Ex Parte Garbow et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 29, 2016

12060986 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 29, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/060,986 04/02/2008
46797 7590 07/01/2016
Patterson & Sheridan, LLP
24 Greenway Plaza, Suite 1600
Houston, TX 77046
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Zachary A. Garbow
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.
ROC920070348US 1 7700
EXAMINER
ANDERSEN, KRISTOPHER E
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2158
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/01/2016 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):
Pair_eOfficeAction@pattersonsheridan.com
IBM@P ATTERSONSHERIDAN.COM
rociplaw@us.ibm.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ZACHARY A. GARBOW
and KEVIN G. PATERSON
Appeal2015-003048
Application 12/060,986
Technology Center 2100
Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., JON M. JURGOV AN, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2015-003048
Application 12/060,986
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1, 2, 5-10, 13-18, and 21-24, which are all of the pending claims.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
THE INVENTION
The application is "generally related to metadata describing users
accessing a network and network content." (Abstract.) Claim 1, reproduced
below, is illustrative:
1. A method for describing content on a network, comprising:
providing one or more items of network content to a user
having a user profile comprising a list of natural language user
tags describing the user, wherein each item of network content
has a list of natural language content tags describing each item
of the network content and wherein the list of content tags and
the list of user tags each comprise one or more inherent tags;
wherein the inherent tags comprise tags included at a time of
creation of respective content and user profile and inherited tags
that are converted to inherent tags;
receiving an indication of a selection of an item of the one or
more items of network content;
in response to receiving the indication of the selection:
adding, as inherited content tags, one or more of the
natural language user tags from the user profile to the list of
the natural language content tags for the selected item,
without modifying any of the natural language content tags in
1 Appellants identify International Business Machines Corporation as the
real party in interest. (See App. Br. 3.)
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Application 12/060,986
the list of natural language user tags describing the user prior
to the adding,
increasing a weight indicating a correlation between the
selected item and the added one or more of the natural
language user tags, and
adding, as inherited user tags, one or more of the content
tags from the list of content tags to the list of user tags; and
upon a predetermined period of time elapsing following the
one or more natural language user tags being added, without the
weight exceeding a predetermined threshold value during the
predetermined period of time, removing the inherited content tag
corresponding to the added one or more natural language user
tags from the list of natural language content tags for the selected
items.
THE REFERENCES AND THE REJECTION
Claims 1, 2, 5-10, 13-18, and 21-24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Sadagopan et al. (US 2008/0040301 Al;
published Feb. 14, 2008) and l\1atheny (US 2009/0157618 1A..l; published
June 18, 2009). (See Final Act. 2-10.)
ANALYSIS
Appellants argue that the cited portions of Matheny do not describe
(a) "taking a tag from a set of tags assigned to a content item (i.e., a content
tag) and adding it to [a] different set of tags associated with a user (i.e.,
adding the content tag to the user profile as an inherited user tag)" or (b)
"moving a tag in the other direction, i.e., moving a tag from a set of tags
associated with a user (i.e., a user tag) and adding that tag to a set of tags
associated with a content item (i.e., adding the user tag to the content profile
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Appeal2015-003048
Application 12/060,986
as an inherited content tag)." (App. Br. 11.) We do not agree with
Appellants' analysis.
The issue to be resolved in this appeal of an obviousness rejection is
not whether the references "describe" the allegedly missing features, but,
instead, "what the combined teachings of [the] references would have
suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art." In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413,
425 (CCP A 1981 ). We agree with the Examiner that the references would
have taught or suggested the argued limitations.
With respect to adding a content tag to a user profile, paragraph 27 of
Matheny explains that "[f]or example, the user 104 could have private tags
408 ... associated with their user profile 504 (see FIG. 4), for example
indicating that the user 104 had accessed action movies from on-line video
stores in the past month." Thus, in response to selecting "action" movies,
the user's profile would be updated with an "action" tag. We find that in
order for Matheny's search function to operate properly, the "action" tag
assigned to the user would need to correspond to the characterization of the
content. And, although the reference does not explicitly state that "action"
was associated with the content by means of a "tag," one of skill in the art
would have understood that to be case, or at least found it obvious to
associate the information with the content in that fashion, given that the
reference does describe the use of tags for content, as explained below.
With respect to adding a user tag to content, the reference explains
that "[ f]or example, the framework 108 could note that a specific audio file
(e.g. entity) is accessed predominantly by individual users that are known to
be overweight and male" and that "[a]ccordingly, the keyword tags of
'overweight' and 'male' as behavioural information would be added by the
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Application 12/060,986
framework 108 to the private tags 408 of the audio file." (Matheny if 62.)
"Overweight" and "male" are associated with the user profile by tags. (Id.)
Thus, the reference teaches adding to the content item natural language user
tags corresponding to those in the list of user profile tags.
As we are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments, we sustain the
rejections of claims 1, 2, 5-10, 13-18, and21-24.
DECISION
The rejections of claims 1, 2, 5-10, 13-18, and 21-24 are affirmed.
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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