David Gorodyansky et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 31, 2019

13156244 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Dec. 31, 2019)

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.
13/156,244 06/08/2011 David Gorodyansky 45364.47 4610
41729 7590 12/31/2019
Pavel Pogodin, Esq.
TransPacific Law Group
5245 AV ISLA VERDE APT 302
Carolina, PR 00979
EXAMINER
BADAWI, ANGIE M
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2179
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/31/2019 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):
pavel@transpacificlaw.com
ppogodin@gmail.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD

Ex parte DAVID GORODYANSKY, EUGENE LAPIDOUS
and SERGEI TIMOSCHUK

Appeal 2019-000548
Application 13/156,244
Technology Center 2100

Before ERIC S. FRAHM, DENISE M. POTHIER, and
MICHAEL T. CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–20. Appeal Br. 15–20. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

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
Anchorfree, Inc. Appeal Br. 2.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to determining the placement of
advertisements and web site elements in a user’s browser. Abstr.
Advertisements are typically allocated specific areas on the web page by the
web site designer. Spec. ¶ 3. However, this makes it difficult to
dynamically change either the location or number of such advertisements, so
as to tailor advertising to individual users. Id. The claimed method provides
a script of computer instructions that determines which site elements should
be positioned inside the browser window, shifts the positions of at least
some of the site elements so as to create an additional space near the site
content. Id. ¶ 10. The script further provides a second set of computer
instructions that are executed to display an advertisement inside the
additional space. Id. Independent claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A computer-implemented method executed on a
computer system comprising a central processing unit and a
memory, the method comprising:
a. a user browser loading a web site document containing
a reference to an advertisement and one or more site elements,
the user browser displaying a browser window;
b. the user browser issuing a request for an advertisement
to an advertisement server and starting positioning one or more
site elements within the browser window; and
c. the user browser receiving from the advertisement
server in response to the issued request a script, the script
containing a first and a second sets of executable computer
instructions; the first set of executable computer instructions
being executed by the central processing unit after the user
browser completes loading a document object model and
determines which site elements should be positioned inside the
browser window, first set of executable computer instructions
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shifting positions of at least some of the site elements by a shift
vector, thereby creating an additional space near a site content,
and the second set of executable computer instructions being
executed to display an advertisement inside the additional
space, wherein the shifting positions of the at least some of the
site elements by the shift vector is performed after the user
browser completes loading the document object model and
determines which site elements should be positioned inside the
browser window.
Appeal Br. 15 (Claims Appx.).
Independent claims 8 and 15 recite, respectively, a non-transitory
computer-readable medium and a computerized system having limitations
commensurate in scope with claim 1. Id. at 16–20. Dependent claims 2–7,
9–14, and 16–20 each incorporate the limitations of their respective
independent claims. Id. at 15–20.
REFERENCES
Name Reference Date
Blinnikka et al.
(Blinnikka)
US 2008/0281689 A1 Nov. 13, 2008

Baer et al.
(Baer)
US 2009/0037809 A1 Feb. 5, 2009

Groth et al.
(Groth)
US 2010/0306696 A1 Dec. 2, 2010
Chan et al.
(Chan)
US 2011/0264522 A1 Oct. 27, 2011

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REJECTIONS
Claims 1–4, 6–11, 13–17, and 19–20 are rejected under pre-AIA 35
U.S.C. §103(a) as being obvious over the combined teachings and
suggestions of Blinnikka, Baer, and Groth.2
Claims 5, 12, and 18 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as
being obvious over the combined teachings and suggestions of Blinnikka,
Baer, Groth, and Chan.
OPINION
The first issue in this appeal concerns the limitation of claim 1
requiring “executable computer instructions.” Appellant contends:
none of Blinnikka, Baer and Groth teach or suggest the
following limitation of the independent claims 1, 8 and 15: ‘the
user browser receiving from the advertisement server in
response to the issued request a script, the script containing a
first and a second sets of executable computer instructions; the
first set of executable computer instructions being executed by
the central processing unit after the user browser completes
loading the document object model and determines which site
elements should be positioned inside the browser window, first
set of executable computer instructions shifting positions of at
least some of the site elements by a shift vector." Appeal Br. 9.
Appellant argues that none of the individual references teach the entirety of
the contested claim limitation. Appeal Br. 9–10. However, the Examiner

