Ex Parte DICHIU et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 11, 2018

14846895 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 11, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/846,895 09/07/2015
23574 7590 10/15/2018
Law Office of Andrei D. Popovici, P.C.
4030 Moorpark Ave., Suite 108
SAN JOSE, CA 95117
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Daniel DICHIU
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.
SOF-1004-1-Cl 5399
EXAMINER
DUONG, THAO DUC
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2446
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/15/2018 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):
ANDREI@APATENT.COM
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DANIEL DICHIU and LUCIAN Z. LUPSESCU
Appeal2018-003241
Application 14/846,895
Technology Center 2400
Before HUNG H. BUI, JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, and
PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges.
LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellants 1 appeal from the
Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-25, the only claims pending in the
application on appeal. We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Bitdefender IPR
Management Ltd. App. Br. 4.
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Application 14/846,895
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants 'Invention
Appellants' invention generally relates to "methods and systems for
classifying electronic communications, and in particular to systems and
methods for filtering unsolicited commercial electronic communications
(spam)." Spec. ,r 2. Claim 1, which is illustrative, reads as follows:
1. A method comprising:
employing at least one hardware processor of a computer
system to perform a comparison between a frequency spectrum
of a target signal and a frequency spectrum of a reference signal,
wherein:
the target signal comprises a sequence of numbers,
each number of the sequence representing a character of a
sequence of characters forming a part of a target electronic
document, wherein
the reference signal is determined for a reference
electronic document, and wherein
the frequency spectrum of the target signal is
computed according to a frequency domain representation
of the target signal, the frequency domain representation
comprising a plurality of frequency components of the
target signal, each frequency component having a distinct
frequency and an amplitude determined for the distinct
frequency;and
employing the at least one hardware processor to
determine whether the target electronic document belongs to a
selected class of a plurality of document classes according to a
result of the comparison.
References and Rejections
Claims 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, and 25 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Kephart et
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al. (US 6,732,149 Bl; issued May 4, 2004) ("Kephart") and Tao et al.
(US 2013/0071005 Al; published Mar. 21, 2013) ("Tao"). Final Act. 8-10.
Claims 2 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Kephart, Tao, and Milliken et al.
(US 2004/0073617 Al; published Apr. 15, 2004) ("Milliken"). Final
Act. 11.
Claims 5 and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Kephart, Tao, and Ciabattoni et al.
(US 2009/0089220 Al; published Apr. 2, 2009) ("Ciabattoni"). Final
Act. 11-12.
Claims 8 and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Kephart, Tao, and Patinkin et al.
(US 2010/0017487 Al; published Jan. 21, 2010) ("Patinkin"). Final
Act. 12-13.
Claims 9-11 and 21-23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
being unpatentable over the combination of Kephart, Tao, Patinkin, and
Stolfo et al. (US 2003/0167402 Al; published Sept. 4, 2003) ("Stolfo").
Final Act. 13-16.
Claims 12 and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Kephart, Tao, and Choi et al.
(US 2009/0220166 Al; published Sept. 3, 2009) ("Choi"). Final Act. 16-
17.
ANALYSIS
Appellants do not substantively argue the claims separately, but
instead rely on the same arguments for all claims. See App. Br. 10, 19. In
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accordance with 37 C.F.R. § 4I.37(c)(l)(iv), we select independent claim 1
as the representative claim. Remaining claims 2-25 stand or fall together
with claim 1.
First Issue
Did the Examiner err by finding the combination of Kephart and Tao
teaches or suggests
employing at least one hardware processor of a computer
system to perform a comparison between a frequency spectrum
of a target signal and a frequency spectrum of a reference signal,
wherein:
the target signal comprises a sequence of numbers,
each number of the sequence representing a character of a
sequence of characters forming a part of a target electronic
document, wherein
the reference signal is determined for a reference
electronic document, and wherein
the frequency spectrum of the target signal is
computed according to a frequency domain representation
of the target signal, the frequency domain representation
comprising a plurality of frequency components of the
target signal, each frequency component having a distinct
frequency and an amplitude determined for the distinct
frequency,
as recited in claim 1?
Appellants contend the combination of Kephart and Tao fails to teach
or suggest the disputed limitations because the combined teachings of the
references "would not have led to a system or method of comparing
frequency spectra of signals representing multiple characters." App. Br. 14.
Appellants argue:
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Tao's teachings about the spectral representation of a signal are
directed to identifying individual characters printed in magnetic
ink. Tao's magnetic signal is explicitly segmented into pieces
representing a single printed character. Signals representing
each character are processed separately, and their spectral
representations are matched individually against templates
representing single characters. Therefore, signals that are
spectrally represented in Tao differ substantially from a target
signal comprising a sequence of numbers, each number of the
sequence representing a character of a sequence of characters
forming a part of a target electronic document, as claimed.
App. Br. 14--15 (citing Tao ,r,r 58, 64) (internal citations omitted); see also
Reply Br. 6. According to Appellants, "Tao even teaches against analyzing
signals representing multiple characters." App. Br. 15 (citing Tao ,r 60).
Appellants argue, therefore, the combination of Kephart and Tao does not
teach or suggest "frequency spectra as claimed, i.e., to frequency spectra of
signals representing multiple characters in sequence" but, instead, teaches
"frequency spectra of signals representing individual characters as taught by
Tao." App. Br. 15.
We find Appellants' arguments unpersuasive. The Examiner finds
Kephart teaches "the target signals comprise[] a sequence of number[ s] and
each number of the sequence represent[ s] a character of a sequence of
characters forming a part of a target electronic document." Ans. 3 ( citing
Kephart 10:55-60; 13:20-42; 14:22). The Examiner finds Tao teaches
"performing a comparison between a frequency spectrum of a target signal
and a frequency spectrum of a reference signal." Ans. 3 (citing Tao
Figs. 12-14; ,r,r 86-92). The Examiner concludes "it would have been
obvious for a person having an ordinary skill in the art at the time the
invention was made to compare the sequence of characters of the incoming
messages of Kephart to a template or known candidates in a spectrum as
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performed by Tao." Ans. 3. As such, the Examiner relies on the combined
teachings of Kephart and Tao to teach the disputed limitations. However,
Appellants' arguments fail to persuasively address the combined teachings
of the references and, therefore, are not persuasive of error. See In re Merck
& Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Second Issue
Is the combination of Kephart and Tao proper?
The Examiner concludes one of ordinary skill in the art would have
been motivated to combine the teachings of Tao with the teachings of
Kephart "because it would be able to recognize frequency of the characters
in the target strings, which would help in identifying if a message [] in
Kephart is spam or not." Final Act. 9 (citing Tao Abstract) (internal citation
omitted); Ans. 3.
Appellants contend the combination of Kephart and Tao is improper
because the "combination of the identified teachings of Kephart and Tao is
not supported by an adequate prior-art reason with rational underpinnings."
App. Br. 15. Appellants argue the reasoning advanced by the Examiner for
combining the references "do[ es] not support the proposed combination, and
the advanced reasons ignore the fact that Kephart already addresses the
problem that Tao was brought in to solve." App. Br. 16. Appellants argue
"recognizing the frequency of characters in a string is distinct from, and does
not necessitate recognizing the characters themselves" and "Tao uses
spectral representations specifically to recognize characters." App. Br. 16.
Appellants argue a person of ordinary skill in the art would not be motivated
to combine the teachings of Kephart and Tao because "Tao's teachings are
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directed to recognizing printed characters, as opposed to characters stored in
digital form" and
[A] skilled artisan motivated to classify electronic documents
would have no reason to tum to the identified teachings of Tao
to determine a frequency of a character within a string, since
electronic documents do not contain printed characters, and since
all characters of an electronic document are already available in
digital form.
App. Br. 16-17. Appellants further argue
an artisan already in possession of Kephart would not have been
motivated to tum to the teachings of Tao to recognize frequency
of the characters in the target string, since Kephart already
determines a frequency of occurrence of n-grams (and hence,
also a frequency of occurrence of individual characters, or 1-
grams ).
App. Br. 17 (citing Kephart Fig. 5; 13:2-8).
