Ex Parte Swart et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 26, 2017

13606670 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 26, 2017)

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.
13/606,670 09/07/2012 William D. Swart 007412.02182 8591
71867 7590 09/28/2017
BANNER & WITCOFF , LTD
ATTORNEYS FOR CLIENT NUMBER 007412
1100 13th STREET, N.W.
SUITE 1200
WASHINGTON, DC 20005-4051
EXAMINER
SHMATOV, ALEXEY
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2157
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/28/2017 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):
PTO-71867 @bannerwitcoff.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte WILLIAM D. SWART, MICHAEL L. ASMUSSEN and
JOHN S. MCCOSKEY
Appeal 2016-006026
Application 13/606,670
Technology Center 2100
Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER,
and JEREMY J. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judges.
WHITEHEAD JR., Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants are appealing the Final Rejection of claims 1—9, 11—17, 19,
20 and 22—32 under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a). Appeal Brief 3. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) (2012).
We affirm.
Appeal 2016-006026
Application 13/606,670
Introduction
The invention is directed to a “video and digital multimedia
aggregator system and method.” Specification 2.
Illustrative Claim (disputed limitations emphasized)
1. A method comprising:
analyzing, by a computing device, data to automatically generate
crawling criteria;
crawling one or more databases using a plurality of addresses to
retrieve data;
determining whether the retrieved data corresponds to the
automatically generated crawling criteria to identify a plurality of content;
indexing the plurality of content to generate index data;
routing the index data to a first database;
searching the first database using search criteria; and
determining a subset of the plurality of content as a result of the
searching.
Rejections on Appeal
Claims 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22—24, 28 and 29 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Luparello (US Patent
Application Publication 2002/0129062 Al; published September 12, 2002)
and Meyerzon (US Patent 6,638,314 Bl; issued October 28, 2003). Final
Rejection 2—9.
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Claim 3 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Luparello, Meyerzon and Fayyad (US Patent 7,424,439
Bl; issued September 9, 2008). Final Rejection 10-11.
Claim 5 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Luparello, Meyerzon and Karadimitriou (US Patent
6,618,717 Bl; issued September 9, 2003). Final Rejection 11.
Claim 6, 11—13 and 30-32 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Luparello, Meyerzon and Lee (US Patent 6,466,970
Bl; issued October 15, 2002). Final Rejection 11—15.
Claim 9, 14 and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Luparello, Meyerzon and Seibel (US Patent 7,082,427 Bl;
issued July 25, 2006). Final Rejection 16—17.
ANALYSIS
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner,
we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed October 15, 2015), the Reply Brief (filed
May 24, 2016), the Final Rejection (mailed April 15, 2015) and the Answer
(mailed March 24, 2016) for the respective details.
Independent claims L 16 and 19
Appellants contend “Luparello and Meyerzon, either alone or in
combination, fail to teach or suggest all of the above recited features of
claim 1.” Appeal Brief 4. Appellants contend Luparello “fails to disclose
analyzing data to automatically generate crawling criteria and determining
whether retrieved data corresponds to the automatically generated crawling
criteria to identify a plurality of content.” Appeal Brief 4.
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Application 13/606,670
The Examiner finds Luparello fails to disclose analyzing data to
automatically generate crawling criteria and relies upon Meyerzon to address
Luparello’s deficiency. Final Rejection 3. The Examiner finds Meyerzon
discloses a “URL that is retrieved from transaction log reads on the data that
is analyzed to automatically generate conditions/criteria that will be used in
subsequent crawling.” Final Rejection 3. The Examiner further finds:
At the time of the invention it would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art to combine cataloging data of
Luparello with the web crawling of Meyerzon for a predictable
result of retrieving documents that have been modified
subsequent to the previous Web crawl and electronic documents
that were not retrieved during the previous Web crawl. As a
result, creating a process that automatically keeps the indexed
data up to date.
Final Rejection 4.
Appellants contend, “Luparello merely discloses that the intelligent
agent 210 retrieves a Boolean query from an agent database 254, and
determines whether a matching term is found in the web page to categorize
the web page.” Appeal Brief 4. Appellants also contend “[ejven assuming,
without conceding, that Luparello’s Boolean queries correspond to crawling
criteria (as alleged in the Final Office Action at p. 19), Luparello does not
disclose analyzing data to automatically or manually generate the Boolean
queries [/crawling criteria].” Appeal Brief 5.
The Examiner finds Luparello teaches in paragraph 6:
“One method of indexing data is to create a group of predefined
categories ... ”. Also 1 [0006] explains how the categories are
created. Also, when referencing the term “search category,”
Luparello uses the term “predetermined” or “predefined.”
Therefore, creating a group of predefined categories clearly reads
on analyzing data to automatically generate crawling criteria.
1 [0006] explains how the categories are created.
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Answer 3.
