Ex Parte O et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 14, 2018

11948458 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 14, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
11/948,458 11/30/2007
46320 7590
Shutts & Bowen LLP
STEVEN M. GREENBERG
525 Okeechobee Blvd
# 1100
West Palm Beach, FL 33401
12/18/2018
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Patrick J. O'Sullivan
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.
RSW92007048 l US 1
(349U2)
CONFIRMATION NO.
2778
EXAMINER
TAN,ALVINH
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2172
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/18/2018 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):
docketing@crgolaw.com
sgreenberg@shutts.com
aschneider@shutts.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Exparte PATRICK I. O'SULLIVAN, HEMA SRIKANTH, and
CAROL S. ZIMMET
Appeal2017-000705
Application 11/948,45 8
Technology Center 2100
Before ERIC B. GRIMES, ULRIKE W. JENKS and
CHRISTOPHER G. PAULRAJ, Administrative Patent Judges.
P AULRAJ, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) involving claims to a
method for autonomically configuring a workspace in a collaborative
computing environment, a collaborative computing data processing system,
and a computer program product. The Examiner rejected the claims on the
grounds of nonstatutory double patenting, anticipation, and obviousness.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 2
1 Appellants identify the Real Party in Interest as International Business
Machines Corporation (see App. Br. 2).
2 We also decide a related appeal, Appeal 2017-002858 (Application No.
11/948,438), concurrently with this decision.
Appeal2017-000705
Application 11/948,458
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Background
"The present invention relates to the field of collaborative computing
and more particularly to workspace configuration in a collaborative
computing environment." (Spec. ,r 1.)
The Claims
Claims 1, 3-15, and 17-20 are on appeal. Independent claim 1 is
representative and reads as follows ( emphasis added):
1. A method for autonomically configuring a
workspace in a collaborative computing environment, the
method comprising:
identifying a subject user and corresponding workspace
in the collaborative computing environment;
locating within a social network a related user for the
subject user, the social network defining a relationship between
the related user and the subject user, the relationship being one
where the related user and the subject user are both members
of a common group in the social network;
retrieving, by a processor of a computer, a workspace
configuration for the related user; and,
applying, by the processor of the computer, the
workspace configuration to the corresponding workspace of the
subject user.
Appeal Br. 11 (Claims App'x).
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Application 11/948,458
The Issues
The Examiner has rejected the claims as follows:
I. Claims 1, 3-15, and 17-203 are provisionally rejected on the
ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as
being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of copending Application
No. 11/948,438 in view of Goodwin. 4
II. Claims 1, 3-7, 11-13, 15, and 17-20 are rejected under 35
U.S.C. § I02(e) as anticipated by Yagoda. 5
III. Claims 8, 9, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over the combination of Yagoda and IBM
WebSphere Portal Server. 6
IV. Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as unpatentable
over the combination of Yagoda and Polizzi. 7
FINDINGS OF FACT
We adopt the Examiner's findings of facts. We highlight the
following for emphasis:
FPL Yagoda discloses:
Consumer portal 102 may then access the content
exposed by a producer portal for sharing[,] such as content 120
exposed for sharing by producer portal 106. In one
embodiment, an administrator of consumer portal 102 defines a
3 The Examiner identifies claims 1-20 as provisionally rejected in the Final
Office Action. Final Action 3. However, since claims 2 and 16 were
cancelled, we only consider the rejection as applied to the currently pending
claims.
4 Goodwin et al., US 7,689,537 B2, issued Mar. 30, 2010.
5 Yagoda et al., US 2009/0031004 Al, published Jan. 29, 2009.
6 IBM, IBM WebSphere Portal Server Product Architecture V2.l, Nov. 19,
2001.
