Ex Parte Meunier

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 29, 2018

14244385 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 29, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/244,385 04/03/2014
62095 7590 03/29/2018
FAY SHARPE I XEROX - ROCHESTER
1228 EUCLID A VENUE, 5TH FLOOR
THE HALLE BUILDING
CLEVELAND, OH 44115
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Jean-Luc Meunier
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.
20131832US01-XER3131US01 8981
EXAMINER
JACKSON, JAKIEDA R
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2657
MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE
03/29/2018 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JEAN-LUC MEUNIER
Appeal2017-006549
Application 14/244,3 85 1
Technology Center 2600
Before MARC S. HOFF, SCOTT B. HOWARD, and ALEX S. YAP,
Administrative Patent Judges.
HOFF, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a Final Rejection of
claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Appellant's' invention is a method for predicting the translation
quality of a document. A plurality of input sentences are translated from a
source language to a target language using statistical machine translation.
The translation quality of the translated document is predicted based on the
translation quality estimate for each of the sentences and on parameters of a
1 The real party in interest is Xerox Corporation.
Appeal2017-006549
Application 14/244,385
model learned using translation quality estimates for sentences of training
documents and respective manually-applied translation quality values. See
Abstract.
Claim 1 is reproduced below:
1. A method for predicting the translation quality of a document
compnsmg:
with a statistical machine translation component, translating a
plurality of sentences of an input document from a source language to a
target language;
receiving a respective translation quality estimate for each of the
plurality of sentences of the input document which have been translated
from a source language to a target language; and
with a processor, predicting the translation quality of the translated
input document based on the translation quality estimate for each of the
sentences and parameters of a model learned using translation quality
estimates for sentences of training documents and respective manually-
applied translation quality values, wherein the predicting includes computing
a generalized mean function which aggregates the translation quality
estimate of each of the sentences of the document and wherein the model
parameters include parameters for mapping translation quality estimates to
respective weights to be applied to the translation quality estimates in
computing the generalized mean function.
Claims 1-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to
non-statutory subject matter.
Throughout this decision, we make reference to the Substitute Brief
on Appeal ("App. Br.," filed Nov. 28, 2016), the Reply Brief ("Reply Br.,"
filed Mar. 15, 2017), and the Examiner's Answer ("Ans.," mailed Feb. 24,
2017) for their respective details.
ISSUE
Does Appellant claim an invention that is patent-eligible under 35
U.S.C. § 101?
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Application 14/244,385
The Supreme Court
PRINCIPLES OF LAW
set forth a framework for distinguishing patents that claim laws
of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas from those that
claim patent-eligible applications of those concepts. First, []
determine whether the claims at issue are directed to one of
those patent-ineligible concepts. [] If so, we then ask, "[ w ]hat
else is there in the claims before us? [] To answer that question,
[] consider the elements of each claim both individually and "as
an ordered combination" to determine whether the additional
elements "transform the nature of the claim" into a patent-
eligible application. [The Court] described step two of this
analysis as a search for an "'inventive concept"'-i.e., an
element or combination of elements that is "sufficient to ensure
that the patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a
patent upon the [ineligible concept] itself.
Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v CLS Banklnt'l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2355 (2014)
(citing Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66
(2012)).
ANALYSIS
We are not persuaded by Appellant's argument that the claims do not
recite a judicial exception. See App. Br. 7-9. We agree with the Examiner
that, applying step one of the Alice analysis, the claims recite a patent-
ineligible concept, to wit, the abstract idea of predicting the translation
quality of a document, including performing translations of a plurality of
sentences from a source language to a target language. Final Act. 4. We
further agree with the Examiner that the claims also recite a mathematical
calculation of the quality of the translation, and a mathematical aggregation
of the translation quality scores for the plurality of sentences. Final Act. 4--5.
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Application 14/244,385
We do not agree with Appellant that "a user cannot perform statistical
machine translation in the head or even with pen and paper," because it
"requires the storage of vast amounts of statistics" and "complex
aggregation of these statistics." App. Br. 8-9. While it would surely take
longer for a human translator to perform the machine translation steps, we
find that it remains a method that a human being is capable of performing.
We are not persuaded by Appellant's analogy of the claims under
appeal to those in Enfzsh, LLC v. Microsoft Corp., 822 F.3d 1327 (Fed. Cir.
2016). App. Br. 12. The Enfzsh court held that the invention, a self-
referential table for a computer database, constituted a "specific
improvement to the way computers operate." Enfzsh, 822 F.3d at 1336.
Appellant's invention recites no such improvement to the operation of
computers, but rather merely assess the quality of a machine translation of a
document.
We agree with the Examiner's analogy of the claimed invention to the
invention recited in Electric Power Group, LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d
1350 (Fed. Cir. 2016). The claims under appeal focus on collecting
information (translated sentences and estimated translation quality of each
sentence), analyzing information (computing a generalized mean function
that aggregates the translation quality estimates), and, presumably,
displaying or outputting the computed generalized mean function. See Ans.
5. As in Electric Power Group, the claims are directed to a process of
gathering and analyzing information of a specified content, then displaying
the results, rather than any particular inventive technology for performing
those functions. Id. Nothing in the claims, understood in light of the
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Application 14/244,385
specification, requires anything other than convention computer, network,
and display technology.
Turning to step two of the Alice analysis, we are not persuaded that
the claimed invention contains an inventive concept sufficient to transform
the claimed abstract idea into a patent-eligible application. See Alice, 134 S.
Ct. at 2351. Appellant's citation of Diehr and Flook is instructive in this
context. See App. Br. 11. The claimed invention recites translating a
plurality of sentences of an input document from a source language to a
target language, receiving a respective translation quality estimate for each
translated sentence, and aggregating those estimates into an overall predicted
translation quality. The claims do not, however, recite any further inventive
concept that would transform the abstract ideas of translating sentences, and
estimating the quality of said translation, into something patent-eligible.
Unlike Diehr, there is no action taken in the physical world such as the
opening of a rubber mold at the appropriate time. See Diamond v. Diehr, 450
U.S. 175 (1981). The invention of Flook, which used a mathematical
formula to adjust alarm limits for certain operating conditions that could
signal inefficiency or danger, was similarly held to be ineligible for lack of
such a physical transformation, or for merely limiting the use of an abstract
idea to a particular technological environment. See Parker v. Flook, 437
U.S. 584 (1978). Appellant has not demonstrated that the steps of
performing machine translation and predicting translation quality improve
the functioning of the computer itself.
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Application 14/244,385
CONCLUSION
Appellant does not claim an invention that is patent-eligible under 35
U.S.C. § 101.
ORDER
The Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-20 is affirmed.
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 ).
AFFIRMED
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