Ex Parte JAIN et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 28, 2018

13517603 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 28, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO.
13/517,603
149109 7590
EGL/Excalibur
P.O. Box 10395
Chicago, IL 60610
FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
06/14/2012 ViditJAIN
11/28/2018
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.
12729-1252 (Y08243USOO) 1035
EXAMINER
HOFFLER, RAHEEM
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2155
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/28/2018 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 VIDIT JAIN and NIKHIL RASIW ASIA
Appeal 2018-004848
Application 13/517,603
Technology Center 2100
Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, HUNG H. BUI, and JON M. JURGOV AN,
Administrative Patent Judges.
KRIVAK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1--4, 6-13, and 15-24, which are all the claims pending in the
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We reverse.
1 The Appeal Brief identifies Excalibur IP, LLC as the real party in interest
(App. Br. 2).
Appeal 2018-004848
Application 13/517,603
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants' invention is directed to a method and system "for mining
trends around trending terms" by generating clusters of user comments on
articles related to a trending term, extracting and ranking terms from the user
comments, and rendering user comment( s) containing the trending term and
a selected ranked term (Spec. ,r,r 4--5, 7, 42).
Claims 1, 10, 19 are independent. Independent claim 1, reproduced
below, is exemplary of the subject matter on appeal.
1. A method of mining trends around trending terms,
the method comprising:
receiving a user input specifying a trending term and a
time period;
retrieving a plurality of articles related to the trending
term from one or more websites, wherein the plurality of
articles were generated during the time period specified in the
user input;
generating a comment cluster for each of the plurality of
articles, wherein each comment cluster comprises a plurality of
user comments submitted in relation to the plurality of articles;
extracting one or more terms from the plurality of user
comments for each of the comment clusters based on a
frequency of occurrence of the one or more terms, the one or
more extracted terms being related to the trending term
specified in the user input, being different than the trending
term, and pertaining to subject matter of at least one of the
plurality of user comments;
displaying the one or more extracted terms, each of the
one or more displayed terms being selectable by a user; and
displaying one or more user comments of the generated
comment clusters containing both the trending term and a
selected term of the one or more displayed.
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Application 13/517,603
REJECTIONS and REFERENCES
The Examiner rejected claims 1--4, 6-13, and 15-24 under
35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to non-statutory subject matter. 2
The Examiner rejected claims 1 and 10 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a)
based upon the teachings ofKoppula (US 2011/0258017 Al; published Oct.
20, 2011), Jason (US 2012/0271829 Al; published Oct. 25, 2012), and
Zuccarino (US 2013/0298000 Al; published Nov. 7, 2013).
The Examiner rejected claims 2--4, 6-9, 11-13, 15-18, and 23 under
35 U.S.C. § I03(a) based upon the teachings ofKoppula, Jason, Zuccarino,
and Hobbs (US 2012/0131013 Al; published May 24, 2012).
The Examiner rejected claims 19-22 and 24 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a)
based upon the teachings of Hobbs, Jason, and Zuccarino.
ANALYSIS
Rejection under 35 US.C. § 101
In rejecting claims 1--4, 6-13, and 15-24 under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the
Examiner finds the claims are directed to "the mere aggregation of data in
order to form clusters of information into related groups and displaying that
mere data along with additional related content," which is an abstract idea of
"collecting, displaying, and manipulating data" (Ans. 5---6). 3
Appellants argue claims 1--4, 6-13, and 15-24 are not directed to the
generic abstract ideas asserted by the Examiner, but rather to improved
2 This rejection is presented for the first time in the Examiner's Answer (see
Ans. 4--9, "NEW GROUNDS OF REJECTION").
3 The Answer citations are to the Examiner's Answer filed February 27,
2018.
