Ex Parte Lehavi et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 21, 2016

13162063 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 21, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
13/162,063 06/16/2011 David Lehavi
56436 7590 07/25/2016
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
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.
82663233 6733
EXAMINER
NAZAR, AHAMED I
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2178
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/25/2016 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):
hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com
mkraft@hpe.com
chris.mania@hpe.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DA YID LERA VI and OMER BARKOL
Appeal2014-007646
Application 13/162,063
Technology Center 2100
Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY, III, MELISSA A. HAAPALA, and
MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges.
McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
A. "1"1 ,1 "1 "1 ,..,,,-TT#'l~ll"l,..,,Al/'-r'" ,"1 T"""i •., Appeuants' appeal unaer j) u.~.L. s U4~aJ rrom me bxammer s
rejection of claims 1-20, which are all the claims pending in this application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Hewlett-Packard
Development Company, LP. App. Br. 2.
Appeal2014-007646
Application 13/162,063
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants' application relates to automated semantic parsing of an
image of a structured document. Abstract. Claim 1 is illustrative of the
subject matter on appeal and reads as follows:
1. A method for automated semantic parsing of an image of
a structured document, the method comprising:
acquiring the image of the structured document by an
image acquiring device;
lexing the image of the structured document so as to
associate each image element of a plurality of image elements of
the image with a predefined token;
inputting a user defined template of expected semantically
significant elements of the structured document into a parser, the
expected elements being defined in a visibly pushdown language
(VPL) format; and
parsing one or more of the tokens into an element of the
expected elements.
The Examiner's Rejections
Claims 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 13, 14, and 17-19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Barkol et al. (US 2011/0099498 Al; Apr. 28,
2011) ("Barkol"), Omer Barkol et al., Semantic Automation from Screen
Capture, HP Laboratories HPL-2009-161 (July 21, 2009) ("Bergman"), and
Rajeev Alur and P. Madhusudan, Visibly Pushdown Languages, Proc. Proc.
36th ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC '04), 202-211
(2004) ("Alur"). Final Act. 2-6.
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Application 13/162,063
Claims 2, 4, 7, 8, 10-12, 15, 16, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Barkol, Bergman, Alur, and Kasravi et al. (US
2007/0118357 Al; May 24, 2007) ("Kasravi"). Final Act. 6-10.
ANALYSIS
Claim 1
Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 because the
cited combination does not teach analyzing a graphical user interface (GUI)
using a visibly pushdown language (VPL ). App. Br. 10-14. Specifically,
Appellants argue Alur proposes the class of VPL languages, but fails to
discuss in detail any specific applications for VPL. App. Br. 12. Appellants
argue the claims define a novel use of VPL that no prior work had taught or
suggested. App. Br. 12-13. Appellants argue the application of Alur's VPL
to Barkol' s GUI analysis is the result of the Examiner's hindsight bias. App.
Br. 13-14.
Appellants have not persuaded us that the Examiner erred. As
explained inKSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 420 (2007), it is
error to assume that a person of ordinary skill attempting to solve a problem
will be led only to those elements of the prior art designed to solve the same
problem. Rather,
Common sense teaches ... that familiar items may have
obvious uses beyond their primary purposes, an in many case a
person of ordinary skill will be able to fit the teachings of
multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle .... A person
of ordinary skill is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an
automaton.
Id. at 420--421.
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Application 13/162,063
The Examiner finds the combination of Barkol and Bergman teaches
or suggests all of the limitations of claim 1 except for the use of a VPL.
Final Act. 2-4. The Examiner finds an ordinarily skilled artisan would have
been motivated to apply Alur' s VPL to the combination of Barkol and
Bergman because VPL is an efficient class of context-free languages that is
closed under union, intersection, complementation, renaming, concatenation,
and Kleene-useful properties for context-free languages. Ans. 12-13
(citing Alur 3).
Appellants' argument that this rationale uses impermissible hindsight
bias is unpersuasive.
Any judgment on obviousness is in a sense necessarily a
reconstruction based upon hindsight reasoning, but so long as it
takes into account only knowledge which was within the level
of ordinary skill at the time the claimed invention was made
and does not include knowledge gleaned only from applicant's
disclosure, such a reconstruction is proper.
In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 1395 (CCPA 1971). Moreover,
Appellants have not provided any objective evidence of secondary
considerations, which our reviewing court guides "operates as a beneficial
check on hindsight." Cheese Systems, Inc. v. Tetra Pak Cheese and Powder
Systems, Inc., 725 F.3d 1341, 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2013). Nor have Appellants
provided any evidence demonstrating the Examiner's proffered combination
would have been "uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill
in the art." Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162
(Fed. Cir. 2007).
Accordingly, although the Supreme Court stated that "[a] factfinder
should be aware, of course, of the distortion caused by hindsight bias and
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Appeal2014-007646
Application 13/162,063
must be cautious of arguments reliant upon ex post reasoning" (KSR, 550
U.S. at 421), we are satisfied that the combination ofBarkol, Bergman, and
Alur is not based on hindsight bias. In fact, the proposed combination
involves nothing other than requiring the ordinarily skilled artisan to use
common sense in combining prior art elements that perform their ordinary
functions to predictably result in the claimed system.