7 Polizzi et al., US 6,643,661 B2, issued Nov. 4, 2003.
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Appeal2017-000705
Application 11/948,458
connection to producer portal 106 and registers the consumer
portal with the producer portal. Once content 120 on producer
portal 106 to be shared has been defined, the administrator of
consumer portal 102, with the requisite permissions, may
access and browse the shared content to identify content to be
consumed by the consumer portal. As previously indicated, in
one embodiment, the shared content may be stored in the PCD
and can be viewed/browsed for in the Portal Content Catalog of
producer portal 106. An administrator of consumer portal 102
may browse the Portal Content Catalog of remote producer
portal 106 and identify one or more of the exposed content
objects to be copied to consumer portal 102. The administrator
on consumer portal 102 may select relevant roles, worksets,
pages, iViews, etc. residing on producer portal 106 or folders
storing one or more content objects on producer portal 106 to
be copied to consumer portal 102. The copied content objects
are created locally on consumer portal 102 as remote delta link
objects. Each remote delta link object on consumer portal 102
provides a link to the corresponding content object on producer
portal 106. In this manner, an administrator on consumer portal
102 may create remote delta links on a consumer portal to
content objects residing on a remote producer portal.
(Yagoda ,r 27 .)
ANALYSIS
Anticipation
Appellants do not present any separate arguments for the claims.
Accordingly, we choose claim 1 to be representative of all the claims
rejected for anticipation.
Appellants assert that Yagoda does not disclose the "the retrieval of a
workspace configuration for a located user related to a subject user, and the
application of the workspace configuration to corresponding workspace of
the subject user that is related to the located user." Appeal Br. 5. In
particular, Appellants contend that the "shared content" referenced in
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Application 11/948,458
Yagoda is not properly equated to the claimed "workspace configuration."
Id. at 7. We are unpersuaded. In our prior Decision on appeal, we found
that the claimed "workspace configuration" was taught by Yagoda. See June
6, 2014 Decision on Appeal; FF 1. The current claims on appeal do not
differ significantly with respect to this requirement.
Appellants also argue that the claims on appeal "require that a
computer processor perform the retrieval of a workspace configuration
not an administrator as shown in paragraph [0027]" of Yagoda. Appeal Br.
7; Reply 3. We are also unpersuaded by this argument as the claims do not
preclude the use of a human administrator to help perform the retrieval step.
As noted by the Examiner (Ans. 3), even though Yagoda discloses that an
administrator selects roles, worksets, content objects, etc. to be copied to a
consumer portal, a fair and complete reading of Yagoda indicates that a
computer processor sends computer instructions to electronically retrieve the
selected workspace configuration. See, e.g., Yagoda ,r 62 (noting that
content retrieval may be executed by a processor). Thus, we find Yagoda
teaches the claim requirement of retrieving the workspace "by a process of a
computer."
Accordingly, we affirm the anticipation rejection of claim 1 based on
Yagoda. Claims 3-7, 11-13, 15, and 17-20 fall with claim 1. 37 C.F.R. §
4I.37(c)(l)(iv) (2013).
Obviousness
Appellants submit that the rejection of dependent claims 8-10 and 14
should be reversed for the same reasons as independent claim 1 (App. Br.
10). Because Appellants have not separately challenged the obviousness
rejections, we determine that they have waived any argument beyond the
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Appeal2017-000705
Application 11/948,458
deficiencies they identify in Yagoda with respect to the anticipation
rejection. SeeHyattv. Dudas, 551 F.3d 1307, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2008) ("When
the appellant fails to contest a ground of rejection to the Board, [37 C.F.R.]
section 1.192( c )(7) imposes no burden on the Board to consider the merits of
that ground of rejection on the basis of a representative claim. Rather, the
Board may treat any argument with respect to that ground of rejection as
waived."). Having found no deficiency in the underlying anticipation
rejection based on Yagoda, we are compelled to affirm the obviousness
rejections of these dependent claims.
Obviousness-Type Double Patenting
Appellants have not made any arguments concerning the obviousness-
type double patenting rejection set forth in the September 2, 2015 Final
Rejection. Accordingly, we summarily affirm that rejection.
SUMMARY
We affirm the Examiner's rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b). Claims 3-7, 11-13, 15, and 17-20 fall with claim 1.
We affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims 8-10 and 14 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
We summarily affirm the non-statutory obviousness type double
patenting rejection of claims 1, 3-15, and 17-20.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).
AFFIRMED
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