Ex Parte Mojsilovic

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 11, 2013

11689490 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 11, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
11/689,490 03/21/2007 Aleksandra Mojsilovic YOR920060756US1 1982
48150 7590 06/12/2013
MCGINN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW GROUP, PLLC
8321 OLD COURTHOUSE ROAD
SUITE 200
VIENNA, VA 22182-3817
EXAMINER
SHANMUGASUNDARAM, KANNAN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2158
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/12/2013 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 ALEKSANDRA MOJSILOVIC
____________

Appeal 2011-001876
Application 11/689,490
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before JEFFERY S. SMITH, BRUCE R. WINSOR, and
MIRIAM L. QUINN, Administrative Patent Judges.

QUINN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2011-001876
Application 11/689,490

2

Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) (2002) from a rejection of
claims 1 and 3-21. Claim 2 has been cancelled. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The invention relates to representing time sequences for such
purposes as recognition, analysis, comparison, and relationship discovery.
Spec. 1, ll. 11-12.
1
According to Appellant, “a perpetual skeleton is derived
by determining the perceptually important points (PIPs), as being points of
any number of different orders of maxima, to provide a method to measure
such time sequences, including similarity between two different sequences.”
Id. at ll. 12-16. Details of the appealed subject matter, with disputed claim
language emphasized, are recited in independent claims 1 and 12,
reproduced below from the Claims Appendix of the Appeal Brief:
2

1. A computer configured to execute a process of quantifying an
ordered sequence of data, said computer comprising:
a data receiver to receive data of said ordered sequence; and
a calculator to determine a skeleton of said ordered
sequence,

1
References to Appellant’s Specification (“Spec.”) are directed to the
Specification filed on March 21, 2007.
2
References to the Appeal Brief (“App. Br.”) are directed to Appellant’s
Appeal Brief filed on May 13, 2010, and references to the Reply Brief
(“Reply Br.”) are directed to the Reply Brief filed on September 7, 2010.
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Application 11/689,490

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wherein said skeleton comprises a plurality of perceptually
important points (PIPs) of said ordered sequence, and
wherein said ordered sequence is multivariate.
12. A computerized method of quantifying a multivariate ordered
sequence of data, said method comprising:
receiving data of said multivariate ordered sequence; and
determining a skeleton of said multivariate ordered
sequence,
wherein said skeleton comprises a plurality of
perceptually important points (PIPs) of said multivariate
ordered sequence, as derived by determining one or more
points of local maxima of said data over said multivariate
ordered sequence.

As evidence of unpatentability of the claimed subject matter, the
Examiner relies on the following references at pages 3 to 15 of the Answer:
3

Hoffberg US 2002/0151992 A1 Oct. 17, 2002
Peter Rogelj and Stanislav Kovacic, Local Similarity Measures for
Multimodal Image Matching, IMAGE AND SIGNAL PROCESSING ANALYSIS,
2000 – PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON IMAGE
AND SIGNAL PROCESSING AND ANALYSIS, 81-86 (June 14-15, 2000),
available at ieeexplore.ieee.org (Digital Object Identifier:
10.1109/ISPA.2000.914895) [hereinafter “Rogelj”].
Tak-chung Fu, Fu-lai Chung, Robert Luk, and Chak-man Ng, Financial
Time Series Indexing Based on Low Resolution Clustering, PROCEEDINGS OF
THE IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DATA MINING WORKSHOP ON
TEMPORAL DATA MINING: ALGORITHMS, THEORY AND APPLICATIONS (Nov.

3
References to the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”) are directed to the Answer
mailed on July 30, 2010.
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Application 11/689,490

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2004), available at citeseerx.ist.psu.edu (Identifier: 10.1.1.91.3681)
[hereinafter “Fu”].
The Examiner provides the following grounds of rejection, of which
Appellant seeks review:
(1) Claims 1, 3-6, 8, 12-16, and 18-21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Fu and Hoffberg (Ans. 3-12); and
(2) Claims 7, 9-11, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Fu, Hoffberg, and Rogelj (Ans. 13-15).
4

ISSUES
Based on Appellant’s arguments, the dispositive issues on appeal are:
(a) Whether the Examiner erred in rejecting the independent claims as
obvious in view of Fu and Hoffberg because the combination fails to
teach a multivariate ordered sequence (App. Br. 6-10); and
(b) Whether the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claims 12 and
20, and dependent claim 21, because Fu does not disclose
“determining one or more local points of local maxima of said data”
(App. Br. 11-12).

4
In the event of further prosecution, we leave it to the Examiner to evaluate
whether claims 1, 12, and 20 fall under non-statutory subject matter under
35 U.S.C. § 101 and under the guidance of Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S.
63, 70 (1972), and in particular, whether the claims are directed to a
computer-aided process that comprises, essentially, a mathematical
algorithm. See MPEP §2106.
Appeal 2011-001876
Application 11/689,490

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ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellant’s
contention. Further, we have reviewed the Examiner’s response to
Appellant’s arguments. Appellant did not argue separate patentability of the
dependent claims 3-11 and 13-19. Therefore, except for our ultimate
decision, these claims are not discussed further herein.
We have considered all of Appellant’s contentions and arguments
(App. Br. 6-12; Reply Br. 1-3) in light of the Examiner’s findings (Ans. 3-
15) and explanations in response to Appellant’s arguments (Ans. 15-29).
We agree with the Examiner’s findings and explanations (Ans. 3-29) and
adopt them as our own. The following findings, conclusions, and
explanations are provided for emphasis.
MULTIVARIATE ORDERED SEQUENCE ISSUE
Appellant raises numerous contentions regarding error in the
Examiner’s conclusion that the combination of Fu and Hoffberg teaches or
suggests the “multivariate” ordered sequence limitation recited in
independent claims 1, 12, and 20. App. Br. 6-10. We do not agree with
Appellant’s contentions. We concur instead with the Examiner’s findings
and conclusions that Fu and Hoffberg teach or suggest the multivariate
ordered sequence and that, at the time of the invention, it would have been
obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to apply the technique for
determining PIPs to the multivariate inputs disclosed in Hoffman for pattern
recognition. Ans. 4-5, 16-26. Adopting said findings and conclusions as our
own, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred.
Appeal 2011-001876
Application 11/689,490

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DETERMINATION OF LOCAL MAXIMA ISSUE
Next Appellant contends that the Examiner erred in finding that Fu
teaches the limitation of “determining one or more local points of local
maxima of said data.” App. Br. 11-12. In particular, Appellant argues that
the Examiner confused the plain meaning of “local maxima” and “maximum
distance” and that the former is irrelevant to the latter. App. Br. 11. We do
not agree with Appellant’s contentions.
The Examiner correctly finds that Fu discloses determining PIPs by
identifying the point in P with the maximum distance to the first two PIPs.
Ans. 26 (citing paragraph 4 of page 3 of Fu). We concur with the
Examiner’s conclusion that Fu’s determination of the maximum distance and
the claimed “determination of one or more points of local maxima” are the
same. Ans. 27. We further note that Fu’s use of the term “minimum
distance” falls under the scope of the claimed “local maxima” as Fu
describes that the distance measurement is the vertical distance between a
test point p3 and the line connecting the two adjacent PIPs such that the
locally extreme points would be considered as PIPs. Fu, 3, ¶ 5. As such, we
find no error in the Examiner’s conclusion that Fu teaches the disputed
limitation, and adopt as our own the Examiner’s findings and conclusions
(Ans. 7-8, 11-12, and 26-27).
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Application 11/689,490

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CONCLUSION
Because we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s findings and
conclusions regarding the combination of Fu and Hoffberg teaching the
disputed limitations, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claims 1, 12, and 20 under 25 U.S.C. § 103(a). Further, we group dependent
claims 3-11, 13-19, and 21with independent claims 1 and 12. See 37
C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2011).
DECISION
We AFFIRM the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1-21.
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) (2011).

AFFIRMED

ELD