Ex Parte Agarwal et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 5, 2016

13893591 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 5, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
13/893,591 05/14/2013 Shubham Agarwal
52021 7590 08/09/2016
Cuenot, Forsythe & Kim, LLC
20283 State Road 7
Ste. 300
Boca Raton, FL 33498
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.
IN920110244US2_8150-0385 1146
EXAMINER
GIDDINS, NELSONS
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2437
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/09/2016 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):
ibmptomail@iplawpro.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SHUBHAM AGARWAL, MANU KUCHHAL and
SHAILENDRA K. SASON
Appeal2015-000844
Application 13/893,591
Technology Center 2400
Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, JEFFREYS. SMITH, and
TERRENCE W. MCMILLIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the
Examiner twice rejecting claims 17, 25, 32, 36, and 38, although claims 16-
26 and 30-38 are pending and rejected in the application. Appellants'
Appeal Brief indicates that only claims 17, 25, 32, 36, and 38 are appealed.
See App. Br. 1. Therefore, we conclude Appellants have withdrawn any
appeal of the rejections of claims 16, 18-24, 26, 30, 31, 33-35, and 37, and
the rejection of these claims are not now before us. It is suggested that the
Examiner take the appropriate action to cancel claims 16, 18-24, 26, 30, 31,
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33-35, and 37 in view of Appellants' withdrawal of the claims from the
appeal. 1 We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
The present invention relates generally to handling events generated
by applications, and more particularly to client-side sharing of event
information. Spec. i-fi-f l, 4.
Claims 16 and 17 are illustrative:
16. A client device, comprising:
a hardware processor configured to initiate executable
operations comprising:
via a service hub executed on the client device, receiving
an event generated by a first web application accessed by the
client device; and
via the service hub, communicating the event generated
by the first web application to a second web application
accessed by the client device;
wherein the event is not routed through a server.
17. The client device of claim 16, wherein the
hardware processor further is configured to initiate executable
operations comprising:
via an event broker, subscribing the second web
application to events generated by the first web application.
1 "A withdrawal of the appeal as to some of the claims on appeal operates as
an authorization to cancel those claims from the application ... and the
appeal continues as to the remaining claims." Ex parte Ghuman, 88
USPQ2d 1478 (BPAI 2008) (precedential).
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Appellants appeal the following rejections:
RI. Claims 17 and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Phillips et al. (US 2012/0066610 Al, Mar. 15,
2012) and Morris (US 2011/0252356 Al, Oct. 13, 2011).
R2. Claims 32, 36, and 38 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Phillips, Morris, and Maciocci (US
2009/0287646 Al, Nov. 19, 2009).
Claim Groupings
Based on Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief, we will decide
the appeal on the basis of claims 17 and 32, as set forth below. See
37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
Related Appeals
We note the following related appeal: Appeal No. 2015-001217;
Application No. 13/485,141 (App. Br. 3).
ANALYSIS
Rejection under§ 103(a) over Phillips and Morris
Issue 1: Did the Examiner err in finding that the combined teachings
of Phillips and Morris teach or suggest "via an event broker, subscribing the
second web application to events generated by the first web application," as
recited in claim 1 7?
Appellants contend Morris "does not subscribe to events generated by
another application" and instead "monitors its own application" (App. Br.
13; see also id. at 15-16).
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Application 13/893,591
Appellants' argument against ivforris separately from Phillips does not
persuasively rebut the combination made by the Examiner. One cannot
show non-obviousness by attacking references individually, where the
rejections are based on combinations of references. In re Merck & Co., Inc.,
800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986); In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425
(CCPA 1981).
Specifically, we agree with the Examiner's finding that Phillips
teaches communicating an event generated by a first web application to a
second web application using a service hub, for status synchronization
between multiple UI elements and web applications (see Final Act. 14--15;
see also Ans. 7-8). We further agree with the Examiner's finding that
Morris's application monitoring functionality,
when combined with the teachings of Phillips, describes and
can correspond to the similar techniques ... of utilizing the
status synchronization module 46 to determine whether some or
all UI Elements should be updated in response to a change in
status update data to achieve synchronization between UI
elements that are contained within separate applications
(Ans. 9-10).
For example, Phillips discloses:
[0050] In another example, the techniques of this disclosure
provide for improved updating of one or more UI elements
38A-38B. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, browser 12 is
operable to present a first UI element 3 8A to a user. . . . First
UI element 38A may receive an update. For example where
first UI element 38A is a chat window, first UI element 38A
may receive a status update in the form of a chat message ....
According to techniques of this disclosure, instead of web
application 35A itself updating first UI element 38A to reflect
the status update, the status update may be sent to shared
worker 34, and shared worker 34 may, in response, provide
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software code that may be executed to render an updated
version of first UI element 3 8A.
[0051] In another example, the techniques of this disclosure
provide for improved status synchronization for multiple UI
elements 38A-38B. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, browser
12 is operated to present a first web application 35A and a
second web application 35B to a user. The first and second
web applications 35A, 35B may respectively present first and
second UI elements 38A-38B. The first and second UI elements
38A-38B may represent substantially similar functionality. For
example, the first and second UI elements 38A-38B may each
represent functionality such as a chat window or contacts
picker.