Appellants argue:
The cited paragraph is from the background section of Luparello
and merely refers to the conventional practice of placing index
tabs with predefined categories in binders and placing sheets
behind appropriate tabs. Paragraph [0006] of Luparello does not
describe features of the purported invention of Luparello and
does not relate to crawling.
Reply Brief 3.
However, Luparello discloses in the Abstract and not just in the
background of the reference:
The processor of the automatic cataloging device obtains an
address of a web page having data from the data storage device,
reads source code from the web page, identifies data from the
source code that corresponds to a predetermined search category,
and saves data related to the corresponding data in a predefined
category within the data storage device.
We find claim 1 ’s generation of a crawling criteria reads upon
Luparello’s predetermined search category. Claim 1 ’s generation of a
crawling criteria after an analysis of the data reads upon Luparello’s creation
of the predefined categories.
Appellants argue “Luparello does not disclose determining whether
data on the retrieved web page corresponds to crawling criteria to identify
videos, computer software, electronic books, etc.” Appeal brief 5. We do
not find Appellants’ argument persuasive because claim 1 does not specify
the type of data and therefore the argument is not commensurate with the
scope of the claim.
Appellants argue:
Meyerzon fails to cure the deficiencies of Luparello. In
particular, Meyerzon does not disclose analyzing data to
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automatically generate crawling criteria and determining
whether retrieved data corresponds to the automatically
generated crawling criteria to identify a plurality of content.
Meyerzon simply discloses a web crawler 206 that goes through
a transaction log 310 to retrieve URLs 512 and then retrieves
documents 222, 224 at the URLs 512. See Meyerzon at 11:65 -
12:7. This is no different than how Luparello reads an address
of a data source from a seed database 216 and then retrieves a
web page at the address. See Luparello at | [0034],
Appeal Brief 5—6.
Appellants disclose in the Specification on page 12, lines 24—28, “the
crawler 356 may be implemented in the form of a World Wide Web robot,
which is a software program that periodically and automatically traverses the
network’s hypertext structure and retrieves each document and recursively
retrieves all documents referenced therein.” Analogously, Meyerzon
discloses in column 1, lines 54—61:
Web crawlers are computer programs that retrieve numerous
electronic documents from one or more Web sites. A Web
crawler processes the received data, preparing the data to be
subsequently processed by other programs. For example, a Web
crawler may use the retrieved data to create an index of
documents available over the Internet or an intranet. A “search
engine” can later use the index to locate electronic documents
that satisfy a specified criteria.
We do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive. The Examiner
finds that “Luparello teaches analyzing data to automatically generate
crawling criteria and determining whether retrieved data corresponds to the
automatically generated crawling criteria.” Answer 3. Examiner finds in the
alternative that in the event that it is determined Luparello fails to disclose
automatically generating a crawling criteria, it would have been obvious to
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one of ordinary skill in the art to automate Luparello’s process in view of
Meyerzon’s teachings and/or in view of In re Venner, 262 F.2d 91,
95, 120 USPQ 193, 194 (CCPA 1958). Answer 3.
We agree with the Examiner’s findings and find it is unlikely that a
claimed invention’s mere automation would alone defeat a rejection under
35 U.S.C. § 103 over any prior art teachings. See e.g., Leapfrog Enters., Inc.
v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d at 1161 (“Applying modem electronics to
older mechanical devices has been commonplace in recent years.”); In re
Venner, 262 F.2d at 95 (“[I]t is well settled that it is not ‘invention’ to
broadly provide a mechanical or automatic means to replace manual activity
which has accomplished the same result.”); see also Manual of Patent
Examining Procedure § 2144(IV). Consequently we sustain the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of independent claim 1, as well as independent claims
16 and 19 commensurate in scope.
Claims 2, 4, 7, 8, 15, 22—24, 28 and 29
Appellants argue Luparello fails to disclose “refining a list of
databases to crawl bases on the additional data,” as recited in claim 7.
Appeal Brief 9. We do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive because
Luparello discloses in paragraph 32:
Alternately, addresses of data sources that have been previously
searched may be retained in the seed database so that those data
sources may be searched again in the future. By re-searching
previously searched data sources, the cataloged data saved by the
present invention may be updated when new or changed data
becomes available in the searched data sources.
Consequently, we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of
claim 7.
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Appellants argue, “Luparello at least fails to teach ‘refining a list of
databases to crawl based on the additional data,’ as recited in claim 8.”
Appeal Brief 10. We do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive because
Appellants argue paragraphs 32 and 38 in regard to claim 8 in the same
manner Appellants argued the merits of paragraphs 32 and 38 in regard to
claim 7. Appeal Brief 9—10. Further, the Examiner relied upon Luparello
paragraphs 11,13 and 18 and not paragraphs 32 and 38 to address the merits
of claim 8. Final Rejection 5.
We sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of dependent
claim 8. We sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 2, 4, 15,
22—24, 28 and 29, dependent upon either claim 1 or 16, not argued
separately. See Appeal Brief 10.
