Amazon Technologies, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 22, 2020

2020002826 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 22, 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.
14/176,900 02/10/2014 Gaurav Gupta 170114-1670 1480
71247 7590 09/22/2020
Client 170101 c/o
THOMAS HORSTEMEYER, LLP
3200 WINDY HILL RD SE
SUITE 1600E
ATLANTA, GA 30339
EXAMINER
JESSEN, DEREK
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3622
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/22/2020 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):
docketing@thomashorstemeyer.com
uspatents@tkhr.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte GAURAV GUPTA, AMAN BINDAL, VIVEK CHAWDA, and
SAKET SAURABH
____________

Appeal 2020-002826
Application 14/176,900
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, SCOTT B. HOWARD, and
STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges.

HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1–17 and 19–22, which constitute all of the claims
pending in this application. Claim 18 has been cancelled. Appeal Br. 24
(Claims App’x). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Amazon
Technologies, Inc. Appeal Br. 2.
Appeal 2020-002826
Application 14/176,900

2
THE INVENTION
The disclosed and claimed invention is generally directed to product
purchasing, and more particularly to enabling merchants to “incentivize the
buyer to purchase . . . considered items.” Spec. ¶ 2.2
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying a
program that, when executed by at least one computing device,
causes the at least one computing device to at least:
determine a plurality of trigger events associated with a
plurality of browsing activities of a user of a client device at an
online presence of an electronic commerce system over a
computer network, the plurality of browsing activities
comprising at least one of: a viewing of an item, a discussion of
the item on a forum or message board, and a discussion of the
item in a social media service, the item being listed for sale on
the electronic commerce system by a merchant device and
unpurchased by the user of the client device;
calculate a score for each of a plurality of items in the
electronic commerce system as a function of the plurality of
trigger events;
select at least one of the items responsive to the score of
the at least one of the items exceeding a threshold;
communicate a first notification to the merchant device
soliciting a submission of an offer for the at least one of the items,
the offer comprising a discount applied to the at least one of the
items and a time duration during which the offer is valid;
obtain the offer from the merchant device;

2 We refer to the Specification filed Feb. 10, 2014 (“Spec.”); Non-Final
Office Action mailed May 1, 2019 (“Non-Final Act.”); Appeal Brief filed
Oct. 15, 2019 (“Appeal Br.”); Examiner’s Answer mailed Jan. 27, 2020
(“Ans.”); and the Reply Brief filed Mar. 3, 2020 (“Reply Br.”).
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Application 14/176,900

3
communicate a second notification embodying the offer
obtained from the merchant device to the client device; and
wherein the first notification and the second notification
comprise a short messaging system (SMS) message, an email
message, or content encoded into a network page.

REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence in rejecting the
claims on appeal is:
Barlow US 2012/0173323 A1 July 5, 2012
Mesaros US 2012/0203615 A1 Aug. 9, 2012
Letca et al. US 2013/0254010 A1 Sept. 26, 2013
(“Letca”) (filed Dec. 27, 2012)
Chow et al. US 2014/0156420 A1 June 5, 2014
(“Chow”) (filed Dec. 5, 2012)

REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 3–7, 10–17, 19, and 22 stand rejected under pre-AIA
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Chow and Mesaros. Non-Final Act. 3.
Claims 2, 8, 9, and 20 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as obvious over Chow, Mesaros, and Letca. Non-Final Act. 16.
Claim 21 stands rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious over Chow, Mesaros, Letca, and Barlow. Non-Final Act. 18.

