Ex Parte Ananthanarayanan et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Aug 29, 2012

10734798 (B.P.A.I. Aug. 29, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE 1
___________ 2
3
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS 4
AND INTERFERENCES 5
___________ 6
7
Ex parte REMA ANANTHANARAYANAN, 8
MANOJ KUMAR, 9
and RAKESH MOHAN 10
___________ 11
12
Appeal 2011-002270 13
Application 10/734,798 14
Technology Center 3600 15
___________ 16
17
18
Before ANTON W. FETTING, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, and 19
BIBHU R. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judges. 20
FETTING, Administrative Patent Judge. 21
22
23
DECISION ON APPEAL 24
Appeal 2011-002270
Application 10/734,798

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE1 1
Rema Ananthanarayanan, Manoj Kumar, and Rakesh Mohan 2
(Appellants) seek review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 (2002) of a final rejection of 3
claims 1-4, 6-10, 12-14, and 17, the only claims pending in the application 4
on appeal. We have jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant to 5
35 U.S.C. § 6(b) (2002). 6
The Appellants invented a way for trading in online market places by 7
improving trading efficiencies in an online market by enabling the use of 8
trading mechanisms and bilateral negotiations together in the online market. 9
(Specification 1:4-6). 10
An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of 11
exemplary claim 1, which is reproduced below [bracketed matter and some 12
paragraphing added]. 13
1. A computer-implemented method of trading goods and 14
services in an online market, the method comprising: 15
[1] using a computer to specify, 16
by a user, 17
initial requirements 18
for initiating trading among trading parties 19
in said online market; 20
[2] using said computer to execute 21
a multi-party trading mechanism 22
to arrive at trading offers, 23
the trading offers being submitted by the 24
trading parties 25

