Facebook, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 29, 2020

2019004072 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 29, 2020)

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.
14/686,770 04/14/2015 Alexandre Lebrun 26295-29146/US 4384
87851 7590 09/29/2020
Facebook/Fenwick
Silicon Valley Center
801 California Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
EXAMINER
SAINT CYR, LEONARD
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2658
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/29/2020 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):
fwfacebookpatents@fenwick.com
ptoc@fenwick.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ALEXANDRE LEBRUN

Appeal 2019-004072
Application 14/686,770
Technology Center 2600
Before JAMES R. HUGHES, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and
STEPHEN E. BELISLE, Administrative Patent Judges.
HUGHES, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Claims 1–5, 7–13, 15, and 16 are pending, stand rejected, are appealed
by Appellant, and are the subject of our decision under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a).1

1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Facebook, Inc.
See Appeal Br. 1.
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Application 14/686,770

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See Non-Final Act. 1; Appeal Br. 17, 19.2, 3 We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The invention, according to Appellant, “relates in general to the field
of natural language processing, and in particular to an email-like user
interface and a crowd-source based network for configuring and training a
natural language system interfaced with a runtime system or application.”
Spec. ¶ 2. More specifically, Appellant’s invention relates to computer
program products and methods for training a natural language configuration
system based on responses provided by a developer in a user interface
(graphical user interface (GUI)) by: accessing natural language queries from
user devices in a natural language configuration system, predicting an intent
of a natural language expression associated with the natural language query,
generating user logs based on the natural language queries, presenting a
plurality of action panels to a developer in an inbox view of a user interface,
where each action panel is associated with a user log and includes the
associated natural language expression as well as the intent of the associated
user log, presenting the developer an option to validate or dismiss the

2 We refer to Appellant’s Specification (“Spec.”), filed Apr. 14, 2015
(claiming benefit of multiple applications including US 61/980,355, filed
Apr. 16, 2014); Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.”), filed June 6, 2018; and Reply
Brief (“Reply Br.”), filed Apr. 30, 2019. We also refer to the Examiner’s
Non-Final Office Action (“Non-Final Act.”), mailed Aug. 7, 2017; and
Answer (“Ans.”) mailed Mar. 1, 2019.
3 Appellant’s Appeal Brief does not include page numbers. We reference
the Appeal Brief as if numbered consecutively, beginning at page 1, from
the page including the heading: “I. Real Party in Interest.”
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associated user log, and configuring and training the natural language
configuration system based on a selection of the option (whether to validate
the user log) received through the user interface using the natural language
expression and the intent of the validated user log. See Spec. ¶¶ 2–8;
Abstract. Claims 1 (directed to a computer-implemented method) and
9 (directed to a computer program product) are independent. Claim 1,
reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
accessing, at a natural language configuration system, a
plurality of natural language queries from one or more user
devices, each natural language query of the plurality of natural
language queries comprising a natural language expression, the
natural language expression comprising text corresponding to
natural language of a user;
predicting, for each natural language query of the plurality
of natural language queries, an intent of the natural language
expression associated with the natural language query;
generating a plurality of user logs based on the plurality of
natural language queries, each user log comprising the natural
language expression associated with a natural language query of
the plurality of natural language queries and the predicted intent
of the natural language expression;
presenting a plurality of action panels to a developer of the
natural language configuration system in an inbox view of a user
interface, each action panel being associated with one or more
different user logs of the plurality of user logs and comprising
the natural language expression and the intent of the associated
user log;
presenting, to the developer for each action panel, an
option to validate or dismiss the associated user log; and
in response to receiving from the developer a selection of
the option to validate the user log through the user interface,
configuring and training the natural language configuration
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system based on the natural language expression and the intent
of the validated user log.
Appeal Br. 16–17 (Claims App.).
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:
Name Reference Date
Liu et al. (“Liu”) US 2004/0215663 A1 Oct. 28, 2004
Lundberg et al.
(“Lundberg ”)
US 2013/0268260 A1 Oct. 10, 2013

REJECTION4, 5
The Examiner rejects claims 1–5, 7–13, 15, and 16 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Liu and Lundberg. See Non-Final Act. 4–
9.
ANALYSIS
The Examiner rejects independent claim 1 (as well as independent
claim 9, and dependent claims 2–5, 7, 8, 10–13, 15, and 16) as being
obvious over Liu and Lundberg. See Non-Final Act. 4–9; Ans. 8–9.
Appellant contends that Liu and Lundberg do not teach the disputed
limitations of claim 1. See Appeal Br. 12–15; Reply Br. 2–3. Specifically,
Appellant contends, inter alia, that “Liu and Lundberg do not disclose” or

4 The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (“AIA”), Pub. L. No. 112–29, 125
Stat. 284 (2011), amended 35 U.S.C. § 103. Because the present application
has an effective filing date (Apr. 16, 2014) after the AIA’s effective date for
applications (March 16, 2013), this decision refers 35 U.S.C. § 103.
5 The Examiner has withdrawn a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101. See
Ans. 8; Non-Final Act. 2–4. We do not address Appellant’s arguments to
the withdrawn rejection. See Appeal Br. 3–11.
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teach the disputed “limitations of claim 1,” including “presenting a plurality
of action panels to a developer . . . in an inbox view of a user interface . . .
comprising the natural language expression and the intent of the associated
user log” and “presenting, to the developer for each action panel, an option
to validate or dismiss the associated user log.” Appeal Br. 12 (quoting
claim 1) (quotations omitted). Appellant further contends that
Liu . . . does not disclose “presenting, to the developer for each
action panel, an option to validate or dismiss the associated user
log” and . . . “configuring and training the natural language
configuration system based on the natural language expression
and the intent of the validated user log,” as recited in claim 1.
Appeal Br. 14 (quoting claim 1). Appellant also contends that although
“Lundberg describes a method for the ‘semi-automatic generation and tuning
of natural language interaction applications,’” “Lundberg is silent with
respect to any details and/or functionality of a user interface for training a
natural language system.” Appeal Br. 14 (quoting Lundberg ¶ 12) (citation
omitted). See Appeal Br. 12–15; Reply Br. 2–3.
We agree with Appellant that the Examiner-cited portions of Liu and
Lundberg do not teach or suggest the disputed limitations of claim 1—
“presenting a plurality of action panels to a developer . . . in an inbox view
of a user interface . . . comprising the natural language expression and the
intent of the associated user log” and “presenting, to the developer for each
action panel, an option to validate or dismiss the associated user log”
(Appeal Br. 16 (Claims App.) (claim 1)). See Appeal Br. 12–15; Reply
Br. 2–3.
The limitations of Appellant’s claim 1 are directed to a natural
language system (i.e., voice-operated system) and, in particular, configuring
and training a natural language system—“configuring and training the
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natural language configuration system” (Appeal Br. 17 (Claims App.)
(claim 1)). See Spec. ¶¶ 2–8. The configuring and training requires
presenting information to a system developer in a user interface (graphical
user interface (GUI)) of a developer’s system (development platform). See
Spec. ¶¶ 2–8, 16–18, 25–35. Although the Examiner-cited portions of Liu
(see Non-Final Act. 4–6) teach user generated search queries having a
textual description input and extracting semantic information (see Liu ¶¶ 63–
67), user logs and a learned user intention model (see Liu ¶¶ 75–91), as well
as displaying the information to a user for selecting and editing of the
semantic text (i.e., validation) (see Liu ¶¶ 76, 78), Liu does not teach or
suggest displaying the semantic text query information (i.e., the natural
language expression) or the “intent” (i.e., intent of the associated user log) to
a developer, rather than a user. At most, Liu describes displaying text
(textual semantic information) suggestions (the output of the intention
model) to a user for review and selection. Liu does not mention natural
language (voice) systems, developers, or a graphical user interface that
displays “action panels” to a developer.
The Examiner-cited portions of Lundberg (see Non-Final Act. 6–7;
Ans. 8–9) teach tuning (training) natural language interaction applications, a
developer user interface, providing recommendations to a developer via the
interface, and analysis of user logs. See Lundberg ¶¶ 12, 110, 159.
Although Lundberg at least suggests presenting textual natural language
expressions and suggestions to a developer in a user interface (Lundberg
¶¶ 12, 159), Lundberg does not teach or suggest displaying the natural
language expression in an “action panel” (see Spec. ¶¶ 5, 49–51; Fig. 4).
Further, Lundberg does not mention displaying the “intent” (i.e., intent of
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the associated user log (see Spec. ¶¶ 4, 5, 8, 21, 22, 24, 26–28, 32, 50–53;
Fig. 4)) to the developer.
The Examiner-cited portions of Liu and Lundberg, at best, vaguely
describe natural language expressions and suggestions to a developer in a
user interface. Neither Liu, nor Lundberg, describes a user interface with
specificity or displaying “action panels” (i.e., user interface elements
(windows)) containing both a natural language expression and an intent of
an associated user log. The Examiner does not explain sufficiently how the
cited portions of Liu and Lundberg at least suggest the disputed features of
“presenting a plurality of action panels to a developer . . . in an inbox view
of a user interface . . . comprising the natural language expression and the
intent of the associated user log” (Appeal Br. 16 (Claims App.) (claim 1)).
Consequently, we are constrained by the record before us to find that
the Examiner erred in concluding that the combination of Liu and Lundberg
renders obvious Appellant’s claim 1. Independent claim 9 includes
limitations of commensurate scope. Claims 2–5, 7, 8, 10–13, 15, and 16
depend from and stand with their respective base claims.
CONCLUSION
Appellant has shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1–5,
7–13, 15, and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. We, therefore, do not sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–5, 7–13, 15, and 16.
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DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–5, 7–13, 15,
16
103 Liu, Lundberg 1–5, 7–13, 15,
16

REVERSED