Ex Parte Sylvain

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 20, 2013

11616655 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 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 DANY SYLVAIN

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Appeal 2010-009692
Application 11/616,655
Technology Center 2100
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Before DAVID M. KOHUT, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and JOHN G. NEW,
Administrative Patent Judges.

NEW, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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SUMMARY
Appellant files this appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1-30 as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being obvious over the combination of Moissinac et al. (US
2007/0061475 A1, March 15, 2007) (“Moissinac”) and Chowdhury et al.
(US 2007/0266002 A1, November 15, 2007) (“Chowdhury”).
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

NATURE OF THE CLAIMED INVENTION
Appellant’s invention is directed to a search engine or like application
adapted to provide a communication search in lieu of or in addition to its
normal information search under certain conditions to obtain communication
information. Abstract.

GROUPING OF CLAIMS
Because Appellant makes no separate arguments for the individual
claims, we select claim 1 as representative. App. Br. 7. Claim 1 recites:
1. A method comprising:

receiving, at a server, a search request having search
request information;

determining whether communication search indicia is
present in the search request information, wherein presence of
the communication search indicia is indicative of a need for a
communication information search;

affecting [sic] the communication information search
based on at least a portion of the search request information to
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obtain communication information for an entity, when the
communication search indicia is present in the search request
information; and

affecting [sic] a normal information search based on the
search request information to obtain search information, when
the communication search indicia is not present in the search
request information.

App. Br. 13.

ISSUE AND ANALYSIS
Issue
Appellant argues that the Examiner erred by finding that the
combination of Moissinac and Chowdhury teaches or suggests the limitation
of claim 1 reciting “determining whether communication search indicia is
present in the search request information, wherein presence of the
communication search indicia is indicative of a need for a communication
information search.” App. Br. 8. We therefore address the issue of whether
the Examiner so erred.

Analysis
Appellant admits that Moissinac teaches or suggests that, when
viewing published information (e.g., search results or an advertisement), a
consumer may wish to initiate contact with an entity associated with the
published information. App. Br. 8 (citing Moissinac, ¶ [0003]). However,
argues Appellant, Moissinac does not teach or suggest “determining whether
communication search indicia is present in the search request information,
wherein presence of the communication search indicia is indicative of a need
for a communication information search,” and then conducting either a
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normal search or a communication information search based on whether the
communication search indicia are present. App. Br. 8.
Furthermore, Appellant argues that Chowdhury likewise does not
teach or suggest “determining whether communication search indicia is
present in the search request information, wherein presence of the
communication search indicia is indicative of a need for a communication
information search,” and subsequently conducting either a normal search or
a communication information search based on whether the communication
search indicia are present. App. Br. 9. Specifically, Appellant argues that
Chowdhury does not make a determination as recited in the claimed
invention before deciding what kind of search to do, and is silent as to
communication search indicia and the need for a communication information
search. Id. According to Appellant, all that Chowdhury discloses is that in
that particular example, the endpoint of one possible query reformulation
path may be contact information; Chowdhury does not determine whether
communication search indicia are present in the search request. App. Br. 10.
Consequently, Appellant argues, the combined system of Chowdhury
and Moissinac is silent as to deciding what kind of search is to be affected
based on the presence of communication search indicia. Id.
The Examiner responds that Moissinac teaches “indicia [are] present
in the search request information.” The Examiner finds that Moissinac
further teaches that:
In a further example embodiment, communication initiation
information for multiple entities (e.g., payers) may be
associated with a term (or terms) of publication data. For
example, where the term “pizza,” within a predetermined
proximity (e.g., number of terms) in publication information to
the terms “Palo Alto,” is encountered by the parser module 22,
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the identification information for a number of entities (e.g.,
pizza vendors located in Palo Alto) may be associated with the
term “pizza” in the publication data (e.g., the parser module 22
is triggered by the relative position of two predetermined terms
in the published information). In this example, the term “pizza”
may be visually distinguished within the publication data (e.g.,
via a user-selectable icon to invoke display of information
concerning the number of entities).

Ans. 9 (quoting Moissinac, ¶ [0031]).
The Examiner finds that Moissinac teaches the “normal information
search” recited in the limitation of claim 1; teaching that “considering the
search results 36 and the advertisements 38, text associated with each search
result or advertisement is hypertext-linked to a location accessible via the
network 14.” Ans. 10 (quoting Moissinac, ¶ [0015]). The Examiner finds
that Chowdhury also teaches this search in Fig. 5. Ans. 10.
The Examiner finds that Moissinac teaches the “communication
information search that obtain[s] communication information with indicia
present in the search request” recited in claim 1. Ans. 11. The Examiner
finds that Moissinac teaches:
For example, where the term “pizza,” within a predetermined
proximity (e.g., number of terms) in publication information to
the terms “Palo Alto,” is encountered by the parser module 22,
the identification information for a number of entities (e.g.,
pizza vendors located in Palo Alto) may be associated with the
term “pizza” in the publication data (e.g., the parser module 22
is triggered by the relative position of two predetermined terms
in the published information). In this example, the term “pizza”
may be visually distinguished within the publication data (e.g.,
via a user-selectable icon to invoke display of information
concerning the number of entities). The display of information
pertaining to the number of entities (e.g., parties) may be
performed within a pop-up window. The displayed information
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may include contact initiation information for each of the
entities (e.g., telephone numbers, addresses, etc.) and
communication initiation information associated with the
respective entities. The user may then initiate communications
with one or more of the entities by selecting a user selectable
icon associated with communication initiation information to
invoke the appropriate communication module (e.g., VoIP
module 26) that is associated with the respective paying entity.

Ans. 11 (quoting Moissinac, ¶ [0031]) (emphasis added).
The Examiner finds that it would have been obvious to a person
having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to have
modified Moissinac by the teaching of Chowdhury, because effecting a
normal information search based on the search request information to obtain
search information, when the communication search indicia is not present in
the search request information, would enable the method to return better and
more specific result to the user. Final Rej. 3.
Appellant replies that Moissinac does not teach or suggest
“determining whether communication search indicia is present in the search
request information” as recited in claim 1, arguing that paragraph [0031] of
Moissinac does not disclose the step of determining whether
“communication search indicia is present in the search request information,
wherein presence of the communication search indicia is indicative of a need
for a communication information,” recited in claim 1. Reply Br. 3-4.
Appellant argues Moissinac discloses that communication initiation
information may be associated with a term (or terms) of publication data,
however, neither the communication initiation information nor the
publication data is the claimed “communication search indicia" or the
claimed “search request information.” Reply Br. 4. Appellant argues that
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the publication information disclosed in Moissinac is not information found
in a search request and thus cannot be the claimed “search request
information,” but is found, rather, in the search results. Id.
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments. We find that
paragraph [0013] of Moissinac teaches that the:
publication system 16 includes a search sub-system 17 via
which a user may submit a search query to the publication
system 16, responsive to which the publication system 16
provides search results, the search results pertaining to
publication data (e.g., publication information) stored by the
publication system 16 or accessible at other computer systems
via the network 14.

Moissinac, ¶ [0013]; Final Rej. 3. Furthermore, we find that paragraph
[0015] of Moissinac teaches:
[s]pecifically, considering the search results 36 and the
advertisements 38, text associated with each search result or
advertisement is hypertext-linked to a location accessible via
the network 14 … where [e.g.] search result instance 40
pertains to a product offering by merchant ABC, text associated
with the search result instance 40 may be hypertext-linked to a
website operated by merchant ABC (e.g.,
www.merchantABC.com/products/product123).

Moissinac, ¶ [0015]; Ans. 11. We therefore find that Moissinac
teaches a search system in which communication search indicia is
present in the search request information and also teaches that the
“communication information search that obtain[s] communication
information with indicia present in the search request.” See Final Rej.
3; Ans. 11.
We consequently agree, for these reasons and the reasons stated
by the Examiner supra, that the combination of Moissinac and
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Chowdhury teaches or suggests the limitation of claim 1 reciting
“determining whether communication search indicia is present in the
search request information, wherein presence of the communication
search indicia is indicative of a need for a communication information
search” and we consequently conclude that the Examiner did not err
in so finding.

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-30 as unpatentable under 35
U.S.C. §103(a) is affirmed.

TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).

AFFIRMED

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