Ex Parte Shtilman et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 25, 2018

14194274 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 25, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/194,274 02/28/2014
136582 7590 09/27/2018
STEVENS & SHOWALTER, LLP
Box AVAYA Inc.
7019 Corporate Way
Dayton, OH 45459-4238
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Ariel Shtilman
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. CONFIRMATION NO.
514405-US-NP/AVA089PA 1073
EXAMINER
AHMED,SABA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2154
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/27/2018 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):
pto@sspatlaw.com
pair_avaya@firsttofile.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ARIEL SHTILMAN and ARKADY KARPMAN
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Technology Center 2100
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, MATTHEW J. McNEILL, and
JASON M. REPKO, Administrative Patent Judges.
REPKO, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
rejection of claims 1-18 and 20. App. Br. 4. 2 Claim 19 is canceled. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We reverse.
1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as Avaya Inc. App. Br. 2.
2 Throughout this opinion, we refer to the Final Rejection ("Final Act.")
mailed July 28, 2016, the Appeal Brief ("App. Br.") filed December 19,
2016, the Examiner's Answer ("Ans.") mailed August 9, 2017, and the
Reply Brief ("Reply Br.") filed October 6, 2017.
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THE INVENTION
Appellants' invention manages a contact center's administrative data.
Spec. ,r 3. Appellants' system uses a crawler and a probing device to collect
administrative data for unified communication devices at predefined
intervals. Id. ,r,r 51, 53. For example, the unified communication devices
may include a Private Branch Exchange (PBX), an Internet Protocol Private
Branch Exchange (IP PBX), a messaging system, and a conferencing
system, among other devices. Id. ,r 32. Appellants' system indexes and
stores the collected data in a temporary database. Id. ,r,r 54--55. According
to the Specification, the invention indexes the data in a way that enables
faster access to the administrative data from the unified communication
devices, among other advantages. Id. ,r 10.
Claims 1 and 15 are reproduced below with our emphasis on the
limitations at issue:
1. A data management system for indexing administrative
data of a contact center, the data management system
compnsmg:
one or more unified communication devices configured
to store the administrative data;
a memory device storing executable instructions; and
a processor in communication with the memory device,
wherein the processor, when executing the executable
instructions:
collects the administrative data using a crawler
configured to collect the administrative data from the one or
more unified communication devices;
implements a probing device configured to enable
the crawler to communicate with, and retrieve the
administrative data from, the one or more unified
communication devices;
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provides the collected administrative data to a
temporary database configured to store the collected
administrative data; wherein the temporary database stores the
collected administrative data in a plurality of flat file tables; and
indexes the administrative data stored in the
temporary database;
wherein the indexed administrative data is searchable
through one or more user search queries.
15. A computer-implemented method for searching
administrative data of a contact center, the method comprising:
receiving, by a computer, one or more search queries
from a user;
segmenting, by the computer, the one or more search
queries into a plurality of different phrases;
performing, by the computer, one or more initial lookups
on a plurality of indexes based on the one or more search
queries received from the user;
peiforming, by the computer, one or more additional
lookups in other indexes using an extension number found
during an initial lookup; and
driving, by the computer, a display of one or more search
query results to the user.
THE EVIDENCE
The Examiner relies on the following as evidence:
Ture et al. US 2007/0208714 Al Sept. 6, 2007
THE REJECTION
Claims 1-18 and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I02(b) as
anticipated by Ture. Final Act. 3-16.
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CLAIMS 1-14
The Examiner's Rejection
The Examiner finds that Ture discloses every recited limitation of
independent claim 1. Final Act. 3---6. In particular, the Examiner finds that
Ture's temporary-password feature provides the collected administrative
data to a temporary database. Id. at 4 ( citing Ture ,r 221 ); see also Ans. 5
(citing Ture ,r 222). The Examiner further finds that Ture indexes the
administrative data because Ture teaches a text index for database 108.
Final Act. 5 (citing Ture ,r 83). According to the Examiner, Ture stores
authenticating information in the manner recited to crawl the data. Ans. 7.
Appellants 'Argument
Appellants contend that claim 1 requires that indexed administrative
data stored in the temporary database is searchable by user queries.
App. Br. 11. According to Appellants, the Examiner finds the recited
administrative data correspond to Ture's administrative credentials, but Ture
does not store and index those credentials in a user-searchable temporary
database. Id. at 10. In Appellants' view, Ture stores the credentials to
protect them from unauthorized users. Id. at 11 (citing Ture ,r,r 200-225).
Analysis
Claim 1 recites, in part, a processor that (1) "provides the collected
administrative data to a temporary database" and (2) "indexes the
administrative data stored in the temporary database; wherein the indexed
administrative data is searchable through one or more user search queries."
