Ex Parte Kiss et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 30, 2014

12136714 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 30, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte KRISZTIAN KISS and MIRAJ MOSTAFA
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Appeal 2011-010035
Application 12/136,714
Technology Center 2400
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Before ANTON W. FETTING, BIBHU R. MOHANTY, and
NINA L. MEDLOCK, Administrative Patent Judges.

MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2011-010035
Application 12/136,714

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final
rejection of claims 1-19, which are all the claims pending in the application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

SUMMARY OF THE DECISION
We AFFIRM.

THE INVENTION
The Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to the communication
of Presence Information among a Presence Source, a Presence Server and a
Watcher (Spec. [0002]). Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the
subject matter on appeal.

1. A method, comprising:
receiving a subscription request from a Watcher for a one-time
fetch of specific Presence Information;
notifying a Presence Source that the Watcher wants to watch for
the specific Presence Information;
in response to the sent notification, receiving the specific
Presence Information from the Presence Source via a soft-state
publication; and
providing the Watcher with the specific Presence Information.

THE REJECTIONS
The following rejections are before us for review:
1. Claims 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed
to non-statutory subject matter.
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2. Claims 10, 11, 13-15, 17, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e) as being anticipated by Wu (US 2006/0143646 A1, pub. Jun. 29,
2006) (hereinafter, “Wu '646”).
3. Claims 1, 4-6, 9, 12, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Wu '646 and Trossen (US 2004/0153552 A1,
pub. Aug. 5, 2004).
4. Claims 2 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being
unpatentable over Wu '646, Trossen, and Sosnovsky (US 7,552,446 B1, iss.
Jun. 23, 2009).
5. Claims 3 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Wu '646, Trossen, and Wu (US 2006/0248184 A1, pub.
Nov. 2, 2006) (hereinafter, “Wu '184”).
6. Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Wu '646 and Wu '184.

FINDINGS OF FACT
We find the findings of fact in the Analysis section below are
supported at least by a preponderance of the evidence1.

1 See Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988)
(explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the
Patent Office).
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ANALYSIS
Anticipation
Claims 10, 11, 13-15, 17, and 18
The Appellants argue that the rejection of claim 10 is improper
because Wu '646 fails to disclose the claim limitation “in response to the
notification, performing a publication of the specific Presence Information
for reception by the Presence Server and transmission therefrom to the
Watcher” (App. Br. 8-9; Reply Br. 3-4).
In contrast, the Examiner has determined that the cited claim
limitation is shown by Wu '646 at paragraphs [0019] and [0021]-[0024]
(Ans. 3-4, 14-15).
We agree with the Examiner. Wu '646 discloses at paragraph [0019]
that its Presence Agents (PAs) maintain current complete presence
information for a presentity (i.e., Presence Source) and provide the presence
information to one or more watchers of the presentity. At paragraph [0019],
Wu '646 further discloses that its Presence Server operates “as a proxy
server for routing requests from watchers 170 to the PA 150” and the
Presence Server in combination with the PA provides presence information
to the watchers. Wu '646 further discloses at paragraph [0023] that the
source, which is a presentity, maintains a list of subscribers (i.e., watchers)
who subscribe to a particular event service, and upon detecting the
occurrence of an event, triggers an event notification message to deliver the
notification to each subscriber on the list. Thus, Wu '646 discloses
publication of specific Presence Information for reception by its Presence
Server and transmission to the watcher based on the watcher’s request.
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While Appellants argue that Wu '646 does not disclose “specific
Presence Information” because “the event messaging services discussed in
paragraphs [0022]-[0024] of Wu '646 has [sic] nothing to do with the
publication of specific Presence Information” (App. Br. 10; Reply Br. 3-
4), we find the Examiner’s reliance on Wu '646’s event messaging to be
reasonable given that Appellants’ Specification at paragraph [0023] equates
“specific Presence Information” with “event notification filtering.” Thus,
we agree with the Examiner that Wu '646 discloses “a watcher subscribing
to a specific event at the presentity [0023] and a Presence Server
transmitting present information from a presentity to the watcher since the
Presence Server acts as proxy server between the watcher and the presentity
[0019]” (see Ans. 14-15).” The Appellants have cited to the Specification at
paragraph [0024] as providing support for the cited claim limitation (see Br.
4), and we find nothing at this citation to require a claim interpretation
contrary to ours. For these reasons the rejection of claim 10 and its
dependent claims is sustained.
Independent claims 14 and 17 contain a similar limitation and the
rejection of claims 14 and 17 and their dependent claims is sustained for
these same reasons.

