Ex Parte Amacker

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 24, 2017

14338736 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 24, 2017)

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.
14/338,736 07/23/2014 Matthew Amacker 170109-1051 3698
07/26/201771247 7590
Client 170101 c/o
THOMAS HORSTEMEYER, LLP
3200 WINDY HILL RD SE
SUITE 1600E
ATLANTA, GA 30339
EXAMINER
WILLIAMS, CLAYTON R
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2457
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/26/2017 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):
uspatents @ tkhr.com
docketing @ thomashorstemeyer. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MATTHEW AMACKER1
Appeal 2017-004764
Application 14/338,736
Technology Center 2400
Before JASON V. MORGAN, BETH Z. SHAW, and
KAMRAN JIVANI, Administrative Patent Judges.
SHAW, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant seeks our review, under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), of the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 20—39, which are all the claims
pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is A9.com. See Appeal
Br. 2.
Appeal 2017-004764
Application 14/338,736
INVENTION
The invention relates to a matrix view of streams, where at least one
stream includes a moving progression of item representations. Abst.
Claim 20 is reproduced below with emphasis on a disputed limitation.
20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium
embodying a program executable in at least one computing
device, wherein when executed the program causes the at least
one computing device to at least:
obtain a plurality of item representations; and
encode a network page including a plurality of streams, a first
stream of the plurality of streams comprising a plurality of stream
segments, at least one of the plurality of stream segments being
capable of being detached from the first stream to form a second
stream, individual ones of the plurality of streams corresponding
to a moving progression of a respective subset of the plurality of
item representations across at least a portion of the network page.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 20-25, 27—31, 33, 35 and 36, under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a), as obvious over McDonald (US 2009/0187558 Al;
published July 23, 2009) and Bennett (US 2009/0287657 Al; published
Nov. 19, 2009). Final Act. 2—12.
The Examiner rejected claim 26, under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), as obvious
over McDonald, Bennett, and Fein (US 2008/0235205 Al; published
Sept. 25, 2008). Final Act. 12—13.
The Examiner rejected claim 32, under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), as obvious
over McDonald, Bennett, and Koppert (US 8,001,487 B2; issued Aug. 16,
2011). Final Act. 13-14.
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Application 14/338,736
The Examiner rejected claims 37—39, under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), as
obvious over McDonald, Bennett, and Cheng (US 2009/0271369 Al;
published Oct. 29, 2009). Final Act. 14—16.
The Examiner rejected claim 34, under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), as obvious
over McDonald, Bennett, and Shpits (US 2010/0333204 Al; published
Dec. 30, 2010). Final Act. 16-17.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed Appellant’s arguments in the Briefs, the
Examiner’s rejection, and the Examiner’s response to Appellant’s
arguments. Appellant argues the Examiner erred in finding the independent
claims obvious because McDonald does not teach or suggest that the recited
“segments” are “capable of being detached from the first stream to form a
second stream.” App. Br. 4. In particular, regarding claim 20, Appellant
argues that McDonald fails to teach a stream segment “being capable of
being detached from the first stream to form a second stream,” as recited in
claim 20. App. Br. 6. Appellant argues that the “secondary search results in
McDonald are not detached, nor are they capable of being detached, from
the ‘displayed search results.’” Id. (emphasis omitted). Appellant argues
that instead, “the secondary search results are different results produced by a
‘default or customized secondary search algorithm.’” Id. Appellant argues
the secondary search results are not a “stream segment” in the “displayed
search results.” Id. Appellant presents the same or substantially the same
arguments for independent claims 24 and 31. Id. 8—11.
The Examiner responds that:
McDonald explicitly discloses secondary search results window
being displayed responsive to a user engaging with results in a
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Appeal 2017-004764
Application 14/338,736
primary search results window (paragraph 0076, lines 1—11). In
addition, McDonald further discloses these primary and
secondary search results windows as being distinct user interface
elements, i.e., detached (paragraph 0064 and Fig. 5). More
succinctly stated, a user “clicking” on a result displayed in a
primary search results window triggers a search system to
produce a distinct and separate secondary search window with
visual presentation of related content. Therefore, the results
returned for the secondary window search, responsive to a user’s
engagement with a returned search result from a primary search
query, are “detached” from the claimed “plurality of streams” at
least to the extent that these results are presented in a separate
window.
Ans. 2—3.
While we agree with the Examiner’s finding that McDonald’s two
windows are distinct user interface elements (Ans. 2—3), we agree with
Appellant that merely causing other results (which are not disclosed in the
cited portions of McDonald as being part of the first set of results) to be
presented in a separate window does not teach the disputed claimed
elements. Reply Br. 5. The embodiment of McDonald cited by the
Examiner does not facially disclose separating a portion of first search
results to form secondary search results. See, e.g., McDonald, 176. The
Examiner fails to provide additional reasoning or analysis addressing this
deficiency. See Ans. 2—3. Thus, on the record before us, we are unable to
ascertain how the results in McDonald’s secondary search window
correspond to a stream segment that is detached from a first stream. Id.
Accordingly, we reverse the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claims 20, 24, and 31, and the remaining pending claims, which depend
from one of claims 20, 24, and 31.
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Appeal 2017-004764
Application 14/338,736
DECISION
We reverse the rejections of claims 20-39.
REVERSED
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