Ex parte WHITMAN (2003-1404) Paper 23
Application No. 09/532,230 Page 7
[31] Whitman initially argued (Paper 12 at 7, original emphasis):
In fact, Bowman does not disclose or suggest any analysis or use of post-
search actions of users as a basis for selecting particular queries or phrases to
suggest to users.
[32] Bowman does in fact teach analysis and use of post-search activities (at 11:12-29):
In addition, the amount by which the correlation scores are incremented may be
increased or decreased depending on different kinds of selection actions
performed by the users on items identified in query results. These may include
whether the user displayed additional information about an item, how much time
the user spent viewing the additional information about the item, how many
hyperlinks the user followed within the additional information about the item,
whether the user added the item to his or her shopping basket, and whether the
user ultimately purchased the item. For example, a given query submission can be
counted twice (such as by incrementing the correlation score by two) if the user
subsequently selected an item from the query result page, and counted a third time
if the user then purchased the item or added the item to the shopping basket.
These and other types of post-search activities reflect the usefulness of the query
result, and can be extracted from the query log 135 using well-known tracing
methods.
[33] In reply (Paper 15 at 2, emphasis added), Whitman argues:
The portion of Bowman cited by the Examiner discloses generating the correlation
table 137 from a most recent set of query submissions stored in the query log, so
that this table (and thus the search terms suggested to users) will strongly reflect
the current tastes of users. This portion of Bowman does not suggest analyzing
the post-search actions of users to evaluate the usefulness of the search phrases or
queries submitted by such users.
The portion of Bowman most closely related to this feature is col. 11,
lines 12-29, which discloses adjusting search term correlation scores based on
certain post-search actions performed by users. However, neither this nor any
other portion of Bowman discloses the use of post-search actions of users as
recited in the independent claims of Group 3. * * *
* * *
With respect [sic, to] independent Claim 43, Bowman does not disclose "a
second component which selects search queries from the log and stores selected
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