ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 2, 2020

2019005162 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 2, 2020)

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.
13/803,727 03/14/2013 Wesley CURTIS ORA130019 (O284) 6413
51444 7590 12/02/2020
Kraguljac Law Group/Oracle
P.O. Box 507
Cleveland, OH 44017
EXAMINER
BRAHMACHARI, MANDRITA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2176
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/02/2020 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):
DDay@KragLaw.com
MPusti@KragLaw.com
PTOMail@KragLaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte WESLEY CURTIS and YAELLE ATTAR
Appeal 2019-005162
Application 13/803,727
Technology Center 2100
Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, and
LINZY T. McCARTNEY, Administrative Patent Judges.
McCARTNEY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 seeks review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s
final rejection of claims 1–18 and 20. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

1 Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Oracle International
Corporation. Appeal Brief 2, filed February 27, 2019 (Appeal Br.).
Appeal 2019-005162
Application 13/803,727

2
BACKGROUND
This patent application concerns “customizing a timeline to display
taxpayer account information.” Specification ¶ 18, filed March 14, 2013
(Spec.). Claim 1 illustrates the claimed subject matter:
1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing
computer-executable instructions that when executed by a
computer cause the computer to:
generate, by a processor of the computer, an interface for
generating and customizing a timeline, wherein the interface
exposes parameters for modifying elements of the timeline, and
wherein the elements include display properties of the timeline;
receive input through the interface to modify the
parameters, wherein the input: (i) defines tax account
information to be included on the timeline, and (ii) defines
different appearances of icons that are to represent events
associated with the tax account information on the timeline,
wherein the different appearances represent different statuses of
the events;
configure the processor with an algorithm defined by the
modified parameters; and
upon receiving a request to display the timeline with tax
account information for each of a plurality of different entities,
use the configured processor to generate a different timeline
specific to each of the plurality of different entities, wherein the
configured processor causes the computer to, for each of the
plurality of different entities:
apply the algorithm to configure a respective timeline to
be presented in a single display for the entity by retrieving and
consolidating: (i) a history of tax account information for the
entity, the history of tax account information comprising the
events that are to appear on the respective timeline in the single
display for the entity, and (ii) the statuses of the events, wherein
the events are selected based on the modified parameters; and
dynamically render the single display of the respective
timeline as a first display zone among multiple display zones on
Appeal 2019-005162
Application 13/803,727

3
a display screen based on the modified parameters, wherein
rendering the respective timeline includes: (i) causing the icons
representing the events to be displayed in a chronological
arrangement within the single display in the first display zone,
the chronological arrangement indicating dates associated with
the events, and (ii) formatting the icons displayed within the
single display of the respective timeline according to at least one
of the different appearances based, at least in part, on the
algorithm defined by the modified parameters and the statuses of
the events, and wherein at least a second display zone of the
multiple zones displays tax information about the entity from a
tax authority.
Appeal Br. 15–16.
REJECTIONS
Claims 35 U.S.C. § References
1–3, 5–10, 12–18,
20
103(a) Stading,2 Augustine,3 Rogers4
4, 11 103(a) Stading, Augustine, Rogers,
Evans5
DISCUSSION
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections and Appellant’s
arguments, and Appellant has not persuaded us that the Examiner erred. As
consistent with the discussion below, we adopt the Examiner’s reasoning,
findings, and conclusions on pages 2–20 of the Final Office Action mailed
July 5, 2018 (Final Act.) and pages 3–7 of the Examiner’s Answer mailed
April 18, 2019 (Ans.). We address Appellant’s arguments in turn.

2 Stading (US 2008/0243785 A1; October 2, 2008).
3 Augustine et al. (US 2009/0241048 A1; September 24, 2009).
4 Rogers (US 2012/0260183 A1; October 11, 2012).
5 Evans (US 2010/0153138 A1; June 17, 2010).
Appeal 2019-005162
Application 13/803,727

4
Claim 1 recites “receiv[ing] input through the interface to modify the
parameters, wherein the input . . . (ii) defines different appearances of icons
that are to represent events associated with the tax account information on
the timeline, wherein the different appearances represent different statuses of
the events.” Appeal Br. 15. Appellant contends that the Examiner’s
combination of Stading, Augustine, and Rogers does not teach or suggest
this limitation. See Appeal Br. 11–12. Appellant first argues that the
Examiner erroneously found that Stading discloses “selectable indicators
[that have] a plurality of different appearances” and thus teaches “receiving
input defining different appearances of the icons.” Reply Brief 4, filed June
18, 2019 (Reply Br.); see also Appeal Br. 11.
Appellant has not persuaded us that the Examiner erred. The
Examiner found that Stading teaches “receiving input defining different
appearances of the icons” because Stading discloses that users can adjust a
control panel to change the visualization of a timeline, the timeline including
various indicators. See Final Act. 3–4 (citing Stading ¶ 144, Fig. 32). On its
face, this disclosure teaches receiving input (the user’s interaction with the
control panel) that defines different appearances of icons (where icons
appear in the timeline, for example). The Examiner also found that Stading
discloses allowing users to change the color of “representations of document
spaces on the fly by interacting with selectable indicators provided within a
graphical user interface.” Ans. 4–5 (quoting Stading ¶ 71). Although this
discussion references a different visualization, one of ordinary skill in the art
would have been motivated to allow users to change the color of the
indicators in Stading’s timeline to make the indicators easier to identify and
allow the indicators to represent other characteristics of the underlying data
Appeal 2019-005162
Application 13/803,727

5
(for instance, the number of documents associated with the indicator). See,
e.g., Stading ¶¶ 71 (disclosing that selectable elements “can include a color
parameter related to a relative number of associated documents”), 143
(disclosing that a selectable graphical element “can include a size dimension,
a color dimension, a shading dimension, a hatching dimension, an other
visual dimension, or any combination thereof, indicating a relative size of a
document space”); see also KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417
(2007) (“[I]f a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person
of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar
devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual
application is beyond his or her skill.”).
Appellant then asserts that Stading does not teach or suggest “that any
of the selectable icons has different appearances to represent different
statuses of an event associated with tax account information on the
timeline.” Appeal Br. 11. This assertion presumably corresponds to the
requirement that the input “define[] different appearances of icons that are to
represent events associated with the tax account information on the timeline,
wherein the different appearances represent different statuses of the events.”
Appeal Br. 15. Appellant contends that neither Augustine nor Rogers
remedies this deficiency. See Appeal Br. 11–12.
Appellant again fails to persuade us that the Examiner erred. The
Examiner found that this limitation would have been obvious given the
combined teachings of Stading and Augustine. See, e.g., Ans. 3–6. The
Examiner found that Stading teaches visualizing tax account information on
a timeline using markers and using user input to modify the visualization.
See, e.g., Ans. 4 (citing Stading ¶¶ 38–39, 71, 142, 144, Fig. 32). The
Appeal 2019-005162
Application 13/803,727

6
Examiner found that Augustine teaches that different icon appearances
represent different statuses of the events. See, e.g., Ans. 5–6 (quoting
Augustine ¶ 102). Although Appellant contends that Augustine “simply
describes using different icons to represent different events that occur along
a timeline,” Appeal Br. 11, one of ordinary skill in the art would have
understood Augustine to teach more. For example, Augustine discloses that
the invention “may automatically recognize when the document was last
updated and automatically move the updated document icon to the new time-
location on the timeline.” Augustine ¶ 102 (emphasis added). One of
ordinary skill in the art would have understood this disclosure to teach
changing the appearance of an icon (both updating the document icon and
moving the icon on the timeline) as an event status changes (a new
document update occurs). Appellant has not persuasively addressed this
portion of Augustine, and Appellant’s arguments against Stading and
Augustine individually do not show that the Examiner erred, see In re
Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981). (“[O]ne cannot show non-
obviousness by attacking references individually where, as here, the
rejections are based on combinations of references.”).
In any event, the Examiner also relied on Rogers to reject claim 1, and
Rogers discloses a “graphical depiction . . . that displays indicators
identifying the selected group of entities, along with corresponding status
indications associated with those entities.” Rogers ¶ 26 (emphasis added),
cited in Final Act. 7. Rogers explains that “[t]he status indications can be
numerical values illustrating each entity’s relative condition for a particular
status on a ranking scale of 1–10” and “can also be presented as a color-
coded numerical ranking scale (e.g., red may be assigned to numbers 1–4,
Appeal 2019-005162
Application 13/803,727