Obviousness
Claims 1, 5, and 6
The Appellants argue that the rejection of independent claims 1 and 6
is improper for the same reasons discussed with respect to independent
claims 10, 14, and 17 (App. 11-12; Reply Br. 4). However, to the extent
Appellants additionally argue by implication that Wu '646 does not disclose
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a “soft-state publication” based upon Appellants’ use of bold emphasis (see
App. Br. 12), we agree with the Examiner that Wu '646 discloses publication
of events using a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) at paragraph [0020],
which corresponds to the claimed “soft-state publication” described by
Appellants’ Specification at paragraph [0010] as “using SIP PUBLISH
requests.” Moreover, we find the Examiner has provided an articulated
reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness at pages 8 and 16 of the Answer (see KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex,
Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007) (citing In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed.
Cir. 2006)). Therefore, in the absence of any additional arguments, the
rejection of claims 1 and 6, and dependent claim 5 is sustained.

Claims 4, 9, 12, and 16
The Appellants argue that the rejection of claims 4, 9, 12, and 16 is
improper because the combination of Wu '646 and Trossen fails to disclose
or suggest “informing a Presence Source about a need to subscribe for
Watcher Information if the Presence Source has not previously subscribed to
Information about Watchers” (App. Br. 12-13; Reply Br. 5). In contrast, the
Examiner has determined that the rejection of record is proper and cites to
paragraphs [0007], [0008] and [0043] of Trossen (Ans. 8-10). Here, we
agree with the Examiner that Trossen discloses at paragraphs [0007] and
[0008] receiving information at the Presence Source from the Presence
Server about a need for subscribing to Watcher Information. Trossen
describes a request for “watcherinfo” from the Watcher and providing the
Watcher Information subscription request to the Presence Source via the
Presence Server in order to send appropriate NOTIFY messages to a
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currently subscribed requester (i.e., Presence Source) (see paras. [0007],
[0008], and [0043]). For these reasons the rejection of claims 4, 9, 12, and
16 is sustained.

Claims 2 and 7
The Appellants argue that the rejection of claims 2 and 7 is improper
because the combination of Wu '646, Trossen, and Sosnovsky fails to
disclose or suggest “providing the Watcher with a currently available
Presence document or, if no Presence Information is available, an empty
Presence document” (emphasis omitted) (App. Br. 15; Reply Br. 5-6)
Specifically, Appellants argue that paragraphs [0031] and [0043] of Trossen
make no mention of the conditional states required by the claims (App. Br.
15). In contrast, the Examiner has determined that the rejection of record is
proper (Ans. 16-17). Here, we agree with the Examiner that Trossen
discloses a “notification message, which teaches the notification message as
a ‘Presence document’ since the notification message informs the watcher of
presence information at the presentity” (Ans. 17; citing Trossen at [0031]).
We also agree with the Examiner that the limitation is expressed using
alternative language, and as such, is satisfied by the notification message
containing the status or events occurring on the Presence Source disclosed in
Trossen at paragraphs [0031], [0034], and [0043], under a broadest
reasonable interpretation. For these reasons the rejection of claims 2 and 7
is sustained.

Appeal 2011-010035
Application 12/136,714

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Claims 3 and 8
Appellants make no substantive argument with regard to the subject
matter of dependent claims 3 and 8 except to argue that the addition of
Wu '184 fails to remedy the deficiencies of Wu '646 and Trossen (App. Br.
15-16; Reply Br. 6). We found Appellants’ arguments unpersuasive with
respect to claims 1 and 6, and we find them equally unpersuasive with
respect to claims 3 and 8. For this reason, and the reasons discussed above,
the rejection of claims 3 and 8 is sustained.

Claim 19
Appellants make no substantive argument with regard to the subject
matter of dependent claim 19 except to argue that the addition of Wu '184
fails to remedy the deficiencies of Wu '646 (App. Br. 16; Reply Br. 6). We
found Appellants’ arguments unpersuasive with respect to independent
claims 10, 14, and 17, and we find them equally unpersuasive with respect to
claim 19. For this reason, and the reasons discussed above, the rejection of
claim 19 is sustained.

Statutory Subject Matter
As the rejection of claims 17 and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) and the
rejection of claim 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) have been sustained, we do
not reach the issue of the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

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CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
We conclude that Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred
in rejecting the claims under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102(e) and 103(a) as listed in the
Rejections section above.

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-19 under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102(e)
and 103(a) are affirmed.

AFFIRMED

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