Ex Parte Herbert et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 24, 2017

13160487 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 24, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
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.
13/160,487 06/14/2011 Stephen L. Herbert JR. CAM920100062U S1
(7321-269
3448
46321 7590
CRGO LAW
STEVEN M. GREENBERG
7900 Glades Road
SUITE 520
BOCA RATON, EL 33434
EXAMINER
BURKE, JEFF A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2159
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/28/2017 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):
docketing@crgolaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte STEPHEN L. JR. HERBERT, TOLGA ORAL,
and MICHAEL W. SORENSON
Appeal 2016-006322
Application 13/160,487
Technology Center 2100
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and ERIC S. FRAHM,
Administrative Patent Judges.
FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2016-006322
Application 13/160,487
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims
7—18. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
The invention relates to the prioritized display of search results (Spec.
12). Claim 7, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
7. A computer program product for ranking search results
based upon content creation trends, the computer program
product comprising:
a non-transitory computer readable storage medium
having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the
computer readable program code comprising:
computer readable program code for receiving a
result set of results from a search engine produced in
response to a search engine query of a plurality of search
terms;
computer readable program code for ranking the
results of the result set according to at least one ranking
factor;
computer readable program code for retrieving
trend data indicating content creation trends from a trend
feed offered by a commercial trend service for terms
associated with the results of the result set, the trend data
including data indicating a degree to which documents in
the form of blog entries, wiki pages, news stories, and
twitter tweets associated with the plurality of search terms
corresponding to the results of the result set have been
created;
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Application 13/160,487
computer readable program code for weighting the
ranked results in the result set according to the retrieved
trend data by multiplying at least a portion of the ranked
results in the results set by a numerical factor based upon
an adjustable numerical value indicating an importance of
a trendiness of a topic; and,
computer readable program code for displaying the
weighted ranked results in response to the search engine
query.
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claim 7—18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Cucerzan, Sweeney, and Truve.
Claims 7—18 stand provisionally rejected under the non-statutory
ground of obviousness-type double patenting over US Application
13/411,579.1
The Obviousness Rejection
The Examiner finds the combination of Cucerzan, Sweeney, and
Truve discloses all the limitations of independent claim 7, including that
1 US Application 13/411,579 is a divisional of the present application.
REFERENCES
Cucerzan et al.
Truve et al.
Sweeney et al.
US 2007/0214131 Al Sept. 13, 2007
US 2010/0299324 Al Nov. 25,2010
US 2011/0314006 Al Dec. 22,2011
REJECTIONS
ANALYSIS
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Appeal 2016-006322
Application 13/160,487
Truve teaches “multiplying at least a portion of the ranked results in the
results set by a numerical factor based upon an adjustable numerical value
indicating an importance of a trendiness of a topic” (Final Act. 8—11).
Appellants contend, among other things, that Truve fails to teach the quoted
claim 7 limitation for which it is relied upon (see App. Br. 17—19). We
agree with Appellants for the following reasons.
Truve describes a system for collecting and ranking facts which are
then available for a user to search (see Truve, Tflf 22-40). Specifically, Truve
provides: “The categorization of facts and information about facts is
similarly used to determine the relevance of a database entry to a service
request, such as a search query. The overall ranking in relation to the
service request will determine which database entries are selected and in
what order they are presented to the user.” As an example of a ranked fact
subject to a search query, Truve describes the following, which is relied
upon by the Examiner (Final Act. 11; Ans. 8):
Ahmad Shah Massoud was the head of the Northern
Alliance in Afghanistan. He was killed on Sept. 9, 2001. A
search in the event database on Sept. 9th would have classified
this to be a relatively unimportant event, and this would have
been in accord with general sentiment about its importance. 48
hours later, however, it was deemed to be an extremely important
event.
.... Accordingly, 48 hours later the event’s generally
agreed-upon importance and likewise its ranking in our system,
would be high.
(Truve, 129—130). We find this example does not show “multiplying at
least a portion of the ranked results in the results set by a numerical factor
based upon an adjustable numerical value indicating an importance of a
trendiness of a topic,” as recited in claim 7. Rather, Truve teaches
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Application 13/160,487
designating the importance level of a fact that is subject to a search (see id.),
but not multiplying search results that have already been generated by a
numerical factor. We disagree with the Examiner’s finding that “[t]he facts
in Truve would be analogous to the ranked search results in both Sweeney
and Cucerzan” (Ans. 7). Facts that can be searched are not the same as
ranked search results.
Moreover, Truve does not show that the level of importance applied to
the ranked facts is the result of “multiplying ... by a numerical factor,” as
recited in claim 7. The Examiner cites Truve’s disclosure of various
concepts used to perform fact ranking, among which is an “Entity Ranking
(ER)” concept (see Truve, Tflf 63—67), for showing the claim 7 feature of
multiplication by a numerical factor (Ans. 7—8). Specifically, Truve
discloses “[e]ach entity is given a ranking depending on either how
‘important’ it is (indicated e.g. by how common it is in the database) or on
the derivative of that importance (i.e. if it is has recently become more
common)” and “[e]ntities can also be ranked according to more
sophisticated measures, e.g. based on the sentiment/attitude towards an
entity, and how that changes” (Truve, 64, 66). However, this description
in Truve does not specifically disclose using numerical factors in a
multiplication to achieve the importance-based fact rankings. Accordingly,
we find the Examiner has not shown Truve teaches the claim 7 limitation
“multiplying at least a portion of the ranked results in the results set by a
numerical factor based upon an adjustable numerical value indicating an
importance of a trendiness of a topic.”
We are, therefore, constrained by the record to find the Examiner
erred in rejecting independent claim 7, independent claim 13 which recites
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commensurate limitations, and dependent claims 8—12 and 14—18 for similar
reasons.
The Double Patenting Rejection
Appellants do not provide specific arguments showing error in the
Examiner’s double patenting rejection (see App. Br. 19). Accordingly, we
pro forma affirm the double patenting rejection of claims 7—18, and leave it
for the Examiner to determine whether to require a terminal disclaimer in
accordance with MPEP § 804.I.B(1).
CONCLUSIONS
Under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 7—
18.
Under the non-statutory ground of obviousness-type double patenting,
Appellants have not shown the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 7—18.
DECISION
For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejection of claims 7—18 is
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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