Ex Parte Facemire et al

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Feb 28, 2019

14142376 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Feb. 28, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
14/142,376 12/27/2013 Michael D. Facemire
112978 7590 03/04/2019
Cuenot, Forsythe & Kim, LLC
20283 State Road 7, Suite 300
Boca Raton, FL 33498
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.
RSW920040226US2
8152-0232
CONFIRMATION NO.
1541
EXAMINER
MILLS, FRANK D
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2176
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/04/2019 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 MICHAEL D. FACEMIRE, MOHAMAD R. SALAHSHOOR,
JOHN F. SCHUMACHER, and MICHAEL C. WANDERSKI
Appeal2018-005909
Application 14/142,376 1
Technology Center 2100
Before MARC S. HOFF, JOHN A. EV ANS, and
LINZY T. McCARTNEY, Administrative Patent Judges.
HOFF, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 21-38. 2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm-in-part.
Appellants' invention is a method, system, and apparatus for
configuring a page for drag and drop arrangement of content artifacts. A
drop zone is defined within a page for receiving a dragged and dropped
content artifact, the drop zone defining a consumable type of page content
1 Appellants state the real party in interest is IBM Corporation. App. Br. 1.
2 Claims 1-20 have been cancelled.
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Application 14/142,376
and an action to undertake when consuming a dropped one of the content
artifacts having a particular type of page content. Spec. ,r 6.
Claim 21 is exemplary of the claims on appeal:
21. A method for configuring a page within a page development
tool, comprising:
populating a registry with a plurality of content artifacts;
declaring, using the page development tool, a plurality of drop
zones within the page;
receiving, within one of the plurality of drop zones and by a
drag and drop operation, one of the content artifacts; and
performing, by the page development tool, an action on the
received one of the content artifacts, wherein each drop zone
separately defines a type of page content and an action to
undertake upon receiving a dragged and dropped one of the
content artificats.
App. Br. 23 (Claims Appendix).
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art in rejecting the
claims on appeal:
Claims 21, 22, 25, 27, 28, 31, 33, 34, and 37 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Ritchy et al. (US 2004/0183831
Al, published September 23, 2004) and Unnewehr et al. (US 2004/0001084
Al, published January 1, 2004).
Claims 23, 24, 29, 30, 35, and 36 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ I03(a) as being unpatentable over Ritchy, Unnewehr, and Chowdhry et al.
(US 2003/0167315 Al, published September 4, 2003).
Claims 26, 32, and 38 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
being unpatentable over Ritchy, Unnewehr, and H. Runge et al. (US
2004/0088208 Al, published May 6, 2004) ("Runge").
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Application 14/142,376
Throughout this decision, we make reference to the Appeal Brief
("App. Br.," filed January 3, 2018), the Reply Brief ("Reply Br.," filed May
22, 2018), and the Examiner's Answer ("Ans.," mailed March 22, 2018) for
their respective details.
ISSUE
Appellants' arguments present us with the following issue:
1. Does the Examiner state a reason to combine Ritchy and Unnewehr
having a rational underpinning?
2. Is the Unnewehr reference nonanalogous art with respect to the
present invention?
3. Does the combination of Ritchy and Unnewehr disclose defining a
style for the drop zone, and highlighting the drop zone using the style when
a type of selected content artifact matches the type of page content defined
for the drop zone?
4. Does Chowdhry disclose an inferred content artifact?
PRINCIPLES OF LAW
The motivation for combining reference teachings is not limited to the
problem the patentee was trying to solve: "any need or problem known in
the field of endeavor at the time of invention and addressed by the patent can
provide a reason for combining the elements in the manner claimed." In re
Icon Health and Fitness Inc., 496 F.3d 1374, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (quoting
KSRint'l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 419-20 (2007)). See also
Leapfrog Ent., Inc., v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir.
2007) (holding it "obvious to combine the Bevan device with the SSR to
update it using modem electronic components in order to gain the commonly
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understood benefits of such adaptation, such as decreased size, increased
reliability, simplified operation, and reduced cost"); Dystar Textilfarben
GmbH & Co. Deutsch/and KG v. CH Patrick Co., 464 F.3d 1356,1368
(Fed. Cir. 2006) ("[A]n implicit motivation to combine exists not only when
a suggestion may be gleaned from the prior art as a whole, but when the
'improvement' is technology-independent and the combination of references
results in a product or process that is more desirable, for example because it
is stronger, cheaper, cleaner, faster, lighter, smaller, more durable, or more
efficient.").
ANALYSIS
CLAIMS 21, 22, 27, 28, 33, and 34
Appellants argue that the Examiner's reasoning to combine Ritchy
and Unnewehr lacks a rational underpinning. App. Br. 8. Appellants assert
that one would not look to combine the positioning aspects of Ritchy' s
placeholders with the highlighting of drop zones based upon object type that
is taught by Unnewehr. App. Br. 9. We are not persuaded by Appellants'
reasomng.
The Examiner concedes that Ritchy does not expressly disclose that
each drop zone separately defines a type of page content. Ans. 5. The
Examiner next finds that Unnewehr, directed to a computer system that
provides a user interface, automatically identifies drop zones for a selected
'source' object in a drag and drop operation. Ans. 5; Unnewehr ,r,r 5-8, 22.
We agree with the Examiner that the combined teachings of the references
would have suggested the benefit of providing an immediate visual clue to
available drop zones for a particular source object. Ans. 6. We find no
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Application 14/142,376
teaching within Ritchy that would discourage the skilled artisan from
combination with Unnewehr in order to obtain the visual-clue benefit
offered by Unnewehr. We further agree with the Examiner that the
placeholders disclosed by Ritchy are analogous to the placeholders disclosed
by Unnewehr, and that both serve as a designated possible destination for
dragged-and-dropped source content. Ans. 11.
We also do not agree with Appellants' argument that Unnewehr is not
analogous to the claimed invention. App. Br. 13. "The analogous-art test
requires that the Board show that a reference is either in the field of the
applicant's endeavor or is reasonably pertinent to the problem with which
the inventor was concerned in order to rely on that reference as a basis for
rejection. References are selected as being reasonably pertinent to the
problem based on the judgment of a person having ordinary skill in the art."
In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 986-87 (Fed. Cir. 2006). We agree with the
Examiner's finding that the claimed invention is directed to a page
development tool that embraces a drag and drop user interface. Ans. 15.
Appellants disclose a method for configuring a page for drag and drop
arrangements of content artifacts. Id.; Spec. ,r 6. We therefore agree with
the Examiner that Unnewehr lies within the same field of endeavor as
Appellants' invention. Ans. 16.
Because we are not persuaded by Appellants that the Examiner erred,
we sustain the Examiner's§ 103(a) rejection of claims 21, 22, 27, 28, 33,
and 34 over Ritchy and Unnewehr.
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CLAIMS 25, 31 AND 37
Dependent claims 25, 31, and 37 recite analogous limitations. We
treat Appellants' argument regarding claim 25 as applicable to claims 31 and
37 as well.
Appellants argue that claim 25 recites "defining a style for the drop
zone," but that "nothing within Unnewehr describes the style by which the
drop zone is defined for that particular drop zone." App. Br. 16-17.
Appellants contend that claim 25 recites defining a style for the drop zone,
not "defining a style for all drop zones." App. Br. 17. "Unnewehr is
indifferent as to the type of the selected page content being consistent with
the type of page content defined for a particular drop zone." App. Br. 17.
We are not persuaded that the Examiner erred. The claim requires ( 1)
defining a style for the drop zone, (2) highlighting the drop zone using the
style, conditional on the selected content artifact having a type of page
content consistent with the type of page content defined for the drop zone.
We agree with the Examiner that the claim does not recite a requirement
"that each style correspond to a particular data type." Ans. 17. "The defined
style is merely applied when the object type and drop zone type are
determined to be consistent." Id. Unnewehr discloses that drop zones are
marked, "by shading, changing color, outlining, or presenting indicative
text." Unnewehr ,r 6. Unnewehr further discloses that "[e]ach of the drop
zones may be associated with one or more particular object types," said drop
zones "set to be marked only in response to source object of the appropriate
type being targeted, selected, or dragged." Unnewehr ,r 29.
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We conclude that the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 25, 31,
and 37 over the combination ofRitchy and Unnewehr. We sustain the
Examiner's§ 103(a) rejection.
CLAIMS 23, 24, 29, 30, 35, AND 36
Claims 23, 29, and 35 recite that "the registry includes an inferred
content artifact." The Examiner finds that Chowdhry discloses such an
inferred artifact. Ans. 7-8; Chowdhry ,r,r 6, 87.
Appellants disclose that content artifacts 140 "further can be inferred
by extricating underlying content from existing static page markup 160."
Spec. ,r 14. This markup "can be parsed by a control extrication engine 170
and organized in a document object model ('DOM') tree 180. Pattern
matching can be applied to the artifacts of the DOM tree 180 to locate
content of interest." Id.
Appellants further disclose that a "portlet" is a portion of a page
"which can consume a content artifact or content object." Spec. ,r 16. It is
clear that Appellants' Specification does not regard content artifacts and
portlets as synonyms: portlets can consume content artifacts.
Therefore, the Examiner's statement that "Chowdhry discloses
inferring a portlet, a content artifact, from a web-enabled object by parsing
and identifying a portion of the object, i.e., extricating a portlet from the
object" (Final Act. 10-11), not only (a) fails to establish that Chowdhry
performs the steps necessary in Appellants' Specification to infer a content
artifact, but (b) conflates the concept of a portlet with the concept of a
content artifact.
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We find that the Examiner's combination of Ritchy, Unnewehr, and
Chowdhry fails to disclose all of the elements of claims 23, 24, 29, 30, 35,
and 36. We do not sustain the Examiner's§ 103(a) rejection of these claims.
CLAIMS 26, 32, AND 38
Claim 26 depends from claim 25; claim 32 depends from claim 31;
claim 3 8 depends from claim 3 7. Appellants argue only that Runge does not
cure the deficiencies of the combination ofRitchy and Unnewehr. App. Br.
20. As discussed supra, we are not persuaded that such deficiencies exist.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's§ 103(a) rejection of claims 26, 32,
and 38 over Ritchy, Unnewehr, and Runge, for the reasons given supra with
respect to the rejection over Ritchy and Unnewehr alone.
CONCLUSION
1. The Examiner states a reason to combine Ritchy and Unnewehr
having a rational underpinning.
2. The Unnewehr reference is analogous art with respect to the
present invention.
3. The combination of Ritchy and Unnewehr discloses defining a
style for the drop zone, and highlighting the drop zone using the style when
a type of selected content artifact matches the type of page content defined
for the drop zone.
4. Chowdhry does not disclose an inferred content artifact.
ORDER
The Examiner's decision to reject claims 21, 22, 25-28, 31-34, 37,
and 38 is affirmed. The Examiner's decision to reject claims 23, 24, 29, 30,
3 5, and 3 6 is reversed.
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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).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
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