11174023 (B.P.A.I. Jan. 23, 2012)

Ex Parte Summer et al

Board of Patent Appeals and InterferencesJan 23, 2012

11174023 (B.P.A.I. Jan. 23, 2012)

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. 11/174,023 07/01/2005 Robert D. Summer SUMR.1001 1805 7590 01/24/2012 Jon M. Dickinson JON M. DICKINSON, P.C. 8015 SE 31st Avenue Portland, OR 97202 EXAMINER DURAN, ARTHUR D ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3682 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/24/2012 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 BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS AND INTERFERENCES ____________ Ex parte ROBERT D. SUMMER and JON M. DICKINSON ___________ Appeal 2010-010745 Application 11/174,023 Technology Center 3600 ____________ Before ANTON W. FETTING, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, and MEREDITH C. PETRAVICK, Administrative Patent Judges. PETRAVICK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2010-010745 Application 11/174,023 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Robert D. Summer et al. (Appellants) seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final rejection of claims 27, 28, and 30. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). SUMMARY OF DECISION We REVERSE.1 THE INVENTION This invention is a system for authorizing vetted members of a peer- to-peer network to act as sales agents. See Spec. 5:12-6:6. Claim 30, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal. 30. A system manager based and implementable, sourcing-provider selected and entrepreneurially vetted peer, P2P electronic-commerce method (a) implementable in, and employing the structure of, an electronic-information communication and exchange network, and (b) involving system- manager-promoted, sourcing-provider vetted, authorized, and incentivized selected-peer entrepreneurship, said method, as implemented by a system manager, comprising[:] choosing an active P2P network group which is characterized with peers having an affinity interest in defined, income-transactible, 1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed Jun. 4, 2010) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed Jul. 21, 2010), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed Jun. 29, 2010). Appeal 2010-010745 Application 11/174,023 3 affinity-interest-associated subject matter, creating, in network-connected computer structure, a network-accessible, but limited-access, digital-data catalogue of purchasable deliverables, including sourcing-provider furnished, income- transactible, affinity-interest-associated and ancillary subject matter represented by electronic data stored in the catalogue, limiting access to subject matter represented by data stored in the created catalogue to only (a) [] an entrepreneurially-talented vetted peer, and (b) another party who is a potential purchaser, and to whom such access is furnished specifically, and only, by such a vetted peer, and solely for the purpose of considering, and if desired engaging in, the purchase of a catalogue-displayed deliverable, by the actions alone of sourcing providers of catalogue-deliverables, and as promoted and implemented under the influence of system management, (a) vetting, authorizing, and thereby selecting, on the basis of assessed entrepreneurship imagination and talent, at least one peer associated with the chosen P2P network group to act, on the basis of vetted entrepreneurship, as a vetted-peer- enabled-only, potential-income-generating transaction-offerer, to potential purchasers, of access to catalogue-contained, electronic-data- represented deliverables via utilizing vetted entrepreneurship talent, and thereby offering to such purchasers electronic access to the catalogue- stored, deliverables-representative data, and (b), incentivizing the use of such vetted entrepreneurship talent in the at least one vetted, authorized and selected peer to present at least to other peers in the chosen P2P network group as potential purchasing customers, for the purpose of realizing income-transactible, electronic- Appeal 2010-010745 Application 11/174,023 4 commerce business, including collateral- transaction business, over the communication network, at least catalogue-contained, provider- sourced, affinity-interest-associated and ancillary subject matter, utilizing communication-network computer structure, tracking all network income-transactible activities resulting from said entrepreneurial incentivizing and selected-peer presenting, and rewarding the at least one vetted, authorized and selected peer in relation to such tracked, entrepreneurial activities. THE REJECTION The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of unpatentability: Stern Kannan US 2003/0130862 A1 US 2004/0230511 A1 Jul. 10, 2003 Nov. 18, 2004 The following