Ex Parte Faruquie et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 16, 2016

12859607 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 16, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/859,607 08/19/2010
89885 7590 06/16/2016
FERENCE & ASSOCIATES LLC
409 BROAD STREET
PITTSBURGH, PA 15143
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Tanveer Afzal Faruquie
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.
IN92010007lUS1
(790.072)
8267
EXAMINER
HICKS, MICHAEL J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2165
MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE
06/16/2016 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte TANVEER AFZAL F ARUQUIE, SACHINDRA JOSHI,
RIMA PRASAD KARANAM, MUKESH KUMAR MOHANIA,
SRIRAM K. PADMANABHAN, and L. VENKATA SUBRAMANIAM
Appeal2014-009058
Application 12/859,607
Technology Center 2100
Before LARRY J. HUME, CARLL. SILVERMAN,
and NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) the Examiner's Final
Rejection of claims 1-8, 10-17, 19, and 20. Claims 9 and 18 are cancelled.
We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify International Business Machines Corp. as the real party
in interest. (App. Br. 3.)
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Application 12/859,607
THE INVENTION
Appellants' disclosed and claimed invention is directed to address
standardization. (Abstract.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the
claimed subject matter:
1. A method comprising:
utilizing one or more processors to execute a program of
instructions configured create a stored taxonomy representing
addresses, the taxonomy comprising a plurality of nodes, the
plurality of nodes including a plurality of leaf nodes and at least
one root node, wherein paths defined between each of the
plurality of leaf nodes and the at least one root node represent
addresses;
determine an n-gram representation of one or more paths
of the taxonomy, each n-gram representation comprising at
least one n-gram for each node in the path from a leaf node to a
root node;
receive one or more address entries as input;
compute a signature for the one or more address entries,
the signature for the one or more address entries comprising an
n-gram representation;
access the stored taxonomy;
match the signature from the one or more address entries
with at least one n-gram representation corresponding to the
one or more paths of the taxonomy; and
standardize the one or more address entries via using a
path in the taxonomy representing a maximal n-gram match.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1-8, 10-17, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as anticipated by Herbert et al., "Biological Data Cleaning: A Case
Study," Int. J. Information Quality, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 60-82 (2007). (Final
Act. 3-8.)
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Application 12/859,607
ISSUE ON APPEAL
Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following
issue:2
Whether Herbert discloses the limitations of independent claims 1, 10,
and 19. (App. Br. 13-16.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants' arguments
and we adopt as our own: ( 1) the findings and reasons set forth by the
Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 3-8); and
(2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in
response to Appellants' Appeal Brief (Ans. 7-12). We concur with the
conclusions reached by the Examiner, and emphasize the following.
Appellants argue "Herbert's teachings are not directed to methods for
address standardization based on a taxonomy or to anything in a like
context." (Ap. Br. 14.) As Appellants state, Herbert discloses
standardization of data in a biological database. (App. Br. 13.) We agree
with the Examiner that Appellants' reliance on the nature of the contents of a
data base - i.e., postal addresses of the Specification versus phylogenetic
data of Herbert- is not of patentable significance because:
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the positions of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed May 12, 2014); the Reply
Brief (filed Aug. 21, 2014 ); the Final Office Action (mailed Oct. 11, 2013 );
and the Examiner's Answer (mailed June 27, 2014) for the respective
details.
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Application 12/859,607
address data ... is considered to be non-functional descriptive
material as the subject matter of the data being handled does not
affect the process of creating or accessing a taxonomy or
standardizing the information using the taxonomy.
(Ans. 7; see Herbert§ 1.1.) The informational content of non-functional
descriptive material is not entitled to weight in the patentability analysis.
See Ex parte Nehls, 88 USPQ2d 1883, 1887-90 (BPAI 2008) (precedential);
Ex parte Curry, 84 USPQ2d 1272 (BPAI 2005) (informative), ajfd, No. 06-
1003 (Fed. Cir. Jun. 12, 2006) (Rule 36); Ex parte Mathias, 84 USPQ2d
1276 (BPAI 2005) (informative), ajfd, 191 Fed. Appx. 959 (Fed. Cir. 2006).
See also MPEP § 2111.05 (9th Ed., Mar. 2014) ("[W]here the claim as a
whole is directed to conveying a message or meaning to a human reader
independent of the intended computer system, and/or the computer-readable
medium merely serves as a support for information or data, no functional
relationship exists.").
The Examiner's rejection is further supported by the Examiner's
correct claim interpretation, i.e., "the limitation of 'addresses' is broad and
that[,] while the cited prior art deals with data representative of phylogenetic
data, the taxonomical classification system used ... to represent the
phylogenetic data may be regarded as a series of addresses .... " (Ans. 8.)
Appellants further argue, "Herbert has nothing to do with ...
accessing a stored taxonomy comprising signatures of addresses, performing
a matching task with respect to signatures of addresses in the taxonomy and
standardizing the one or more address entries based on the taxonomy," and
"[Herbert] fail[s] to teach or suggest a use of n-gram representations as
presently claimed .... " (App. Br. 14--15.) This conclusory statement is
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Application 12/859,607
unpersuasive in light of the Examiner's detailed findings regarding the
pertinent disclosure of Herbert, for example:
' [A Jn n-gram, within the art, is merely a sequence of n symbols
which is a subset of a sequence of symbols' and that 'the art of
Herbert does teach n-gram representations of the signatures of
the taxonomy, being represented by the prefixes discussed in
Section 4, Paragraphs 2-3, as well as using the signatures to
perform the matching and standardization operations .... '
'[T]he standardization techniques of Herbert clearly indicate
that a best match (i.e. taxonomy path which matches the most
elements of the prefix/signature) is found', and that 'this is
equivalent to identifying a "maximal n-gram match" (i.e. the
longest matching series of n-grams ). '
(Ans. 11, quoting from Non-Final Act. mailed June 19, 2013)
CONCLUSION
For the reasons discussed above, and on this record, we sustain the
anticipation rejection of claims 1, 10, and 19. We also sustain the
anticipation rejection of claims 2-8, 11-17, and 20, which rejections are not
argued separately with particularity. (App. Br. 16.)3
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-8, 10-17, 19, and 20.
3 In the event of further prosecution, we leave to the Examiner to determine
whether claims 10-1 7 are directed to nonstatutory subject matter under 3 5
U.S.C. § 101. Those claims recite a computer readable storage medium
having computer readable program code. However, Appellants'
Specification does not define computer readable storage medium to exclude
transitory media. Consequently, under our jurisprudence, the claimed
medium appears to encompass transitory media, which is not patent eligible.
See Ex parte Mewherter, 107 USPQ2d 1857 (PTAB 2013) (precedential).
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Application 12/859,607
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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