7
yellow . . . to numbers 5–8, and green . . . numbers 9–10), graphical icons, a
selection from a range of short text phrases, an alphabetic or pictographic
scale, or some other representation.” Rogers ¶ 26. And Stading discloses
using a characteristic of a graphical element (for example, size, color,
shading, hatching) to represent a property of an item (for example, the
relative size of a documents space). See Stading ¶ 143. Given these
disclosures, Appellant has not persuaded us that the combined teachings of
the cited art fail to teach or suggest “different appearances represent[ing]
different statuses of the events.”
Appellant next contends that Augustine does not teach or suggest the
following limitation recited in claim 1:
upon receiving a request to display the timeline with tax account
information for each of a plurality of different entities . . .
dynamically render the single display of the respective timeline
. . . based on the modified parameters, wherein rendering the
respective timeline includes: . . . (ii) formatting the icons
displayed within the single display of the respective timeline
according to at least one of the different appearances based, at
least in part, on the algorithm defined by the modified parameters
and the statuses of the events.
Appeal Br. 12 (quoting Appeal Br. 15). Specifically, Appellant asserts that
“Augustine fails to teach modifying parameters with input defining different
appearances of icons to represent different status of events associated with
the tax account information on the timeline.” Appeal Br. 12. Putting aside
that this assertion points to elements that appear in other limitations, the
Examiner found that a combination of Augustine and Stading teaches this
subject matter, not Augustine alone. See Final Act. 3–7. Appellant’s
arguments against Augustine individually have not persuaded us that the
Appeal 2019-005162
Application 13/803,727

8
Examiner erred. See Keller, 642 F.2d at 426. Although Appellant argues in
passing that the combination of Augustine, Stading, and Rogers fails to teach
these limitations, Appellant provides no persuasive reasoning or evidence to
support this argument. See Appeal Br. 12–13. This conclusory argument also
does not persuade us that the Examiner erred. See In re Lovin, 652 F.3d
1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (holding that “the Board reasonably interpreted
Rule 41.37 to require more substantive arguments in an appeal brief than a
mere recitation of the claim elements and a naked assertion that the
corresponding elements were not found in the prior art”); 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
Appellant argues for the first time in the Reply Brief that the
Examiner’s combination of Stading, Augustine, and Rogers does not teach
other limitations recited in claim 1. These limitations include “generate a
different timeline specific to each of the plurality of different entities,”
“apply the algorithm to configure a respective timeline to be presented in a
single display for the entity,” and dynamically rendering the single display
of the respective time “as a first display zone among multiple display zones
on a display screen based on the modified parameters.” Reply Br. 3.
Appellant could have raised these arguments in the Appeal Brief but did not
do so, and Appellant has not explained why good cause exists for these
untimely arguments. Appellant has thus forfeited these arguments. See 37
C.F.R. §§ 41.37(c)(1)(iv), 41.41(b)(2).
For at least the above reasons, Appellant has not persuaded us that the
Examiner erred. We thus sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 under
§ 103(a). Because Appellant does not present separate, persuasive arguments
Appeal 2019-005162
Application 13/803,727

9
for claims 2–18 and 20, we also sustain the Examiner’s rejections of these
claims under § 103(a).
Finally, we note that the pending claims appear similar to claims that
the Federal Circuit determined are patent ineligible in decisions released
after the Examiner mailed the Final Office Action at issue in this appeal.
See, e.g., Trading Techs. Int'l, Inc. v. IBG LLC, 921 F.3d 1084 (Fed. Cir.
2019); Trading Techs. Int'l, Inc. v. IBG LLC, 921 F.3d 1378 (Fed. Cir.
2019). If prosecution continues, the Examiner may consider in the first
instance whether the pending claims are patent eligible given these decisions
and any other relevant precedent and guidance.
CONCLUSION
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–3, 5–10,
12–18, 20
103(a) Stading, Augustine,
Rogers
1–3, 5–10,
12–18, 20

4, 11 103(a) Stading, Augustine,
Rogers, Evans
4, 11
Overall
Outcome
1–18, 20

No period for taking any action in connection with this appeal may be
extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED