Ex Parte Pitkow

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 20, 2013

11357293 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 20, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte JAMES EDWARD PITKOW
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Appeal 2011-0018941
Application 11/357,293
Technology Center 2100
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Before JEAN R. HOMERE, KEN B. BARRETT, and JUSTIN BUSCH,
Administrative Patent Judges.

HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 The real party in interest is Wizard Productivity Systems, L.P. (App. Br.
2.)
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1-13 and 22-29. Claims 14-21 have been cancelled.
(App. Br. 2-3.)2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part, and designate our affirmance of the Examiner’s
rejection of claim 10 as a new ground of rejection.
Appellant’s Invention
Appellants invented a method and system for generating
contextualized feeds in real-time. (Spec. [0017].) In particular, upon
receiving context data in the form of created content from a user via a user
interface within a feed contextualization tool (100), a search logic (310)
within a server (130) analyzes the context data to generate contextual/return
feeds corresponding thereto, and returns the generated contextual feeds to
the user in real-time. (Spec. [0024], [0025], [0041], Fig. 3.) Upon receiving
the return feeds, the user may select, lock, restrict or add the feeds to the
contextual data. (Spec. [0018].)
Illustrative Claim
Independent claim 1 further illustrates the invention as follows:
1. A method comprising:
receiving context data from a user in the form of created
content;
generating contextual feeds based on the context data as
the context data is received;

2 Appeal Brief filed August 9, 2010.
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receiving a selection of one or more of the contextual
feeds from the user; and
associating the selected one or more contextual feeds
with the created content, wherein when the created content is
viewed, the associated one or more contextual feeds are
displayed, and wherein the user is provided control over the
feeds associated with the content.

Prior Art Relied Upon
The Examiner relies on the following prior art as evidence of
unpatentability:
Dickinson US 2007/0156809 A1 Jul. 5, 2007
Gross US 2007/0174340 A1 Jul. 26, 2007

Rejection on Appeal
The Examiner rejects claims 1-13 and 22-29 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over the combination of Dickinson and Gross.
ANALYSIS
We consider Appellant’s arguments seriatim as they are presented in
the Appeal Brief, pages 8-18 and the Reply Brief, pages 2-4.

Dispositive Issue: Under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), did the Examiner err in
finding that the combination of Dickinson and Gross teaches or suggests
associating received context data with a selected one or more contextual
feeds received from a user, as recited claim 1?
Appellants argue that the combination of Dickinson and Gross does
not teach or suggest the disputed limitations emphasized above. (App. Br.
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10-16; Reply Br. 2-4.) According to Appellants, Dickinson merely discloses
receiving specific feed requests to generate RSS feeds, whereas the claim
requires using created content to generate contextual feeds from which the
user selects one or more to associate with the contextual data. (Id.) In
response, the Examiner finds Dickinson’s disclosure of generating RSS
feeds to satisfy an object request received from a user teaches the disputed
limitations. (Ans. 7-8.)
Based upon our review of the record before us, we find no error with
the Examiner’s obviousness rejection regarding claim 1. We note at the
outset that while the claim requires generating contextual feeds based on
contextual data received from a user, the phrase “or more” in the further
recitation of the user selecting one or more of the generated feeds for
association with the contextual data is immaterial to our analysis. That is,
under the broadest reasonable interpretation, to meet the recited alternative
language in the disputed limitations, it suffices that the prior art relied upon
teaches generating at least one feed based upon contextual data received
from a user. In such a case, as acknowledged by Appellant, the generated
feed is ipso facto selected for association with the contextual data upon
which it is based. (App. Br. 14.) Therefore, we find that Dickinson’s
disclosure of generating a RSS feed in response to a query received from a
user [0027], [0028], teaches the disputed limitations as broadly and
reasonably interpreted herein. Further, we find unavailing Appellant’s
arguments that the proffered combination is deficient because Gross
allegedly does not cure the noted deficiencies in Dickinson. (App. Br. 14-
15). As discussed above, we find no such deficiencies in Dickinson for
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Gross to remedy. It therefore follows Appellant has not shown error in the
Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claim 1.
Regarding the rejection of claims 2, 23, and 25, Appellant argues that
because Gross discloses updating pseudo pages at predetermined intervals as
opposed to generating the contextual feeds from the contextual data in
pseudo real time, the combination of Dickinson and Gross does not teach the
limitations of the cited claims. (App. Br. 16.) We agree with Appellant.
Accordingly, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of those claims.
Regarding the rejection of claims 10, Appellant argues that while
Dickinson discloses restricting feeds, it does not teach recalling feeds that
have been restricted from view from memory and therefore claim 10 should
be allowed. (App. Br. 16-17.) We do not agree with Appellant. In
particular, we find that because only routine skill would be required to recall
feeds previously restricted from being viewed in memory, such task would
have been obvious in light of Dickinson’s disclosure. Because we rely on
additional evidence not of record, we designate this portion of our decision
as a new ground of rejection.
Regarding the rejection of claims 3-9, 11-13, 22, 24, and 26-29,
because Appellant has either not presented separate patentability arguments
or has reiterated substantially the same arguments as those previously
discussed for patentability of claim 1 above, claims 3-9, 11-13, 22, 24, and
26-29 fall therewith. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 3-13, 22, 24, and
26-29 as set forth above. We designate our affirmance of the Examiner’s
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rejection 10 as a new ground of rejection. However, we reverse the rejection
of claims 2, 23, and 25.
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).

AFFIRMED-IN-PART
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b)

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