Regarding the first limitation, the Examiner finds that the collected
administrative data corresponds to Ture's temporary-password feature.
Final Act. 4 ( citing Ture ,r 221 ); see also Ans. 5 ( citing Ture ,r 222). The
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Examiner, however, has not shown that Ture indexes the collected data as
recited in the second limitation. See App. Br. 10-11.
In particular, Ture discloses a temporary-password feature, which
allows a search administrator or user to indicate that the search system
should not store highly sensitive credentials. Ture ,r 221. Instead, such
credentials are written to temporary storage 3108. Id. ,r 222. As noted by
the Examiner, Ture' s crawler reads the security credentials before deleting
them. Id., discussed in Ans. 7.
The Examiner, however, has not shown the credentials are indexed so
they are searchable through user "search queries," as recited in claim 1.
App. Br. 11. Rather, the cited paragraph explains that "the credentials may
simply be stored in memory for the crawler process then deleted when no
longer necessary," or alternatively, "security credentials for the user should
not be stored on the system and that the user should be prompted for
credential information before searching, querying, etc." Ture ,r 222, cited in
Ans. 5; see also Ture ,r 220 ( explaining that the "appropriate temporary
storage" is "cache or resident memory").
To be sure, Ture discloses a user-searchable database. Ture ,r 83. For
example, Ture' s users perform their search queries on the database, which
the Examiner maps to the recited indexed database. See Final Act. 5 ( citing
Ture ,r 83). In this example, Ture's users submit keywords through an
application programming interface (API) to search for documents.
Ture ,r 83. Ture's crawlers then return data matching the query. Id. But the
crawlers do not access the stored user credentials in the same way. See
id. ,r,r 220-222. Clearly, doing so would defeat the purpose of Ture's
temporary-password feature----or user authentication generally. Accord
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App. Br. 11. Thus, Ture's user credentials cannot be reasonably interpreted
as the recited collected administrative data. If we consider some other data
from Ture to be the recited administrative data, then we arrive at the
conclusion that the Examiner has not shown any other data provided to a
temporary database, as recited. See id. at 10-11. Overall, the Examiner has
not sufficiently explained how the relevant data is stored and indexed in the
way that claim 1 recites. See id.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of
independent claim 1 or independent claim 11, which recites similar
limitations and is rejected under the same rationale. See Final Act. 10-12.
For similar reasons, we also do not sustain the rejection of claims 2-10 and
12-14, which depend from claims 1 and 11.
CLAIMS 15-18 AND 20
The Examiner's Rejection
The Examiner finds that Ture discloses every recited limitation of
independent claim 15. Final Act. 13-15. According to the Examiner, Ture's
federated search performs the lookups recited in claim 15. Ans. 9. In
particular, the Examiner finds that Ture conducts a federated search across
multiple indexes using the crawler. Id. ( citing Ture ,r 254); see also
Final Act. 14--15 ( quoting Ture ,r 249 and discussing the crawling pipeline).
Appellants 'Argument
Appellants argue that Ture does not perform additional lookups in
other indexes using an extension number found during an initial lookup, as
recited in claim 15. App. Br. 12. According to Appellants, Ture searches a
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single index using one query and filters the results by the query criteria.
Id. at 13.
Analysis
Claim 15 recites, in relevant part, (1) "performing, by the computer,
one or more initial lookups on a plurality of indexes based on the one or
more search queries received from the user" and (2) "performing, by the
computer, one or more additional lookups in other indexes using an
extension number found during an initial lookup" ( emphasis added). We are
persuaded that the Examiner erred in finding that Ture discloses these
limitations. See Final Act. 14--15.
In particular, Ture' s crawler collects data from multiple sources.
Ture ,r 254, cited in Ans. 9. So, Ture' s users can use a single query to search
multiple data sources. Id. In particular, a federated broker transforms a
user's search query for each source to create multiple transformed queries
with the appropriate syntax for the respective source. Id. ,r 253.
The Examiner, however, has not shown that Ture performs additional
lookups in other indexes using an extension number found during an initial
lookup. See App. Br. 12. Rather, Ture merges the search results from
multiple data sources using the relevancy scores and returns the results to the
user. Ture ,r 254. That is, the Examiner has neither identified an extension
number found during the initial lookup nor explained how Ture performs a
second lookup using that data. Accord App. Br. 12-13.
On this record, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of
independent claim 15. For similar reasons, we also do not sustain the
rejection of claims 16-18 and 20, which depend from claim 15.
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DECISION
We reverse the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-18 and 20.
REVERSED
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