Appeal 2007-0962
Application 09/928,347
combined to form a collaboratively-developed basis for modifying and
expanding on the individualized recommendations that might be otherwise
produced by the referral system (Hosken, col. 4, ll. 44-55).
In a preferred embodiment, Hosken utilizes collected group behaviors
along with user information to ultimately recommend content to the user.
Such group behaviors not only reflect the collective consideration and
review of different content items, the behaviors also are derived from
external polls, rankings, and ratings of different media items (Hosken, col. 9,
ll. 23-52; Fig. 2). In essence, this collaborative function reflects the values
and interests of the user community that ultimately desirably affects the
specific content recommendations (Hosken, col. 9, ll. 33-38). Moreover,
such a function effectively dynamically collates preferences as claimed
giving the term “collation” its broadest reasonable interpretation – an
interpretation that fully comports with Appellants’ definition of the term.5
In view of the stated advantages of utilizing the collective preferences
of multiple users as noted by Hosken above, the skilled artisan would have
ample reason to collate preferences from multiple users in lieu of a single
user’s preferences in Noll when targeting content to the user. By accounting
for preferences across the user community in Noll’s system in lieu of only a
single user, the range of content recommendations would, at a minimum, be
expanded and enhanced.
Although Appellants argue that Noll and Hosken provide different
methods of content delivery (Br. 10-11), the exact method of content
delivery employed in Hosken is not germane to the reason the Examiner
5 See Brief, page 11.
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013