Ex Parte Gray et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 30, 2013

10611453 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 30, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE
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
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
10/611,453 06/30/2003 James Harold Gray ATT030073 1614
84326 7590 07/31/2013
AT & T LEGAL DEPARTMENT - Toler
ATTN: PATENT DOCKETING
ROOM 2A-207
ONE AT & T WAY
BEDMINSTER, NJ 07921
EXAMINER
SALCE, JASON P
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2421
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/31/2013 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 JAMES HAROLD GRAY,
THOMAS JEFFERSON BROTHERS, and
WILLIAM RANDOLPH MATZ

________________

Appeal 2011-000122
Application 10/611,453
Technology Center 2400
________________

Before MARC S. HOFF, DAVID M. KOHUT, and JOHN G. NEW,
Administrative Patent Judges.

NEW, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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SUMMARY
Appellants file this appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 14-19, 45-50, and 76-80. 1 Claims 14-
17, 19, 45-48, 50, and 76-79 stand rejected as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e) as being anticipated by Blackketter et al. (US 7,237,253 B1, June
26, 2007) (“Blackketter”). Claims 45-48 and 50 stand rejected as
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being obvious over the
combination of Blackketter and Field et al. (US 6,018,764, January 25,
2000) (“Field”). Claims 18, 49 and 80 stand rejected as unpatentable under
35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being obvious over the combination of Blackketter
and LeGall et al. (US 6,081,263, June 27, 2000) (“LeGall”).
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

NATURE OF THE CLAIMED INVENTION
Appellants’ invention is directed to a user device, machine readable
medium, and method of providing enhanced hot key functionality
comprising receiving a hot key signal from an interactive television service
provider’s network which indicates availability and a location of alternate
content. A determination is made whether the hot key signal is relevant to a
user viewing original content from the interactive television service
provider and, upon determining that the hot key signal is relevant to the

1 Claims 1-13, 20-44, 51-75, and 81-93 are canceled. App. Br. 15, 16, 18,
20.
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user, an indication that the hot key signal has been received is displayed on
the screen. Abstract.

GROUPING OF CLAIMS

Because Appellants argue that the Examiner erred for substantially
the same reasons with respect to the rejected claims, we select claim 14 as
representative of all of the rejected claims on appeal. App. Br. 7, 12, 13.
Claim 14 recites:
14. A method comprising:

receiving at a user device an indicator signal from an
interactive television service provider's network, the indicator
signal indicating availability of alternate content and containing
data representing an indicator form;

determining, at the user device and independent of any
request by a user of the user device for the alternate content,
whether the indicator signal is relevant to user viewing original
content provided by the interactive television service provider’s
network;

responsive to determining that the indicator signal is not
relevant to the user, filtering the indicator signal; and

responsive to determining the indicator signal is relevant
to the user, displaying on a screen of the user device an
indication that the indicator signal has been received, the
indication corresponding to the data representing the indicator
form;

wherein subject matter of the alternate content is
different from subject matter of the original content; and

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wherein the determining is based at least in part on one of
the following: a content type selected by the user; and a genre
selected by the user.

App. Br. 15.

ISSUES AND ANALYSES

A. Rejection of claim 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e).
Issue
Appellants argue that the Examiner erred in finding that Blackketter
anticipates claim 14. App. Br. 7. Specifically, Appellants argue that
Blackketter fails to disclose (1) determining whether available alternate
content is relevant to a user, and responsive to such a determination,
displays an indicator; and (2) filtering an indication of availability. App.
Br. 10. We therefore address the issue of whether the Examiner so erred.

