Ex Parte WatersDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 19, 201812847824 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 19, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 12/847,824 07/30/2010 Christopher Michael Waters 21186 7590 09/21/2018 SCHWEGMAN LUNDBERG & WOESSNER, P.A. P.O. BOX 2938 MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55402 UNITED ST A TES OF AMERICA 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 2490.006US 1 4683 EXAMINER BIAGINI, CHRISTOPHER D ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2445 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/21/2018 ELECTRONIC 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. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): uspto@slwip.com SLW@blackhillsip.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL WATERS Appeal2017-007872 Application 12/847,824 Technology Center 2400 Before MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, JEREMY J. CURCURI, and AMBER L. HAGY, Administrative Patent Judges. HAGY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1, 6-8, 12-14, 18, and 19, which are all of the pending claims. 2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We affirm. 1 Appellant identifies BT Americas Inc. as the real party in interest. (App. Br. 2.) 2 Claims 2, 9, and 15 were canceled in an Amendment dated June 19, 2012. Claims 3-5, 10, 11, 16, and 17 were canceled in an Amendment dated November 26, 2014. Appeal2017-007872 Application 12/847,824 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction According to Appellant, "[ t ]he present application relates generally to the field of telephony and, in a specific exemplary embodiment, to a system and method of automating intelligent real-time switching between a plurality of telephonic devices each operating on dissimilar communications protocols." (Spec. ,r 2.) Exemplary Claim Claims 1, 8, and 14 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below with the disputed limitations italicized, is exemplary of the claimed subject matter: 1. A translation environment for a network architecture, the network architecture including a first and second networked environment (110, 130), each having a first and second network respectively, the first and second networked environments (110, 13 0) and translation environment being coupled to one another by the Internet, the translation environment to select automatically a compatible communication protocol between end-points of the first and second networked environments, the translation environment comprising: an application engine, having one or more hardware processors and a memory, the application engine configured to receive, via the Internet, an attempted communication from a first end-point of the first networked environment to a second end-point of the second networked environment, the application engine including: a decoder engine configured to sample the received attempted communication and a protocol conversion engine configured to: 2 Appeal2017-007872 Application 12/847,824 determine an underlying transport protocol of the received attempted communication; make a determination of a second protocol allowed by the second network of the second networked environment; and to convert the underlying transport layer of the received attempted communication to be compatible with the second network of the second networked environment; the application engine being further configured to establish a connection with the second end-point via the Internet. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Sylvain Parry Chu et al. ("Chu") Raffel et al. ("Raffel") Patel US 2002/0080791 Al US 2003/0172300 Al US 2007 /0274300 Al US 2008/0139228 Al US 9,021,134 Bl REJECTIONS 3 June 27, 2002 Sept. 11, 2003 Nov. 29, 2007 June 12, 2008 Apr. 28, 2015 Claims 1, 8, and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Patel and Raffel. (Final Act. 3---6.) Claims 6, 13, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Patel, Raffel, and Parry. (Final Act. 6-7.) Claim 7 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Patel, Raffel, and Chu. (Final Act. 7.) 3 All rejections are under the provisions of Title 35 of the United States Code in effect prior to the effective date of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011. 3 Appeal2017-007872 Application 12/847,824 Claims 12 and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Patel, Raffel, and Sylvain. (Final Act. 8.) ISSUE4 Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Patel and Raffel teaches or suggests "first and second networked environments ... and translation environment being coupled to one another by the Internet," as recited in independent claim 1. ANALYSIS Appellant's contentions are unpersuasive of reversible Examiner error. 5 We adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 3-8) and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in response to Appellant's Appeal Brief (Ans. 2---6) and concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the following for emphasis. The Examiner relies on Patel as teaching or suggesting the limitations of claim 1 (Final Act. 3-5), except the Examiner finds "Patel does not explicitly show" that "the first and second networked environments and 4 Appellant collectively argues the rejection of all claims with regard to the Examiner's obviousness rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Appellant does not separately argue with particularity the Examiner's rejections of independent claims 8 and 14 (see App. Br. 10) or the dependent claims (see id. at 15). Therefore, based on Appellant's arguments, we decide the appeal of claims 1, 6-8, 12-14, 18, and 19 based on claim 1 alone. See 37 C.F.R. § 4I.37(c)(l)(iv). 5 Only those arguments made by Appellant have been considered in this decision. Arguments Appellant did not make are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 4I.37(c)(l)(iv). 4 Appeal2017-007872 Application 12/847,824 translation environment [are] coupled to one another by the Internet" or "that the received attempted communication is via the Internet" (id. at 5.) For those limitations, the Examiner relies on Raffel in combination with Patel. (Id.) Appellant argues the Examiner's findings are in error because Patel discloses "a network architecture comprising two networks only, each comprising an end-point of a connection, with the IM device residing within one of these networks." (App. Br. 12.) We disagree. As the Examiner finds, and we agree, "Patel clearly shows performing conversions at a device located outside of a local network firewall." (Ans. 3 (citing Patel Fig. 3).) In particular, Patel discloses a system in which an intermediate (IM) device intercepts and dynamically modifies signaling messages exchanged between a client and a server when negotiating setup and delivery of a multimedia stream from a streaming server. (Patel, Abst.) Patel further discloses: For example, the client and the streaming server may use Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) messages to negotiate the transport parameters to be used for transporting streaming multimedia. An IM device is configured to transparently intercept and dynamically modify the R TSP messages to change the transport parameters. For example, an IM device may change a transport layer protocol indicated by the RTSP messages, such as from a first transport layer protocol that uses a fixed port assignment to a second transport layer protocol that uses an arbitrary port assignment, and the reverse. The IM device also converts the real-time multimedia stream from the first transport layer protocol to the second transport layer protocol, and the reverse. For example, the first transport layer may be the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the second transport layer may be the User Datagram Protocol (UDP). (Id. at 2:11-27.) As the Examiner finds, and we agree, Patel discloses a 5 Appeal2017-007872 Application 12/847,824 "first network" as the network of the client device, which Patel discloses may be a desktop computer or other wireless device operating on a local area network (LAN). (Final Act. 3; Patel 4:9-14.) As the Examiner further finds, and we agree, Patel also discloses a "second network" as the network of the streaming server (SP network 42 shown in Figure 3). (Final Act. 3 (citing Patel Fig. 3 and 4:9-22, 6:47-54).) The Examiner further finds, and we agree, Patel also discloses an "application engine" in the form of the IM device, which includes a protocol conversion engine to determine an underlying transport protocol of a received attempted communication from the client to the server, and determines a second protocol allowed by the network of the server, and converts the first underlying transport layer to be compatible with the second network (such as converting from UDP to TCP). (Final Act. 4--5 (citing Patel 4:54--5:15, 6:47-7:10, 5:42-52, 7:11-8:8).) Appellant argues that Patel's teachings must be "modifie[d]" to be in accordance with claim I-specifically, to "remove the IM device 44 from the second networked environment." (Reply Br. 3.) We disagree. As the Examiner finds, and we agree, Patel discloses that the IM device is "outside of a local network firewall" for the second network ("SP network 42"). (Ans. 3 (emphasis omitted).) The Examiner further finds, and we agree: (Id.) [I]t is difficult to draw precise delineations between computer networks, since at some level all interconnected systems are themselves part of an overarching network, but it is reasonable to consider the firewall itself to be the network boundary, since the firewall represents a point at which at least some traffic is blocked. This is consistent with Appellant's own Fig. IA, where the firewalls are at the border of what are considered "network environments," as represented by dashed lines 110 and 130. 6 Appeal2017-007872 Application 12/847,824 Appellant also argues the Examiner's findings are in error because "the skilled artisan would see no motivation to combine" the teachings of Patel and Raffel. (App. Br. 14.) In particular, Appellant argues the translation environment of Patel "is not connected to the first and second networked environment by the Internet," because "the IM device is either behind the firewall or at most on the edge of the network of one of the networked environments (i.e., it is in front of the firewall, but it is not outside the network)." (Id. at 12-13.) We are not persuaded by this argument, which is premised on the same incorrect view of Patel, as noted above. In addition, Appellant's arguments that the ordinarily skilled artisan would not be motivated to incorporate communications over the Internet with Patel's disclosure are inconsistent with disclosures within Patel itself. As the Examiner correctly notes, "Patel explains that 'the invention relates to techniques for providing improved transmission of data streams ... over a network, such as the Internet or a service provider network."' (Ans. 3--4 ( emphasis added).) Thus, the context of Patel's disclosure is streaming of multimedia content delivered over the Internet by a server to a client device. Although Patel does not explicitly describe the specific network communications between the IM device and the client and also between the IM device and the server occur over the Internet, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner's finding that the ordinarily skilled artisan would be motivated to combine with Patel's teachings with the disclosures of Raffel regarding Internet connections for such devices. (See Final Act. 5; Ans. 3---6.) For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of independent claim 1, or of 7 Appeal2017-007872 Application 12/847,824 claims 6-8, 12-14, 18, and 19 argued collectively therewith. We, therefore, sustain the Examiner's rejections of claims 1, 6-8, 12-14, 18, and 19. DECISION The Examiner's rejections of claims 1, 6-8, 12-14, 18, and 19 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)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation