Obviousness

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103, an invention is considered obvious if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA). To establish obviousness, there must be a motivation to combine existing prior art references, and the combination must teach all the limitations of the claims.

For the purpose of this analysis, the claims of US patent 6775664 are represented by its Abstract, which provides a concise summary of the invention.

The Abstract of US6775664 states:
"A search engine system is provided for a portal site on the internet. The search engine system employs a regular search engine to make one-shot or demand searches for information entities which provide at least threshold matches to user queries. The search engine system also employs a collaborative/content-based filter to make continuing searches for information entities which match existing wire queries and are ranked and stored over time in user-accessible, system wires corresponding to the respective queries. A user feedback system provides collaborative feedback data for integration with content profile data in the operation of the collaborative/content-based filter. A query processor determines whether a demand search or a wire search is made for an input query."

Prior Art References:

1. US Patent 5,867,799 (Lang et al.): This patent is explicitly identified in the background of US6775664 as a parent application, describing an "advanced collaborative/content-based information filter system." Key teachings of US5867799, as described in US6775664, include:

   • Integration of content-based filtering and collaborative filtering to determine relevancy of informons.
   • The establishment of "wires" for user queries, where the query is profiled on a content basis and adaptively updated over time.
   • A continuously operating "spider" that scans the network to find informons relevant to individual user's wires or wires of other users.
   • The system compares received informons to user query profile data combined with collaborative data, ranking them by value.
   • The system performs "continued long-term searching" for various users' wires.

2. Conventional Search Engines (General Knowledge): The background of US6775664 itself acknowledges that "conventional search engines initiate a search in response to an individual user's query and use content-based filtering to compare the query to accessed network informons typically to find matching informons during a limited, short-term search time period." This describes the "one-shot or demand search" functionality.

Obviousness Analysis:

A PHOSITA would have been motivated to combine the teachings of US5867799 with the functionality of conventional search engines, and the resulting combination would render the claims of US6775664 obvious.

Motivation to Combine:

A PHOSITA, at the time of the invention, would have recognized several motivations to combine the "wire" system of US5867799 with conventional "demand search" capabilities:

• Comprehensive User Experience: Users have diverse information needs. Some queries require immediate, one-time results (demand searches), while others represent ongoing interests that benefit from continuous monitoring and adaptive filtering (wire searches). A system that offers both functionalities provides a more complete, versatile, and convenient experience for users. The patent itself notes that this combination is "especially beneficial for use in applying the invention to existing search engine structure."
• Efficiency and Resource Management: Running continuous "wires" for every single user query would be resource-intensive. It would be more efficient to reserve the continuous, adaptive, collaborative filtering (wire system) for common or recurring queries, and rely on conventional demand searches for less frequent or transient requests. US6775664 mentions that "wires are created for the most common queries received by the search engine system." This indicates a clear motivation for selectively using the wire system.
• Incremental Integration: For an existing search engine provider, integrating advanced "wire" technology (from US5867799) into their infrastructure would likely involve augmenting, rather than completely replacing, their established demand search functionality. This incremental approach would be a practical and obvious path for technological adoption.

Elements of the Abstract Taught by the Combination:

Let's break down the Abstract of US6775664 and demonstrate how its elements are taught by the combination of US5867799 and conventional search engines:

1. "A search engine system is provided for a portal site on the internet.": Search engine systems for networks like the internet were well-known general knowledge in the prior art.
2. "The search engine system employs a regular search engine to make one-shot or demand searches for information entities which provide at least threshold matches to user queries.": This functionality is directly taught by conventional search engines, as acknowledged in the background of US6775664.
3. "The search engine system also employs a collaborative/content-based filter to make continuing searches for information entities which match existing wire queries and are ranked and stored over time in user-accessible, system wires corresponding to the respective queries.": This describes the "wire" system, which is explicitly taught by US5867799, including its use of content-based and collaborative filtering for continuous searching, adaptive profiles, and ranked informons.
4. "A user feedback system provides collaborative feedback data for integration with content profile data in the operation of the collaborative/content-based filter.": This feedback system and the integration of collaborative data with content profile data are clearly taught by US5867799 for its integrated filter structure.
5. "A query processor determines whether a demand search or a wire search is made for an input query.": Given the existence of both demand search capabilities (conventional search engines) and wire search capabilities (US5867799), a PHOSITA would find it obvious to implement a control mechanism to select between these two modes of operation. For example, a simple query processor could check if a "wire" already exists for an input query (e.g., via a lookup table, as suggested in FIG. 8 of US6775664). If a wire exists, the query would be directed to the wire system; otherwise, a demand search would be initiated. This type of conditional routing is a basic programming construct and would be an obvious engineering choice for integrating two distinct search functionalities.

Conclusion:

The combination of US Patent 5,867,799, which provides the advanced "wire" system with integrated content-based and collaborative filtering, and the general knowledge of conventional "demand search" engines, renders the subject matter of US6775664 obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103. A PHOSITA would have been motivated to combine these known elements to create a more comprehensive and efficient search system, and the implementation of a query processor to select between the two modes would have been a straightforward engineering task.