2 The Final Action indicates in a heading that claim 18 is rejected over the
base combination of Blinnikka, Baer, and Groth. Final Act. 3. However,
that rejection does not specifically address claim 18, which is instead
specifically addressed in the rejection based upon the base combination in
view of Chan. Final Act. 12. Accordingly, we treat the heading on page 3
as a typographical error.
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has relied not on any individual reference, but instead upon the combination
of the teachings and suggestions of Blinnikka, Baer, and Groth.
With respect to the contested limitation, the Examiner finds Blinnikka
to teach or suggest that the user browser receives a script containing
executable computer instructions, in the form of a retrieved web page having
code that “includes a script (e.g., javascript) or other code element that is
executed by the browser as part of interpreting the code of the web page.”
Final Act. 4 (citing inter alia Blinnikka ¶ 35). The Examiner further finds
Blinnikka’s executable script to contain instructions for shifting positions of
at least some of the site elements, in the form of Blinnikka’s movement of
original content “to a different area on the page wherein the browser
application retrieves the web page, creates a window, and interprets the code
of the web page to generate the displayed content into the window.” Ans.
13–14 (citing Blinnikka ¶¶ 25, 29, 35).
The Examiner relies upon Baer to teach or suggest limiting the timing
of shifting positions of at least some of the site elements (as attributed to
Blinnikka) until after a determination is made. Final Act. 4–5. The
Examiner finds this limitation taught by Baer’s computing device that
performs a determination as to whether to display an advertisement, and in
response to that determination, other user interface elements move and/or
reposition to permit the desired display of the advertisement. Id. at 5 (citing
Baer ¶¶ 19, 31, 35).
The Examiner relies upon Groth for further limiting the execution of
the first set of instructions (as attributed to Blinnikka) until after the user
browser completes loading the document object model and determines
which site elements should be positioned inside the browser window. Id. at
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6. The Examiner finds Groth to teach this limitation by Groth’s application
that retrieves user-related data and the requested document, characterized as
a document object model (DOM), wherein “a module applies a filter to the
currently loaded DOM, and requests and applies the results of queries to the
local COM the application then assembles the returned DOM into a visual
display.” Id. (citing Groth ¶¶ 55, 103–108, 111, 158).
Appellant has not explained persuasively why the combination of
references, as applied by the Examiner, do not teach or suggest the claimed
invention. One cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references
individually where the rejection is based on combinations of references. In
re Keller, 642 F.2d 413 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091
(Fed. Cir. 1986). With respect to Appellant’s argument that the combination
of references does not teach “executable computer instructions” Appellant
argues that Baer does not teach this limitation. Appeal Br. 9; Reply Br. 2–
3). However, Appellant has not accounted for the Examiner’s reliance on
Blinnikka for teaching or suggesting “executable computer instructions.”
Ans. 14 (finding Blinnikka “teaches an executable script that has instructions
for shifting positions.”). Although Appellant contends that Baer is reliant on
XML (extensible markup language) documents, and that those are not
“executable” (Appeal Br. 9; Reply Br. 2–3), Appellant has not explained
how the Examiner’s combination of the teachings and suggestions of
Blinnikka and Baer is necessarily non-executable such that the above-
described limitation is not taught or suggested. We further note that
Appellant’s arguments rely upon an exemplary embodiment of Baer that is
limited to XML (Baer ¶ 30), but Appellant has not shown that Baer’s
teachings are limited only to nonexecutable XML or non-executable
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documents. See Ans. 14–15; see, e.g., Baer ¶ 27 (“or any other form of
computer-executable instructions or the like”). Accordingly, Appellant has
not persuasively shown error in the Examiner’s determination that such a
limitation is taught or suggested by the applied combination of references.
Appellant provides additional arguments as to how individual
references fail to teach certain limitations of the above-cited section of the
claim. However, each argument addresses only the separate teachings of
individual references, and does not take into account which reference the
Examiner has applied for each separate limitation. We address each in turn.
With respect to Appellant’s argument that Baer does not teach
“determining which site elements should be positioned inside the browser
window” (Appeal Br. 9), the Examiner has relied instead upon Groth for that
teaching (Final Act. 6) (finding Groth to teach requesting and applying the
results of queries to the local document the application then assembles the
returned document object model into a visual display). With respect to
Appellant’s argument that Blinnikka and Baer do not teach “the first set of
executable computer instructions being executed by the central processing
unit after the user browser completes loading the document object model
(Appeal Br. 9), the Examiner has relied on the combined teachings of
Blinnikka (first set of executable computer instructions that determine
positioning being executed by the central processing unit with respect to
loading a document by the browser) and Groth (determining positioning
after the document object model has been loaded). With respect to
Appellant’s argument that Groth does not teach “shifting positions of at least
some of the site elements by a shift vector after the user browser completes
loading the document object model and determines which site elements
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should be positioned inside the browser window” (Appeal Br. 10), the
Examiner has relied upon Baer for teaching or suggesting shifting positions
(Final Act. 4–5), and Groth for loading a document object model and
determining which site element should be positioned therein (Id. at 6).
Accordingly, by arguing references individually rather than what the
combination of references together teach or suggest, Appellant has not
persuasively shown error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1.
Appellant has not separately argued claims 2–20, instead relying on
the same arguments presented against the rejection of claim 1 to argue
against the rejection of claims 2–20. Appeal Br. 10–15. Pursuant to 37
C.F.R. § 41.37()(1)(iv), claims 2–4, 6–11, 13–17, and 19–20, rejected under
the same grounds, stand or fall together. Accordingly, Appellant has not
persuasively shown error, and we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims
1–4, 6–11, and 13–17, and 19–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious
over the combination of Blinnikka, Baer, and Groth. Further, Appellant has
not separately argued claims 5, 12, and 18, rejected as being obvious over
the combination of Blinnikka, Baer, Groth, and Chan. For the same reasons
addressed above, Appellant has not persuasively shown error, and we sustain
the Examiner’s rejection of claims 5, 12, and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
CONCLUSION
For the above-described reasons, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection
of claims 1–20 as being obvious under 35 U.S.C. §103(a).
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DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § References/Grounds Affirmed Reversed
1–4, 6–
11, 13–
17, 19–20
103(a) Blinnikka, Baer,
Groth
1–4, 6–11,
13–17, 19–
20

5, 12, 18 103(a) Blinnikka, Baer,
Groth, Chan
5, 12, 18
Overall
Outcome
1–20

TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
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).
AFFIRMED