Ex Parte PoikselkaDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 22, 201410880982 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 22, 2014) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte MIIKKA POIKSELKA ____________ Appeal 2012-002660 Application 10/880,982 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, ANTON W. FETTING, and BIBHU R. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judges. CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the Examiner’s final decision rejecting claims 1–29. We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. Claim 1 is illustrative: 1. A method, comprising: receiving, by a processor, a communication group definition that is used for creation of a new communication group in a group communication service, wherein the communication group definition is provided with a group advertisement parameter indicating whether the new Appeal 2012-002660 Application 10/880,982 2 communication group is to be advertised to at least one member of the newly-created communication group; determining whether the group advertisement parameter indicates that the new communication group is to be advertised to the at least one member of the new communication group; and determining to send an advertisement of the new communication group from the group communication service to the at least one member of the new communication group based on the determination, wherein the advertisement informs the at least one member that the at least one member has been included in the new communication group. The Examiner relies on the following prior art references as evidence of unpatentability: Bennett US 2001/0032137 A1 Oct. 18, 2001 Winchell US 2002/0151321 A1 Oct. 17, 2002 Toyryla US 2003/0083086 A1 May 1, 2003 P. Koskelainen et al., An Extensible Markup Language (XML) Configuration Access Protocol (XCAP) Usage for Conference Policy Manipulation, Internet Engineering Task Force 1–39 (June 20, 2003) (Internet-Draft) (http://tools.ieft.org/html/draft- koskelainen-xcon-xcap-cpcp-usage-00) (last visited July 18, 2008) (hereinafter “Koskelainen”). J. Rosenberg, Extensible Markup Language (XML) Configuration Access Protocol (XCAP) Usages for Setting Presence Authorization, Internet Engineering Task Force 1–24 (Oct. 27, 2003) (Internet-Draft) (http://tools.ieft.org/id/draft-ietf-simple-xcap-auth-usage-01.txt) (last visited Feb. 7, 2009) (hereinafter “Rosenberg”). Appellant appeals the following rejections: 1. Claims 1, 2, 6–8, 13, 17, 21, and 25–26 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Winchell and Bennett. Appeal 2012-002660 Application 10/880,982 3 2. Claims 3, 9, 18, and 27 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Winchell, Bennett, and Rosenberg. 3. Claims 4, 5, 10, 11, 19, 20, 28, and 29 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Winchell, Bennett, Rosenberg, and Koskelainen. 4. Claims 12, 14–16, and 22–24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Winchell, Bennett, and Toyryla. ISSUE Did the Examiner err in rejecting the claims because Winchell does not disclose a communication group with a communication group definition with a group advertisement parameter? ANALYSIS The Appellant argues that Winchell does not disclose a communication group definition with a group advertisement parameter. We find that Appellant’s Specification discloses that a user sets a group advertisement parameter when the group is created. The group advertisement parameter can have different statuses such as active or inactive or active/inactive/selected users (para. 32). If the group advertisement parameter is set to active, the server starts advertising the communication group to all group members or to a selected subset of group members (id.). The Examiner directs our attention to paragraphs 34, 41, and 44 of Winchell for teaching the creation of a communication group with an advertisement profile stating that the message characteristics 66 and the Appeal 2012-002660 Application 10/880,982 4 delivery characteristics 64 are considered group advertisement parameters (Ans. 6). We agree with the Appellant that Winchell does not disclose creating a communication group definition that includes an advertisement parameter. First, the message characteristics 66 and the delivery characteristics 68 relate to the message being sent rather than the group sending the message. In addition, the message characteristics 66, as defined by Winchell, relates to data that defines, classifies, and characterizes the informational message and does not relate to whether the group is advertised to at least one member of the group as required by claim 1 (para. 41). Similarly, the delivery characteristics 64 relate to relates to when to deliver a message and what message to deliver not whether the group is advertised to at least one member of the group. In view of the foregoing, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 and claim 2 dependent therefrom. We will also not sustain the Examiner’s rejections of the remaining claims because each of these claims requires a communication group advertisement parameter that indicates whether the group is to be advertised to at least one member of the group and each of the rejections relies on Winchell for teaching this subject matter. DECISION The decision of the Examiner is reversed. REVERSED Appeal 2012-002660 Application 10/880,982 5 hh Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation