Ex Parte Sullivan et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 20, 201511598113 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 20, 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. 11/598,113 11/08/2006 John Sullivan 806114 8882 46304 7590 01/21/2015 RYAN, MASON & LEWIS, LLP 48 South Service Road Suite 100 Melville, NY 11747 EXAMINER MURPHY, CHARLES C ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2455 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/21/2015 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 JOHN SULLIVAN, DAVID SINCLAIR FERGUSON, and JARROD LOWE ____________________ Appeal 2012-006497 Application 11/598,113 Technology Center 2400 ____________________ Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, JOHN A. EVANS, and JOHN F. HORVATH, Administrative Patent Judges. HORVATH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2012-006497 Application 11/598,113 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants seek review of the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The invention is directed to a method for optimizing access to digital objects stored on a network node. Spec. 1:5–7. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A network having a plurality of nodes comprising: at least a first node for storing pieces of a digital object and having a storage; a plurality of connections between the first node and the plurality of nodes, wherein the first node comprises: a requester for requesting one or more pieces of the digital object; a transmitter for transferring one or more pieces of the digital object to at least one further node among the plurality of nodes; a receiver for receiving content availability messages from at least some of the plurality of nodes; and a sender for sending at least one limited content availability message to at least one further node among the plurality of nodes, whereby the at least one limited content availability message indicates a subset but not all of the pieces of the digital object available through the first node, and whereby at least a portion of the subset of the pieces of the digital object that are indicated in the limited content availability message are selected so as to decrease time required for the first node to access the at least a portion of the subset of the pieces of the digital object. Appeal 2012-006497 Application 11/598,113 3 PRIOR ART Chung Twiss US 2004/0143586 A1 US 2006/0168318 A1 July 22, 2004 July 27, 2006 Daniel Stutzbach et al., SWARMING SCALABLE CONTENT DELIVERY FOR THE MASSES, University of Oregon Computer and Information Science Technical Report, Jan. 2004 (hereafter, “Stutzbach”). Arun Chokkalingam & Firasath Riyaz, BitTorrent Protocol Specification v 1.0, Dec. 12, 2004 (hereafter, “BitTorrent”). REJECTIONS Claims 1, 2, 6, 7, 13, 14, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as unpatentable over Stutzback and BitTorrent. Ans. 4. Claims 3–5, 8–12, 15, 16, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as unpatentable over Stutzback, BitTorrent, and Twiss. Ans. 12. Claims 17 and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Stutzback, BitTorrent, and Chung. Ans. 19. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ arguments the Examiner has erred. We agree with Appellants that the Examiner has failed to establish a prima facie case that the claims are not patentable for the reasons that follow. Claims 1–20 The Examiner finds BitTorrent discloses a superseeding algorithm in which a seed node masquerades as a normal node, and sends a content Appeal 2012-006497 Application 11/598,113 4 availability message to other network nodes indicating it has access to only limited or rare pieces of a digital object. Ans. 7 (citing BitTorrent 20). The Examiner finds this disclosure teaches or suggests a first node comprising “a sender for sending at least one limited content availability message to at least one further node among the plurality of nodes.” Id. The Examiner further finds this disclosure, when combined with BitTorrent’s disclosure of rarest first and end game algorithms, teaches or suggests sending a limited content delivery message to “decrease [the] time required for the first node to access the at least a portion of the subset of pieces of the digital object . . . .” Ans. 7–8 (citing BitTorrent §§ 4.1.1–4.1.3). Appellants argue BitTorrent fails to teach or suggest the seed node selects the rare or limited pieces of the digital object it identifies in its (limited) content availability message to decrease the time required for the seed node to access the selected pieces. App. Br. 6. Appellants further argue that because BitTorrent’s rarest first and end game strategies are downloading strategies, used to determine which pieces of a digital object a network node should request for download, they are inapposite to the limitations recited in claim 1, which pertain to selecting a subset of digital objects that are already stored at the first node and available for download to other network nodes. Id. We find Appellants arguments persuasive. Claim 1 recites a network, including a first node that comprises “a sender for sending at least one limited content availability message . . . [that] indicates a subset but not all of the pieces of [a] digital object available through the first node, and whereby at least a portion of the subset of the pieces of the digital object . . . are selected so as to decrease time required for the first node to access the at least a portion of the subset of the Appeal 2012-006497 Application 11/598,113 5 pieces of the digital object.” Claims App’x. (emphases added). In other words, claim 1 recites the first node sends a limited content availability message. That message identifies some but not all of the pieces of the digital object stored on and available through the first node. Moreover, at least some of the identified pieces are identified because they decrease the time required for the first node to access them, e.g., because they are stored in the first node’s cache memory. The Examiner finds BitTorrent’s superseeding, rarest first, and end game algorithms “increase[s] seeding efficiency in a peer to peer sharing system,” and this increased seeding efficiency “decrease[s] the time a client needs to access a shared segment of a file because it is more readily available within the system.” Ans. 24. In particular, the Examiner finds these algorithms “allow a seeding client and receiving client to communicate what the rarest pieces of a file are available and transfer those pieces to a receiving client.” Id. While we do not disagree with these findings, we agree with Appellants they are inapposite to the invention recited in claim 1. Claim 1 requires the first node to select a subset of the pieces of a digital object stored on the first node that decrease the time required for the first node to access them, and to send a limited content availability message identifying the selected subset to other network nodes. The pieces of the digital object in the selected subset are therefore already stored on the first node. They decrease the time required for the first node to access them because they are stored in cache memory on the first node. See Spec. 9:26– 10:2. The identification of a rare piece of a digital object by a first (seed) node, as articulated by the Examiner (see Ans. 7), does not relate to the Appeal 2012-006497 Application 11/598,113 6 amount of time required for the first node to access that data. Consequently, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 for this reason. Appellants argue for the patentability of claim 14, which recites limitations similar to those discussed above with respect to claim 1, for the same reasons as claim 1. App. Br. 4–5. Moreover, claims 2–13 depend from claim 1; while claims 15–20 depend from claim 14. We therefore do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2–20 for the same reasons as claim 1. Claims 3–5, 9, 13, 15 and 16 Appellants separately argue for the patentability of dependent claims 3–5, 9, 13, 15, and 16. App. Br. 7–12. Because we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1 and 14, from which these claims depend, we do not address Appellants’ separate arguments for the patentability of claims 3–5, 9, 13, 15, and 16. See Beloit Corp. v. Valmet Oy, 742 F.2d 1421,1423 (Fed. Cir. 1984) (finding an administrative agency is at liberty to reach a decision based on a single dispositive issue). DECISION For the reasons indicated above, the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1– 20 is reversed. REVERSED ELD Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation