Ex Parte Nordstrom

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 20, 2017

13646644 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 20, 2017)

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.
13/646,644 10/05/2012 Paul NORDSTROM 090364-0098 8999
10996 7590 04/24/2017
McDermott Will & Emery LLP (Google)
The McDermott Building
500 North Capitol St., N.W.
Washington, DC 20001
EXAMINER
LU, HUA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2171
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/24/2017 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):
mweipdocket @ mwe. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte PAUL NORDSTROM
Appeal 2015-004583
Application 13/646,644
Technology Center 2100
Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1—3, 5—13, and 15—20. Claims 4 and 14
have been canceled. See App. Br. 17, 19 (Claims App’x). We have
jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
Appeal 2015-004583
Application 13/646,644
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant’s Invention
Appellant’s invention generally relates to methods for selecting
displayed content. Spec., Abstract. While receiving a selection request for
content displayed on a device, a prediction is made regarding content
intended to be selected based on at least one of a visual cue, a historic cue, a
semantic term, or a user habit and the predicted content is selected. Id. For
example, a user wanting to select a paragraph of text on a web page inputs a
selection request by drawing a line around the paragraph of text. Spec. 115.
After the user has input an initial portion of the line, a prediction is made
that the user intends to select the paragraph of text based on white space
surrounding the text of the paragraph (e.g., a visual cue (Spec. 114)) and a
selection of that paragraph by another user (e.g., a historic cue (Spec. 114)).
Spec. 115. A remaining portion of the line is drawn around the paragraph
and the text is selected. Id. Claim 1, which is illustrative, reads as follows:
1. A computer-implemented method for selecting displayed
content, the method comprising:
receiving a selection request for content displayed on a
device;
predicting, while receiving the selection request, content
intended to be selected based on a semantic term comprising at
least one identifier for an entity identifiable from the content
displayed on the device, and at least one of a visual cue, historic
cue, or user habit; and
selecting the predicted content displayed on the device,
wherein the entity is identified as a specific person,
specific place, or specific physical object and wherein the entity
is associated with a weight value indicating a likelihood that the
entity is a referent of the content intended to be selected.
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Appeal 2015-004583
Application 13/646,644
References
The Examiner relies on the following prior art in rejecting the claims:
Kraft US 2009/0070326 A1 Mar. 12, 2009
King et al. (“King”) US 2011/0043652 A1 Feb. 24, 2011
Rejection
Claims 1—3, 5—13, and 15—20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over the combination of King and Kraft. Final Act. 3—
11.
Issue on Appeal
Did the Examiner err by finding that the combination of King and
Kraft teaches or suggests “wherein the entity is associated with a weight
value indicating a likelihood that the entity is a referent of the content
intended to be selected,” as recited in claim 1?
ANAFYSIS
The Examiner finds King teaches the limitations of claim 1, except the
Examiner finds “King does not expressly disclose the method of associating
a weight value indicating a likelihood that the entity would be selected.”
Final Act. 4; Ans. 2. As to that limitation, the Examiner relies on Kraft.
Final Act. 4; Ans. 2—5 (citing Kraft, Fig. 4, || 46, 55, 93).
Appellant contends the combination of King and Kraft fails to teach
or suggest the disputed limitation. App. Br. 11—14; Reply Br. 2—5. In
particular, Appellant contends Kraft teaches “the context vector includes
keywords for terms that may have an associated weight based on term
frequency reflecting the likelihood that a particular term is a reliable
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Appeal 2015-004583
Application 13/646,644
indicator of context” (e.g., whether the term “jaguar” refers to the British
automobile, to an animal, or to a professional football team) and not that the
weight indicates a likelihood that the entity is a referent of the content
intended to be selected, as required by claim 1. App. Br. 13 (citing Kraft
143); see also Reply Br. 3. We agree with Appellant.
Kraft is directed to a contextual search interface for implementing
searches using contextual information associated with a web page or other
document that a user is viewing when a search query is entered. Kraft,
Abstract. When the user submits a search query via the contextual search
interface, the query and a context vector representing the content of the web
page are provided to a query processor and used in responding to the query.
Id. The context vector may include keywords such as terms that appear in
the content and each term may have an associated frequency or a weight.
Kraft 146. Kraft teaches that the frequency or weight associated with each
term may be based on term frequency (e.g., the number of times the term
occurs in the received content), document frequency (e.g., the number of
documents in a corpus that contain that term), and/or other parameters
reflecting the likelihood that the term is a reliable indicator of context. Kraft
146. Kraft, therefore, teaches that the weight reflects the likelihood that the
term in the content is a reliable indicator of whether the term “jaguar,” when
entered as a search query via the contextual search interface, refers to the
British automobile, the animal, or the professional football team. See Kraft
117-9. However, claim 1 requires that the weight value indicates a
likelihood that the entity is a referent of the content intended to be selected
— e.g., a likelihood that the content discusses or refers to the entity. See
Spec. 21 (“The entity of the selected content ‘thisliterature [sic] is a large
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Appeal 2015-004583
Application 13/646,644
body of literature in the English and American languages produced by the
Hoysala Empire (1025-1343) in what is now southern India,’ can, for
example, be identified as Hoysala literature.”). As such, we are persuaded
the Examiner erred.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1; independent
claims 11 and 20, which recite corresponding limitations; and claims 2, 3,
5—10, 12, 13, and 15—19, which depend from claims 1 and 11.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—3, 5—13, and 15—20.
REVERSED
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