Ex Parte Ghosh

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 21, 2014

12367200 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 21, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte RIDDHIMAN GHOSH
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Appeal 2012-007409
Application 12/367,200
Technology Center 2100
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Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and
DANIEL J. GALLIGAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

WINSOR, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection
of claims 1–18, which constitute all the claims pending in this application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1 The real party in interest identified by Appellant is Hewlett-Packard
Development Company, LP, a wholly-owned affiliate of Hewlett-Packard
Company, and having HPQ Holdings, LLC, as its general or managing
partner. (App. Br. 1.)

Appeal 2012-007409
Application 12/367,200

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant’s disclosed invention relates to “generating user profiles.”
(Spec. ¶ 1.) Claim 1, which is illustrative, reads as follows:
1. A method executed by a computer for generating a user
profile response, comprising:
receiving a request from a profile requestor to create or to
modify a profile for a particular user;
identifying profile fragments from existing profiles for
the particular user that are contained in a profile corpus, the
identified profile fragments responsive to the request;
aggregating the identified profile fragments into the user
profile response; and
transmitting the user profile response to the profile
requestor.

Claims 1– 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Case et al. (US 2003/0154180 A1; Aug. 14, 2003;
hereinafter “Case”) and Golan et al. (US 2008/0235005 A1; Sept. 25, 2008;
hereinafter “Golan”). (See Ans. 4–11.)
Rather than repeat the arguments here, we refer to the Briefs (“App.
Br.” filed Jan. 3, 2012; “Reply Br.” filed Mar. 30, 2012) for the positions of
Appellant and the Answer (“Ans.” mailed Jan. 30, 2012) for the positions of
the Examiner.

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Application 12/367,200

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ISSUE
The dispositive issue presented by Appellant’s contentions is as
follows:2 Does the combination of Case and Golan, and in particular does
Case, teach or suggest “identifying profile fragments from existing profiles
for the particular user that are contained in a profile corpus, the identified
profile fragments responsive to the request[, and] aggregating the identified
profile fragments into the user profile response” (hereinafter, the “profile
fragment limitation”; emphases added), as recited in claim 1?

ANALYSIS
The Examiner relies on Case to teach the profile fragment limitation.
(Ans. 5 (citing Case ¶¶ 31, 44); see also Ans. 12–14 (citing Case ¶¶ 35, 60),)
Appellant contends as follows:
Case does not disclose identifying profile fragments from
existing profiles for a particular user, the identified profile
fragments responsive to a request to create [or modify] a profile
for a particular user. For example, Case generates a new
personal user profile by directly deriving the user profile 17
from a user profile template. Case, p. 3, ¶ 44. Case’s user
profile template includes all interests that could be expected to
be relevant to a user in an organization such as a corporation;
thus, it is all-inclusive for a number of different individuals. Id.
¶ 38.
(App. Br. 9.)
We agree with the Appellant for the reasons set forth by Appellant.
(See App. Br 9–11 (§§ VII.A.1.b–c); Reply Br. 2–5). Although the passages
of Case relied upon by the Examiner do teach creating and modifying a user

2 Appellant’s contentions present additional issues. However, because the
identified issue is dispositive of the appeal, we do not reach the additional
issues.
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Application 12/367,200

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profile (see Case ¶¶ 31, 35, 44, 60), nothing in the cited passages teaches or
suggests that the creation or modification of a profile is done by identifying
and aggregating fragments of existing profiles of a particular user. Nor does
the Examiner persuasively explain how Case’s feedback from applications
(Case ¶ 31), template from a profile template store (Case ¶ 35), collection of
interests (Case ¶ 44), or frequency and number of documents that contain a
keyword (Case ¶ 60) teach or suggest “profile fragments from existing
profiles for the particular user,” as recited in claim 1.
On this record we are constrained to conclude that the Examiner has
not established the combination of Case and Golan teaches or suggests the
profile fragment limitation. Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of
(1) claim 1; (2) independent claims 14 and 15, which recite limitations
substantially similar to the profile fragment limitation; and (3) claims 2–13
and 16–18, which depend, directly or indirectly, from claims 1 and 15
respectively.

DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1–18 is reversed.

REVERSED

lv