Ex Parte ElliotDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJul 29, 201612976452 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 29, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE 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 APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 12/976,452 12/22/2010 Jeremiah Elliot JINTE.00002 7493 22858 7590 08/01/2016 CARSTENS & CAHOON, LLP P.O. Box 802334 DALLAS, TX 75380-2334 EXAMINER WAQAS, SAAD A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2468 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/01/2016 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 JEREMIAH ELLIOT ____________________ Appeal 2015-002065 Application 12/976,452 Technology Center 2400 ____________________ Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and ERIC S. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judges. HUGHES, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2015-002065 Application 12/976,452 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 1–4 and 6–9. Claim 5 was cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. The invention relates to increasing the speed of content delivery through the use of caching operations (Spec. 2:4–5). Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for maximum utilization of bandwidth for data transfer in a local area network (LAN), the method comprising: (a) providing a local caching system within said LAN; (b) for data uploads: (i) uploading data from a client in the LAN to said caching system at the LAN’s maximum available bandwidth, wherein said data is immediately available for access on the LAN, and (ii) subsequently uploading said data from the caching system to a remote server at available Internet bandwidth, thereby minimizing upload lag on the client side; and (c) for data downloads: (i) pre-caching data from a remote server to said caching system at available Internet bandwidth in advance of requests for said data, wherein pre-caching data from the remote server is performed in advance of pre- scheduled data requests based on an Appeal 2015-002065 Application 12/976,452 3 appointment or use schedule that identifies specific matters or client appointments, and (ii) in response to a request for said data from a client in the LAN, downloading the data from the caching system to the client at the LAN’s maximum available bandwidth. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Kalaboukis Lev Ran US 2008/0162686 A1 US 2010/0169392 A1 July 3, 2008 July 1, 2010 REJECTION The Examiner made the following rejection: Claims 1–4 and 6–9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lev Ran and Kalaboukis. ANALYSIS Appellant contends that Kalaboukis’s teachings “relating to caching data to a mobile computing device cannot be obviously incorporated into the fixed LAN of [Lev] Ran” (App. Br. 7). Appellant also contends there is no reason to combine Kalaboukis with Lev Ran because “[o]ne skilled in the art would not look to the Kalaboukis disclosure relating to mobile computing devices for anything relevant to a local area network, which is generally in a fixed location” (id.). Further, Appellant contends “[Lev] Ran teaches away from using the event-based pre-caching disclosed in Kalaboukis” (id.). We disagree with Appellant. Appeal 2015-002065 Application 12/976,452 4 Lev Ran discloses a virtual file-sharing network (VFN) comprising two VFN gateways, each of which is connected to a different LAN, and which communicate with each other over a WAN (Lev Ran, ¶ 21). In order to serve a resource from a file [server] on a first LAN to a client on a second LAN, the VFN gateway on the first LAN fetches the resource from the file server and transmits the resource over the WAN to the VFN gateway on the second LAN, which then serves the resource to the client. (The same VFN gateways may be used to provide resources from another file server on the second LAN to clients on the first LAN). . . . Remote resources are efficiently and transparently made available to clients by a combination of file replicating and caching, and on-demand retrieval. These functions are performed by a receiver component of the VFN gateway, which serves the clients that are located on the same LAN as the gateway. . . . Selected resources are replicated (“pre-positioned”) prior to a client request. Policies and algorithms are used to determine which resources to pre-position and when to pre- position resources, based on characteristics of the resources and the availability of bandwidth and local storage. Preferably, the policies are set so that resources with higher ratios of expected usage to expected modifications are more likely to be pre- positioned. Look-ahead fetching is employed by analyzing real- time file usage patterns to detect sequential access patterns. (Lev Ran, ¶¶ 22–23). Based on the disclosure quoted above, we agree with the Examiner that Lev Ran discloses “providing a local caching system within said LAN,” “uploading data from a client in the LAN to said caching system . . . and subsequently uploading said data from the caching system to a remote server,” and “pre-caching data from a remote server to said caching system . . . and . . . downloading the data from the caching system to the client” (Final Act. 3–5). The Examiner only relies on Kalaboukis for disclosing the feature “wherein pre-caching data from the remote server is Appeal 2015-002065 Application 12/976,452 5 performed in advance of pre-scheduled data requests based on an appointment or use schedule that identifies specific matters or client appointments” (Final Act. 5–6). Kalaboukis teaches “selecting a time to pre- cache information corresponding to an event” where “the time selected precedes the event such that the information corresponding to the event may be pre-cached or stored prior to an occurrence of the event” (Kalaboukis, ¶ 15). Under KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., “if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill.” 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007). Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner’s conclusion that it would have been obvious to apply Kalaboukis’s event-based pre- caching technique to Lev Ran’s virtual file-sharing network because such technique is “device agnostic and applicable to [a] wireline communications network” (Ans. 6) and it would provide a similar improvement as in Kalaboukis’s network, namely, having the most relevant information available at a client when needed and without delay (Kalaboukis, ¶ 2). We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that Kalaboukis’s technique for a mobile device cannot be incorporated into Lev Ran’s fixed LAN (App. Br. 7; Reply Br. 2) because “[t]he test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference . . . . Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.” In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981). Here, the question is not whether Kalaboukis’s mobile device could be made to work in Lev Ran’s LAN, but rather, whether one would have been motivated to implement Kalaboukis’s technique of event-based pre-caching Appeal 2015-002065 Application 12/976,452 6 in Lev Ran’s LAN. As quoted above, Lev Ran discloses “[p]olicies and algorithms are used to determine which resources to pre-position and when to pre-position resources” (Lev Ran, ¶ 23). We find Kalaboukis would have suggested pre-positioning resources ahead of a predetermined event as part of Lev Ran’s policies and algorithms. As mentioned above, Kalaboukis provides the motivation for this modification, i.e., providing a client with relevant information when needed and without delay. We are also not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that one would not have looked to Kalaboukis mobile network to provide any relevant teaching related to Lev Ran’s LAN (App. Br. 7; Reply Br. 2). As discussed above, the technique of event-based pre-caching is equally applicable to wired or wireless networks. Further, we are not persuaded by Appellant’s teaching away argument. Specifically, Appellant argues “the Examiner is proposing to modify [Lev] Ran to do the opposite of its disclosure, namely, look to the future in order to pre-position data on the LAN. [Lev] Ran’s disclosure involving using past usage statistics would lead a skilled artisan away from using future appointments to pre-position data on a LAN.” (App. Br. 7; see also Reply Br. 2). However, nothing in Lev Ran discourages against using different techniques such as considering future appointments as part of the policies and algorithms for pre-positioning resources. To the contrary, Lev Ran affirmatively discloses looking to the future for pre-positioning resources, for example, by considering “expected usage” and performing “[l]ook-ahead fetching” (Lev Ran, ¶ 23). We are, therefore, not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1, and claims 2–4 and 6–9 not specifically argued separately. Appeal 2015-002065 Application 12/976,452 7 CONCLUSION The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1–4 and 6–9. DECISION For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–4 and 6–9 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)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation