Ex Parte Hoffman

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 18, 2014

12365771 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 18, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte WILLIAM MATTHEW HOFFMAN
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Appeal 2011-013640
Application 12/365,771
Technology Center 2400
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Before ANTON W. FETTING, BIBHU R. MOHANTY, and
NINA L. MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judges.
FETTING, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE1

1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“App.
Br.,” filed May 31, 2011) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed September 14,
2011), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed July 14, 2011).
William Matthew Hoffman (Appellant) seeks review under
35 U.S.C. § 134 of a final rejection of claims 1-15, the only claims pending
in the application on appeal. We have jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant
to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
The Appellant invented a way of identifying dynamic content in
HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) responses to web page requests
(Specification 1:Title).
An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of
exemplary claim 1, which is reproduced below [bracketed matter and some
paragraphing added].
1. A method of identifying dynamic content in HyperText
Transfer Protocol (HTTP) responses to web page requests,
comprising:
[1] sending a first request for a web page;
[2] receiving a first HTTP response to the first request;
[3] sending at least one additional request for a web page
identical to the first request;
[4] receiving at least one respective additional HTTP response
to the at least one additional request;
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[5] comparing,
by a computing system having a central processing
unit,
the first HTTP response
to
each of the at least one additional HTTP response;
[6] identifying,
by the computing system,
portions of the at least one additional HTTP response
that are different from
corresponding portions of the first HTTP response
as dynamic content;
[7] generating,
by the computing system,
a template that designates the dynamic content;
and
[8] outputting,
by the computing system,
the template.
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art:
Cuomo US 6,286,043 B1 Sep. 4, 2001
Tiemann US 2006/0015632 A1 Jan. 19, 2006
Chen US 2009/0300709 A1 Dec. 3, 2009
Claims 1-10, 12, and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Cuomo and Tiemann.
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Claims 11, 13, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Cuomo, Tiemann, and Chen.
ISSUES
The issues of obviousness turn primarily on whether the pages returned
from Cuomo’s two separate calls to the same URL are inherently compared
by the act of being called twice.
FACTS PERTINENT TO THE ISSUES
The following enumerated Findings of Fact (FF) are believed to be
supported by a preponderance of the evidence.
Facts Related to the Prior Art
Cuomo
01. Cuomo is directed to collecting information about user behavior
in the presence of dynamic page content. Cuomo 1:8-11.
02. With dynamically-generated content, a request for the Web
page stored at a given Uniform Resource Identifier ("URI") or
Uniform Resource Locator ("URL") may result in a wide variety
of page content being returned to the user. Cuomo 2:23-26.
03. Dynamic page content that is customized to an individual user
is made possible by software running at a Web server which tracks
visitors to the Web site. This tracking enables a Web
administrator to monitor who is visiting the site, what content they
request to see, and how that content affects their behavior. By
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monitoring visitors in this way, the server applications can provide
targeted marketing and customized information to each visitor.
Cuomo 3:7-17.
04. Monitoring tools typically generate traces of URL requests
from individual user sessions. This information is recorded in a
file, database, or other repository accessible to the server
applications. However, existing tools are oriented towards static
page content, where tracking the URL of the request provides the
ability to reconstruct what content was displayed to the user as he
navigated around the site. When dynamic page content is
displayed, recording the URL request flow is insufficient to
provide a record of this information. As stated previously,
requests to a single URL may result in very different Web page
content based upon factors such as the requesting user's identity,
so that storing the URL does not provide meaningful data for
monitoring the user's behavior. Cuomo 3:19-33.
05. Cuomo describes comparing one or more content templates to
one or more dynamically-generated pages, and creating a user
profile entry using a result of the comparing. The user profile
entry preferably comprises information about a behavior pattern of
a user, and a collection of the user profile entries is preferably for
use by a site monitoring tool. The comparison may further
comprise using a selected one of the templates based on a Uniform
Resource Locator which was used to access the page;
alternatively, each page may be compared to each of the templates
until either a match or a failure condition is detected, without
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regard to a Uniform Resource Locator which was used to access
the page. Optionally, a new content template may be created from
the page when the comparison has a negative result. Cuomo 4:1-
21.
06. The server application generates a record that identifies the
client (which may include the address of the client computer), and
the URL to which the request was sent. This record is then logged
in the file or repository. The server application may use these
records as input, to create customized dynamic page content.
Cuomo 6:61-67.
07. FIG. 4 illustrates the logic used by a preferred embodiment of
the present invention to monitor and record user behavior when
page content may be dynamic, such that the prior art technique of
recording the URL for static pages is insufficient. Cuomo 7:1-5.
08. The information regarding the user's behavior which is
pertinent to the preferred embodiment comprises: (1) the URL
which was accessed by the user's request; (2) the time and date of
the user's request; (3) the user's identification; and (4) the dynamic
content that was generated for the Web page. Cuomo 7:24-29.
09. Block 410 uses the dynamic page content, and compares it to
the existing content templates, attempting to find a template which
matches this page. Cuomo 7:30-33.
10. A Web administrator creates content, using his knowledge of
the general HTML syntax of the Web pages that will be created by
a given Web application. These content templates are then stored
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in a document database or repository. A content template
resembles an HTML page, but uses a regular expression syntax to
describe the dynamic aspects of the page content. This enables
use of wild-card substitution during the matching operation for
words, phrases, or sections that may differ from one dynamically-
created instance of a given page to another. Thus, the
administrator is defining equivalence classes for page content,
whereby the general style for a page is specified but variations that
are deemed insignificant can be ignored. Cuomo 7:44-59.
11. Block 410 compares the dynamically generated page content
against a single content template. The single URL received in
Block 400 is used to retrieve one specific template from the
document database prior to beginning the comparison process,
which then ends after comparing the dynamic page to this single
template. Cuomo 8:35-41.
12. Block 430 is reached when the user has accessed a Web page
which matches an existing content template. This fact will now be
recorded, as part of tracking this user's behavior patterns and
accounting for the dynamic page content which the user received
while navigating this site. Cuomo 9:25-29.
13. Block 450 is reached when none of the existing content
templates matched the document content received at Block 400.
Block 450 generates a new key to identify the dynamic content of
this page. Block 460 then adds the page, as a new content
template, to the document database. Cuomo 9:45-49.
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Tiemann
14. Tiemann is directed to transmission of information over a
network. Tiemann para 2.
15. A template representative of the set of information is used to
aid in the determination and segregation of dynamic and static
portions. Tiemann para 16.
ANALYSIS
We are persuaded by the Appellant’s argument that
[d]ifferent users seeing different versions of a web page, does
not constitute a computing system comparing the first HTTP
response to each of the at least one additional HTTP response.
In Cuomo, different users see different dynamic content of a
web page. In claim 1, a computing system compares HTTP
responses for the purpose of identifying dynamic content.
Br. 10. The Examiner found that the Specification’s recital that changes
between responses are identified as dynamic content at paragraph 24 meant
that Appellant included dynamic content creation within the scope of the
recited comparison. Ans. 18. This finding is erroneous.
This recitation from the Specification merely defines the invention’s
results as the identified dynamic content. The Specification recites
differential analysis as the implementing mechanism for so identifying the
results.
The difference between Cuomo and the independent claims is that while
the claims recite making two separate calls to the same URL and comparing
them to produce a template, Cuomo describes making a first call to a URL,
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generating a template from it, and then making another call to the same URL
and comparing the page from the second call to the template. This may
possibly result in generation of yet another template in the form of a copy of
the entire second page as is. If Cuomo modifies the page from the first call
in making a template, Cuomo’s comparison is not between the content from
the first and second calls. On the other hand, if Cuomo does not modify the
page from the first call in making a template, Cuomo’s generated template
would not designate the dynamic content.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
The rejection of claims 1-10, 12, and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Cuomo and Tiemann is improper.
The rejection of claims 11, 13, and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Cuomo, Tiemann, and Chen is improper.
DECISION
The rejection of claims 1-15 is reversed.

REVERSED

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