Claims 2 and 10
Claim 2 recites " [ t ]he method of claim 1, wherein lexing the image
comprises associating an element of the image with a plurality of possible
tokens, each association with a possible token being assigned a likelihood
value." The Examiner finds the combination of Barkol, Bergman, Alur, and
Kasravi teaches or suggests claim 2. Ans. 14-15. In particular, the
Examiner finds Kasravi teaches identifying elements of a GUI and analyzing
words in the GUI to assign probability values to the potential parts-of-speech
of the analyzed words. Ans. 15 (citing Kasravi iii! 27-31). The Examiner
finds this analysis of probabilities related to parts of speech renders obvious
the limitations of claim 2.
Appellants argue the Examiner erred because Kasravi does not teach
lexing or tokens. App. Br. 20. Appellants argue Kasravi's analysis of
probability that a word is a particular part of speech is inapposite to the
claimed subject matter. Id.
Appellants have persuaded us that the Examiner erred. As argued by
Appellants, Kasravi does not teach or suggest associating an element of an
image with a plurality of possible tokens, each being assigned a likelihood
value. The Examiner has only identified likelihood values that relate to parts
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Application 13/162,063
of speech, not a plurality of possible tokens. Ans. 15 (citing Kasravi iii! 27-
31 ). Accordingly, on the record before us we are constrained to reverse the
Examiner's rejection of claim 2 and claim 10, which recites a similar
limitation.
Claims 5 and 13
Claim 5 recites "[t]he method of claim 4, wherein compiled output of
the compiler comprises a VPL graph of the template." Appellants argue the
Examiner erred in rejecting claim 5 because Barkol does not explicitly
mention a compiler. App. Br. 15-16. Appellants also argue Alur does not
mention a compiler. App. Br. 16. The Examiner finds Barkol teaches
software that generates the graph template according to formal graph
grammar rules. Ans. 13 (citing Barkol iJ 13). The Examiner finds this
suggests a compiler and finds an ordinarily skilled artisan would have been
motivated to substitute VPL for the formal graph grammar rules and to
compile VPL in the same manner. Id. Appellants reply that Barkol does not
disclose that the graph is produced by a compiler and argue that the
Examiner's finding is unsupported. Reply Br. 8.
Appellants have not persuaded us that the Examiner erred. As found
by the Examiner, Barkol teaches using formal graph grammar rules to
analyze a GUI and generate a graph template. Ans. 13 (citing Barkol iJ 13).
The Examiner finds, and we agree, that Alur' s VPL may be utilized in place
of the formal graph grammar rules, to teach output comprising a VPL graph
of the template. See Ans. 13. We are not persuaded by Appellants'
arguments that Barkol and Alur do not teach a compiler, as the Examiner
relies on Karavi to teach the compiler limitation (inherited in claim 5 from
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its parent claim 4 ). Final Act. 7. The relevant inquiry is whether the
claimed subject matter would have been obvious to those of ordinary skill in
the art in light of the combined teachings of those references. In re Keller,
642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981). Accordingly, we are not persuaded that
the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 5.
Claims 6 and 14
Claim 6 recites "[t]he method of claim 1, wherein parsing comprises
execution of execution elements of a plurality of coroutines." Appellants
argue the Examiner erred because Barkol defines software to include
routines, but does not teach or suggest any relationship between routines so
as to constitute coroutines. App. Br. 16-17. Appellants argue the
Specification defines "coroutines" and Barkol does not teach or suggest
coroutines as the term is used in the Specification. App. Br. 1 7.
We disagree. The Specification does not define the term "coroutine,"
but the Specification equates coroutines with logical threads. Spec. ,-i 48.
Accordingly, the broadest reasonable interpretation of coroutine includes at
least logical threads. As found by the Examiner, Barkol teaches software
may be embodied in "various forms including routines, algorithms, modules,
methods, threads, and/or programs .... " Ans. 14 (citing Barkol ,-i 27). The
Examiner finds, and we agree, that Barko l's disclosure of "threads" is
consistent with the Specification's usage of logical threads. Ans. 14.
Accordingly, Barkol's disclosure that software used to generate the template
may be comprised of threads teaches or suggests execution of a plurality of
coroutines. We, therefore, are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in
rejecting claim 6.
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CONCLUSIONS
On the record before us and in view of the analysis above, we are not
persuaded by Appellants' contentions that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claim 1. Therefore, we sustain the rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Barkol, Bergman, and Alur. We also sustain
the rejection of claims 5 and 6 for the reasons set forth above. Further, we
sustain the rejections of claims 3, 4, 7-9, and 11-20, which Appellants have
not argued separately. See App. Br. 15-20.
On the record before us and in view of the analysis above, Appellants'
argument has persuaded us that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 2.
Therefore, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 2 and claim 10, which
recites a similar limitation.
DECISION
We affirm the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1, 3-9, and
11-20.
We reverse the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 2 and 10.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § l .136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
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