1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App.
Br.,” filed June 10, 2010) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed October 28,
2010), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed August 31, 2010).
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based on the initial requirements of 1
the user, 2
wherein the multi-party trading mechanism comprises 3
one of 4
a continuous double auction, 5
a call market, 6
an ascending price auction, 7
a descending price auction, 8
a first price sealed bid auction, 9
a uniform second price auction, 10
and 11
a reverse auction conducted by the user and the 12
trading parties; 13
[3] using said computer to select a first trading offer 14
from the trading offers 15
of said multi-party trading mechanism; 16
[4] using said computer to invoke standalone bilateral 17
negotiations, 18
which stand apart from the multi-party trading 19
mechanism, 20
to arrive at customized trading offers, 21
the standalone bilateral negotiations being invoked 22
with the trading parties 23
who submitted trading offers; 24
[5] using said computer to repeat said executing of 25
said multi-party trading mechanism, 26
and either 27
said selecting of said trading offers of said multi-28
party trading mechanism 29
or 30
said invoking said standalone bilateral negotiations 31
to obtain either 32
attractive and feasible trading offers 33
from the multi-party trading mechanism 34
or 35
said customized trading offers 36
from the standalone bilateral negotiations, 37
respectively; 38
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[6] using said computer to evaluate the attractive and feasible 1
offers 2
from 3
the multiparty trading mechanism 4
or 5
the customized trading offers 6
from the standalone bilateral negotiations 7
by any of 8
a utility function 9
based on multiple attributes of 10
a traded good 11
or 12
a traded service, 13
a user-specified weights associated with the traded 14
good or the traded service, 15
and 16
a user-specified costs associated with the multiple 17
attributes of the traded good or the traded service; 18
and 19
[7] using said computer to conclude trading deals 20
based on 21
evaluated attractive and feasible offers 22
from the multi-party trading mechanism 23
or 24
the customized trading offers 25
from the standalone bilateral negotiations, 26
whereby 27
said multi-party trading mechanism 28
and 29
said standalone bilateral negotiations 30
are combined. 31
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art: 32
Holden US 2001/0032175 A1 Oct. 18, 2001
Preist US 2002/0120588 A1 Aug. 29, 2002
33
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Claims 1-4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12-14, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. 1
§ 102(e) as anticipated by Preist. 2
Claim 8 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over 3
Preist and Holden. 4
ISSUES 5
The issues of anticipation and obviousness turn primarily on whether 6
Preist describes using both multi-party and bilateral negotiation mechanisms. 7
FACTS PERTINENT TO THE ISSUES 8
The following enumerated Findings of Fact (FF) are believed to be 9
supported by a preponderance of the evidence. 10
Facts Related to the Prior Art 11
Preist 12
01. Preist is directed to allowing negotiation between a plurality of 13
entities with a computer node being arranged to define the 14
negotiation between the entities with a set of negotiation activities. 15
The computer node is operable to implement a plurality of 16
negotiation rule sets, each rule set constraining the set of 17
negotiation activities to a specific negotiation type, thereby 18
allowing an entity to select at least one of a plurality of 19
negotiation types. Preist para. [0006]. 20
02. The process of negotiation is the move from an agreement 21
template to an agreement, which the agreeing parties find 22
acceptable. A single negotiation may involve many parties, 23
resulting in several agreements between different parties and some 24
parties who do not reach agreement. For example, a stock 25
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exchange can be viewed as a negotiation where many buyers and 1
many sellers meet to negotiate the price of a given stock. Many 2
agreements are formed between buyers and sellers, and some 3
buyers and sellers fail to trade. Preist para. [0035]. 4
03. In the process of reaching agreements, the negotiation participants 5
exchange proposals representing the deals that are currently 6
acceptable to them. Each proposal will contain constraints over 7
some of the parameters expressed in the agreement template. 8
Preist para. [0036]. 9
04. Negotiation takes place by parties communicating through the 10
negotiation locale. The negotiation locale is an abstraction over 11
the messaging system that is used by negotiation participants to 12
address each other where the negotiation locale, typically, has an 13
agreement template associated with it. The agreement template 14
defines the subject of negotiation within the negotiation locale. 15
Preist para. [0055]. 16
05. After admission to negotiation, a participant is given access to the 17
negotiation locale. This locale may already exist, or may be 18
created specifically for this new negotiation. Along with the 19
access, the participant is given a mailbox where messages 20
encoding negotiation proposals will be delivered. Each participant 21
can send proposals by broadcasting them to the negotiation locale. 22
Reliable delivery and security will be enforced by the underlying 23
messaging infrastructure. Singling out a counterpart can be 24
achieved by limiting the visibility of the broadcast message, in 25
case the market mechanism rules allow it. That allows us to 26
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model one-to-one negotiation as a particular case of many-to-1
many. Preist para. [0056]. 2
ANALYSIS 3
Initially, we find that the Examiner responded to all of Appellants’ 4
Appeal Brief arguments fully and with factual findings we have verified. 5
Those findings support the Examiner’s reasoning for the rejections. 6
Accordingly, we adopt the Examiner’s findings of fact and analysis from 7
Answer 3-18, and we reach similar legal conclusions. Thus, we focus our 8
analysis on Appellants’ Reply Brief arguments. 9
We are not persuaded by the Appellants’ arguments that 10
all of Preist's negotiations, whether "one-to-one" or "many-to-11
many", share an initial agreement template, which should be 12
analogized to the present invention's "multi-party trading 13
mechanism [comprising] one of a continuous double auction, a 14
call market, an ascending price auction, a descending price 15
auction, a first price sealed bid auction, a uniform second price 16
auction, and a reverse auction conducted by the user and the 17
trading parties". 18
19
And 20
21
Preist does not disclose, teach or suggest at least the present 22
invention's features of: "using said computer to execute a multi-23
party trading mechanism to arrive at trading offers, . . . , 24
wherein the multi-party trading mechanism comprises one of a 25
continuous double auction, a call market, an ascending price 26
auction, a descending price auction, a first price sealed bid 27
auction, a uniform second price auction, and a reverse auction 28
conducted by the user and the trading parties; . . . using said 29
computer to invoke standalone bilateral negotiations, which 30
stand apart from the multi-party trading mechanism, to arrive at 31
customized trading offers ... ", as recited in independent claim 32
1, and as similarly recited in independent claims 6, 7, 12, and 33
17. 34
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Reply Br. 5-6. The steps generally describe typical market 1
negotiations, with steps [1]-[3] selecting parameters and trading offers and 2
steps [5]-[7] iterating, evaluating and concluding negotiation steps. Step [4], 3
essentially the only step under contention, uses a computer to invoke 4
standalone bilateral negotiations apart from a multi-party trading 5
mechanism. Appellants’ argument is that all negotiations begin with a 6
negotiation template in Preist. This is no different than finding that all 7
negotiations in life begin with the parties agreeing on what is to be 8
negotiated. Nothing in any continuous process is completely apart from the 9
rest, by virtue of the connectedness of the process. Total isolation of 10
mechanisms is not the issue. 11
The issue is whether Preist describes invoking standalone bilateral 12
negotiations that are in some manner “apart” from a multi-party trading 13
mechanism. In Preist, the multi-party mechanism is a many to many 14
conversation. Preist also describes bilateral one-to-one conversations. FF 15
05. The claim does not narrow the manner of being apart. The scope 16
encompasses physical, logical, implied, temporal, situational, contextual, or 17
any other form of implementation. Preist’s bilateral mechanism differs in 18
being a one to one conversation, and is thus “apart” at least in this manner. 19
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW 20
The rejection of claims 1-4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12-14, and 17 under 35 U.S.C. 21
§ 102(e) as anticipated by Preist is proper. 22
The rejection of claim 8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable 23
over Preist and Holden is proper. 24
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DECISION 1
The rejection of claims 1-4, 6-10, 12-14, and 17 is affirmed. 2
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with 3
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. 4
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv) (2007). 5
AFFIRMED 6
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Klh 9