Ex Parte Yaung et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Apr 13, 2010

09800400 (B.P.A.I. Apr. 13, 2010)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________________

Ex parte ALAN TSU-L YAUNG and YAUCHEN (JASON) WU
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Appeal 2009-001806
Application 09/800,4001
Technology Center 2100
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Decided: April 14, 2010
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Before LANCE LEONARD BARRY, HOWARD B. BLANKENSHIP, and
JAY P. LUCAS, Administrative Patent Judges.

LUCAS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal from a final rejection of claims 1, 3 to 8, 10 to 15
and 17 to 23 under authority of 35 U.S.C. § 134(a). Claims 2, 9 and 16 are

1 Application filed March 5, 2001. The real party in interest is International
Business Machines Corporation.
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cancelled. (Brief 2, top). The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences
(BPAI) has jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm the rejections.

Appellants’ invention relates to a system and method for publishing
messages through web pages generated by a page building tool. In the
words of the Appellants:
A method and system for publishing a
message using a page builder tool is disclosed.
The page builder tool is for providing a web page
and linking the web page to a searchable database.
The method and system include providing a
message caching agent, a message cache and a
message publishing agent. The message caching
agent receives the message and provides the
message to the message cache. The message
publishing agent is coupled to the message cache
and the page builder tool. The message publishing
agent retrieves the message from the message
cache and allows the message to be published on a
web browser through the page builder tool in
response to a request from the web browser.
(Abstract, Spec. 16).

Claim 1 is exemplary, and is reproduced below:
1. A system for publishing a message using a page
builder tool, the page builder tool for providing a
web page and linking the web page to a searchable
database, the system comprising:

a message caching agent for receiving the
message;

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a message cache coupled to the message
caching agent for storing the message, the message
cache receiving the message from the message
caching agent, the message cache being a local
cache for the page builder tool; and

a message publishing agent coupled to the
message cache and the page builder tool, the
message publishing agent for retrieving the
message from the message cache and allowing the
message to be published on a web browser through
the page builder tool, wherein the message
publishing agent allows the message to be
published on the web browser by pushing the
message to the web browser through the page
builder tool.

The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Chandra US 2002/0138582 A1 Sep. 26, 2002
Triggs US 6,546,387 B1 Apr. 08, 2003
Underwood US 6,697,825 B1 Feb. 24, 2004
Lindhorst US 6,714,219 B2 Mar. 30, 2004

REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejects the claims as follows:

R1: Claims 1, 3, 6 to 8, 10, 13 to 152, 17, and 20 to 21stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for being obvious over Triggs in view of Chandra and
Lindhorst.

2 In the Answer, page 3, the Examiner forgot that claim 16 was cancelled.
We will adjust the rejection accordingly.
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R2: Claims 4 to 5, 11 to 12, 18 to 19 and 22 to 23 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for being obvious over Triggs in view of Chandra in
view of Lindhorst and further in view of Underwood.

Appellants contend that the claimed subject matter is not rendered
obvious by Triggs, Chandra, Lindhorst, or Underwood for failure of the
references to teach key limitations. The Examiner contends that each of the
claims is properly rejected.
The rejections will be reviewed in the order argued by Appellants.
Claim 1 is considered representative. Arguments that Appellants could have
made but chose not to make in the Briefs have not been considered and are
deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).

ISSUE
The issue is whether Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred
in rejecting the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). The issue specifically turns
on whether the references, especially Triggs, teach a message cache, a
message caching agent, and a message publishing agent as claimed.

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. Appellants have invented a system and method for allowing publishers,
such as administrators, to publish messages to users of web pages
produced by a conventional wage builder tools (Spec. 2, top). Such
conventional web page builder tools produce and maintain web pages
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viewed by users across a network on browsers and are often connected to
databases of information (Id.). The invention provides for a message
caching agent to receive messages to be published and to store the
messages in a message cache prior to publication (Spec. 5, top). A
message publishing agent, which may be a software servlet, retrieves the
message and passes it to the page builder tool to be displayed on the web
pages that it supports (Spec. 5, bottom; Spec. 6, middle).
2. Appellants’ Figure 3 is reproduced below:

Messages are received by Message Publishing Tool 130 and retrieved by
Message Caching Agent 108, and placed in a Message Cache. Message
Publishing Agent 104 retrieves the message from the cache, and passes it
to the Page Builder Tool 100 to be sent over the net (e.g. Internet) to be
viewed by Web Browsers 150.
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3. The Triggs reference uses agents, such as e-mail readers 114 or SQL
Extractors 116, to collect information from across a system (Col. 4, l. 12
to 58). The information is categorized within a database 40 and made
available to users (Col. 6, l. 48). Users have individual information web
pages, provided with selected categories of information (Col. 8, l. 62).
The selected information is pushed to the user web pages from holding
caches through the web servers supporting the web pages (Id.).

PRINCIPLES OF LAW

Appellants have the burden on appeal to the Board to demonstrate
error in the Examiner’s position. See In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 985-86
(Fed. Cir. 2006) (“On appeal to the Board, an applicant can overcome a
rejection [under § 103] by showing insufficient evidence of prima facie
obviousness or by rebutting the prima facie case with evidence of secondary
indicia of nonobviousness.”) (quoting In re Rouffet, 149 F.3d 1350, 1355
(Fed. Cir. 1998)).
“In reviewing the [E]xaminer’s decision on appeal, the Board must
necessarily weigh all of the evidence and argument.” In re Oetiker, 977
F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
“All of the disclosures in a reference must
be evaluated for what they fairly teach one of
ordinary skill in the art.” The use of patents as
references is not limited to what the patentees
describe as their own inventions or to the problems
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with which they are concerned. They are part of
the literature of the art, relevant for all they
contain.
In re Lemelson, 397 F.2d 1006, 1009 (CCPA 1968). ) (quoting In re Boe,
355 F.2d 961, 965 (CCPA 1966)
ANALYSIS
Examiner presents his evidence for a prima facie case on pages 3 to 9
of the Examiner’s Answer. In opposition, Appellants present a number of
arguments.

Arguments with respect to the rejection
of claims 1, 3, 6 to 8, 10, 13 to 15, 17, and 20 to 21 1 to 6
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 [R1]

The Examiner has rejected the noted claims for being obvious over
Triggs in view of Chandra and Lindhorst. Appellants note that Triggs
teaches a web builder and an e-mail reader which monitors when messages
are available and posts them to a server (Brief 11, top). But the Appellants
contend that the e-mail reader simply uploads messages to a server, and
there is apparently no separate message cache holding a message for
publication (Brief 11, top).
We have studied the Triggs reference and find teachings more
relevant to the rejection than those observed by the Appellants. Triggs
teaches agents collecting information from e-mail (E-mail Readers), from
databases (SQL Extractors) and from events occurring throughout the
enterprise (Directory Monitors) (Col. 4, ll. 13 to 60). This information is
categorized by Catalog Agents 140 into categories that would be useful to
the various users of the system (Col. 7, l. 26). A publication system using a
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web based page builder tool brings the messages to the individual users (Col.
8, l. 58). The collected messages are moved to a holding server, which the
Examiner has read on the claimed message cache (Col. 8, l. 63). Triggs also
teaches “individual personal delivery agents 200” that push updates in
information (messages) to personal system web pages maintained for each
employee (Col. 10, l. 25). The updates are from the selected information
categories of each user. These delivery agents are read on the claimed
message publishing agents.
We thus find that the elements that the Appellants believed missing
are actually taught in Triggs. We find the relevant teachings of Chandra and
Lindhorst to be supplemental, and all are supportive of the rejection. We do
not find error in this rejection.

Arguments with respect to the rejection
of claims 4 to 5, 11 to 12, 18 to 19 and 22 to 23
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 [R2]

The noted claims stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for being
obvious over Triggs in view of Chandra and Lindhorst and further in view of
Underwood. Appellants argue that Underwood fails to remedy the defects
of Triggs and the other references. (Brief 14, middle). However, by the
analysis recited above, such defects have not been found sustainable. We
thus further find that the Appellants have not demonstrated error in the
rejection [R2] of the noted claims.

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CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
Based on the findings of facts and analysis above, we conclude that
the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1, 3 to 8, 10 to 15 and 17 to 23
respectively under rejections [R1] and [R2].

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejections [R1] and [R2] respectively of claims 1, 3 to
8, 10 to 15 and 17 to 23 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)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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