Ex Parte Martino et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 16, 2018

12072454 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 16, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/072,454 02/26/2008 Paul Martino
30554 7590 03/20/2018
MAHAMEDI IP LAW LLP
1901 S. Bascom Ave.
Suite 600
Campbell, CA 95008
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.
AGGK.Pl04 4199
EXAMINER
PHAN, TUANKHANH D
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2154
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/20/2018 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):
uspto@m-iplaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Exparte PAUL MARTINO, GIAN-PAOLO MUSUMECI, and
KRISTOPHER C. WEHNER 1
Appeal2017-007306
Application 12/072,454
Technology Center 2100
Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, JEFFREYS. SMITH, and
MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judges.
THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1--4 and 6-23, all the pending claims
in the present application. Claim 5 is canceled. See Claims Appendix. We
have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We AFFIRM.
The present invention relates generally to maintaining metadata
correctness for a set of objects subscribing to a web service. See Spec. i-f 3.
1 Appellants name Aggregate Knowledge as the real party in interest
(App. Br. 3).
Appeal2017-007306
Application 12/072,454
Claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A method comprising:
a relationship server receiving a discovery service
request from a client computer;
the relationship server comparing metadata
provided in the discovery service request against a database;
a crawler retrieving updated product information
corresponding to the metadata from a commerce server if the
metadata provided in the discovery service request does not
match the metadata stored in a column of the database; and
the relationship server returning a list of product
recommendations to the client computer.
Appellants appeal the following rejections:
RI. Claims 1 and 8-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Haitsma (US 2005/0144455 Al, June 30, 2005) and
Dalzell (US 2003/0204447 Al, Oct. 30, 2003); and
R2. Claims 2--4, 6, 7, and 17-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Haitsma, Dalzell, and Fischer (US
2007/0118572 Al, May 24, 2007).
We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues
identified by Appellants, and in light of the arguments and evidence
produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010)
(precedential).
ANALYSIS
Issue: Did the Examiner err in finding that Haitsma and Dalzell
collectively teach or suggest metadata provided in the discovery service
request, as set forth in claim 1?
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Appeal2017-007306
Application 12/072,454
Appellants contend that "[i]n Haitsma, metadata is returned, or
produced, as a consequence of performing a search" (App. Br. 7), "because
Haitsma does not include metadata in a discovery service request" (id. at 8).
For example, Haitsma discloses:
Suppose a person hears a song and wants to know metadata
such as title and artist for the song. . .. Using this connection
the user then uses his phone's microphone to pick up the song
so that the server on the other end can hear it. The server then
computes a fingerprint for the song, and performs a database
lookup to obtain the metadata associated with the fingerprint.
The server then sends a message with the metadata to the user's
mobile phone, e.g. via SMS.
(i-f 11; see also i14).
In other words, Haitsma discloses sending an audio clip, i.e., a song,
from the client to the server, whereby the server computes a fingerprint for
the song and using the fingerprint performs a database search to obtain
metadata. Thus, it is clear that Haitsma is concerned with metadata
retrieval, rather than sending metadata in a request, as required by the claim.
However, the Examiner further finds in the Answer that "both
Haitsma and Dalzell disclose capability to use at least a metadata to request
for matching result [sic]" (Ans. 2-3) (emphasis added) such as "a request
form user [sic] device to identify a particular product, by its ASIN or other
product ID" (id. at 3). Specifically, the Examiner finds that Dalzell teaches
that "the metadata server performs ... [a] search [of] its own product listing
database 562 to determine whether any marketplace listings exist for the
product" (i-f 180) and that "the web server 540 receives a page request that
identifies a particular product (e.g., by its ASIN or other product ID)"
(i-f 134). In other words, Dalzell discloses a request containing a product ID,
i.e., a request containing metadata.
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Appeal2017-007306
Application 12/072,454
Thus, we find unavailing Appellants' contention that "a product ID or
ASIN as disclosed in Dalzell cannot reasonably be construed as metadata"
(Reply Br. 4 ), particularly given Appellants' definition of metadata as "data
that is used to supplement other data ... [and] [e]xamples of data or objects
include products" (Spec. i-f 4). Consistent with Appellants' Specification, we
find that a product ID is metadata that is used to supplement a product.
Therefore, even if Haitsma does not teach metadata provided in the request,
we agree with the Examiner that Dalzell does indeed teach this feature.
Appellants have not demonstrated error in the Examiner's combination of
the references to form the claimed invention.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1.
Appellants' arguments regarding the Examiner's rejection of independent
claims 9, 13, and 16 rely on the same arguments as for claim 1, and
Appellants do not argue separate patentability for the dependent claims. See
App. Br. 7-12. We, therefore, also sustain the Examiner's rejections of
claims 2--4 and 6-23.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's § 103(a) rejections.
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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