Ex Parte Galvin et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 12, 2018

13969254 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 12, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/969,254 08/16/2013
75949 7590
IBM CORPORATION
C/0: Fabian Vancott
215 South State Street
Suite 1200
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
09/14/2018
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
James P. Galvin JR.
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.
RSW920 l 30099US 1 9272
EXAMINER
KHOSHNOODI, FARIBORZ
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2157
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/14/2018 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):
patents@fabianvancott.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JAMES P. GAL VIN, JR., AMY D. TRAVIS,
and SARA B. WEBER
Appeal2018-000692
Application 13/969,254 1
Technology Center 2100
Before ERIC S. FRAHM, DENISE M. POTHIER, and
CARLL. SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Non
Final Rejection of claims 1-26, which constitute all pending claims. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The invention relates to capturing sentiment information of a post
1 The real party in interest is identified as International Business Machines
Corporation. App. Br. 2.
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Application 13/969,254
from an electronic source, such as a social media website, and assigning a
weight to the post based on an interest attribute. Abstract, ,r,r 1-3, Fig. 4.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is exemplary of the subject matter on appeal
( emphasis added):
1. A computer program product for weighting sentiment
information, comprising:
a tangible, non-transitory computer readable storage medium,
said tangible computer readable storage medium comprising computer
readable program code embodied therewith, said computer readable
program code comprising program instructions that, when executed,
causes a processor to:
capture sentiment information of a post from an electronic
source;
categorize said post into categories based on said sentiment
information; and
assign a weight to said post based on an interest attribute of said
post, said interest attribute indicating how much relative interest an
entity, whose work is a subject of the post, should have in the post.
App. Br. 21 (Claims Appendix).
THE REJECTI0NS 2
Claims 1, 2, 4, 14, 16, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Barrett et al. (US 2012/0102053 Al; pub. April 26,
2012) ("Barrett") in view of Ciemiak et al. (US 2011/0145219 Al; pub.
June 16, 2011) ("Ciemiak"). Non Final Act. 3---6.
Claims 3, 5-13, 15, 17, and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as being unpatentable over Barrett, Ciemiak, and Pamaby et al. (US
2 The Examiner states that the non-statutory double patenting rejection has
been withdrawn based on the filing of a Terminal Disclaimer. Non Final
Action. 3.
2
Appeal2018-000692
Application 13/969,254
2013/0018957 Al; pub. January 17, 2013) ("Pamaby"). Non Final Act. 6-
10.
Claims 21, 22, and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Barrett, Ciemiak, Pamaby, and Terleski et al. (US
9,152,312 Bl; iss. October 6, 2015) ("Terleski"). Non Final Act. 10-13.
Claims 23-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Barrett, Ciemiak, Pamaby, and B 'FAR et al. (US
2014/0075500 Al; pub. March 13, 2014) ("B'FAR"). Non Final Act. 13-16.
ANALYSIS
Appellants argue the Examiner errs in rejecting claim 1 over Barrett
and Ciemiak as these references do not teach the limitation "assign a weight
to said post based on an interest attribute of said post, said interest attribute
indicating how much relative interest an entity, whose work is a subject of
the post, should have in the post." App. Br. 3 10-13; Reply Br. 3---6.
According to Appellants:
claim 1 addresses how much interest an entity whose work is the
subject of, or discussed in, someone else's post should have in that post.
For example, suppose Andy writes and posts an article. Then, Betty
posts comments about Andy's article. The subject matter of claim 1 tells
Andy how much interest he should have in Betty's post about his
article. Thus, claim 1 recites to "assign a weight to [Betty's] post based
on an interest attribute of said post, said interest attribute indicating how
much relative interest an entity [Andy], whose work [the article] is a
subject of the post, should have in the post."
App. Br. 10.
3 The Appeal Brief is identified as a "Reinstated Appeal Brief' as Appellants
had filed a previous Appeal Brief, following which prosecution was
reopened with a new non-final Office Action. See App. Br. 1.
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Application 13/969,254
[C]laim 1 recites: "assign[ing] a weight to said post based on an
interest attribute of said post, said interest attribute indicating how
much relative interest an entity, whose work is a subject of the post,
should have in the post." (Emphasis added). Thus, the subject of the
post in question must be the work of the entity. In other words, the
post must be written about the entity's work. Then, a weight is assigned
to such a post, based on the interest attribute, that indicates "much
relative interest [that] entity, whose work is a subject of the post, should
have in the post." (Claim 1) ( emphasis added).
Id. at 11.
With this interpretation, Appellants argue Barrett and Ciemiak do not
teach the disputed limitation. Id. at 11-13. In particular, Appellants argue
the Examiner relies on Ciemiak for the disputed limitation but Ciemiak
weights a comment based on the authorship of the comment, not the subject.
Id. at 12. (citing Ciemiak ,r,r 88, 95, 100; Non Final Act, 4). According to
Appellants, Ciemiak does not operate specifically on posts written about the
entity/user's work and does not advise the entity how much relative interest
to have in that post. Id. at 12.
The Examiner finds that Appellants' example, the interaction between
Andy and Betty proffered by Appellants (referred to as "the example" in
Ans. 2) is much narrower than the claim limitation and Appellants err that
"claim 1 addresses how much interest an entity who work is the subject of,
or discussed in, someone else's post should have in that post." Ans. 2-3
( citing App. Br. 10). In particular, the Examiner determines the disputed
claim limitation "does not specify that the entity has to be a different person
than the author of the post". Id. With this interpretation, the Examiner finds
Ciemiak teaches the limitation Id. at 3- 4. In particular, the Examiner finds
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Application 13/969,254
Ciemiak teaches generating rank scores of a post for presentation to a user
regarding a particular document. Id. at 3 ( citing Ciemiak ,r,r 7, 2 7, 106, 107,
110, Figs. 9-13).
In the Reply Brief, Appellants refer to the example and argue "[i]f
Andy writes an article and then writes a post about his own article, it should
be inherent and perfectly clear that Andy knows how much interest he,
Andy, should have in his own post." Reply Br. 3--4. According to
Appellants, "Ciemiak never teaches or suggest that the user requesting
comments must also be the author of the document in question." Id. at 3-6
( citing Ciemiak ,r,r 7, 27).
We are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments and agree, instead,
with the Examiner's claim interpretation, findings, and conclusions. On the
record before us, we find no persuasive arguments that the Examiner's
findings and claim interpretation are unreasonable, overbroad, or
inconsistent with Appellants' Specification. The claim interpretation
proffered by Appellants is not recited in the claims. Additionally, the
Specification does not describe the example or the "entity" recited in the
claims, such as to limit its construction. See, e.g., Spec. ,r 51 (identified by
Appellants in Summary of Claimed Subject Matter, App. Br. 6-7). Claim
terms in a patent application are given the broadest reasonable interpretation
consistent with the specification, as understood by one of ordinary skill in
the art. In re Crish, 393 F.3d 1253, 1256 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
Applying a broad, but reasonable, claim interpretation, we agree with
the Examiner's findings that Ciemiak teaches the disputed limitation. For
example, referring to Ciemiak Figures 9-13, the user's comments include
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comments for "Me" along with a rating. In particular, Ciemiak Figures 12
and 13 describe a "Me" post, rated with stars and an indication of usefulness.
In view of the above, we sustain the rejection of claim 1, and
dependent claims 2-7 as these claims are not argued separately. See 37
C.F.R. § 4I.37(c)(l)(iv).
Independent claim 8 recites "an assigning engine to assign a weight to
said post based on an interest attribute of said post, said interest attribute
indicating how much relative interest an entity, who is discussed in the post,
should have in the post." In the Appeal Brief, Appellants argue Pamaby
does not cure the failure of Barrett and Ciemiak to teach the claim 8
limitation. In the Reply Brief, Appellants argue "the post must discuss the
entity whose relative interest in the post is being assessed" and "[t]hus, the
subject of the post could be the work of the entity, as in claim 1, or could be
something else about the entity itself. Id. Reply Br. 8.