rejection is before us for review: 1. Claims 27, 28, and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kannan and Stern. ISSUE The issue is whether claims 27, 28, and 30 are unpatentable over the combination of Kannan and Stern. Specifically, the issue is whether the combination of Kannan and Stern teaches the step of: limiting access to subject matter represented by data stored in the created catalogue to only (a) [] an entrepreneurially-talented vetted peer, and (b) Appeal 2010-010745 Application 11/174,023 5 another party who is a potential purchaser, and to whom such access is furnished specifically, and only, by such a vetted peer, and solely for the purpose of considering, and if desired engaging in, the purchase of a catalogue-displayed deliverable. FINDINGS OF FACT We find that the following enumerated findings of fact (FF) are supported by at least a preponderance of the evidence. Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the Office). 1. Kannan describes a user registration process which includes entering user information and selecting a unique password and pseudonym. See Kannan [0027] -0030] and Figs. 2a and 2b. 2. Kannan’s Figure 2a depicts a box labeled 7, which states “Enrollment Data Update in Central Database – User Screening for Conflicts, Security, and Access Control.” 3. Kannan states: “The new user’s enrollment data 7 is updated in the central database 3 and screened for conflicts, security and access control.” Kannan [0028]. 4. Kannan’s Figure 2b depicts a box labeled 15, which states “Enrollment Data Update in Central Database – User Screening for Conflicts, Security, and Access Control.” 5. Kannan describes that existing user are “connected to the central database server 3 and given user access control 15 once a password is entered and verified.” Kannan [0029]. Appeal 2010-010745 Application 11/174,023 6 6. Kannan’s Figure 5 depicts a box labeled 70, which states “New User Registration” and a box labeled 73, which states “Login Successful?”. 7. Kannan’s claim 15 describes screening the enrollment data for conflicts, security and access control. 8. Stern’s paragraph [0034] describes that a step for establishing a distributor of content may incudes receiving approval from a provider of the content to allow a party or device to act as a distributor of the content and granting a license to a party to act as a distributor of content. See also Stern [0061] and claim 2. ANALYSIS We agree with the Appellants (App. Br. 5-6) that the combination of Kannan and Stern does not teach all of the steps of claim 30, specifically, the step of: limiting access to subject matter represented by data stored in the created catalogue to only (a) [] an entrepreneurially-talented vetted peer, and (b) another party who is a potential purchaser, and to whom such access is furnished specifically, and only, by such a vetted peer, and solely for the purpose of considering, and if desired engaging in, the purchase of a catalogue-displayed deliverable. In the rejection, the Examiner relies upon a combination of Kannan’s teaching of registering new users to its peer-to-peer network and of a new user successfully logging in in Figures 2a, 2b, 5, item 70 and claim 15 and Stern’s teaching of approving and granting a license to a distributor in Appeal 2010-010745 Application 11/174,023 7 Figure 4, paragraphs 34 and 61, and claims 2 and 32 in finding this limitation obvious. Ans. 4-5. See also Ans. 11-12 and16-17. We see nothing in the cited teachings of the prior art (see FF 1-8) to support the Examiner’s conclusion that one of ordinary skill in the art would have been led to the limiting step at issue. Nothing in the cited portions of Kannan and Stern teach limiting access to a catalogue to only: a) an entrepreneurially-talented vetted peer and (b) another party who is a potential purchaser, and to whom such access is furnished specifically, and only, by such a vetted peer. Further, we note that the Examiner mischaracterizes the teachings of Kannan in Figure 2a, 3b, 5, and claim 15. The Examiner seems to state that these portions teach that a user is screened for conflicts, security, and access control, such that a user can be rejected during an application process. Ans. 4. However, these portions teach that user data, which was entered during the enrollment process, is screened for conflicts, security, and access control. See FF 1-7. We find that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 30 as rendered obvious by the teachings of Kannan and Stern. Accordingly, the rejection of claim 30, and claims 27 and 28, dependent thereon, under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kannan and Stern is reversed. DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 27, 28, and 30 is reversed. REVERSED Appeal 2010-010745 Application 11/174,023 8 mls