Ex Parte LI et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 31, 2017

12490054 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 31, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
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APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
12/490,054 06/23/2009 Wen Bing Li CN920080067US1 2735
87048 7590 11/02/2017
TnrHan TP T aw iTRM - SVT T
EXAMINER
12501 Prosperity Dr., Suite 401
Silver Spring, MD 20904
NAZAR, AHAMED I
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2178
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11/02/2017 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
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PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte WEN BING LI, XINGSHENG MAO, LI YI, and KE ZHU
Appeal 2017-003223
Application 12/490,054
Technology Center 2100
Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., JOHN F. HORVATH, and
KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, Administrative Patent Judges.
SZPONDOWSKI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1, 3—5, 7—21, and 24. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
Appeal 2017-003223
Application 12/490,054
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants’ invention is directed to a system and method for creating
an internationalized web application for users using different languages.
Spec. 111, 2. Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the claimed
subject matter:
1. A method for creating an internationalized Web application,
comprising:
loading a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) Web page into
a browser in response to an operation of activating the browser by a
user;
automatically scanning a Document Object Model (DOM) tree
of the HTML Web page to find unmarked contents in the HTML Web
page which meet a predefined criteria that indicates a candidate for
translation in the HTML Web page;
automatically forming visibly marked contents by marking the
unmarked contents which meet the predefined criteria visibly on the
browser in response to finding the unmarked contents in the HTML
Web page via scanning the DOM tree;
collecting information related to selected contents to be
translated corresponding to a selection made by the user from the
visibly marked contents;
extracting the selected contents to be translated from the HTML
Web page according to the collected information and storing the
selected contents to be translated; and
storing translated contents corresponding to the selected
contents to be translated.
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Application 12/490,054
REJECTIONS
Claims 1,3, 8—13, 18—21, and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Chin et al. (US
2008/0195372 Al; published Aug. 14, 2008) (“Chin”), Zhou et al. (US
2004/0267803 Al; published Dec. 30, 2004) (“Zhou”), Zhou et al. (US
2002/0162093 Al; published Oct. 31, 2002) (“Zhou-2”), and Wong (US
7,784,026 Bl; issued Aug. 24, 2010).
Claims 4, 5, 7 and 14—17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over the combination of Chin, Zhou, Zhou-2, and
Andrews et al. (US 2007/0038982 Al; published Feb. 15, 2007)
(“Andrews”).
ANALYSIS
Issue 1: Did the Examiner err in finding the combination of Chin,
Zhou, Zhou-2, and Wong teaches or suggests “automatically scanning a
Document Object Model (DOM) tree of the HTML Web page to find
unmarked contents in the HTML Web page,” as recited in independent claim
1 and commensurately recited in independent claim 11?
Appellants argue:
Zhou merely teaches to use a SAX parser for the XML file 210
or an XML DOM parser for the XML schema definition file 320,
and not to scan a DOM tree of an HIM I, Web page. Moreover,
Zhou merely teaches to identify elements and attributes in the
XML file 310 and not contents in an HIM I, Web page. In this
regard, Appellant notes that HTML is a separate language from
other languages such as XML with its own syntax rules (e.g., tag
requirements, etc.) and language-specific models (e.g., HTML
DOM standard model for HTML documents rather th[a]n XML
DOM standard model for XML documents). See e.g., Zhou-2
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Application 12/490,054
and Wong, supra. Thus, Appellant maintains that the proposed
combination does not teach to scan a DOM tree of an HTML
Web page loaded into a browser, as claimed.
App. Br. 13; see also Reply Br. 5—6.
Appellants further argue:
Additionally, and assuming arguendo that an XML file of Zhou
could or would be loaded into a browser of Chin as Appellee
asserts, an XML DOM parser and/or a DOM of an XML file
would nonetheless be utilized for the XML file to identify
translatable types of elements and attributes, and not a DOM of
an HTML Web page. For example, both Zhou and Wong teach
to use an XML DOM for an XML format. Thus, Appellant
maintains that the proposed combination does not teach to scan
a DOM tree of an HTML Web page loaded into a browser, as
claimed.
App. Br. 13—14; see also Reply Br. 6.
Appellants’ arguments are unpersuasive because they do not
address the combination of references as relied upon by the Examiner,
but rather address Chin, Zhou, and Zhou-2 individually. See Final
Act. 3^4. Nonobviousness “cannot be established by attacking the
references individually” when the rejection is predicated upon a
combination of prior art disclosures. See In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800
F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). The Examiner relies on the
combination of Zhou and Zhou-2 to teach or suggest the disputed
limitation. Final Act. 3^4. The Examiner finds “Zhou-2 processes
source code of a HTML document but Zhou processes a DOM of
XML document.” Final Act. 4.
Zhou describes labeling translatable components of an XML file with
an identifier. Zhou H 38 (“character string “$$$_”), 52 (“translatable”). In
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Application 12/490,054
Zhou, a Document Object Model (DOM) parser “may be used to parse both
the XML file 310 and the XML schema definition file 320.” Zhou | 52.
Zhou states “[a]s will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, a tree
structure formed by the DOM parser from the schema definition file 320
may be used to identify the ‘translatable’ types of elements and attributes.
Upon identification, each ‘translatable’ type of element or attribute may be
translated in situ from the source language ‘&en_US;’ to a selected
destination language.” Zhou 1 52; see also Zhou 140.
Zhou-2 describes a “compilation and translation system for
intemationaliz[ing] an application authored for one locale for use in other
locales.” Zhou-2 Abstract. In Zhou-2, the “system automatically extracts
locale-sensitive content (e.g., language, regional information, slang, cultural
aspects, etc.) from the source code and other locale-independent elements
(e.g., formatting data). The extracted content can then be translated for use
in the other locales.” Zhou-2, Abstract. The compiler in Zhou-2
“implements a set of rules that dictate how an input language (such as
HTML, XML, . . .) shall be localized.” Zhou-2 164 (emphasis added).
Zhou-2 further describes that the compiler “is equipped with a parser ... to
parse the language for the application.” Zhou-2 | 64.
Appellants’ arguments do not persuade us that combining the
teachings of Zhou and Zhou-2 would have been “uniquely challenging or
difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art” nor that it “represented an
unobvious step over the prior art.” Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price,
Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citations omitted). Rather, we
agree with the Examiner that the combination of the foregoing disclosures
teaches or suggests “automatically scanning a Document Object Model
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Application 12/490,054
(DOM) tree of the HTML Web page to find unmarked contents in the
HTML Web page.” Final Act. 3—A\ Ans. 3. We further note that
Appellants’ Specification states “the method for the browser of generating
the DOM tree for the HTML Web page is well known in the art.” Spec. |
30.
Issue 2\ Did the Examiner err in finding the combination of Chin,
Zhou, Zhou-2, and Wong teaches or suggests “marking unmarked contents
visibly on a browser in response to finding the unmarked contents in an
HTML Web page via scanning a DOM tree of the HTML Web page,” as
recited in independent claim 1 and commensurately recited in independent
claim 11?
Appellants argue “although it remains unclear to Appellant what [the
Examiner] asserts is being ‘marked’ or how ‘marking’ occurs in FIGS. 3 A-
3C of Zhou, the value ‘Employees’ in the XML file 310 is nonetheless never
marked in the XML file 310 and/or is identified as ‘translatable’ before
being parsed.” App. Br. 16. Appellants further argue “assuming arguendo
that Zhou automatically forms visibly marked contents by marking
unmarked contents, the contents would not be marked in response to finding
the unmarked contents via scanning a DOM tree,” but rather “provides
information identifying the attribute ‘Description’ as a ‘translatable’ type
before being parsed.” App. Br. 16; see also Reply Br. 7.
We are not persuaded because Appellants do not address the
combination of references as relied upon by the Examiner. Appellants do
not explicitly define unmarked or marked in the Specification, nor do
Appellants offer a definition in the briefs. Appellants provide examples of
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marking in the Specification, for example, “the contents can be visibly
marked by highlighting the contents or changing the colors thereof, so that
the contents are easily noticed by the developer.” Spec. 1 57. As the
Examiner points out, Wong describes “HTML is a tag-based, format-related
language, meaning that specialized tags are used to ‘mark up’ or format the
content of the web pages (e.g., ‘ This text is bold.’ would trigger the
browser to format the enclosed text in bold-face type).” See Ans. 4, (citing
Wong, col. 1,11. 23—26). Such marking is consistent with the examples of
marking provided in Appellants’ Specification. The Examiner finds “[a]
browser may detect formatting tags to format translatable elements.” Ans. 4.
We agree with the Examiner that the teachings in Wong, as combined
with the teachings in Chin, Zhou, and Zhou-2, teach or suggest the disputed
limitation. See Final Act. 3—6; Ans. 2-4. Moreover, we find the Examiner
has articulated adequate reasoning, including rational underpinnings drawn
from the cited references, for the combination, consistent with the guidelines
stated inKSRInt’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 420-421 (2007),
which Appellants have not persuasively rebutted. See Ans. 4, citing Wong’s
Background (“Chin and Zhou may be modified by Wong such that the user
interface of Zhou may be a browser that would read the formatting tags
provided by the schema definition file as input to identify translatable
elements in the XML file because it would be desirable to visually indicate
to a human translator which portion(s) of the document need translation
since translators usually charge based on the number of words translated”).
Further, Appellants have not provided evidence that combining such
teachings was “uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in
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Application 12/490,054
the art,” or that such a combination “represented an unobvious step over the
prior art.” Leapfrog, 485 F.3d at 1162.
Accordingly, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting
independent claims 1 and 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Appellants do not
separately argue the dependent claims (App. Br. 17) so we, therefore, sustain
the Examiner’s rejection of those claims for the same reasons.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 3—5, 7—21, and 24.
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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