Ex Parte Marappan et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Mar 27, 2012

10942429 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 27, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte KUMAR MARAPPAN, KANMANI NACHIMUTHU, and
LAKSHMI POTLURI
____________
Appeal 2009-015138
Application 10/942,429
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, KRISTEN L. DROESCH, and
MICHAEL R. ZECHER, Administrative Patent Judges.

ZECHER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
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I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) (2002) from the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1, 4-7, and 25. Claims 2, 3, and 8-24
have been cancelled. App. Br. 4. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b) (2008).
We affirm.
Appellants’ Invention
Appellants invented a method for automatically filling in multiple
fields of a web page from a text file in response to a single action selection
by a user. Spec. ¶ [0007].
Illustrative Claim
1. A computer-implemented method for
automatically filling in a plurality of fields of a web page, said
method comprising:

responsive to a user selection to copy a plurality of lines
of text within a text editor into a local memory, enabling an
option for said user to make a single action selection to fill in a
plurality of fields within a web page from said local memory;

responsive to said user selecting said single action
selection to fill in said plurality of fields within said web page,
wherein each of said plurality of fields is associated with one
from among a plurality of field descriptors within a source code
for said web page, scanning a plurality of lines of text copied
into said local memory from said text editor to identify a
plurality of text tags matching said plurality of field descriptors
and detecting a position of a pointer in proximity to a closest
field from among said plurality of fields within a display area of
said web page; and

automatically filling in only said closest field and a
selection of said plurality of fields following said closest field
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within said display area of said web page with a plurality of
values from said plurality of lines of text, wherein each of said
plurality of values from said plurality of lines of text is
associated with one from among a plurality of text tags
matching each of said plurality of field descriptors associated
with said plurality of fields, such that only said single action by
said user is required for said plurality of fields within said web
page to be automatically filled in.

Prior Art Relied Upon
Rawat US 2002/0156846 A1 Oct. 24, 2002
Hamada US 2004/0010755 A1 Jan. 15, 2004

Rejection on Appeal
Claims 1, 4-7, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Rawat and Hamada. Ans. 3-10.
Examiner’s Findings and Conclusions
The Examiner finds that Rawat discloses an automated, client-based
form filler that maps fields of an electronic form by parsing user-visible field
labels and populates such labels with the appropriate user data, and Hamada
discloses editing structured documents such as Extensible Markup Language
(“XML”) and Hypertext Mark-up Language (“HTML”) documents. The
Examiner finds that the combination of Rawat and Hamada teaches or
suggests “responsive to a user selection to copy a plurality of lines of text
within a text editor into a local memory, enabling an option for said user to
make a single action selection to fill in a plurality of fields within a web
page from said local memory,” as recited in independent claim 1. Ans. 4, 6,
12-14, and 18-19. Further, the Examiner finds that Rawat’s disclosure of
analyzing text expressions in adjacent table cells and comparing the
analyzed text expressions with entries in a field label dictionary to find the
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closest match, teaches or suggests “detecting a position of a pointer in
proximity to a closest field from among said plurality of fields within a
display area of said web page,” as claimed. Ans. 7-8 and 14-15.
Additionally, the Examiner finds that Rawat’s disclosure of
automatically filling out electronic forms by identifying the fields of an
HTML form and mapping to the correct metadata teaches or suggests
“automatically filling in only said closest field and a selection of said
plurality of fields following said closest field within said display area of said
web page with a plurality of values from said plurality of lines of text,” as
claimed. Ans. 8-9 and 15-18. Finally, the Examiner determines that there is
a sufficient rationale to combine Rawat and Hamada. Ans. 4-5 and 20.
Appellants’ Contentions
Appellants contend that since the Examiner indicates that Rawat
teaches or suggests all the claim elements of independent claim 1, with the
exception of “text within a text editor which is copied” and “edit user
information is accomplished using generic edit function program as through
which type of editor,” the Examiner improperly distills independent claim 1
down to the “gist” of the claimed invention. App. Br. 14; see also Reply Br.
3. Appellants also argue that the Examiner improperly distills the claimed
invention down to a “single action,” rather than considering the claim
elements as a whole. Reply Br. 2. Therefore, Appellants allege that the
combination of Rawat and Hamada does not teach or suggest “responsive to
a user selection to copy a plurality of lines of text within a text editor into a
local memory, enabling an option for said user to make a single action
selection to fill in a plurality of fields within a web page from said local
memory,” as claimed. App. Br. 14-16; Reply Br. 4.
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Further, Appellants contend that Rawat’s disclosure of analyzing text
expressions within a web page to identify potential visible field labels does
not teach or suggest “detecting a position of a pointer in proximity to a
closest field from among said plurality of fields within a display area of said
web page,” as claimed. App. Br. 18-19; Reply Br. 5-6. In particular,
Appellants argue that since the present Specification discloses positioning a
pointer within a web browser interface using a mouse or other input device,
the Examiner improperly construed the claim term “a pointer” as text within
a web page. App. Br. 19; Reply Br. 6. Appellants also allege that Rawat
does not explicitly recite “a pointer” and that Examiner has not identified
which element of Rawat teaches or suggests the claimed “pointer.” Reply
Br. 6. Instead, Appellants contend that the Examiner only points to Rawat’s
disclosure of analyzing text expressions closest to a field, without indicating
whether such text expressions amount to the claimed “pointer.” Reply Br. 6-
7.
Additionally, Appellants argue that Rawat’s disclosure of identifying
and labeling unmapped fields does not teach or suggest “automatically
filling in only said closest field and a selection of said plurality of fields
following said closest field within said display area of said web page with a
plurality of values from said plurality of lines of text,” as claimed. App. Br.
20-21. Finally, Appellants contend that the Examiner’s rationale to combine
Rawat and Hamada amounts to a mere conclusory statement and, therefore,
does not support a legal conclusion of obviousness. App. Br. 16-18.

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II. ISSUE
Did the Examiner err in concluding that the combination of Rawat and
Hamada renders independent claim 1 unpatentable? In particular, the issue
turns on whether:
(a) the proffered combination teaches or suggests “responsive to a
user selection to copy a plurality of lines of text within a text editor into a
local memory, enabling an option for said user to make a single action
selection to fill in a plurality of fields within a web page from said local
memory,” as recited in independent claim 1;
(b) the proffered combination teaches or suggests “detecting a
position of a pointer in proximity to a closest field from among said plurality
of fields within a display area of said web page,” as recited in independent
claim 1;
(c) the proffered combination teaches or suggests “automatically
filling in only said closest field and a selection of said plurality of fields
following said closest field within said display area of said web page with a
plurality of values from said plurality of lines of text,” as recited in
independent claim 1; and
(d) the Examine provides a sufficient rationale to combine Rawat
and Hamada.

III. FINDINGS OF FACT (“FF”)
Rawat
FF 1. Rawat discloses an intelligent form-filler that does not require
any prior mapping or examination of the forms. In particular, Rawat
discloses a client-side program code integrated within a conventional web
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browser that examines web pages, and automatically populates the fields
contained within each web page with the appropriate data from a user
profile. See ¶¶ [0006] and [0015].
FF 2. Rawat’s figure 3 illustrates a client-based system for filling out
electronic forms that includes a client (301), in communication with a
network (307), which retrieves an HTML page containing a web form (308)
from a remote site on the network (307). ¶¶ [0018] and [0022]. Rawat
discloses that the client (301) contains logic (303) that implements a
probabilistic, rule-based method of analyzing the retrieved form in separate
steps. In particular, Rawat discloses that the logic traverses the form from
beginning to end, locating the field labels, associating the field labels with a
field, and mapping the field to the correct metadata based on the best match
from a field label dictionary (304). ¶ [0023]. After completely mapping the
visible elements of the form, Rawat discloses retrieving the correct user data
from a user profile (302) stored on the client (301), concatenating,
truncating, or re-formatting the data as required by the display format, and
populating the form fields with the appropriate data. ¶ [0024].
FF 3. Rawat’s figure 4 illustrates a client-based method for filling out
electronic forms that involves the following steps, each of which are
accomplished in a single traversal of the form elements: 1) field discovery
(401); 2) field normalization (402); and 3) display format mapping (403).
¶¶ [0019] and [0038-0041]. Rawat discloses a number of rule-based
approaches to the field label analysis, including: 1) analyzing text
expressions that occur within a predetermined number of word, direction,
and distances from the field; and 2) based on page coordinates, examining
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the general vicinity of the form in all directions from the field and analyzing
the text expressions closest to the field. ¶¶ [0042] and [0044-0045].

IV. ANALYSIS
Claim 1
We do not find error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of
independent claim 1. Independent claim 1 recites, inter alia:
[1)] responsive to a user selection to copy a plurality of lines of
text within a text editor into a local memory, enabling an option
for said user to make a single action selection to fill in a
plurality of fields within a web page from said local memory;
[2)] [. . .] detecting a position of a pointer in proximity to a
closest field from among said plurality of fields within a display
area of said web page; and [3)] automatically filling in only said
closest field and a selection of said plurality of fields following
said closest field within said display area of said web page with
a plurality of values from said plurality of lines of text [. . .].

We begin our analysis by noting that the Examiner satisfies the
burden of establishing a prima facie case of obviousness with respect to
independent claim 1. See Ans. 3-9. That is, the Examiner finds a textual
portion of Rawat or Hamada’s disclosure that teaches or suggests each of the
disputed claimed limitation (see Ans. 5-9), and an articulated reasoning with
some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obvious (see
Ans. 4-5.) In response, Appellants reiterate the textual portions of Rawat
and Hamada relied upon by the Examiner to teach or suggest each of the
disputed claim limitations (see App. Br. 12-13, 18, and 20), generally allege
that the Final Rejection fails to provide a clear articulation of the reasons
why each disputed claim limitation would have been obvious in view of the
proffered combination (see App. Br. 14-16 and 18-21), and assert that the
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rationale provided by the Examiner to combine Rawat and Hamada amounts
to a mere conclusory statement (see App. Br. 16-18.).
Since Appellants fail to provide any substantive arguments explaining
with sufficient specificity why the Examiner’s explicit fact finding is in
error, or why the rationale provided by the Examiner is insufficient to
combine Rawat and Hamada, we find that the weight of the evidence favors
the Examiner’s position. Put another way, we find that Appellants have not
shown reversible error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of
independent claim 1. See In re Jung, 637 F.3d 1356, 1365-66 (Fed.
Cir. 2011).
Nonetheless, we highlight specific findings and arguments regarding
the disputed claim limitations as follows. We agree with the Examiner that
Rawat discloses an intelligent form-filler that uses client-side program code
integrated into a web browser to examine the fields within a web page, and
automatically populates the fields with the appropriated data retrieved from
a user profile. Ans. 12-13; see also FFs 1 and 2. In particular, we find that
an ordinarily skilled artisan would have recognized that the function of
automatically populating the fields within a web page necessarily
encompasses at least some sort of trigger or user action, such as a single
request by a user to copy lines of text from the user profile into the
corresponding fields within the web page. Moreover, Appellants have not
provided a reasoned explanation indicating why automatically populating
the fields within a web page in response to a single request by a user would
have been uniquely challenging or otherwise beyond the level of an
ordinarily skilled artisan. See Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc.,
485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007). Therefore, we find that Rawat
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teaches or suggests “responsive to a user selection to copy a plurality of lines
of text within a text editor into a local memory, enabling an option for said
user to make a single action selection to fill in a plurality of fields within a
web page from said local memory,” as recited in independent claim 1.
Next, we agree with the Examiner that Rawat discloses populating a
form embodied in the web page via a single traversal of all the elements
contained therein. Ans. 14-15; see also FF 3. In particular, we note that
Rawat discloses a number of rule-based approaches to analyze text-based
expressions contained within the form, including: 1) analyzing text
expressions that occur within a predetermined number of words from a
selected field; and 2) with respect to a selected field, analyzing the text
expressions in the general vicinity. Id. We note that each of these examples
is premised on the selection of a field. With this in mind, we find that an
ordinarily skilled artisan would have recognized that the selection of a field
necessarily encompasses using a mouse or other input device to position a
pointer in close proximity to the desired field within the display area of the
form. Thus, we find that Rawat teaches or suggests “detecting a position of
a pointer in proximity to a closest field from among said plurality of fields
within a display area of said web page,” as recited in independent claim 1.
In light of our analysis supra, we find that an ordinarily skilled artisan
would have understood that Rawat’s disclosure of automatically populating
the fields within a web page using information retrieved from a user profile
(see FFs 1 and 2), in conjunction with using a mouse or other input device to
position a pointer in close proximity to a desired field (see FF 3), teaches or
fairly suggests automatically populating the closest field to the pointer, in
addition to a selected number of fields within the general vicinity, with
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information retrieved from the user profile. Thus, we find that Rawat
teaches or suggests “automatically filling in only said closest field and a
selection of said plurality of fields following said closest field within said
display area of said web page with a plurality of values from said plurality of
lines of text [. . .],” as recited in independent claim 1.
Rationale to Combine
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument that that the
Examiner’s rationale to combine Rawat and Hamada amounts to a mere
conclusory statement and, therefore, does not support a legal conclusion of
obviousness. App. Br. 16-18. The U.S. Supreme Court instructs that:
“[[r]]ejections on obviousness grounds cannot be sustained by
mere conclusory statements; instead, there must be some
articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to
support the legal conclusion of obviousness” […] however, the
analysis need not seek out precise teachings directed to the
specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for a court can
take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person
of ordinary skill in the art would employ.

KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007)(citation omitted).
Moreover, while it is often necessary for an Examiner to identify a
reason for combining the familiar elements obtained from the prior art in
establishing a prima facie case of obviousness, the identification of such a
reason is not a sine qua non requirement. See KSR, 550 U.S. at 418-19. So
long as the Examiner provides an articulated reasoning with some kind of a
rational underpinning to substantiate the obviousness rejection, such a
conclusion is proper. See id. at 418. In this case, the Examiner provided
more than just a mere conclusory statement. The Examiner states that it
would have been obvious to an ordinarily skilled artisan at the time of the
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claimed invention to combine Rawat with Hamada in order to “efficiently
utilize resources by virtue of dynamic aggregation of web pages and
efficiently provid[e] editing functions services to the client for the web
pages.” Ans. 4-5. In our view, such a statement suffices as an articulated
reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the proffered
combination. It follows that the Examiner has not erred in concluding that
the combination of Rawat and Hamada renders independent claim 1
unpatentable.
Claims 4-7
Appellants do not provide separate and distinct arguments for
patentability with respect to dependent 4-7. See App. Br. 22; Reply Br. 7.
Therefore, we select independent claim 1 as representative of these
aforementioned claims. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). Consequently, we
find that the Examiner has not erred in rejecting dependent claims 4-7 for the
same reasons set forth in our discussion of independent claim 1.
Claim 25
Appellants offer the same arguments set forth in response to the
obviousness rejection of independent claim 1 to rebut the obviousness
rejection of independent claim 25. See App. Br. 23-27. We have already
addressed these arguments in our discussion of independent claim 1, and we
found them unpersuasive. It follows that the Examiner has not erred in
concluding that the combination of Rawat and Hamada renders independent
claim 25 unpatentable.

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V. CONCLUSION
The Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 1, 4-7, and 25 as being
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

VI. DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 4-7, and 25.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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