Ex Parte Wagner et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 14, 2014

11245607 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 14, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte DIRK P. WAGNER
and JENS O.J. WEIDNER
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Appeal 2011-007377
Application 11/245,607
Technology Center 2400
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Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, CAROLYN D. THOMAS, and
JOHNNY A. KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judges.

KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2011-007377
Application 11/245,607

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1-21. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Appellants’ Invention
Appellants’ invention pertains to an apparatus for tracking incoming
link access in a processing system. See, e.g., Figure 1. The apparatus
includes a parser operative to separate a destination universal resource
locator (URL) and a first set of tracking information from an incoming
access request. See, e.g., Specification, ¶ 16 and Figure 1 (104). The
apparatus includes a URL modifier. See, e.g., Specification, ¶ 18 and Figure
1 (106). The modifier is operative to receive the destination URL and the
first set of tracking information from the parser. Id. The modifier is
operative to provide a second set of tracking information to a business
warehouse coupled to the URL modifier, the second set of tracking
information including a date and a time of the incoming access request, a
location from which the incoming access request is generated, and an
amount of time elapsed between a presentation of a link to a user and a
selection of the link corresponding to the incoming access request by the
user. See, e.g., Specification, ¶ 18 and Figure 2 (110 and 158). The
modifier is operative to generate a target URL based on the first set of
tracking information and the second set of tracking information. Figure 2
(106).

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Representative Claim on Appeal
1. An apparatus for tracking incoming link access in a
processing system, the apparatus comprising:
a parser operative to separate a destination universal
resource locator (URL) and a first set of tracking information
from an incoming access request;
a URL modifier operative to:
receive the destination URL and the first set of
tracking information from the parser;
provide a second set of tracking information to a
business warehouse coupled to the URL modifier, the
second set of tracking information including a date and a
time of the incoming access request, a location from
which the incoming access request is generated, and an
amount of time elapsed between a presentation of a link
to a user and a selection of the link corresponding to the
incoming access request by the user; and
generate a target URL based on the first set of
tracking information and the second set of tracking
information;
a tracking database coupled to the URL modifier,
operative to receive the first set of tracking information
therefrom to update the tracking database based on the first set
of tracking information; and
a redirector receiving the generated target URL of a first
type from the URL modifier, wherein the redirector provides an
access request for the target URL to be transmitted to a user, the
processing of the access request resulting in pushing data from
the target URL to the user,
wherein the first set of tracking information includes an
identifier for the accessed target URL and an identifier for at
least one category corresponding to accessed URLs of the first
type, and
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wherein upon receiving the first set of tracking
information, an entry corresponding to the target URL and an
entry corresponding to the at least one category of the tracking
database are updated to reflect the target URL being accessed.

Rejection on Appeal1
The Examiner rejected claims 1-21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Kirsch (US 6,466,966 B1, Oct. 15, 2002), Szabo (US
7,062,475 B1, Jun. 13, 2006), and Seidl (US 2007/0011340 A1, Jan. 11,
2007). Ans. 4-12.

ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants’
conclusions. We adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by
the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and (2) the
reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to
Appellants’ Appeal Brief. We concur with the conclusions reached by the
Examiner.
Appellants first contend that Seidl does not teach “an amount of time
elapsed between a presentation of a link to a user and a selection of the link”
(hereinafter “time” limitation), as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 6-8.
The Examiner finds that Seidl teaches the claimed time limitation.
Ans. 12-13 (citing Seidl, ¶¶ 39 and 42). Specifically, the Examiner finds the
“time on page” in Seidl “refers to the duration of time elapsed between the
presentation of the webpage with the URL link to the user, and the selection

1 The rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph has been withdrawn
by the Examiner. Ans. 3.
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of the link by the user which allowed the service to track the user’s time on
the webpage.” Id. at 13. We agree. In the Reply Brief, the Appellants
contend that in Seidl,
While one scenario of web page navigation may have equal
“time on page” values and “an amount of time elapsed between
presentation of a link to a user and a selection of a link,” the
first does not disclose the latter, nor render it inherent, since
countless other scenarios render the two metrics unrelated.
Reply Br. 3 (emphasis ours).
We are not persuaded with Appellants’ contention about other
scenarios because claim 1 does not preclude such a reading. See In re
Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
The Appellants next contend that Seidl’s provisional application
60/687,597 (filed June 2, 2005) does not support Seidl being prior art for the
disputed time limitation. App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 3. The Examiner responds,
and we agree, that the disputed time limitation is supported by Seidl’s
provisional application that teaches tracking various clickflow parameters of
a user accessing a webpage including the average visit duration on the
webpage. Ans. 13 (citing Seidl’s provisional application, 6-7); See Seidl’s
provisional application, 16 (Terminology) and 17 (Visit Related).
Applicant also contends that Kirsch, Szabo, and Seidl are not
combinable because
Kirsch is a redirection method that begins with receiving a
client requested URL, it is not clear that “an amount of time
elapsed between a presentation of a link to a user and a
selection of the link,” would even be compatible with Kirsch,
having occurred before Kirsch ever receives the client request,
which may or may not be based on a link presentation.
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App. Br. 9. In response, the Examiner finds that Kirsch and Seidl are
properly combinable because
both Kirsch and Seidl . . . are concerned with the presentation
of a webpage with a URL link for selection by a user, as well as
the tracking of various user data based on the selection of the
URL link by the user. . . . Kirsch (column 2 lines 65-67, column
11 lines 40-45) discloses collecting tracking information such
as the date and time of the incoming access request and a
location from which the incoming access request is
generated. . . . [I]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art at the time the invention was made, in view of
the Seidl reference, to incorporate an amount of time elapsed
between a presentation of a link to a user and a selection of the
link corresponding to the incoming access request by the user,
as disclosed by Seidl, in order to provide additional tracking
information that was well known to be useful in tracking user
link access.
Ans. 14.
We agree with the Examiner because all of the features of the
structure in the secondary reference need not be bodily incorporated into the
primary reference, but consideration should be given to what the combined
teachings, knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the art, and the nature of the
problem to be solved as a whole would have suggested to those of ordinary
skill in the art (see In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981)).
In that regard, the Supreme Court has indicated that:
[It is error to] assum[e] that a person of ordinary skill
attempting to solve a problem will be led only to those elements
of prior art designed to solve the same problem. . . . Common
sense teaches . . . that familiar items may have obvious uses
beyond their primary purposes, and in many cases a person of
ordinary skill will be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents
together like pieces of a puzzle.
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KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 420 (2007) (citation omitted).
Furthermore, the artisan is not compelled to blindly follow the
teaching of one prior art reference over the other without the exercise of
independent judgment (see Lear Siegler, Inc. v. Aeroquip Corp., 733 F.2d
881, 889 (Fed. Cir. 1984)). As such, we think Kirsch would be adjusted to
accommodate teachings from Seidl by one of ordinary skill in the art. As
correctly cited by the Examiner, one of ordinary skill would incorporate the
concepts of Seidl without incorporating every feature of the Kirsch principle
into Seidl.
For the above reasons, the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejections
of independent claim 1, and claims 2-21 not separately argued by
Appellants, is sustained.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 1-21 as being
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for the reasons discussed above.

DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1-21.
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)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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