Analysis
Appellants argue that Blackketter determines only whether or not
interactive content or online content is available. App. Br. 10. According
to Appellants, Blackketter does not determine whether available content is
relevant to the user; Blackketter only knows what is available to the user
based upon information from the network, not from the user. Id.
Appellants also argue that there is no disclosure in Blackketter of an
instance wherein the indicator signal indicates the availability of alternative
content and the corresponding indicator is not displayed to the user. Id.
Appellants argue that if the interactive mode is available, Blackketter
discloses that the television signal includes encoded information that
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indicates the availability of the interactive mode. Id. Appellants argue that
if Blackketter television device receives the encoded information, decodes
it to indicate the interactive mode is available, and then displays the
corresponding indicator. App. Br. 10-11.
Appellants contend that Blackketter does not disclose receiving
encoded information indicating the availability of an interactive or online
mode, decoding it, and then filtering it, i.e., not displaying the indicator.
App. Br. 11. Appellants maintain that Blackketter discloses that, if the
interactive or online mode is available for a particular broadcast, an
indicator is displayed. Id.
The Examiner responds that Blackketter discloses in Figure 9
whether a certain mode (interactive or online) is relevant to the user. Ans.
9. The Examiner finds that step 306 of Figure 9 discloses determining if an
interactive mode (which provides alternative content in the form of Internet
data) is available and, if the mode is available (i.e., relevant) then the
alternate content is displayed to the viewer. Id. The Examiner finds that
Blackketter also discloses that if the mode is not available (i.e., not
relevant) the alternate content is filtered and not displayed to the viewer.
Id.
In so finding, the Examiner employs the broadest reasonable
definition of the term “relevant” because, according to the Examiner,
Appellants have not specifically stated how the claim term “relevant” is
defined. Ans. 10. The Examiner finds that the Free Online Dictionary
defines “relevant” as “having direct bearing on the matter in hand.” Id.
(citing http://www.thefreedictionary.com/relevant). The Examiner finds
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that Blackketter’s disclosure of available interactive or online content meets
the description of the claim term relevant. Id.
The Examiner also finds that columns 352 and 354 of Blackketter’s
Figure 11 disclose that the data structure indicates if an interactive mode or
an online mode is available. Ans. 11. The Examiner finds that step 300 of
Blackketter’s Figure 11 discloses receiving these availability indicators
from a television broadcast network. Id. The Examiner finds that Figure 11
discloses that the data availability indicators are then decoded at step 304
and further filtered at steps 306 and 310 to determine whether the indicator
signals are empty or contain data in columns 352 and 354 (determination of
relevancy). Id. The Examiner finds that Blackketter discloses that, if the
data structure is empty of either the interactive or online mode, an indicator
(i.e., a web address) is not displayed. Id. Therefore, finds the Examiner,
Blackketter discloses receiving encoded information indicating the
availability of relevant information, decodes and then filters the information
(i.e., does or does not display the indicator/web address). Id.
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments. We read claim 14
in view of Appellants’ Specification, which, as the Examiner finds,
provides no explicit definition of “relevant.” See SanDisk Corp. v.
Kingston Technology Co., Inc., 695 F.3d 1348, 1353 (Fed. Cir. 2012)
(“Claim terms generally are construed in accordance with the ordinary and
customary meaning they would have to one of ordinary skill in the art in
light of the specification and the prosecution history” (citation omitted)).
Appellants’ Specification discloses that:
At decision block 1005 a determination is made as to
whether the hot key signal is relevant to the particular user.
Since numerous hot key signals may be broadcast at any
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particular time, the signals may be filtered before being
presented to the user. Such filtering may be based on any
number of possible algorithms and criteria. For example, only
hot key signals related to a channel that is presently being
viewed may be considered relevant. Another [sic] criteria for
determining relevance of a hot key signal may be choices of
content types or genres which have been selected by the user.
Regardless of the algorithm or criteria used to judge relevance,
if the hot key signal is determined at decision block 1005 to not
be relevant, no further processing is performed.

Specification, 31-32. We find that Appellants’ Specification discloses that
relevant may be filtered by the channel currently being viewed or by
content or genre selected by the user. Id.
We agree with the Examiner’s finding that “relevant” content may be
reasonably defined as content having direct bearing on the channel, content,
or genre selected by the viewer. Such relevant content may be interactive
or online content matter that is related (and therefore relevant) to the current
program content being viewed. Ans. 10; see Blackketter, col. 3, ll. 15-28.
Moreover, we agree with the Examiner that Blackketter discloses filtering
of the information received to determine whether the relevant content
should be displayed:
[T]he interactive television device decodes information
regarding a web site or network address for accessing the
interactive data. The procedure then determines whether an
interactive mode is available (step 306). If an interactive mode
is not available, then the procedure branches to a step that
determines whether an online mode is available. If an
interactive mode is available, the interactive television device
displays an indicator that an interactive mode is available for
the current television program (step 308). This indicator may be
anyone or more of the title 260, the icon 262, or the “Go
Interactive” button 264 shown in FIG. 4.
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The procedure next determines whether an online mode
is available (step 310). If an online mode is not available, then
the procedure branches to step 314 without displaying an online
mode indicator. If an online mode is available, the interactive
television device displays an indicator that an online mode is
available for the current television program (step 312).

Blackketter, col. 7, ll. 14-30; Ans. 11.

Consequently, we agree with the Examiner that Blackketter discloses
the disputed limitations of claim 14 and conclude that the Examiner did not
err in so finding.

DECISION

The Examiner’s rejection of claims 14-19, 45-50, and 76-80 is
affirmed.
TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a) (1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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