Ex Parte Allocca et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 24, 2014

10916772 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 24, 2014)

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.
10/916,772 08/11/2004 William W. Allocca 120137.488 1444
500 7590 11/25/2014
SEED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW GROUP PLLC
701 FIFTH AVE
SUITE 5400
SEATTLE, WA 98104
EXAMINER
ROJAS, HAJIME S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3627
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/25/2014 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte WILLIAM W. ALLOCCA, GIRISH S. LAKSHMAN,
LEILEHUA MALY, MICHAEL T. MCKENNA,
SANGEETHA RANGANATH, JAY T. SKEER,
and KRISTIN E. TOTH
____________

Appeal 2012-005742
Application 10/916,7721
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before HUBERT C. LORIN, MICHAEL W. KIM, and BRADLEY B.
BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judges.

BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 10–12, 14, 16–27, 32–35, 39–44, and 62–87. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
STATEMENT OF THE DECISION
We AFFIRM.2

1The real party in interest, as identified by Appellants, is Amazon
Technologies, Incorporated (App. Br. 2).
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THE INVENTION
The claimed invention is directed to automatically classifying items
and calculating the estimated taxes for the items for international delivery
(Abstract). Claim 10, reproduced below, is representative of the subject
matter on appeal.
10. A computer-implemented method to assist
international delivery of items from an origination country by
automatically classifying items, the method comprising:

receiving indications of a plurality of defined mappings
that each associates a set of multiple item attributes with a tax
code of a destination country; and

for each of multiple orders that each include one or more
items and have an associated destination country for order
delivery, and before delivering the order,

automatically determining delivery tax costs for the order,
the automatic determining of the delivery tax costs being
performed by one or more configured computing systems and
including, for each of at least some of the included items,

automatically and dynamically selecting one of the
plurality of defined mappings for the item, the selecting
including identifying multiple of the plurality of defined
mappings that match attributes of the item and including
determining the selected one defined mapping from the multiple
identified defined mappings based at least in part on a degree of
match between the attributes of the item and the set of item
attributes for the selected one defined mapping, the degree of
match between the attributes of the item and the set of item
attributes for each of the multiple identified defined mappings
being based on a largest number of matching attributes; and

2 Our decision references Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed Nov.
14, 2011), the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed Dec. 20, 2011), and the
Appellants’ Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed Feb. 17, 2012).
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automatically estimating a delivery tax for delivery of the
item to the destination country associated with the order that will
be charged by that destination country, the estimated tax based at
least in part on the tax code for the selected mapping; and

automatically determining an amount to charge for the
order based in part on the estimated delivery taxes for the
included items and providing an indication of the automatically
determined amount, the automatic determining of the amount to
charge being performed by the one or more configured
computing systems.

THE REJECTION
The following rejection is before us for review:
Claims 10–12, 14, 16–27, 32–35, 39–44, and 62–87 are rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lam (US 2002/0120527 A1,
pub. Aug. 29, 2002), in view of Gilbert (US 2002/0073099 A1, pub. June
13, 2002).
FINDINGS OF FACT
We have determined that the findings of fact in the Analysis section
below are supported at least by a preponderance of the evidence.3
ANALYSIS
Claims 10–12, 14, 16–18, 21–27, 32–35, 39–41, 43, and 44
Appellants select and argue independent claim 10 as representative of
the subject matter on appeal in contesting the rejection of the above claims
as being obvious over the combination of Lam and Gilbert (App. Br. 14,
Reply Br. 4). Thus, the remaining claims stand or fall with claim 10. 37
C.F.R. § 41.37 (c)(1)(vii)(2011).

3 See Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988)
(explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the
Patent Office).
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The Examiner, however, maintains that the rejection of record under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is proper (Ans. 12–17).
In particular, Appellants argue that Lam fails “to disclose or suggest
any usage of tax codes in any manner, let alone associating a set of multiple
item attributes with a tax code of a destination country,” as recited in claim
10 (Reply Br. 4–6, see also App. Br. 17–18). We disagree. Instead, we
agree with and adopt the Examiner’s findings and rationale as our own as
provided on pages 12–14 of the Answer. Lam is directed to a method for
determining the total cost of products including calculating duties, tariffs,
taxes, and shipping based on product categories as set by each country
(Abstract). Lam discloses that the duty estimation system gives the quote
manager a product type according to the destination country’s tariff
classification system and this product type is used in determining taxes and
shipping charges (Ans. 12, citing Lam ¶ 57). Thus, we are not persuaded of
reversible error by Appellants’ arguments.
In response to Appellants’ argument that Lam and Gilbert fail to
disclose or suggest a “match based upon the largest number of matching
attributes” (App. Br. 18–20, Reply Br. 7–8), the Examiner replies that
Gilbert teaches “matching wherein data fields (attributes) are evaluated for a
degree-of-match [and] attribute weights are generated for each comparison
and are summed to create a composite weight or score to achieve a best
match” (Ans. 13, citing Gilbert ¶¶ 34–36). Here, we also agree with the
Examiner because probabilistic matching is based on individual weights
summed to derive a composite score (largest number of matching attributes)
measuring statistical probability of records matching including upper and
lower thresholds (Gilbert ¶ 36).
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Appellants also contend that no motivation to combine the prior art is
provided, thus failing to render claim 10 obvious (App. Br. 21–22). We
reject this assertion and instead adopt the Examiner’s articulated reasoning
to support the legal conclusion of obviousness set forth on pages 6, 13 and
14 of the Answer. We further note that we are persuaded that “probabilistic
matching has lower rates of false negatives and false positives than does
deterministic matching,” yielding more accurate matches (Ans. 6, 13–14,
citing Gilbert ¶ 36).
Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claim 10, and the remaining
claims that fall with claim 10.
Claims 19 and 20
Appellants dispute the Examiner’s finding that Lam teaches
“estimating a different delivery tax . . . based at least in part on a tax code
for a different one of the defined mappings . . .” (App. Br. 22–23, Reply Br.
8–9), as recited in claims 19 and 20. However, we agree with the
Examiner’s finding that by changing shopping basket composition and
requesting “re-pricing,” Lam teaches this limitation (Ans. 7, citing Lam
¶ 31). We therefore sustain the rejection of claims 19 and 20.
Claim 42
With regards to claim 42, Appellants reiterate the lack of any teaching
in Lam of defined mappings “using country tax codes in any manner
whatsoever” (App. Br. 28–29). We reject this argument as unpersuasive in
view of the prior art of record as discussed above. Thus, we sustain the
rejection of claim 42.

Appeal 2012-005742
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Claims 62–74
Insofar as Appellants have relied upon arguments proffered above for
claims 62–74 (App Br. 29–32), we sustain the rejection of these claims as
well.
Claims 75–87
With respect to claims 75–87, Appellants argue that Lam fails to
disclose the additional feature for determining tax costs for an order by
“identifying one of multiple item categories to which an ordered item
belong,” as recited in claim 75 (App. Br. 32–35). We are also not persuaded
by this argument. We agree with the Examiner that Lam teaches this
limitation because “tax calculator 312 determines the amount, if any, of tax
that must be paid on the product based on the type of product and the
shipping destination” (Ans. 12, citing Lam ¶ 58). Consequently, the
rejection of claims 75–87 is sustained.
In view of the foregoing, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
claims 10–12, 14, 16–27, 32–35, 39–44, and 62–87 under 35 U.S.C. §
103(a).

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
We conclude that Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred
in rejecting the claims as listed in the Rejection section above.

DECISION
The decision of the Examiner is AFFIRMED.

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No time period for taking any subsequent 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

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