Ex Parte KissDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 9, 201311348896 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 9, 2013) 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. 11/348,896 02/07/2006 Krisztian Kiss 800.0625.U1 (US) 8051 10948 7590 10/10/2013 Harrington & Smith, Attorneys At Law, LLC 4 Research Drive, Suite 202 Shelton, CT 06484 EXAMINER TAYLOR, BARRY W ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2646 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/10/2013 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 KRISZTIAN KISS ____________________ Appeal 2011-003231 Application 11/348,896 Technology Center 2600 ____________________ Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, CAROLYN D. THOMAS, and MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judges. STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-003231 Application 11/348,896 2 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 1, 2, 5-13, 16-26, 29-37, 40-48, of which claims 1, 12, 25, and 36 are independent. Claims 3, 4, 14, 15, 27, 28, 38 and 39 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. INVENTION The claims are directed to a method and apparatus for providing presence information in support of wireless communication services. Spec. 2. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1 A method comprising: determining an event affecting availability of a terminal over a radio communication network, wherein the terminal is configured to utilize a group Push-to-Talk communication service supported by the radio communication network; checking setting of an incoming session barring indicator corresponding to the terminal, wherein the incoming session barring indicator specifies that the terminal is configured to not accept incoming group Push-to-Talk communication sessions; generating presence information based on the setting of the incoming session barring indicator and the event, wherein the presence information is used to determine the availability of the terminal for the group Push-to-Talk communication service; and generating a message including the presence information regarding the availability of the terminal. Appeal 2011-003231 Application 11/348,896 3 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Wolf Xue Huh Xie Munje U.S. 2004/0005904 A1 U.S. 2005/0192039 A1 U.S. 2006/0229094 A1 U.S. 2006/0286993 A1 U.S. 2008/0268792 A1 Jan. 8, 2004 Sep. 1, 2005 Oct. 12, 2006 Dec. 21, 2006 Oct. 30, 2008 REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1, 2, 6, 7, 10-13, 17, 18, 21-26, 30, 31, 34-37, 41, 43, and 46- 48 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Xie, Xue, and Munje. Ans. 4. Claims 5, 16, 29, 40, and 42 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Xie, Xue, Munje, and Wolf. Ans. 15. Claims 8, 9, 19, 20, 32, 33, and 44, 45 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Xie, Xue, Munje, and Huh. Ans. 17. APPELLANT’S CONTENTION Munje fails to disclose that the registration status and Do-not-Disturb status and the access lists are combined into a single presence document. App. Br. 9 ISSUE ON APPEAL Based on Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief (App. Br. 6-13) the issue presented on appeal is whether the combination of Xie, Xue, and Appeal 2011-003231 Application 11/348,896 4 Munje teaches or suggests generating presence information based on the setting of the incoming session barring indicator and an event. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellant’s conclusions. We adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief. We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the following for emphasis. Appellant contends that: [A]lthough Munje discloses uploading the presence information and the presence-related information, Munje does not show that the presence information is generated by combining the presence-related information, but only shows that a presence document is generated by combining the presence-related information. The presence information and the presence-related information in Munje are two different types of information that are not combined together to form the presence information. Rather, Munje discusses uploading the presence information and uploading the presence-related information separately, as shown in paragraph [0046] of Munje, and only discloses combining the presence-related information to form a presence document. App. Br. 8 quoting from Response filed April 8, 2010. The Examiner responds that Munje’s PoC server 304 receives (i) status information (i.e., an event) from IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) core 312, and (ii) group access information (i.e., do not disturb (DnD) and granted/blocked access list) from Group and List Management Server (GLMS) 308. Ans. 20. While Appellant argues that Munje fails to provide Appeal 2011-003231 Application 11/348,896 5 examples of presence-related information (App. Br. 9), the Examiner finds that Xie teaches presence information and Xue teaches DnD. Ans. 21. The Examiner further finds that Munje’s system integrates “both the IMS (i.e. an event) and GLMS (i.e. DnD and granted/blocked access list) while providing a single presence document that is linked to both registration status and group access information.” Id. We agree with the Examiner. Appellant’s arguments do not take into account what the collective teachings of the prior art would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art and are therefore ineffective to rebut the Examiner’s prima facie case of obviousness. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981)(“The test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.”) (citations omitted, emphasis added). This reasoning is applicable here. Munjie describes use of both an incoming session barring indicator and an event. Figure 3 of Munjie depicts PoC Server 304 in communication with both GLMS 308, having granted/blocked status, and IMS Core 312, having status information. These statuses correspond to the claimed session barring indicator and event, respectively. The Examiner specifically finds that PoC Server 304 receives both pieces of information (Ans. 20.) Appellant fails to rebut these findings with sufficient evidence or argument to persuade us of error. Furthermore, we note that Appellant argues “the registration status is uploaded from IMS core 312 to presence server 310 and the Do-not-Disturb status and granted/blocked access lists are uploaded from GLMS 308 to presence server 310.” App. Br. 10. Under either Appeal 2011-003231 Application 11/348,896 6 configuration, both the session barring indicator and event are made available. Therefore, we find that Munjie teaches or suggests use of both the session barring indicator and the event such that the use of both broadly discloses generating presence information based on the setting of the incoming session barring indicator and the event. 1 While Appellant argues that “Munje lacks clear indication that the registration status and the Do-not- Disturb status and granted/blocked access lists are the presence-related information that is to be combined to form a single presence document,” (App. Br. 9-10, emphasis added), we find such argument unpersuasive because it is not commensurate in scope with the claims. The disputed claim language does not require combining to form a single document, only the generation of presence information based on the setting of the incoming session barring indicator and the event. We find that the combination of Xie, Xue, and Munje teaches or suggests the use of both and thereby the generation of the disputed presence information. Appellant further argues that “because Munje's PoC server does not have the alleged function of receiving the registration status information and the group access information, the teachings of Xie and Xue cannot be modified to incorporate the PoC server as taught by Munje.” App. Br. 11. For the reasons supra we disagree that Munje fails to teach or suggest receiving both registration status information and group access information. Furthermore, we are not persuaded that combining the respective familiar 1 “[T]he PTO gives claims their ‘broadest reasonable interpretation.’” In re Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320, 1324, (Fed. Cir. 2004) (quoting In re Hyatt, 211 F.3d 1367, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2000)). “Moreover, limitations are not to be read into the claims from the specification.” In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184, (Fed. Cir. 1993) (citing In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321(Fed. Cir. 1989)). Appeal 2011-003231 Application 11/348,896 7 elements of the cited references in the manner proffered by the Examiner was “uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art” (see Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 418)). Accordingly, we find the Examiner’s proffered combination of familiar prior art elements according to their established functions would have conveyed a reasonable expectation of success to a person of ordinary skill having common sense at the time of the invention. Therefore, in the absence of sufficient evidence or argument, Appellant’s argument is not persuasive of Examiner error. Based on this record, we conclude that the Examiner did not err in rejecting independent claims 1, 12, 25, and 36. Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1, 12, 25, and 36 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) together with the rejection of dependent claims 2, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 17, 18, 21-24, 26, 30, 31, 34, 35, 37, 41, 43, and 46-48, not separately argued, 2 as being unpatentable over Xie, Xue, and Munje. For the same reasons, we affirm the rejections of dependent claims 5, 16, 29, 40, and 42 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Xie, Xue, Munje, and Wolf and dependent claims 8-9, 19-20, 32-33, and 44-45 over Xie, Xue, Munje, and Huh, these dependent claims also not separately argued. CONCLUSION We find that the combination of Xie, Xue, and Munje teaches or suggests generating presence information based on the setting of the incoming session barring indicator and an event and that, therefore, the 2 Merely restating with respect to a second claim an argument, previously presented with respect to a first claim, is not an argument for separate patentability of the two claims. Appeal 2011-003231 Application 11/348,896 8 Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1, 2, 5-13, 16-26, 29-37, 40-48 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). DECISION The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 2, 5-13, 16-26, 29-37, 40- 48 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 dw Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation