Ex Parte Bellora et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

May 1, 2012

11628236 (B.P.A.I. May. 1, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE 1
___________ 2
3
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS 4
AND INTERFERENCES 5
___________ 6
7
Ex parte MAURO BELLORA, 8
CHIARA DOTTI, 9
LEENA MARJATTA MATTILA, 10
and ROLF NILSSON 11
___________ 12
13
Appeal 2010-010219 14
Application 11/628,236 15
Technology Center 3600 16
___________ 17
18
19
Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, ANTON W. FETTING, and 20
BIBHU R. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judges. 21
FETTING, Administrative Patent Judge. 22
DECISION ON APPEAL 23
24
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Application 11/628,236

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE1 1
Mauro Bellora, Chiara Dotti, Leena Marjatta Mattila, and Rolf Nilsson 2
(Appellants) seek review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 (2002) of a final rejection of 3
claims 8-13, the only claims pending in the application on appeal. We have 4
jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) (2002). 5
The Appellants invented flexible charging mechanisms for IP 6
multimedia services applicable in particular, though not necessarily, to 7
Pushto-Talk over Cellular services (Specification 1:5-8). 8
An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of 9
exemplary claim 8, which is reproduced below [bracketed matter and some 10
paragraphing added]. 11
8. A method of processing service related accounting requests 12
at an Online Charging System of an IP Multimedia Subsystem, 13
the method comprising: 14
[1] receiving a service related accounting request from an IP 15
Multimedia Subsystem Serving Element, 16
the request containing an identification of 17
the chargeable events measuring methods 18
supported by the Serving Element, 19
[2] selecting a charging model 20
appropriate to the chosen service; 21
[3] selecting one or more of the supported measuring methods 22
on the basis of the selected charging model; 23
[4] determining an amount of granted service units for 24

1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App.
Br.,” filed February 1, 2010) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed June 25,
2010), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed April 28, 2010).
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the [one selected measuring method] 1
or 2
each selected measuring method [of plural such 3
methods]; 4
and 5
[5] sending to the Serving Element 6
an accounting response containing 7
the amount(s) of granted service units 8
and 9
an identification of the corresponding measuring 10
method(s). 11
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art: 12
Raman US 2004/0019539 A1 Jan. 29, 2004
13
3RD GENERATION PARTNERSHIP PROJECT (3GPP): "Charging 14
data description for the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)" TECHNICAL 15
SPECIFICATION 3GPP TS 32.225 V5.5.0, [Online] March 2004 (2004-16
03), pages 1-71, XP002317500 Retrieved from the Internet: 17
URL:http://www.3gpp.org/ftp/Specs/archive/32 series/32.225/32225-18
550.zip. 19
Claims 8-13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable 20
over Raman and 3GPP. 21
ISSUES 22
The issue of obviousness turns primarily on whether Raman describes 23
limitation [1] of receiving a service related accounting request from an IP 24
Multimedia Subsystem Serving Element, the request containing an 25
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identification of the chargeable events measuring methods supported by the 1
Serving Element. 2
FACTS PERTINENT TO THE ISSUES 3
The following enumerated Findings of Fact (FF) are believed to be 4
supported by a preponderance of the evidence. 5
Facts Related to the Prior Art 6
Raman 7
01. Raman is directed to supporting prepaid accounting and billing 8
services that work correctly with mobile nodes on 3G networks, 9
because current 3G network models presently suffer from having 10
(i) no mechanism for tracking the consumption or usage of 11
prepaid wireless services in near real time (e.g., most systems 12
have monthly bill reconciliation); (ii) no mechanism for varying 13
the measurement unit (in near real time) for the type of data, (e.g., 14
time units for voice services and/or byte units for data services); 15
(iii) no mechanism for scaling the usage measurement unit (in 16
near real time) on foreign or brokered networks to provide 17
"marking-up" or discounting of services when on a brokered 18
network or foreign network; and (iv) no mechanism for providing 19
usage units renewal during an ongoing communication session. 20
Raman ¶¶ 0022-0023. 21
02. Raman describes providing prepaid billing on a data network for 22
wireless prepaid services carried out by a network-access device, 23
such as a PDSN (Packet Data Serving Node), requesting from a 24
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network-access-control device, such as a Network access AAA 1
(Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting) server, network 2
access for a wireless communication session for one or more 3
wireless mobile nodes. Responsive to the request for network 4
access or registration, the network-access device receives from the 5
network-access-control device for each wireless communication 6
session a block of credits, which may be drawn from a user 7
account having a cache of available credits. In addition, the 8
network-access device may also receive one or more 9
measurement-method parameters. These measurement-method 10
parameters may include an indication for determining the usage 11
units for the wireless communication session. Raman ¶¶ 0024-12
0025. 13
03. After receiving the block of credits and the measurement-method 14
parameters, if any, the network-access device establishes session 15
activity for the wireless communication session. Thereafter, the 16
network-access device periodically measures usage of the session 17
activity for the wireless communication session and debits the 18
usage of the session activity from the block of credits, while the 19
block of credits remains above a predetermined threshold. Raman 20
¶ 0026. 21
04. In response to receiving one or more measurement-method 22
parameters from the network-access-control device, the network-23
access device selects one of a plurality of its predetermined-24
measurement methods for determining usage units for the wireless 25
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communication session. The measurement-method parameters 1
passed to the network-access device from the network-access 2
control device may include an indication for determining which of 3
the plurality of predetermined-measurement methods the network-4
access device should select for determining the usage units for the 5
wireless communication session. The measurement-method 6
parameters passed to the network-access device from the network-7
access-control device may include an algorithm, conversion 8
factor, and/or other instruction for determining the usage units for 9
the wireless communication session. These measurement-method 10
parameters provide the network-access device with one or more 11
methods for measuring the session activity of the wireless 12
communication session. Raman ¶ 0027. 13
05. The application layer may also include a VoIP application 14
program, which in turn may include several other application 15
programs, such as H.323 and SIP. H.323 terminals may be LAN-16
based end terminals for voice transmission. H.323 terminals may 17
support real-time, two-way voice communications. H.323 18
terminals implement voice transmission functions and may 19
include at least one voice Coder-Decoder ("CODEC") for sending 20
and receiving packetized voice. Raman ¶ 0084-0086. One of 21
ordinary skill knew that the Push to Talk protocol was a widely 22
known relatively easy to use and very fast implementation of such 23
two-way voice communication over wireless devices. 24
25
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1
3GPP 2
06. 3GPP is directed to describing the technical specifications for 3
charging for online usage. In particular, it describes doing so 4
using the Diameter protocol. The reasons for using the Diameter 5
protocol are described. 3GPP, pp. 7-10. 6
ANALYSIS 7
We are not persuaded by the Appellants’ arguments that Raman lacks 8
the claimed serving element receiving an accounting request that contains an 9
identification of the chargeable-events measuring methods supported by the 10
serving element; Raman lacks the claimed selecting one or more of the 11
supported measuring methods on the basis of the selected charging model; 12
and Raman fails to identify or appreciate the problems solved by the claimed 13
technology. Appeal Br. 7-12. 14
We adopt the Examiner’s findings of fact and analysis from Answer 4-15
15 and reach similar legal conclusions. To follow how Raman reads on the 16
claims, it is necessary to understand that Raman’s network-access-control 17
device corresponds to the IP Multimedia Subsystem Serving Element. 18
Appellants argue 19
On pages 8-9, the Answer quotes from paragraphs 0025, 20
0026, and one sentence from 0027 (not from [0026-27] as 21
indicated in the Answer), but this text actually confirms that it 22
is the network-access device (corresponding to the claimed 23
service element (SE)) that may receive measurement related 24
parameters from the network access- control device 25
(corresponding to the claimed OCS). Claim 8 recites that an 26
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Online Charging System (OCS) of an IP Multimedia Subsystem 1
receives a service related accounting request from a Serving 2
Element (SE) in the IP Multimedia Subsystem that contains "an 3
identification of the chargeable events measuring methods 4
supported by the serving element." In other words, it is the 5
claimed serving element (SE) that sends "an identification of 6
the chargeable events measuring methods supported by the 7
serving element." 8
Although the Answer quotes page upon page of text from 9
Raman, the underlined portions of the quote on page 9 and on 10
page 13 of the Answer simply confirms that this claim feature is 11
missing from Raman. The underlined text states that the 12
network-access control device (the OCS) sends the network-13
access device (the SE) one or more measurement-method 14
parameters (on page 9) and the measurement-method parameter 15
are passed to the network-access device (the SE) from the 16
network-access-control device (the OCS) (on page 13). In 17
contrast, claim 8 recites that the SE sends the chargeable events 18
measuring methods supported by the serving element in a 19
request to the Online Charging System (OCS). 20
Reply Br. A2-A3. Claim 8 limitation [1] actually recites 21
receiving a service related accounting request from an IP 22
Multimedia Subsystem Serving Element, the request containing 23
an identification of the chargeable events measuring methods 24
supported by the Serving Element 25
Thus, the direction of data flow is opposite that argued by Appellants, 26
and consistent with Raman, which receives identification of such measuring 27
methods from the network access- control device to the network-access 28
device. FF 04. It is apparent part of the controversy stems from Appellants 29
incorrectly mapping Raman’s network-access device to the claimed IP 30
Multimedia Subsystem Serving Element. Claim 8 does not recite any 31
particular structure as being that which receives the limitation [1] request 32
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and sends the limitation [5] response. In Raman, it is the network-access 1
device that receives and sends these data. 2
As to Appellants’ comments regarding their confusion over 3GPP 3
(Reply Br. A4-A5), the Examiner relied on 3GPP only to show that one of 4
ordinary skill knew there was a protocol to follow in returning accounting 5
information, as 3GPP is the technical specification for such a protocol. 6
Raman describes selecting the measurement method to be used using an 7
algorithm. FF 04. As to Appellants’ comments regarding Examiner’s 8
failure to show the art appreciated the disclosed problem, the issue is 9
whether the claims were obvious, not whether parts of the disclosure not in 10
the claims were appreciated. 11
As to claims 12 and 13 separately argued in the Appeal Brief at 12-13, 12
we agree with the Examiner that Raman and 3GPP show it was predictable 13
to use these protocols. FF 05-06. 14
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW 15
The rejection of claims 8-13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable 16
over Raman and 3GPP is proper. 17
DECISION 18
The rejection of claims 8-13 is affirmed. 19
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this 20
appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. 21
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv) (2007). 22
23
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AFFIRMED 1
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3
4
MP 5