[0052] Shared worker 34 may enable communication of UI
element 38A, 38B status local to computing device 10. For
example, first UI element 38A may receive a status update (e.g.,
where first UI element 38A is a chat window, subcomponent
38A may receive a user message). First UI element 38A or host
web application 35A may communicate the status update to
shared worker 34. Shared worker 34 may, upon receipt of the
status update, communicate at least one software code portion
updated to inco1 porate the received status update from first UI
element 38A. Accordingly, the first and second UI elements
38A, 38B may be updated (e.g., by executing updated software
code defining the UI elements 38A, 38B) to reflect the status
update of first UI element 38A (e.g., the user message may be
displayed to the user). In some examples, shared worker 34
may further store a received status update (and/or software code
updated to incorporate the status update) locally, for example in
a temporary memory of computing device 10, such that the
status update may be provided to another UI element of web
applications 35A, 35B, or another web application (not shown
in FIG. 1) executed on computing device 10.
(Phillips i-fi-150-52.) Morris discloses:
[0073] In another example, application monitor component
450a, in FIG. 4a, may subscribe to an event queue of
presentation controller 418a. Presentation controller 418a may
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notify subscribers of various operations and/ or changes
associated with various output and/or input operations of
application 404a. Application monitor component 450a may
identify first application window 704al in FIG. 7a and/or
included UI elements presented by application 404a.
(Morris i-f 73.)
In other words, Phillips describes status synchronization by notifying
one UI element's updated status to both the first and a second UI element,
each associated with its respective web application, by use of a shared
worker; and Morris describes providing status updates to subscribers using
an application monitor.
Appellants do not provide persuasive evidence or arguments that the
combination of Phillips and Morris does not describe event generation and
transmission between a first web application and a second web application
and the subscription for these events at web applications. Thus, we agree
with the Examiner's finding that Phillips' s status synchronization of multiple
UI elements teaches the first and second web applications, wherein the first
web application generates events to transmit to the second web application,
as required by claim 1 7, when combined with Morris's provision of status
updates to subscribers using an application monitor teaches subscribing the
web application to generated events, also as required by claim 1 7.
For at least these reasons, we are unpersuaded the Examiner erred.
Accordingly, the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of dependent
claim 17, as well as the rejection of commensurate dependent claim 25, not
separately argued (App. Br. 18), is sustained.
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Application 13/893,591
Rejection under§ j 03(a) over Phillips and J\lforris
Issue 2: Did the Examiner err in finding that the combined teachings
of Phillips, Morris, and Maciocci teach or suggest "via an event broker, the
native application subscribing to events generated by the web application,"
as recited in claim 32?
Similar to claim 17, Appellants again contend Morris "does not
subscribe to events generated by another application" and instead "monitors
its own application" (App. Br. 19-20; see also id. at 22).
Once again, Appellants' argument against Morris separately from
Phillips and Maciocci does not persuasively rebut the combination made by
the Examiner. As with claim 1 7, we agree with the Examiner's findings that
the combined teachings of Phillips and Morris teach or suggest transmitting
events generated between web applications using an event broker, as well as
the subscription for generated events. We further agree with the Examiner's
findings that Maciocci teaches the applicability to native applications (see
Final Act. 29; see also Ans. 13-14).
For example, Maciocci discloses "the action database 420 contains a
set of updatable plug-ins which are compatible with the native apps 117"
and "the action database 420 could contain a plug-in to interact with the
Google Maps App such that addresses could be passed as input the Google
rv 1 aps App," allowing "the QTags module 110 to manipulate the
functionality of the native apps 117" (Maciocci i-f 68). In other words,
Maciocci teaches allowing for the use ofupdatable QTags and plug-ins to
function with native applications.
Appellants do not provide persuasive evidence or argument that the
combination of Phillips, Morris, and Maciocci does not describe event
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generation and transmission between a first web application and a second
web application and the subscription for events at native applications. Thus,
we agree with the Examiner's combined findings that Phillips's status
synchronization of multiple UI elements teaches the first and second web
applications, wherein the first web application generates events to transmit
to the second web application, as required by claim 32; and Morris's
provision of status updates to subscribers using an application monitor
teaches subscribing the web application to generated events, as required by
claim 32; and Maciocci's updateable plug-ins and QTags with native
applications teaches or suggests the functionality as applied to native
applications, as required by claim 32.
Although Appellants later contend that "the term 'native application'
is distinct from the term 'web application"' (Reply Br. 4--5), we find that this
belated argument is waived. See Ex parte Borden, 93 USPQ2d 1473, 1474
(BP AI 2010) (informative) ("[T]he reply brief [is not] an opportunity to
make arguments that could have been made in the principal brief on appeal
to rebut the Examiner's rejections, but were not"). Appellants could have
presented the new argument in support of claim 38 in the Appeal Brief~ such
that we would have had benefit of the Examiner's evaluation of the argument
in the responsive Answer. Appellants do not explain what good cause there
might be to consider the new argument. Appe11ants' new argument is thus
untimely and has, accordingly, not been considered (id).
For at least these reasons, we are unpersuaded the Examiner erred.
Accordingly, the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of dependent
claim 32, as well as the rejection of commensurate dependent claims 36 and
38, not separately argued (App. Br. 24--25), is sustained.
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Application 13/893,591
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's§ 103(a) rejections RI and R2.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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