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Application 13/517,603
computer systems that mine trends around trending terms and display the
mined trends so that a "user can understand the trending term relationships
and receive highlighted user comments for trending entities without having
to search through multiple search results to obtain such information" (Reply
Br. 5---6, 16-17). As such, Appellants argue the present claims are most
analogous to Core Wireless (Reply Br. 3, 6-7 (citing Core Wireless
Licensing S.A.R.L. v. LG Elecs., Inc., 880 F.3d 1356, 1359 (Fed. Cir.
2018))).
When considering whether the claims are directed to a patent
ineligible concept, such as an abstract idea, "[t]he 'directed to' inquiry ...
cannot simply ask whether the claims involve a patent-ineligible concept,
because essentially every routinely patent-eligible claim involving physical
products and actions involves a law of nature and/or natural phenomenon."
See Enfzsh, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1335-36 (Fed. Cir.
2016) ( citing Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc.,
566 U.S. 66, 70-71 (2012)). Rather, "the 'directed to' inquiry applies a
stage-one filter to claims" considered in their entirety, in light of the
Specification, to ascertain whether the claims' character as a whole is
directed to excluded subject matter (id. ( citing Internet Patents Corp. v.
Active Network, Inc., 790 F.3d 1343, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2015))).
Having reviewed the evidence, we disagree with the Examiner's
finding that the claims are directed to an abstract idea of retrieving,
aggregating, displaying, and manipulating data (see Ans. 5---6). Rather, we
conclude the character of the claims as a whole is directed to improved user
interfaces for electronic devices, and improved methods and systems for
filtering Internet content to display a relevant and limited set of information
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Application 13/517,603
to the user (Reply Br. 5-7, 17). See Core Wireless, 880 F.3d at 1362---63
( claims directed to "an improved user interface for computing devices" and
to "a particular manner of summarizing and presenting information in
electronic devices" and "displaying a limited set of information to the user,"
improve "the efficiency of using the electronic device by bringing together
'a limited list of common functions and commonly accessed stored data"'
and "are not directed to an abstract idea"); see also Trading Techs. Int 'l, Inc.
v. CQG, Inc., 675 F. App'x 1001, 1002---05 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (claims directed
to "improvements in existing graphical user interface devices that have no
'pre-electronic trading analog"' and "recite more than 'setting, displaying,
and selecting' data or information that is visible on the [graphical user
interface] device" are not directed to an abstract idea); Enfzsh, 822 F.3d at
1335-36.
Our conclusion is supported by Appellants' Specification, which
confirms the improved user interfaces and content filtering techniques.
Particularly, the Specification describes Appellants' invention as directed to
a method and system "for mining trends around trending terms" to identify
and display user comments ( on trending articles) containing both a trending
term and "trends that are mined around the ... trending term" (see Spec.
,r,r 5-7, 41; Title ( capitalization altered)). Appellants' data mining technique
"mines trends that are popular around a trending term or a given entity
during a given period of time" enabling "a user to understand trending or
popularity of the entity during a given time period, and to explore evolution
of trends around the entity over time" (see Spec. ,r 53). As Appellants
explain, their method and system for mining trends are "rooted in the
technological advancements of the Internet, Internet searching, and social
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media," and improve upon prior ways of displaying information related to
trending terms (Reply Br. 4--5; see Spec. ,r,r 2-3).
Because we find the claims are directed to eligible subject matter, we
do not reach step two of the test set forth in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS
Banklnt'l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2354 (2014). Enfzsh, 822 F.3d at 1339.
Therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 1--4, 6-13,
and 15-24 under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Rejection under 35 USC§ 103(a)
The Examiner finds the combination of Koppula, Jason, and
Zuccarino teaches extracting term(s) from user comments that were
submitted in relation to articles related to a trending term, displaying the
extracted term(s) to be selectable by a user, and displaying user comment(s)
containing both the trending term and a selected extracted term, as recited in
independent claim 1 (Final Act. 3-6). Particularly, the Examiner finds
Koppula teaches retrieving articles related to a specified trending term (Final
Act. 2-3 (citing Koppula ,r,r 42, 45, 52-53)). The Examiner also finds Jason
teaches generating a comment cluster of user comments for each of a
plurality of articles, and extracting term(s) from the user comments based on
a frequency of occurrence, the extracted term(s) being related to but
different from the articles' trending term, as claimed (Final Act. 4--5 ( citing
Jason ,r,r 24--25, 35-36, 38, 45); Ans. 11). The Examiner further finds
Zuccarino discloses "extraction and displaying of filtered comments
considered relevant to a requested Anchor page" from which "[ t ]he user has
the ability to select content," and "displaying one or more of a plurality of
comments that are related to ... [the] requested Anchor Page," thereby
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teaching the claimed displaying steps (Final Act. 5---6 ( citing Zuccarino
,r,r 21-22, 24--26, 56-58, Figs. 4--5); Ans. 12). We do not agree.
We agree with Appellants that Koppula, Jason, and Zuccarino, alone
or in combination, fail to teach or suggest displaying-from among clustered
user comments about an article related to a trending term----one comment
containing both the trending term and a term selected by a user from
displayed terms that were extracted from the clustered comments based on a
frequency of occurrence, the extracted terms being related to but different
from the trending term, as recited in claim 1 (App. Br. 14--15; Reply Br.
19). 4 Particularly, "there is no teaching that Zuccarino 's system selects the
user comments to display based on there being two keywords [ a trending
term and an extracted term related to but different from the trending term] in
the user comment such that a relationship between the keywords could be
determined" (App. Br. 14). Rather, Zuccarino displays comments (about an
anchor story) authored by the user's online friends and connections (see
Zuccarino ,r,r 23-25, 36, 56-57). For example, upon the user's selection of a
news story ( e.g., a story titled "A horse in Peril"), Zuccarino displays a
friend's comment about this story (see Zuccarino ,r,r 36, 56, Fig. 2B).
Zuccarino' s displayed comment is therefore selected based on the
comment's author (e.g., user's friend or family member). It is not based on
a user-selected term from terms extracted "from the plurality of user
comments ... based on a frequency of occurrence of the one or more terms,
the one or more extracted terms being related to the trending term specified
in the user input, [and] being different than the trending term," as recited in
4 The citations are to the Appeal Brief filed July 24, 2017.
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claim 1.
Jason does not make up for the above-noted deficiencies of Zuccarino.
Jason merely extracts trending terms from Twitter messages and search
queries to generate lists of trending terms by topic (e.g., sports) (see Jason
,r,r 35-37, 45). Jason's trending terms are associated with caption data
indicating why the term is trending (see Jason ,r,r 37, 45). Jason's caption
data, however, is not "content involving a trending term and another term
extracted based on frequency of occurrence" as claimed (App. Br. 14).
Thus, Jason does not disclose displaying a user comment that contains both a
trending term and another term selected by a user from displayed terms
extracted from comments based on a frequency of occurrence, as required by
claim 1 (App. Br. 14--15).
Koppula similarly fails to teach displaying user comments containing
both a trending term and a user-selected term from terms extracted from
comments (App. Br. 14--15). Rather, Koppula merely discloses extracting
trending terms and retrieving articles on the trending terms (see Koppula
,r,r 45, 52-53). The Examiner also has not shown that the additional
teachings of Hobbs (used in the rejection of independent claim 19 and all
dependent claims) make up for the above-noted deficiencies of Koppula,
Jason, and Zuccarino (App. Br. 18-19).
Thus, for the reasons set forth above, we do not sustain the
Examiner's rejection of independent claim 1 and claims 2--4 and 6-9
dependent therefrom. We also do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of
independent claims 10 and 19, argued for substantially the same reasons as
claim 1, and claims 11-13, 15-18, and 20-24 dependent therefrom (App. Br.
16-20).
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Application 13/517,603
DECISION
The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1--4, 6-13, and 15-24 under
35 U.S.C. § 101 is reversed.
The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1--4, 6-13, and 15-24 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is reversed.
REVERSED
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