Ex Parte Wall

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 31, 2016

11255078 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 31, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO.
111255,078
7590
Llewellyn Wall
FILING DATE
10/19/2005
10/31/2016
2465 J-17 Centrevill Rd.
Suite 278
Herndon, VA 20171
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Llewellyn Wall
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.
86210 7080 3617
EXAMINER
TSUI, WILSON W
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2178
MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE
10/31/2016 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 PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte LLEWELLYN WALL 1
Appeal2015-003745
Application 11/255,078
Technology Center 2100
Before DANIEL N. FISHMAN, JOHN F. HORVATH, and
AMBER L. HAGY, Administrative Patent Judges.
HAGY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON i\.PPEi\L
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1 and 3-15, which are all of the pending claims.
We have jurisdiction over these claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm.
1 Appellant identifies Semantics Labs, LLC, as the real party in interest. (Br.
1.)
Appeal2015-003745
Application 11/255,078
Introduction
According to Appellant, "[ t ]he present invention relates generally to
data processing systems. More particularly, it relates to managing,
formatting, and distributing content material or documents electronically
over a computer network." (Spec. 1: 14--16.)
Exemplary Claim
Claims 1 and 4, reproduced below with the disputed limitations
italicized, are exemplary of the claimed subject matter:
1. A system for assembling an electronically rendered
document from a plurality of components, wherein each of the
plurality of components is called by an associated name, said
system comprising:
a component database for persistent storage of
components of said document;
a request director capable of determining the nature of an
incoming request and directing the request responsive to said
determination;
a storage unit capable of storing a pointer to a component
stored in said component database;
a clickstream database to capture and store an
abbreviated summary of actual content of web pages located at
HTTP web addresses accessed by a user during browsing of
Internet content wherein said abbreviated summary includes an
assigned property according to context information that defines
properties of a viewable resource as an aid in tracking user
interaction behavior;
a metadata database responsive to an Internet server for
obtaining and storing product or service affinity information
related to the abbreviated summary of information contained at
HTTP web addresses of said web addresses accessed by said
user;
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Application 11/255,078
an i/o processor in communication with said clickstream
database, metadata database and request director to modify or
download information from said metadata database according to
said affinity information or the abbreviated summary; and
a component assembly engine responsive to said
component database, request director, storage unit, clickstream
database, metadata database and i/ o processor to generate and
assemble said electronically rendered document.
4. A method for assembling a web page for rendering on a
display device, said method comprising:
a) loading from memory a root component of said web
page, wherein the root component is called by an associated
name;
b) loading from memory a plurality of descendant
components of said root component wherein said descendent
components are selected according to an affinity between
respective information elements obtained from an abbreviated
summary of actual information content located at web addresses
identified by a clickstream history and a respective product or
service wherein said clickstream history comprises a series of
HTTP web addresses generated by sequential or random clicks
of a user during Internet browsing; and
c) processing the plurality of loaded components in
reverse hierarchical order in order to build the web page from
said root and descendant components.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Brown et al.
King et al.
Jaye
us 5,887,133
us 5,956,737
US 7,941,505 B2
3
Mar. 23, 1999
Sept. 21, 1999
May 10, 2011
(application pub.
Dec. 26, 2002)
Appeal2015-003745
Application 11/255,078
REJECTION
Claims 1 and 3-15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over King, Brown, and Jaye. (Final Act. 2-15.)
ISSUES
( 1) Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of
King, Brown, and Jaye teaches or suggests "a clickstream database to
capture and store an abbreviated summary of actual content of web pages
located at HTTP web addresses accessed by a user during browsing of
Internet content," as recited in independent claim 1.
(2) Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of
King, Brown, and Jaye teaches or suggests "processing the plurality of
loaded components in reverse hierarchical order in order to build the web
page from said root and descendant components," as recited in independent
claim 4.
(3) Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of
King, Brown, and Jaye teaches or suggests "wherein at least one descendant
component is a shadow component," as recited in dependent claim 6.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection in light of Appellant's
arguments the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellant's
conclusions and we adopt as our own: (1) the findings and reasons set forth
by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 2-
15) and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer
in response to Appellant's Appeal Brief. (Ans. 2-22.) We concur with the
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Application 11/255,078
conclusions reached by the Examiner, and we highlight the following for
emphasis. 2
A. Claims 1, 3, and 7-15 3 (Issue 1)
Appellant argues the Examiner's findings regarding claim 1 are in
error because the Examiner confused the "clickstream history" limitation of
claim 1 with "click-through" methods described in the prior art. (Br. 4--8.)
In particular, Appellant argues Brown teaches only "click-through." (Br. 6-
8.)
Even if we assume arguendo (without deciding) that Brown describes
only "click-through" and not "clickstream" (as proffered by Appellant), we
highlight that the Examiner also cites Jaye to teach or suggest a "clickstream
database" and, thus, relies on the combination of King, Brown, and Jaye as
teaching or suggesting the disputed limitation of claim 1. (See Final Act. 5-
6; see also Ans. 17-18.)
Thus, Appellant's argument does not take into account what the
collective teachings of the prior art would have suggested to one of ordinary
skill in the art and is, therefore, ineffective to rebut the Examiner's prima
facie case of obviousness. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA
1981 ):
2 Only those arguments made by Appellant have been considered in this
decision. Arguments Appellant did not make in the briefs have not been
considered and are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
3 Separate patentability is not argued for claims 3 and 7-15. (Br. 4--9.)
Except for our ultimate decision, the Examiner's rejection of these claims is
not discussed further herein.
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Application 11/255,078
The test for obviousness is not whether the features of a
secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the
structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed
invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the
references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of
the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in
the art.
(citations omitted). This reasoning is applicable here.
For example, we note Jaye explicitly teaches "analyzing the click
stream generated by the user as the user looks at the content displayed on the
web page or pages," and further teaches the session record "is stored in a
database." (Jaye 9:19--25 (emphases added) and Fig. 5.) Thus, as the
Examiner finds, and we agree:
Jaye teaches a clickstream database (whereas data is saved/stored
in order to track a user's online activity as explained in column
9, lines 19-53 and shown in Fig 5 (which shows the user's
activity/browsing session and a list of webpages that were
browsed by the user being tracked/stored). Additionally, Jaye
teaches summary data comprising interest category property data
of the content of the web pages (column 9, lines 37-41: whereas
category data is a type of property data to provide contextual
interest category data of the web page viewed by the user) as well
as date/time stamp property data and duration property data
being saved (column 9, lines 41-53: whereas the duration of time
viewed for a page is considered time-property data in
response/context to the user's action of requesting the page to be
viewed).
(Ans. 17.) Appellant does not address Jaye or the Examiner's findings
regarding Jaye in combination with King and Brown.
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded of error in the
Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claim 1, and we, therefore,
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Application 11/255,078
sustain the rejection, along with the rejection of claims 3 and 7-15 not
separately argued.
B. Claims 4 and 5 (Issue 2)
Appellant argues the Examiner's findings regarding independent
claim 4 (and dependent claim 5), which recite "processing the plurality of
loaded components in reverse hierarchical order," are in error because "it
appears the examiner may be confusing reverse hierarchical order with
recursive processing" with regard to the teachings of King. (Br. 9-10.) We
disagree. As the Examiner finds, and we agree:
King teaches an initial order of processing components (King,
column 40, lines 42-54: whereas a media tree is initially
traversed downward from top to bottom), then the initial
downward traversal is the forward order. Subsequently, King et
al further teaches that there is a subsequent traversal that is
reverse of the initial order when processing components. This is
also explained in King, column 40, lines 42-54 (whereas the
recursive algorithm implements a traversal that pops back
upward through the tree(s) to finalize the loading of finalized
layout parameters during layout processing).
Thus, in conclusion, a reverse order of layout loading is
taught by popping upward in the tree( s) which is reverse of the
initial downward tree traversal ....
(Ans. 19-20.) Appellant does not persuasively rebut these findings.
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded of error in the
Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 4 and 5, which are argued
collectively, and we, therefore, sustain the rejection.
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C. Claim 6 (Issue 3)
Claim 6 depends from claim 5, and adds the limitation "wherein at
least one descendent component is a shadow component." (Br. 13 (Claims
App'x).) Appellant argues the Examiner's findings regarding claim 6,
which are premised on King's teaching of a "pointer to collect content at the
time of assembly" (Final Act. 10), are in error because "the examiner does
not reference any textual description in the King disclosure that describes
how the pointer is determined in order to perform the function of applicant's
shadow component, as recited in claim 6." (Br. 10-11.)
The Examiner first notes Appellant's Specification describes a
"shadow component" broadly as "a placeholder component" that, "during
the loading phase, effects a replacement of itself with specific other
components." (Ans. 21 (citing Spec. 36-37).) The Examiner then explains
how King's teaching of a pointer in the "footer" component depicted in
King's Figure 7 teaches a placeholder component that satisfies the claimed
"shadow component":
The Examiner has interpreted the Footer component in Fig. 7
(pre-loading/pre-rendering phase) to be the descendent
component. Additionally, it is shown that the Footer component
is a placeholder component, since as shown in Fig. 7 (pre-
loading/prerendering phase), the Footer uses in place of the
actual text rendered in the Footer, a pointer that refers to the text.
In other words, the pointer acts as the placeholder to the text.
This is further explained in column 17, lines 31-35 of King et al,
which explains that the footer component includes a pointer to
point[] to the text string/or the footer. Most importantly, during
the rendering/layout phase when the footer component is
rendered/ loaded-for-rendering, it is clear that it is not the pointer
address that is rendered. Instead it is the actual text data/text-
component-data that is rendered in place of the pointer. This is
shown in Figs 9, 10 and 11, where the footer displays text 'Call
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Application 11/255,078
in Your Order Today' in place of pointer address-data. As further
explained in column 18, lines 32-56: various compositions can
be selected, and the components rendered (which include footer
component 15 as shown in Fig 8) are adapted/recomputed to
adaptively be laid out in context with the selected composition.
(Ans. 22.) Appellant does not persuasively rebut these findings.
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded of error in the
Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claim 6, and we, therefore,
sustain the rejection.
DECISION
The Examiner's rejection of claims 1 and 3-15 is 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)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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