Ex Parte Kowalski et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 30, 2018

13018084 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 30, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/018,084 01/31/2011
93236 7590 11/01/2018
Brake Hughes Bellermann LLP
c/o CPA Global
900 Second A venue South
Suite 600
Minneapolis, MN 55402
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Vincent Joseph Kowalski
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.
0081-223001/10-054-US 7895
EXAMINER
ABOUELSEOUD,MOHAMED
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2172
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/01/2018 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@brakehughes.com
uspto@brakehughes.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte VINCENT JOSEPH KOWALSKI and ASHISH ARORA 1
Appeal2018-002844
Application 13/018,084
Technology Center 2100
Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, JOHN P. PINKERTON, and
JASON M. REPKO, Administrative Patent Judges.
NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final
rejection of claims 1, 3, 4, 8 through 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, and 19 through 26.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We reverse.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is BMC software. App.
Br. 1
Appeal2018-002844
Application 13/018,084
INVENTION
The invention is directed to a technique for use in a user interface,
which provides a focus driven interface, in which access commands are used
to retrieve data and relevancy rankings of the data are used to determine
which data is presented on the user interface. Spec., para 15.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and is reproduced below.
1. A computer-implemented method for providing a Focus-
Driven User Interface within a Model-View-Controller (MVC)
architecture, the method comprising:
receiving, at a controller component, an event from a user
interface;
issuing, by the controller component, a request to a focus
component based on the event;
receiving, at the focus component, the request;
forwarding, by the focus component, the request to a
model component storing domain-specific representation of
data of an application, wherein the controller component is
communicatively coupled to the focus component, and the
controller component is not directly communicatively coupled
to the model component;
receiving, at the focus component, at least a portion of
the data from the model component in response to the request,
the portion of data specifying that a plurality of items be
rendered on the user interface, each item being visual data to be
displayed to a user via the user interface;
processing, at the focus component, the received portion
of data to determine which items of the plurality of items to
render on the user interface and which items of the plurality of
items to not render on the user interface, wherein the processing
step includes:
retrieving focus driven information specific to the
application from a database;
inputting the focus driven information into logic of
the focus component to determine a relevancy ranking in
terms of which items of the plurality of items are more or
less relevant to the user than others;
2
Appeal2018-002844
Application 13/018,084
identifying a subset of items to be rendered on the
user interface among the plurality of items based on the
relevancy ranking, the subset of items having a number
of items less than the plurality of items; and
determining a display arrangement for the subset
of items;
sending, by the focus component, the subset of items and
the determined display arrangement to the controller
component; and
updating, by the controller component, the user interface
by displaying the subset of items according to the determined
display arrangement instead of all of the plurality of items on
the user interface such that less relevant items are suppressed to
the user, the less relevant items being items included within the
plurality of items, but not included on the subset of items.
REJECTION AT ISSUE2
The Examiner has rejected claims 1, 3, 4, 8 through 10, 12, 13, 15, 17,
19 through 24, and 26 under 35 U.S.C. § 102 (b) as being anticipated by
Lucassen (US 6,996,800 B2; Feb. 7, 2006). Final Act. 2-20. 3
The Examiner has rejected claim 25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (a) as
being unpatentable over Lucassen and Hurst-Hiller (US 2006/0004891 Al;
Jan. 5, 2006). Final Act. 21.
2 Throughout this Decision, we refer to the Appeal Brief ("App. Br.") filed
October 5, 2017, the Reply Brief ("Reply Br.") filed January 22, 2018, Final
Office Action ("Final Act.") mailed May 8, 2017, and the Examiner's
Answer ("Ans.") mailed November 20, 2017
3 The statement of the rejection does not include claims 22 through 24 and
26; however, the Examiner's analysis on pages 19-20 of the Final Action
identifies these claims as included in the rejection. Thus, we also include
claims 22 through 24 in the rejection.
3
Appeal2018-002844
Application 13/018,084
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed Appellants' arguments in the Briefs, the
Examiner's rejection, and the Examiner's response to Appellants'
arguments. Appellants' arguments have persuaded us of error in the
Examiner's anticipation rejection and obviousness rejection.
Appellants argue the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 1,
10, and 17 is in error for several reasons. App. Br. 13-19. The dispositive
issue presented by these arguments is, did the Examiner err in finding that
Lucassen teaches determining which items to render on the user interface
based upon a relevancy ranking as recited in each of the independent claims?
In response to the Appellants' arguments, the Examiner considers the
broadest interpretation of the items as including a title, and the items to be
rendered or not could be the letters of the title. Ans. 4. The Examiner finds
that Lucassen teaching that adaption rules
for determining a relevancy ranking in terms of which of the
plurality of title items are more or less relevant to the user's
screen size than others and identifying a subset of title items for
display among the plurality of long and short title items based
on the relevancy ranking, the shorter subset of title items having
a number of letter items less than the plurality of letter items in
the longer title.
Ans. 4 (citing col. 20, 1. 61---col. 21, 1. 2, col. 21, 11. 25-35). Further, the
Examiner states "the letters of the title are the items that could be rendered
on the user's screen or not based on their degree of relevance to the user's
display screen size." Ans. 5.
We disagree with the Examiner. Each of the independent claims
recites limitations directed to identifying a subset of items to be rendered on
the user interface based upon the relevancy ranking in terms of which items
4
Appeal2018-002844
Application 13/018,084
of the plurality of items are more or less relevant to the user than others. We
agree with the Examiner that Lucassen teaches selecting different titles
based upon the device. However, we do not find Lucassen teaches selection
of items ( which the Examiner equates to letters in the title or which of the
titles to select) is based on the items being more or less relevant to the user
than other items. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's
anticipation rejection of independent claims 1, 10, and 17, and dependent
claims 3, 4, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 19 through 24, and 26.
The Examiner's obviousness rejection of claim 25 relies upon the
teachings of Lucassen to teach the limitations of independent claim 10.
Accordingly, we similarly do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim
25.
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1, 3, 4, 8 through 10,
12, 13, 15, 17, 19 through 24, and 26 under 35 U.S.C. § 102, and claim 25
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.
REVERSED
5