Ex Parte Park et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 20, 2013

11396413 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 20, 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.
11/396,413 03/31/2006 Joseph C. Park 120137.529 1465
500 7590 11/21/2013
SEED INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW GROUP PLLC
701 FIFTH AVE
SUITE 5400
SEATTLE, WA 98104
EXAMINER
MYHRE, JAMES W
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3682
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/21/2013 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 JOSEPH C. PARK and KIAN FAI LEONG
____________

Appeal 2011-011914
Application 11/396,413
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, ANTON W. FETTING, and
MICHAEL W. KIM, Administrative Patent Judges.

CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2011-011914
Application 11/396,413

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s
final decision rejecting claims 11 to 33, 35, 36, 50 to 59, and 61 to 80. We
have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
Claim 11 (with emphasis added) is illustrative:
11. A computer-implemented method for compensating
users who provide responses to questions from other users
based at least in part on revenue streams from the responses, the
method comprising:
under control of one or more configured computing
system processors,
receiving indications of multiple questions
supplied by multiple users;
for each of the questions, responding to the
question by
obtaining multiple responses to the question
that are provided by multiple users other than the user who
supplied the question; and
identifying at least some of the obtained
responses to be used as part of an answer to the question, the
answer being associated with one or more categories;
obtaining a revenue stream; and
for each of one or more of the answers to the
multiple questions, compensating users who provided responses
used in the answer by,
automatically determining a portion of the
revenue stream to be allocated to each of at least some of the
users who provided the responses used in the answer in a
manner specific to the user and based at least in part on
assessed experience of the user with respect to the one or
more categories associated with the answer, and wherein the
automatically determined revenue stream portion for a first of
the at least some users is distinct from the automatically
Appeal 2011-011914
Application 11/396,413

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determined revenue stream portion for a second of the at least
some users; and
initiating compensating of each of the at least
some users based on the automatically determined revenue
stream portion for the user.

Appellants appeal the following rejection:
Claims 11 to 33, 35, 36, 50 to 59, and 61 to 80 under 35 U.S.C. §
103(a) as unpatentable over Rossides (U.S. 6,856,986 B1; iss. Feb. 15, 2005)
and Choi (WO 2004/090776 A1; pub. Oct. 21, 2004).

ISSUE
Did the Examiner err in rejecting the claims because Rossides does
not disclose determining a portion of the revenue stream to be allocated in a
manner specific to each of the users based at least in part on assessed
experience of the user with respect to the one or more categories associated
with the answer?

ANALYSIS
The Appellants argue that Rossides does not disclose determining
how much to pay the users based on the assessed experience of the user with
respect to one or more categories associated with the answer. The
Examiner, with reference to the disclosure of Rossides, states:
The supplier (Sue) can also enter comments along with the
answer to allow the requestor to determine the quality of her
answer, such as the source of her answer, witnesses that can
attest to the veracity of the answer, the methods she used to find
the answer, etc. ([C]olumn 123, lines 1-65). Using all of this
collected data, the “AC can compile statistics about the
credibility of users” (Sue) to get a “record of reliability”
Appeal 2011-011914
Application 11/396,413

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(column 124, line 64- column 125, line 4). Based on Sue's
credibility[,] the system can determine “[h]ow good were her
probability estimates in the past” and “[h]er past record will
often determine the value of her guess.” ([C]olumn 126, lines
55-59). Thus, Rossides discloses compensating the supplier
with a portion of the revenue stream based on the experience
(past record).

(Ans. 6.) We agree with the Examiner that this portion of Rossides discloses
that the answer supplier’s past record of reliability in regard to making
guesses is compiled and from that compilation, the value of her guesses can
be determined. However, the value of the guesses is based on how good the
guesses were in the past, not on the assessed experience of the answer
supplier in a category associated with the answer, as required by
independent claim 11. Although the Examiner may be correct that the
guesses relate to the question, and thus relate to a category, it is not implicit
or inherent that the compilation of the past guesses relates to guesses in a
particular category. The compilation of past guesses may be a compilation
of all guesses, without regard to the category of the questions. As such, we
find that Rossides does not disclose implicitly determining a portion of a
revenue stream based “at least in part on assessed experience of the user
with respect to the one or more categories associated with the answer,” and
certainly does not disclose determining different revenue portions for two
answerers based on the assessed experience of each answerer.
The Examiner relies on Choi for disclosing that a user can select an
expert in a particular field or category to supply an answer to a question and
provide a predetermined benefit for an answer. However, like Rossides,
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Application 11/396,413

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Choi does not disclose determining a different portion of the revenue stream
for experts based on the assessed experience of each expert.
In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of claim 11 and claims 12 to 33, 35, and 36 dependent thereon. We will also
not sustain this rejection as it is directed to claim 50 and claims 51 to 59, 61
and 79 dependent thereon and claim 62, and claims 63 to 72 and 80 because
claims 50 and 62 contain language similar to the language of claim 11. In
this regard, claims 50 and 62 recite compensating users based on the
assessed experience of each user. We will also not sustain the rejection as it
is directed to claim 73 and claims 74 to 78 dependent thereon because claim
73 recites facilitating continued participation of users in such a manner as to
reflect the experience of the users for each of the response provider users
and thus also requires determining different compensation for different users
based on experience.

DECISION
The decision of the Examiner is reversed.

REVERSED

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