Ex Parte Roberts et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 28, 2017

13894306 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 28, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
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APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/894,306 05/14/2013 Michael Roberts PARC-20120520-US-NP 1012
35699 7590
PVF - PARC
c/o PARK, VAUGHAN, FLEMING & DOWLER LLP
2820 FIFTH STREET
DAVIS, CA 95618-7759
EXAMINER
OLSHANNIKOV, ALEX
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2142
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/02/2017 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):
sy_incoming @parklegal.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte PALO ALTO RESEARCH CENTER INCORPORATED
Appeal 2017-0030121’2
Application 13/894,306
Technology Center 2100
Before: JAMES R. HUGHES, LARRY J. HUME, and
JOHN D. HAMANN, Administrative Patent Judges.
HUGHES, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s Non-Final Rejection of claims 1—20, which constitute all the
1 Michael Roberts, Victoria M.E. Bellotti, and Shane P. Ahem are named as
inventors. According to the Appellant, Palo Alto Research Center Inc. is the
real party in interest. App. Br. 1.
2 The application on appeal has an effective filing date of May 14, 2013,
and has no parent applications. Therefore, the Leahy-Smith America
Invents Act (AIA) amendments to the U.S. Code (§§ 102, 103) are
applicable. See MPEP § 2159.02: “AIA 35 U.S.C. [§§] 102 and 103 took
effect on March 16,2013. AIA 35 U.S.C.[§§] 102 and 103 apply to any
patent application that contains or contained at any time a claim to a claimed
invention that has an effective filing date that is on or after March 16, 2013.”
Appeal 2017-003012
Application 13/894,306
claims pending in this application. See Final Act. 1; App. Br. 3.3 We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
Appellant’s Invention
The invention concerns message generation systems, computer-
readable storage media, and methods for generating customized messages
based on observed user interactions with a website or user response to
dialog, including receiving a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request
from an application, obtaining user interaction data from the request,
updating a context graph associated with the user based on the user
interaction data (the context graph including, for example, information about
the user’s interests with application), and determining a set of rules
associated with a modification to the context graph, wherein a respective
rule in the set of rules takes elements of the context graph as input, and is
associated with a group of users that includes the user. Spec. Tflf 1, 4—10,
Abstract.
Representative Claim
Independent claim 1, reproduced below with key disputed limitations
emphasized, further illustrates the invention:
1. A computer-executable method performed by a
messaging server to generate a message, comprising:
3 We refer to Appellant’s Specification (“Spec.”) filed May 14, 2013,
Appeal Brief (“App. Br.”) filed June 14, 2016, and Reply Brief (“Reply
Br.”) filed Dec. 20, 2016. We also refer to the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”)
mailed Oct. 20, 2016, and Non-Final Office Action (Non-Final Rejection)
(“Non-Final Act.”) mailed Jan. 14, 2016.
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Application 13/894,306
receiving, by a computing device over a computer
network, a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request from a
web application and/or a mobile application presented on a client
device;
obtaining, from the HTTP request, user interaction event
data that describes explicit or implicit interactions of a user with
a page of the web application and/or the mobile application
being viewed by the user,
updating a context graph associated with the user based
on the user interaction event data, wherein the context graph
includes information about the user’s state, behavior and/or
interests with pages of the web application and/or the mobile
application',
determining a set of rules associated with a modification
to the context graph, wherein a respective rule in the set of rules
takes elements of the context graph as input, and is associated
with a group of users that includes the user,
processing a conditional statement of the respective rule
based on the context graph; and
responsive to determining that the respective rule's
condition statement is satisfied, generating a message that
includes a recommendation associated with the rule.
Rejection on Appeal
1. The Examiner rejects claims 1—20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Fratkina et al. (US 7,337,158 B2, issued Feb. 26,
2008) and Cathcart et al. (US 2013/0124627 Al, published May 16, 2013
(filed Nov. 11, 2011)) (“Cathcart”).
ISSUE
Based upon our review of the record, Appellant’s contentions, and the
Examiner’s findings and conclusions, the issue before us follows:
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Application 13/894,306
Did the Examiner err in finding that Fratkina and Cathcart collectively
would have taught or suggested “determining a set of rules associated with a
modification to the context graph, wherein a respective rule in the set of
rules takes elements of the context graph as input, and is associated with a
group of users that includes the user,” within the meaning of Appellant’s
claim 1 and the commensurate limitations of claims 8 and 15?
ANALYSIS
The Examiner rejects independent claim 1 as obvious in view of
Fratkina and Cathcart. See Final Act. 6—9; Ans. 3—12. Appellant contends
Fratkina and Cathcart do not teach the disputed features of claim 1. See
App. Br. 10-20; Reply Br. 7—17. Specifically, Appellant contends, inter
alia, that Fratkina and Cathcart do not teach determining a set of rules, that
the determined rules are associated with a modification to a context graph,
that a rule uses elements of the context graph as input, and that the rule is
associated with a group of users that includes the user. See App. Br. 16—18;
Reply Br. 13—16. In particular, Appellant contends, even if Fratkina’s
“triggers” are considered to be “rules,” Fratkina does not describe Fratkina’s
log information or database information being utilized as a trigger input, nor
are the triggers associated a group of users. See Reply Br. 14—15. The
Examiner finds Fratkina describes triggers that are interpreted to be rules,
the triggers utilize user profile input, and that a fair interpretation of the
disputed limitation allows that “any rule that can be triggered by more than
one user applies to a group of users that includes a user.” Ans. 10; see also
id. at 8—10.
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Application 13/894,306
We agree with Appellant that Fratkina (in combination with Cathcart)
fails to describe the disputed determining step — that is, determining a set of
rules (1) associated with a modification to the context graph, (2) that a
respective rule in the set of rules takes elements of the context graph as
input, and (3) that such a rule is associated with a group of users that
includes the user. At best, Fratkina describes triggers in a dialog that may be
triggered by a user or a user’s profile information to alter the dialog (see
Ans. 8 (citing Fratkina col. 12,11. 51—53; col. 15,11. 15—29, 45—50; col. 16,
11. 61—64; col. 17,11. 22—28)) and analyzing/leaming user information data
(see Ans. 8—9 (citing Fratkina col. 25,11. 1—14; col. 29,1. 65—col. 30,1. 45;
col. 32,1. 61—col. 33,1. 14)). Although Fratkina generally describes triggers
and user profile information satisfying a condition (trigger), Fratkina does
not describe determining (or identifying) a set of rules, that the set of
determined rules is associated with a modification to the context graph (or a
database), or that trigger (with a user profile input) is associated with a
group of other users as well as the instant user. The Examiner does not
provide a clear explanation or mapping of the disputed claim features to the
disclosures of Fratkina and fails to sufficiently show that Fratkina in
combination with Cathcart teaches or suggests using the disputed
“determining a set of rules associated with a modification to the context
graph, wherein a respective rule in the set of rules takes elements of the
context graph as input, and is associated with a group of users that includes
the user” as recited in Appellant’s claim 1.
Consequently, we are constrained by the record before us to find that
the Examiner erred in finding that the combination of Fratkina and Cathcart
teaches or suggests the disputed limitation of Appellant’s claim 1.
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Independent claims 8 and 15 include limitations of commensurate scope.
Dependent claims 2—7, 9-14, and 16—20 depend on claims 1, 8, and 15,
respectively. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness
rejections of claims 1—20.
CONCLUSION
Appellant has shown the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1—20
under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—20.
REVERSED
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