an attachment to an “identification photo” of a user to determine whether the image includes at least a partial image of the user. Instead, Cassanova teaches to “analyze an image according to a system user specified pattern matching and pattern recognition criteria.” Suzuki teaches a personal address book with pictures of object faces and associated user keywords. However, nowhere does Suzuki teach or suggest that the user keywords and the pictures of the object faces are associated via “determining, via facial recognition, whether the image . . . contains at least a partial image of the user based on [an] identification photo of the user” that is retrieved from a data store containing “entries of user identifications and corresponding identification photos.” Appeal Br. 18. The Examiner responds to Appellant’s arguments by further clarifying the Examiner’s interpretation of Suzuki’s teachings: Suzuki discloses performing image recognition processing by the object identifying unit 31 on the image data 11 so as to extract partial image data (characteristic information) of the “face” area of the object within the image data 11, [i.e., performing facial recognition], then referring the extracted partial image data (face) of the object to the information stored in database by performing an image matching processing, which implicitly determines, whether the image data 11, [i.e., image file], contains at least a partial image of the user based on the extracted partial image data (face) of the object to the information stored in database, [i.e., based on the retrieved identification photo of the user from the database], using the facial recognition and the image matching processing. Examiner’s Answer 7-8, mailed July 31, 2020 (“Ans.”). Appeal 2020-006796 Application 15/887,869 8 ANALYSIS Appellant’s above-noted arguments are persuasive. The passage of Suzuki that the Examiner relies upon at best teaches that the system analyzes a received picture to determine characteristics of a face contained within the picture. Suzuki ¶ 79, cited in Ans. 7-8. But further correlations only entail extracting personal keywords from a database, e.g., the keyword “Mr. B.” Id. Neither paragraph 79 nor any other cited passage of Suzuki reasonably teaches or suggests comparing a photo of an email attachment to a photo of a user in a data store so as to “determin[e], via facial recognition, whether the image file in the email contains at least a partial image of the user based on the retrieved identification photo of the user,” as recited in independent claim 1. Accordingly, the Examiner has not established that the cited prior art renders unpatentable independent claim 1. We, therefore, reverse the obviousness rejection of that claim and also of claims 2-5, 8, and 10-20, which either depend from claim 1 or otherwise include the disputed claim language. Final Act. 22-28. With respect to the remaining obviousness rejections of dependent claims 6, 7, and 9, the Examiner does not rely on the additional teachings of either Park or Luoffo to cure the deficiencies of the obviousness rejection regarding claim 1, noted above. Final Act. 26-29. Accordingly, we reverse these additional obviousness rejections for the reasons set forth above. Appeal 2020-006796 Application 15/887,869 9 DECISION SUMMARY In summary: REVERSED Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/ Basis Affirmed Reversed 1-5, 8, 10-20 103 Cassanova, Suzuki, Mitkar, Official Notice 1-5, 8, 10-20 6, 7 103 Cassanova, Suzuki, Mitkar, Official Notice, Park 6, 7 9 103 Cassanova, Suzuki, Mitkar, Official Notice, Luoffo 9 Overall Outcome 1-20