ANALYSIS
Section 103 Rejection
Claim 1 recites (with emphasis added):
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Application 14/176,900

4
determin[ing] a plurality of trigger events associated with a
plurality of browsing activities of a user of a client device at an
online presence of an electronic commerce system over a
computer network, the plurality of browsing activities
comprising at least one of: a viewing of an item, a discussion of
the item on a forum or message board, and a discussion of the
item in a social media service, the item being listed for sale on
the electronic commerce system by a merchant device and
unpurchased by the user of the client device.
Appeal Br. 19 (Claims App’x).
The Examiner finds that Chow teaches items for sale and tracking
users’ interactions with online detail pages. Ans. 4 (citing Chow Fig. 1,
¶ 24). Specifically, the Examiner finds that Chow’s customer writing a
review indicating the customer’s interest in a particular place teaches “a user
using an electronic commerce system to view items for sale (a trigger
event).” Non-Final Act. 3–4 (citing Chow ¶¶ 24, 56, 62, Fig. 1). According
to the Examiner, Chow’s user viewing a details page teaches viewing an
item listed for sale and unpurchased by the user of the client device. Ans. 4
(citing Chow ¶ 62).
Appellant argues that Chow does not teach “browsing activity
involving an ‘item being listed for sale on the electronic commerce system
by a merchant device and unpurchased by the user of the client device,’ as
recited in claim 1.” Appeal Br. 6; see Reply Br. 4–7 (emphasis added).
Specifically, Appellant argues that the cited sections of Chow do not teach
viewing items listed for sale and unpurchased by the user of the client
device. See id. at 7–8.
We are persuaded by Appellant’s argument as the Examiner has not
identified sufficient evidence or provided sufficient explanation as to how
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Application 14/176,900

5
the combination of Chow and Mesaros teaches an item that is listed for sale
and is unpurchased by the user of the client device as claimed.
The cited sections of Chow teach “determining customer valuations,
soliciting and receiving merchant bids based on the customer valuations, and
delivering promotions and advertisements from the merchants to the
customer.” Chow ¶ 40. The customer valuation includes “obtain[ing]
customer interaction data that is associated with a place of business.” Id.
¶ 62. This interaction data “indicate[s] a customer’s interest in a particular
place.” Id. As an example, “if a customer has viewed a detail page for a
place of business multiple times, the system may infer that the customer is
interested in the location.” Id. An interaction may “indicate[] some type of
interest in the merchant by the customer” without knowing “whether the
interest is positive or negative, or whether the customer has followed up the
browsing of the website with a visit to the merchant and/or a purchase from
the merchant.” Id. ¶ 67. In other words, the sections of Chow cited by the
Examiner and on the record before us do not teach indicating user interest in
an item that is listed for sale by a merchant and is unpurchased by the user.
Instead, Chow teaches a user’s browsing activity indicates the user’s interest
(positive or negative) in a merchant or place of business. Chow’s user
browsing activity is associated with a merchant’s details page (relating to the
merchant or place of business) but not with an item that the merchant has
listed for sale that has not yet been purchased by the user.
Therefore, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner’s finding that
the combination of Chow and Mesaros teaches the disputed limitation is in
error because it is not supported by a preponderance of the evidence. See In
re Caveney, 761 F.2d 671, 674 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (The Examiner’s burden of
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Application 14/176,900

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proving non-patentability is by a preponderance of the evidence.); see also
In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017 (CCPA 1967) (“The Patent Office has
the initial duty of supplying the factual basis for its rejection. It may not,
because it may doubt that the invention is patentable, resort to speculation,
unfounded assumptions or hindsight reconstruction to supply deficiencies in
its factual basis.”).
Accordingly, we are constrained on the record before us to reverse the
Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1, along with the rejection of
independent claims 3 and 15, which recite limitations commensurate in
scope to the disputed limitation discussed above, and dependent claims 4–7,
10–14, 16, 17, 19, and 22.
Moreover, because the Examiner has not shown that the additional
references cure the foregoing deficiency regarding the rejection of the
independent claims 1, 3, and 15, we will not sustain the obviousness
rejections of dependent claims 2, 8, 9, 20, and 21.

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Application 14/176,900

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DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s § 103 rejections of claims 1–17 and 19–
22.
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 3–7, 10–17,
19, 22
103(a) Chow, Mesaros 1, 3–7, 10–17,
19, 22
2, 8, 9, 20 103(a) Chow, Mesaros,
Letca
2, 8, 9, 20
21 103(a) Chow, Mesaros,
Letca, Barlow
21
Overall
Outcome
1–17, 19–22

REVERSED