In the Non Final Action, the Examiner determined claim 8 (claims 8-
13) limitations are substantially equivalent to claim 1 ( claims 1-7) and
rejected claim 8 for the same reasons. Non-Final Act. 9. In the Answer, the
Examiner refers to the claim 1 findings. Ans. 6-7.
We are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments and agree, instead,
with the Examiner's findings.
Therefore, we sustain the rejection of claim 8, and dependent claims
9-13 as these claims are not argued separately.
Appellants rely on the claim 1 arguments, supra, for the similar
independent claim 14 limitation, which recites "said interest attribute
indicating how much relative interest an entity, whose work is a subject of
the post, should have in the post [is] based on some aspect of a source from
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which said post comes." App. Br. 13-14 (emphasis added). Appellants
additionally argue the Examiner failed to address the limitation "based on
some aspect of a source from which said post comes." Id. at 14.
In the Answer, the Examiner refers to portions of Ciemiak for claim 1,
supra, regarding the generation of the scores and ultimate ranking, which
includes source input. Ans. 4--5 (citing Ciemiak ,r,r 7, 27, 106, 107, 110,
Figs. 9-13).
We are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments and agree, instead,
with the Examiner's findings.
Therefore, we sustain the rejection of claim 14, and dependent claims
15-20, 22, and 26 as these claims are not argued separately.
Claims 21, and 23-25 depend from claim 14, and claim 21 is rejected
based on Ciemiak, Pamaby, and Terleski. Claim 21 recites "[t]he system of
claim 14, wherein the interest attribute identifies a source of the post" and
Appellants argue the interest attribute is "indicating how much relative
interest an entity, whose work is a subject of the post, should have in the
post based on some aspect of a source from which said post comes." App.
Br. 16. According to Appellants, the Examiner errs because Terleski merely
teaches identifying the author of content posted on a social network. Id.
(citing Terleski 7:1-10).
In the Answer, the Examiner finds Terleski teaches a server system in
which content ID identifies related information, such as source of the post
and author of the post in the social network. Ans. 8 (citing Terleski 7:1-10).
We agree with the Examiner's findings and sustain the rejection of
claim 21.
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Claims 23-25 are rejected based on Ciemiak, Pamaby, and B'FAR.
Regarding claim 23, which recites "[t]he system of claim 14, wherein the
interest attribute identifies a size of a network from which the post was
made," Appellants argue B'FAR does not teach this feature. App. Br. 17-18
(citing B'FAR ,r 47). According to Appellants, B'FAR is evaluating people
as more or less influential, not evaluating a particular post as recited in claim
23. Id. at 18.
In the Answer, the Examiner finds B 'FAR teaches capability to post
content article in the social network based on the size of the employee's
social network. Ans. 9 (citing B'FAR ,r 49).
We agree with the Examiner's findings and sustain the rejection of
claim 23.
Regarding claim 24, which recites "[t]he system of claim 14, wherein
the interest attribute identifies a company from which the post was made,"
Appellants argue B 'FAR teaches "identifying posts that contain potentially
confidential information and to possible protect or "obscure" that
information" and this has nothing to do with the subject matter of claim 24.
App. Br. 19 (citing B'FAR ,r 54). The Examiner finds B'FAR teaches
posted content includes information about the name of a company. Ans. 9-
10 (citing B'FAR ,I 54).
We agree with the Examiner's findings and sustain the rejection of
claim 24.
Regarding claim 25, which recites "wherein the interest attribute
identifies a job title of a person making the post," Appellants argue "B' FAR
is evaluating people, not evaluating a particular post." App. Br. 20 ( citing
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B'FAR ,r 46). The Examiner finds B'FAR teaches allowing the posted
content to include information about job title. Ans. 10 ( citing B 'FAR ,r 46).
We agree with the Examiner's findings and sustain the rejection of
claim 25.
DECISION
We sustain the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-26 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).
AFFIRMED
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