Ex Parte Coppens et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 15, 201611685194 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 15, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 11/685, 194 03/12/2007 48116 7590 03/17/2016 FAY SHARPE/LUCENT 1228 Euclid Avenue, 5th Floor The Halle Building FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Toon Coppens UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www .uspto.gov ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. LUTZ200779 4178 EXAMINER WAQAS, SAAD A Cleveland, OH 44115-1843 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2468 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/17/2016 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address( es): docketing@faysharpe.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte TOON COPPENS, BART KAREL HEMMERYCKX- DELEERSNIJDER, HANS DE MONDT, and GEERT ARTHUR EDITH VAN WONTERGHEM Appeal2014-003852 Application 11/685, 194 Technology Center 2400 Before JEFFREYS. SMITH, KEVIN C. TROCK, and NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 1, 3, 4, 14--16, 21, 22 and 27-38. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Alcatel Lucent. App. Br. 1. Appeal 11/685, 194 Application 2014-003852 THE INVENTION Appellants' invention relates to enriching communication sessions, such as mobile telephone calls, telephone conferences, video conferences, chat sessions, and virtual meetings, with contextual information such as the location, time zone, or calendar of a person participating in the communication session, or video streams, pictures, text documents, presentations, drawings, audio fragments, multimedia content that a person desires to share with other participants of the communication session. Spec. 1:5-19. Exemplary independent claim 1 is reproduced below with disputed limitations emphasized. 1. A communication system for interconnecting a plurality of users, compnsmg: a communication server configured to establish a communication session between at least a first user and a second user of said plurality of users; a context vault configured to maintain context information, the context information comprising session-based media content contextually relating to users participating in the communication session, the context information further comprising location information, and the context vault comprising a location vault configured to maintain the location information, the location information comprising location-based media content contextually relating to locations of users participating in the communication session; and a community context manager configured to maintain user information, the user information comprising access rights of the second user to context information associated with the first user, the community context manager comprising a location context manager configured to determine locations of at least the first user and the second user in relation to the communication sess10n; 2 Appeal 11/685, 194 Application 2014-003852 said community context manager further configured to select context information in relation to said first user from said context vault and the context vault further configured to provide said selected context information or parts thereof during said communication session to said second user in accordance with said access rights, the location context manager further configured to select location information in relation to the location of the first user from the location vault and the location vault further configured to provide the selected location information or parts thereof during the communication session to the second user in accordance with the corresponding access rights. REFERENCES and REJECTIONS 1. Claims 1, 3--4, 14--16, 21-22, and 27-38 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ivashin (US 2004/0230651 Al; Nov. 18, 2004), Johnson (US 2006/0022048 Al; Feb. 2, 2006) and Ebling (US 2005/0187368 Al; Aug. 25, 2005). Final Act. 2. ANALYSIS Only those arguments actually made by Appellant in the Briefs are considered in this Decision. Arguments that Appellant did not make in the Briefs are waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). We are not persuaded by Appellant's arguments that the Examiner has erred. We agree with, and adopt as our own, the Examiner's findings and reasons as set forth in the Action from which this Appeal is taken and the Examiner's findings and reasons set forth in the Answer. We highlight specific arguments and findings for emphasis as follows. Appellants argue "[t]his obviousness rejection is in error because neither Ivashin, nor Johnson, nor Ebling, nor any combination thereof 3 Appeal 11/685, 194 Application 2014-003852 disclose or fairly suggest the 'select location information' limitation to the 'location context manager' sub-element of the 'community context manager' element or the 'provide ... location information' limitation to the 'location vault' sub-element of the 'context vault' element." App. Br. 7-8. In their Appeal Brief, Appellants summarize paragraphs 88-93 of Johnson and then argue "[n]otably, the cited portions of Johnson do not disclose or fairly suggest a system that includes a community context manager with a location context manager that selects location information relating to a location of a first user from a location vault as recited in the 'select location information' limitation. Rather, the cited portions of Johnson merely discuss delivery of an alert to a user or group of users subscribed to a web service based on situational location of the user or another user." App. Br. 8. We are unpersuaded by Appellants' arguments. The Examiner finds, and we agree, that Johnson teaches a community context manager with a location context manager that selects location information relating to a location of a first user from a location vault. Final Act. 5-7 (citing Johnson i-fi-136, 60, 66, and 88-93). For example, Johnson teaches providing location based services by sharing experiences, such as content deliveries, of one user with another user in accordance with privileges granted to the users. Johnson i166. Other than summarizing the disclosure of certain paragraphs of Johnson and then summarily concluding that Johnson does not teach the disputed limitation, Appellants offer no explanation or reasoning as to how or why the specific cited portions of Johnson fails to teach or suggest the disputed limitation. We therefore determine these arguments to be unpersuasive. See 37 CPR§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv) ("The arguments shall explain 4 Appeal 11/685, 194 Application 2014-003852 why the examiner erred as to each ground of rejection contested by appellant. . . . [A ]ny arguments or authorities not included in the appeal brief will be refused consideration by the Board for purposes of the present appeal.") (emphasis added). Appellants further argue "the claim is directed to a communication session between two users. The Johnson alerts would not work in the context of the claimed communication session. Therefore, it is not appropriate to rely on the cited portions of Johnson for disclosure of the 'select location information' limitation." App. Br. 8. Appellants' argument is not persuasive. As the Examiner finds, Johnson explicitly discuses communications between two or more users. See Ans. 4--5 (citing Johnson ,-r 66). Appellants do not provide persuasive evidence or reasoning to rebut the Examiner's findings. Appellants argue Ebling does not teach or suggest the "provide ... location information" limitation. App. Br. 8-9. Again, Appellants summarize the cited portions of Ebling and then argue these portions "do not disclose or fairly suggest a system that includes a context vault with a location vault that provides location information [selected by a location context manager] to a second user as recited in the 'provide ... location information' limitation. Rather, the cited portions of Ebling merely discuss capturing location context information and employing a context log with historical context information." App. Br. 9. Appellants' argument is unpersuasive. As before, other than summarize portions of Ebling and concluding that such portions do not teach the disputed limitation, Appellants do not provide persuasive evidence or reasoning to rebut the Examiner's findings. The Examiner finds, and we 5 Appeal 11/685, 194 Application 2014-003852 agree, Ebling's paragraphs 14 and 52 teach this limitation. Ans. 7-8. In particular Ebling teaches making available and providing location information of a user. Ebling i-f 52. We agree with the Examiner's finding that incorporating Ebling's teachings with Johnson and Ivashin teaches or suggests the disputed limitation. Ans. 8. Appellants further argue, "[m]oreover, the claim is directed to a communication session between two users. The Ebling location context information would not work in the context of the claimed communication session. Therefore, it is not appropriate to rely on the cited portions of Ebling for disclosure of the 'provide ... location information' limitation." App. Br. 9. As before, Appellants' do not provide persuasive evidence or reasoning explaining why Ebling's location context information would not work in the context of the claimed communication session between two users. We are therefore unpersuaded by Appellants' argument. Accordingly we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1. We also sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 14 and 21 for which Appellants make similar arguments. See App. Br. 9-13. We also sustain the Examiner's rejection of dependent claims 3, 4, 15, 16, 22, and 27-38 for which Appellants do not make arguments for separate patentability. See id. DECISION The Examiner's rejection of claims 1, 3, 4, 14--16, 21, 22 and 27-38 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended. See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation