Ex Parte Dill

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 17, 2012

10870457 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 17, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
_____________

Ex parte MARCUS DILL
____________________

Appeal 2010-007396
Application 10/870,457
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before KALYAN K. DESHPANDE, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and
TREVOR M. JEFFERSON, Administrative Patent Judges.

KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1-
11, 13-22, 24, 26, 27 and 31-36. Claims 12, 23, 25 and 28-30 were
cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
STATEMENT OF CASE
Introduction
The present invention relates to separating the generation of an alert
from the determination of the recipient or party responsible for the alert.
Spec. 2: ll. 15-16.

Exemplary Claims
Exemplary claims 1 and 21 reproduced below (with disputed
limitations emphasized) are illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A computer-implemented method for determining a
responsible user to receive an alert, the responsible user being
determined separately from a process that generates the alert,
the method comprising:
receiving notification of an alert state for a data object
stored in an electronic data store accessible to a computer
application;
accessing a responsibility data store that associates alert
states with responsible users for those alert states;
determining, using at least one processor, one or more
responsible users to receive an alert related to the alert state by
using information from the responsibility data store;
enabling display of the alert in a portal interface of a
portal environment of the responsible users;
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receiving, from a responsible user, indication of selection
of the alert displayed in the portal interface of the portal
environment;
receiving, in response to the reception of the indication of
selection of the alert, information identifying a type of the data
object that is a source of the alert, a name of a portal
application associated with the data object type, and an
identifier of the data object that is the source of the alert; and
enabling display, based on the received information, of
the portal application displaying the data object that is the
source of the alert within the portal environment, the portal
application being different from the portal interface.

21. A computer-implemented method for creating an
association of an alert state with a responsible user, the method
comprising:
receiving an indication of an alert state for a data object;
receiving, without human intervention, information
indicating relationships between users and the data object;
creating, without human intervention and based on the
received information, an association of the alert state with a
responsible user; and
storing the association of the alert state with the
responsible user in a responsibility data store for use in
determining a responsible user to receive an alert based on the
association.

The Examiner’s Rejections
The Examiner rejected claims 1-11 and 13-20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Tu (US 2002/0154010 A1, Oct. 24,
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2002) in view of Kumar (US 6,859,212 B2, Feb. 22, 2005) and Hayer (US
2003/0226103 A1, Dec. 4, 2003). Ans. 3-10.
The Examiner rejected claims 21, 22, 24, 26, 27, and 31-36 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Tu. Ans. 10-13.

ANALYSIS
We disagree with Appellant’s 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 (Ans. 13-19) in response to Appellant’s Appeal
Brief. We highlight the following arguments for emphasis.
With respect to exemplary claim 1, Appellant contends that relied-on
portions of Tu, Kumar, and Hayer do not disclose or suggest “receiving, in
response to the reception of the indication of selection of the alert,
information identifying a type of the data object that is a source of the alert,
a name of a portal application associated with the data object type, and an
identifier of the data object that is the source of the alert,” as recited in
claim 1 (App. Br. 4-8; Reply Br. 2-3) (emphasis ours). Appellant
specifically argues that the “object link” in Hayer does not teach or suggest
the “source of the alert” (App. Br. 6-7; Reply Br. 2-3).

The Examiner finds that, as shown in Figure 11 (see Alerts Module
213) and disclosed in column 29, lines 54-57, Kumar discloses “[b]y
clicking on any of the listed alerts, a user may be hyper-linked to the
appropriate sub-module responsible for the detailed data and account entity
associated with the alert” (Ans. 15 (emphasis ours)). The Examiner also
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finds that Hayer teaches “the user selecting a link in a portal environment
and as a result of the link selection an object link is received by a URL
generator that includes an ObjectID, an ObjectType, and a Method.” (Ans.
13-15 (citing Hayer, ¶¶[0026] to [0032]; see Object link 52)). The Examiner
thus finds that the “ObjectID and ObjectType would [respectively]
correspond to ‘an identifier of the data object that is the source of the alert’
and ‘a type of the data object that is the source of the alert.’” (Id.). We agree
with the Examiner’s findings and accordingly we find that the combination
of Tu, Kumar, and Hayer teaches or suggests the “data object that is a source
of the alert,” feature recited in claims 1-11 and 13-20.
Regarding claim 21, Appellant asserts that Tu does not disclose or
suggest “receiving, without human intervention, information indicating
relationships between users and the data object,” as recited in claim 21 (App.
Br. 8-9; Reply Br 5-6) (emphasis ours). Appellant contends that Tu’s “set of
notification preferences is received from a user through a graphical user
interface” (Id. (emphasis ours)).1
With respect to exemplary claim 21, we also agree with the
Examiner’s finding that Tu discloses automatically associating an alert
instance with the users when a triggering condition occurs (Ans. 17-18,
citing Tu ¶¶ [0102] through [0107], See also [0115]). In other words, Tu
allows initial set up of parameters that when a triggering condition occurs,
will then automatically do the claimed function. Thus Appellant’s
contention or reply (Reply 5-6) does not persuade us that the Examiner
erred.

1 With respect to separately argued claims 15, 17, and 26, no new arguments
were presented (see App. Br. 7-10).
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DECISION
For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-11, 13-22,
24, 26, 27 and 31-36 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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