Ex Parte Riley et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 30, 201511781814 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 30, 2015) 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. 11/781,814 07/23/2007 Xavier D. Riley PD-207017 6488 20991 7590 01/30/2015 THE DIRECTV GROUP, INC. PATENT DOCKET ADMINISTRATION CA / LA1 / A109 2230 E. IMPERIAL HIGHWAY EL SEGUNDO, CA 90245 EXAMINER BELIVEAU, SCOTT E ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2427 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/30/2015 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 XAVIER D. RILEY and DIEM V. NGUYEN ____________ Appeal 2012-011356 Application 11/781,8141 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before JEFFREY S. SMITH, CATHERINE SHIANG, and TERRENCE W. MCMILLIN, Administrative Patent Judges. MCMILLIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the final rejection of claims 1, 2, 5–17 and 20–28. Claims 3, 4, 18, and 19 were cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is The DIRECTV Group, Inc. Brief On Appeal filed March 13, 2012, at 2 (hereinafter “App. Br.”) Appeal 2012-011356 Application 11/781,814 2 REJECTIONS ON APPEAL Claims 1, 2, 5–12, 15–17, 20–26, and 28 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over U.S. Patent No. 6,898,800 B2; issued to Son et al. (“Son”), U.S. Patent No. 6,154,772, issued to Dunn et al. (“Dunn”), U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0179151 A1; issued to Yanamoto et al. (“Yanamoto”) and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2001/0005374 A1; issued to Kumazaki et al. (“Kumazaki”). App. Br. 4. Claims 13, 14, and 27 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Son, Dunn, Yanamoto, Kumazaki and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0111756 A1; issued to Stuckman et al. (“Stuckman”). Id. ANALYSIS The Claimed Invention The claims are directed to methods and systems for communicating broadband content availability through a satellite. Independent claim 1 is directed to a method and independent claim 16 is directed to a communication system. Claim 1 recites: 1. A method of comprising: generating program guide packets; determining broadband content availability data; generating a plurality of packets for a content stream wherein at least some of the packets comprise null packets; dividing the broadband content availability data into broadband content availability packets; Appeal 2012-011356 Application 11/781,814 3 prioritizing program guide packets over broadband content availability packets; replacing the null packets with program guide packets or broadband content availability packets in the content stream in response to prioritizing; and communicating the program guide packets and the broadband content availability packets to a user device through a satellite with the content stream. The Section 103 Rejections Appellants argue that the cited combination of references does not teach or suggest: “prioritizing program guide packets over broadband content availability packets;” or “replacing the null packets with program guide packets or broadband content availability packets in the content stream in response to prioritizing[,]” as recited in the context of the claim 1. App. Br. 4–5. The Examiner cited Dunn, column 8, lines 1–8, and column 9, lines 42–55, for teaching or suggesting “replacing the null packets with program guide packets.” Ans. 15. Yanamoto, ¶ 61, is cited for teaching or suggesting the technique of prioritizing packets. Id. The Examiner reasoned, “[t]his technique when applied to the replacement of the null packets as described in Dunn C9:42-55 and C8:1-8 meets the limitation of prioritizing program guide packets over broadband content availability packets, since the technique applies to data in any header in any type of transport packet.” Id. Appeal 2012-011356 Application 11/781,814 4 The Examiner relied on Kumazaki, ¶ 17, for teaching or suggesting the technique of sending packets in response to prioritizing. Id. 16. With regard to this limitation, the Examiner reasoned: This technique when applied to the replacement of the null packets as described in Dunn C9:42-55 and C8:1-8 and the packet prioritization of Yanamoto ¶ 0061 meets the limitation of prioritizing program guide packets over broadband content availability packets, and replacing the null packet … in response to prioritizing, since the techniques assure that the packet is forwarded according to priority. Id. The findings of the Examiner as to the teachings or suggestions of the prior art are well-supported by the cited references. The first sentence of column 8, lines 1–4, of Dunn reads, “[v]ideo control shelf 200 inserts local program guide and control information into the digital video program by replacing a null MPEG-2 packet that is not used to transport video data” and column 9, lines 45–47, of Dunn reads, “[p]rogram guide data and possibly software update data for the INI 1350 is inserted by replacing null packets with the necessary data.” Yanamoto, ¶ 61, discloses a technique for prioritizing packets. Kumazaki, ¶ 17, reads, “[h]ere, each program information set may be assigned a priority, and the packet fetching unit may fetch the plurality of packets from the queues according to the priorities assigned to the program information sets.” Dunn, Yanamoto, Kumazaki, and the instant patent application are from the same field of endeavor. The Examiner’s combination of the teachings and suggestions of these references was straightforward and reasonable. We find no error in the rejection of claim 1. Appeal 2012-011356 Application 11/781,814 5 None of the other claims are argued separately. App. Br. 8–10. We affirm the rejection of the other claims for the reasons stated above with regard to independent claim 1. CONCLUSION Having considered all the arguments made by Appellants and found that Appellants have failed to establish grounds for reversing any of the rejections, the rejections of all the pending claims 1, 2, 5–17, and 20–28 are 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 rwk Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation