Ex Parte Durecu et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 4, 201612520603 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 4, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/520,603 03/03/2010 48116 7590 FAY SHARPE/LUCENT 1228 Euclid Avenue, 5th Floor The Halle Building Cleveland, OH 44115-1843 01/05/2016 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Olivier Durecu 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. LUTZ 201028US01 1225 EXAMINER PERSAUD, AMARNAUTH G ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2477 MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE 01/05/2016 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte OLIVIER DURECU and PA TRICK LEGRAND Appeal2014-001494 Application 12/520,603 Technology Center 2400 Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, NATHAN A. ENGELS, and NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's rejection of claims 1--4, 6, and 7. 1 Claim 5 is cancelled. We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We affirm. 1 Appellants identify Alcatel Lucent as the real party in interest. (App. Br. 1.) Appeal2014-001494 Application 12/520,603 THE INVENTION Appellants' invention is directed to adaptation of the routing of the communications of a customer within an IMS (Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem) type network. (Abstract; Spec. 2.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for adapting routing of communications from a customer within an IMS (Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem) type network, said method comprising: receiving additional routing rules for the customer; retrieving routing rules for the customer defined by an IMS network operator from an information storage device storing a customer profile containing the standard routing rules; concatenating said additional routing rules with the routing rules defined by the IMS network operator, wherein the customer profile is modified when saved by concatenation of the routing rules defined by the IMS network operator with the additional routing rules so as to enable the IMS network operator to process the concatenated routing rules together and such concatenated routing rules are subsequently available for use by the IMS network to adapt the routing of the customer's communications as a function of their needs, the subsequent use of the concatenated routing rules comprising the enabling of at least one additional routing rule, the disabling of at least one additional routing rule, or the modification of at least one additional routing rule. REJECTION The Examiner rejected claims 1--4 and 7 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Isomaki et al. (US 2003/0179762 Al, pub. Sep. 25, 2003), and Fikouras et al. (US 2010/0030905 Al, pub. Feb. 4, 2010). (Final Act. 3-7.) 2 Appeal2014-001494 Application 12/520,603 The Examiner rejected claim 6 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Isomaki, Fikouras, and Shtiegman et al. (US 2008/002820 Al, pub. Jan. 3, 2008). (Final Act. 7-8.) ISSUE ON APPEAL Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief and Reply Brief present the following issue: 2 Whether the combination of Isomaki and Fikouras teaches or suggests the independent claim 1 limitation: concatenating said additional routing rules with the routing rules defined by the IMS network operator, wherein the customer profile is modified when saved by concatenation of the routing rules defined by the IMS network operator with the additional routing rules so as to enable the IMS network operator to process the concatenated routing rules together and such concatenated routing rules are subsequently available for use by the Il\1S netv,rork to adapt the routing of the customer's communications as a function of their needs .... (referred to herein as the "concatenating limitation"), and the similar limitation recited in independent claim 7. (App. Br. 6-12.) ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants' arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants' 2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and positions of the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed May 10, 2013), Reply Brief (filed Nov. 12, 2013), Final Office Action (mailed Oct. 23, 2012), and the Examiner's Answer (mailed Sept. 11, 2013) for the respective details. 3 Appeal2014-001494 Application 12/520,603 arguments, and adopt as our own: (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 3-8); and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in response to Appellants' Appeal Brief (Ans. 7-10), and concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We emphasize the following. Appellants argue: Fikouras does not relate to concatenation but to real-time updates of the full user profile .... Fikouras updates the rules stored in the HSS whereas the exemplary embodiment concatenates two kinds of rules at the S-CSCF level for a given IMS session (this concatenation is only available for a session and does not exist the next time the user reconnects). (App. Br. 8-9.) The Examiner responds: Isomaki teaches "routing of the intended session toward the final destination depends on the address information in messages 2, 5 and []the service rules provided by service platform 8 and user profile" where the processing of a plurality of rules . . . determine[ s] where to route the session. Isomaki further teaches in par. 31 subsequently processing the session based on information (i.e. subscriber profile and service type). In addition Fikouras teaches in par. 59, 60 storing sets of rules (initial Filter Criteria) at a network node where these rules are used to make routing decisions for incoming messages .... Fikouras teaches in par. 59, 60 and further in par. 66 storing routing rules. In particular, par. 59 teaches updating a customer profile (subscriber profile) which has been modified (updated). Further par. 59 teaches storing a plurality of rules (set of initial Filter Criteria) for determining routing decisions, where the plurality of rules taken together [is] interpreted as being concatenated. 4 Appeal2014-001494 Application 12/520,603 (Ans. 8 (emphasis omitted).) We are not persuaded that the Examiner's construction of "concatenation" is unreasonable, and therefore we are not persuaded that the Examiner errs in finding that Isomaki and Fikouras teach or suggest the concatenating limitation. See KSR Int 'l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007). Consistent with the Examiner's construction, Appellants' Specification states "the routing rules 1 generated by the IFC criteria are collected by the S-CSCF (Service-Call Session Control Function) function of the IMS network, and the concatenation of the routing rules 1, 2 can be performed as part of this function" (Spec. 5), and we are unpersuaded that the claim language viewed in light of Appellants' Specification would exclude the combined teachings of Isomaki and Fikouras as suggested by the Examiner. The skilled artisan would "be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle" since the skilled artisan is "a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton." KSR, 550 U.S. at 420-21. Appellants do not present evidence that the resulting arrangements were "uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art" or "represented an unobvious step over the prior art." Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 418-19). CONCLUSION For the reasons discussed above, we sustain the obviousness rejection over Isomaki and Fikouras of independent claims 1 and 7. We also sustain the obviousness rejection over Isomaki and Fikouras of claims 2--4; and the 5 Appeal2014-001494 Application 12/520,603 obviousness rejection over Isomaki, Fikouras, and Shtiegman of claim 6, which rejections are not argued separately with particularity. DECISION The Examiner's rejection of claims 1--4, 6, and 7 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED sl 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation