14053260 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 27, 2017)

Ex Parte Cunningham et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardJul 27, 2017

14053260 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 27, 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. 14/053,260 10/14/2013 Gerard Cunningham GB920120116US2 8152-0233 1670 112978 7590 07/31/2017 Cuenot, Forsythe & Kim, LLC 20283 State Road 7, Suite 300 Boca Raton, EL 33498 EXAMINER MCLEOD, MARSHALL M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2454 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 07/31/2017 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): ibmptomail@iplawpro.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte GERARD CUNNINGHAM, ELAINE HANLEY, RONAN M. O'SUILLEABHAIN, and FRED RAGUILLAT Appeal 2017-008550 Application 14/053,260 Technology Center 2400 Before JAMES R. HUGHES, ERIC S. FRAHM, and MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2017-008550 Application 14/053,260 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1— 9. Claims 10-25 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. The invention relates to a system for generating a user unavailability alert in a collaborative environment, for example, a calendaring application. Spec. 2, 18. Specifically, the system allows a user to select a control that indicates the user’s unavailability, and if participants in collaborative sessions may be impacted by the user’s unavailability, the system generates and sends a message to the impacted participants indicating the user’s unavailability. Spec. H 23, 29-30. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method of generating a user unavailability alert in a collaborative environment, the method comprising: receiving a user input from a user indicating an unavailability of the user; responsive to the user input, via a processor, analyzing activity of the user in the collaborative environment to identify whether any pending actions are allocated to the user which relate to other people identified by the user's participation in the collaborative environment; responsive to determining at least one pending action is allocated to the user which relates to at least one other person identified by the user's participation in the collaborative environment, generating a first message to be communicated to the at least one other person indicating the unavailability of the user; and 2 Appeal 2017-008550 Application 14/053,260 communicating the first message to the at least one other person. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Singh Chakra Hughes Norwood Caligor US 2009/0202051 US 2009/0319926 US 2010/0174579 US 2010/0250322 US 2012/0239451 A1 Aug. 13, 2009 A1 Dec. 24, 2009 A1 Jul. 8,2010 A1 Sep. 30, 2010 A1 Sep. 20, 2012 REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1—9 stand provisionally rejected under the non-statutory doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting over US Application 13/657,048. Claims 1, 2, 5, and 7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Chakra. Claims 3 and 8 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Chakra, Norwood, and Caligor. Claim 4 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Chakra, Caligor, Norwood, and Hughes. Claim 6 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Chakra and Singh. Claim 9 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Chakra and Norwood. 3 Appeal 2017-008550 Application 14/053,260 ANALYSIS The Double Patenting Rejection Appellants do not present specific arguments regarding the non- statutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection of claims 1—9. Absent a showing of error, we sustain the rejection of claims 1—9 for double patenting. The Anticipation Rejection Appellants contend Chakra fails to disclose “analyzing activity of the user in the collaborative environment,” as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 11. Specifically, Appellants argue Chakra’s “set of calendar entries 113 are not an activity, of the user, in the collaborative environment A Id. Appellants further contend the Examiner improperly relies on Chakra’s work environment, i.e., the actual place of work, for disclosing the claimed “collaborative environment.” App. Br. 16. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments. Chakra describes a calendar system 116 that allows a user to report an absence 112 (Chakra, 122), where receipt of the absence 112 can cause an absence manager component 117 to determine a set of calendar entries 113 affected by the absence 112. These calendar entries 113 can include those entries 113 occurring during the period of absence, as well as future calendar entries 113 that are unlikely to be completed in time due to the absence 112. Calendar entries 113 can include meeting entries, to-do entries, and other scheduled items associated with any event or task. Chakra, 123. Further, Chakra discloses “the absence manager 117 can optionally notify 122 a manager 120 of the affected events,” and “the manager 120 can select from among a set of situation handling options, such 4 Appeal 2017-008550 Application 14/053,260 as . . . notifying a set of meeting attendees that an absentee 105 will not be attending the meeting.” Chakra, 124. We agree with the Examiner that Chakra’s calendar system 116 is a “collaborative environment.” Ans. 4. Appellants’ Specification defines “collaborative environment” to mean “an environment in which users collaborate via one or more communication networks,” where the environment may include “calendaring applications.” Spec. 118. Chakra discloses “calendaring systems are integrated into a suite of communication tools and/or document management tools, which help coordinate data exchanges for meeting related activities.” Chakra, 12. Accordingly, we find Chakra’s calendar system 116 meets the limitation of a “collaborative environment” as defined in Appellants’ Specification. Appellants’ argument that the Examiner also relies, improperly, on Chakra’s work environment for disclosing the claimed “collaborative environment” is not persuasive because the Examiner does not in fact make this finding. See Ans. 6 (“Appellants[’] mention of paragraphs [0003] and [0030] of Chakra not relied upon, nor cited by the examiner, serves only to cloud the record . . . . The examiner states to Appellants that Chakra’s calendar system . . . teaches Appellants[’] ‘collaborative environment.’”). Further, the Examiner finds, and we agree, that Chakra’s calendar entries 113 in the calendar system 116 meet the limitation of “activity of the user in the collaborative environment.” See Ans. 4. Chakra discloses the calendar entries include “meeting entries, to-do entries, and other scheduled items associated with any event or task.” Chakra, 123. We find the scheduled items that comprise Chakra’s calendar entries represent “activity of the user in the collaborative environment” because the user must perform some scheduling activity in the calendar system to create the calendar 5 Appeal 2017-008550 Application 14/053,260 entries. Further, Chakra discloses it is the calendar entries that are analyzed to determine whether to take an action such as “notifying a set of meeting attendees that an absentee 105 will not be attending the meeting.” Chakra, 23—24. That is, Chakra’s system does not analyze an actual physical meeting to determine which attendees to notify of the user’s absence; rather, Chakra analyzes the calendar entries, i.e., the “activity of the user in the collaborative environment,” to determine which attendees to notify. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ Reply Brief argument that Chakra’s calendar entries 113 “are not activities of the user in the calendaring system” because “they are descriptions of activities, to be performed by the user outside of the calendaring system.” Reply Br. 3. Although Chakra’s calendar entries 113 correspond to events that may take place in the physical workplace, the entries themselves, which the Examiner equates to the claimed “activities” (Ans. 4), are created and exist in the calendar system 116. See Chakra, 123; Fig. 4. We are, therefore, not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1, and claims 2, 5, and 7 not specifically argued separately. The Obviousness Rejections Appellants do not present specific arguments regarding the obviousness rejections of claims 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9, but rather rely on the same arguments presented for claim 1. See App. Br. 16-19. Appellants’ claim 1 arguments are not persuasive, as discussed above, and thus we sustain the rejections of claims 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9 for the same reasons as claim 1. 6 Appeal 2017-008550 Application 14/053,260 CONCLUSIONS Under the non-statutory doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting, Appellants have not shown the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-9. Under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b), the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1, 2, 5, and 7. Under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9. DECISION For the above reasons, we affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—9. 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 7