We find Appellants' arguments unpersuasive. Kephart is directed to
"hindering an undesirable transmission or receipt of electronic messages
within a network of users." Kephart Abstract. Kephart describes the
process as including a signature extraction phase and a signature scanning
phase. Kephart 9:25-38. Kephart teaches that "in a signature scanning
phase, at least one user's set of messages (possibly including the first alert
user's set) is scanned using the extracted signature data in an effort to find
instances of the substantially similar messages." Kephart 9:32-36. Kephart
teaches to find the substantially similar messages, the hash-block of a
scanned message is compared with the hash-blocks of messages containing a
signature matching the signature extracted from the scanned message.
Kephart 15:28-33. The Examiner determines it would be obvious to replace
Kephart's method of computing and comparing hash-blocks with Tao's
method of computing frequency spectra of target and reference signals and
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to identify the substantially similar messages based on a comparison of the
computed frequency spectra. Ans. 4--5. The Examiner's findings are
reasonable because the skilled artisan would "be able to fit the teachings of
multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle" since the skilled artisan is
"a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton." KSR Int 'l Co. v.
Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398,420,421 (2007). Appellants do not present
evidence that the resulting arrangement was "uniquely challenging or
difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art" or "represented an unobvious
step over the prior art." Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485
F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 418-19).
Appellants further contend the combination of Kephart and Tao is
improper because Tao is non-analogous art. App. Br. 18-19; Reply Br. 7.
Appellants argue Tao is not within the same field of endeavor because
"Tao's teachings are directed to magnetic ink character recognition used, for
instance, for the automatic processing of bank checks printed with magnetic
ink characters" which is "substantially removed from both Kephart
(hindering transmission of unsolicited messages) and the subject matter of
the present claims ( document classification)." App. Br. 18.
Appellants argue:
[T]he 'technical field' that the Examiner's Answer has
established as being common to both Kephart and Tao is so broad
that it renders the analogous art test meaningless. The field of
knowledge concerned with 'identifying, converting, and
comparing signals' encompasses almost all of Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science as applied across virtually
the entire economic landscape.
Reply Br. 7.
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We also find Appellants' arguments unpersuasive. "A reference
qualifies as prior art for an obviousness determination under § 103 only
when it is analogous to the claimed invention." In re Klein, 647 F.3d 1343,
1348 (Fed. Cir. 2011 ).
Two separate tests define the scope of analogous prior art: (1)
whether the art is from the same field of endeavor, regardless of
the problem addressed and, (2) if the reference is not within the
field of the inventor's endeavor, whether the reference still is
reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the
inventor is involved.
In re Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320, 1325 (Fed. Cir. 2004); see also Klein, 647 F.3d
at 1348. Appellants' Specification provides "[t]he invention relates to
methods and systems for classifying electronic communications, and in
particular to systems and methods for filtering unsolicited commercial
electronic communications (spam)." Spec. ,r 2. Thus, we find Appellants'
field of endeavor to be classifying electronic communications. Tao is
related to "magnetic ink character recognition" (Tao ,r 1) such as, for
example, recognizing characters printed with magnetic ink on bank checks
(Tao ,r 44). As such, we agree with Appellants (App. Br. 18) that Tao is not
within the same field of endeavor.
Turning to the second step of the analysis, Appellants' Specification
provides "[ s Jpam often arrives in a rapid succession of groups of similar
messages also known as spam waves" and "[ t ]he form and content of spam
may change substantially from one spam wave to another, therefore
successful detection may benefit from methods and systems capable of
quickly recognizing and reacting to new spam waves." Spec. ,r 7. Thus, the
Specification indicates that a particular problem with which the inventor was
involved was identifying the content of an electronic message. Tao relates
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to "a magnetic ink character recognition method, apparatus and system."
Tao Abstract. Tao, therefore, is related to identifying the content of a
message. Although Tao teaches that the message is initially in the form of a
paper document (e.g., a check), Tao teaches converting input MICR
(magnetic ink character recognition) data into a magnetic signal and
processing the magnetic signal to identify the content of the message. Tao
,r 44. As such, Tao is reasonably pertinent to a particular problem with
which the inventors were involved and, therefore, is analogous art.
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in
rejecting claim 1 and claims 2-25, which fall with claim 1.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-25 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a).
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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