Claims 3 and 5
We sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of dependent
claims 3 and 5 because Appellants argued that neither Fayyad or
Karadimitriou cured the deficiencies of the Luparello and Meyerzon
combination in regard to claim 1 and we did not find the Luparello and
Meyerzon combination deficient. See Appeal Brief 10—11.
Claim 6
Appellants argue:
Lee discloses a “metadata section (503) contains several
metadata elements which give meta-level descriptions of the
various content elements of the Web page. Even assuming,
without conceding, that data in the sub field 336 or metadata
section 503 corresponds to the “additional data” of claim 6, Lee
does not disclose “refining a list of databases to crawl based on
the additional data,” as recited in claim 6.
Appeal Brief 11 (citing Lee, column 9).
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Appellants argue claim 6 requires adding more data to the existing
data in a database and modifying the list of databases to search based upon
the additional data added. Appeal Brief 11. We do not find Appellants’
arguments persuasive because Luparello, Meyerzon, and Lee all pertain to
databases and as such, all of the references disclose manipulating data. We
agree with the Examiner’s findings that “it would have been obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art to combine cataloging data of Luparello as
modified with information analysis and specifically content type indication
of Lee for a predictable result of knowing the type of data that is associated
with a webpage.” See final Rejection 12. We sustain the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of claim 6.
Claims 11 and 30
Claims 11 and 30 require analyzing data to generate search schemes
(or plans) that describes and give information about other data (metadata).
Appellants argue, “The assertion that Luparello would have been combined
with Lee ‘for a predictable result of extracting required information to
facilitate crawling’ is clearly based on improper hindsight.” Appeal Brief 12
(citing final Rejection 13).
We do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive because Luparello,
Meyerzon, and Lee all pertain to databases, and, as such, all of the
references disclose manipulating data. We agree with the Examiner’s
findings that “it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art
to combine cataloging data of Luparello as modified with information
analysis and specifically metadata parsing of Lee for a predictable result of
extracting required information to facilitate crawling.” See final
Rejection 13. We sustain the obviousness rejection of claims 11 and 30.
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Claims 9, 12—14, 17, 25—27, 31 and 32
Appellants argue the obviousness rejection of claims 12 and 31 is
improper because:
Lee does not disclose analyzing data to automatically generate
crawling criteria, and especially does not disclose that doing so
includes analyzing hypertext associated with a hyperlink. Lee
relates to creating and maintaining a log of responses by a server
to requests for web pages. See Lee at Abstract. Lee does not
relate to crawling, and the Examiner provides no reason to
establish that the hypertext and hyperlink mentioned in Lee
would have been used to generate crawling criteria.
Appeal Brief 13.
Claim 12 requires analyzing data to generate a search comprising
analyzing hypertext associated with a hyperlink. Claim 12 does not describe
the type of analyzing required to generate the search criteria, and claim 12
does not describe the type of analyzing performed on the hypertext.
We do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive because Luparello,
Meyerzon, and Lee all pertain to databases and as such, all of the references
disclose manipulating data. Lee discloses manipulating data by analyzing
hypertext (See Lee Figure 2; columns 6—7). We agree with the Examiner’s
findings that “it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art
to combine cataloging data of Luparello as modified with information
analysis and specifically hyperlink analysis of Lee for a predictable result of
extracting required information to facilitate crawling.” See Final
Rejection 13. We sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 12
and 31.
Appellants argue the obviousness rejection of claims 13 and 32 is
improper because “Lee does not disclose analyzing data to automatically
generate crawling criteria, and especially does not disclose that doing so
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includes analyzing text proximate to a hyperlink.” Appeal Brief 14.
Claim 13 requires analyzing data to automatically generate searches
comprises analyzing text proximate to a hyperlink. Claim 13 does not
describe the type of analyzing required to generate the search criteria, and
claim 13 does not describe the type of analyzing performed on the text close
to a hyperlink.
We do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive because Luparello,
Meyerzon, and Lee all pertain to databases and as such, all of the references
disclose manipulating data. Lee discloses manipulating data by analyzing
hypertext (See Lee Figure 2; columns 6—7). We agree with the Examiner’s
findings that “it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art
to combine cataloging data of Luparello as modified with information
analysis and specifically hyperlink analysis of Lee for a predictable result of
extracting required information to facilitate crawling.” We sustain the
Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 13 and 32.
Appellants argue claims 25—27 dependent upon claim 1 and are
allowable because “of their dependency.” Appeal Brief 16. We do not find
Appellants’ arguments persuasive, and we sustain the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of claims 25—27. Appellants argue “dependent
claims 9, 14, and 17 are allowable at least because of their dependency from
allowable independent claims 1 and 16, and the rejection under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 of dependent claims 9, 14, and 17 should be reversed.” Appeal
Brief 16. We do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive and we sustain
the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 9, 14 and 17.
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DECISION
The Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 1—9, 11—17, 19, 20
and 22—32 are affirmed.
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). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(l)(v).
AFFIRMED
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