Stephane H. Maes

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Apr 15, 2020

12544484 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Apr. 15, 2020)

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.
12/544,484 08/20/2009 Stephane H. Maes OID2008-233-01(O-490) 9430
51444 7590 04/15/2020
Kraguljac Law Group/Oracle
4700 Rockside Road
Summit One, Suite 510
Independence, OH 44131
EXAMINER
ROJAS, HAJIME S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3681
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/15/2020 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):
DDay@KragLaw.com
MPusti@KragLaw.com
PTOMail@KragLaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte STEPHANE H. MAES1
Appeal 2018-005888
Application 12/544,484
Technology Center 3600
Before DONALD E. ADAMS, ERIC B. GRIMES, and
ULRIKE W. JENKS, Administrative Patent Judges.
GRIMES, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) involving claims to a
method for charging for services on a communication network, which have
been rejected as indefinite and obvious. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM the indefiniteness rejection.

1 Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Oracle International
Corporation. Appeal Br. 3. We use the word Appellant to refer to
“applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a).
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Application 12/544,484

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
“Various methods and systems have been established for billing
and/or charging for services such as communication services.” Spec. ¶ 5.
“However, these existing billing systems present certain limitations. For
example, current billing or charging systems are limited to particular
in[-]network protocols through which applications and/or services are
expected to interact with the system.” Id. ¶ 6.
The Specification discloses “a charging enabler for abstracting
charging functions of a charging or billing system.” Id. ¶ 28. “The charging
enabler can provide this abstraction independent of the technology of the
billing system with adapters to the specific billing system, e.g., with specific
protocols, interface calls, etc. Through this abstract interface, applications
and/or services can generate charges in the billing system for particular
services or activities.” Id.
Claims 1–16 and 40–60 are on appeal. Claim 1, reproduced below, is
illustrative:
1. A method for charging for services on a
communication network, the method comprising:
receiving, at an abstraction layer of a charging
enabler, a request to perform a charging function of a first
billing system in a plurality of network resources, wherein:
the request is received from a service-level
application via a northbound interface of the charging enabler;
and
the abstraction layer of the charging enabler uses a
single first network protocol to communicate with a plurality of
service-level applications;
in response to receiving the request, and at a driver
layer of the charging enabler, instantiating an instance of a
driver that is specific to the first billing system, wherein the
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driver layer of the charging enabler comprises a plurality of
instances of drivers that are specific to others of the plurality of
network resources;
requesting, through a network layer of the charging
enabler, the charging function to be performed by the first
billing system via a first southbound interface of a plurality of
southbound interfaces, wherein:
the first southbound interface uses a second
network protocol that is different from the first network
protocol and specific to the first billing system; and
each of the plurality of southbound interfaces uses
network protocols that are different from the first network
protocol and are specific to corresponding ones of the plurality
of network resources.

Claims 40 and 45 are also independent. Claim 40 is directed to a
computer-readable memory device and claim 45 is directed to a system, but
both claims recite instructions that cause a processor to carry out the same
steps as recited in claim 1.
The claims stand rejected as follows:
Claims 1–16 and 40–60 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as
indefinite (Final Action2 4) and
Claims 1–16 and 40–60 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious in view
of Cai3 and Van Der Laak4 (Final Action 6).

2 Office Action mailed February 9, 2017.
3 Cai et al., US 2007/0173226 A1, July 26, 2007.
4 Van Der Laak et al., US 2011/0002452 A1, January 6, 2011.
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OPINION
Indefiniteness
Claims 1–16 and 40–60 stand rejected as indefinite, on the basis that
several limitations of claim 1 are ambiguous or subject to multiple potential
interpretations. Final Action 4–6. The Examiner also concludes the
independent “[c]laims 40 and 45 recite similar limitations as claim 1 and are
additionally rejected for the reasons above regarding claim 1,” and that the
dependent claims share these deficiencies. Id. at 6.
Appellant states that “[t]his rejection is not the subject of this appeal
because the Appellant believes (as has been done in the past) that these
rejections can be worked out with the examiner once the 35 U.S.C. § 103
rejection has been resolved.” Reply Br. 5.
We therefore affirm the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph.
Obviousness
Claims 1–16 and 40–60 stand rejected as obvious based on Cai and
Van Der Laak. The Examiner finds that Cai discloses most of the limitations
of claim 1 but does not disclose instantiating an instance of a driver in
response to receiving the request to perform a charging function. Final
Action 7–8. The Examiner finds, however that Van Der Laak teaches “using
an instance of a driver that is specific to a first billing system” and takes
official notice that “using a driver includes instantiating.” Id. at 8. The
Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious
to include the teachings of Van De[r] Laak and Official Notice
in the system and methods of Cai, since the claimed invention
is merely a combination of old elements, and in the
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combination each element merely would have performed the
same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in
the art would have recognized that the results of the
combination were predictable.
Id.
The Examiner also reasons that “limitations which do not have a
functional relationship with a system claim or with the steps of a method
claim may be interpreted as non-functional descriptive material which may
[be entitled to] little to no patentable weight.” Id.
Appellant argues, among other things, that “Cai does not teach or
suggest the software organization of an abstraction layer, a driver layer, and
a network layer.” Appeal Br. 7. Appellant argues that, in the paragraph cited
by the Examiner, “[t]here is no discussion of an ‘abstraction layer’ with an
abstract interface and a ‘driver layer’ with specific instances, nor is there any
abstraction function performed. In fact, a diligent search of Cai reveals that
there simply no discussion of an ‘abstraction’ layer at all.” Id.
We agree with Appellant that the Examiner has not presented a prima
facie case of obviousness. The Examiner finds that Cai’s paragraph 38
describes
receiving, at an abstraction layer of a charging enabler a request
to perform a charging function of a first billing system in a
plurality of network resources wherein . . . the abstraction layer
of the charging enabler uses a single first network protocol to
communicate with a plurality of service-level applications.
Final Action 7. The Examiner finds that Cai at paragraph 38 also describes
“requesting, through a network layer of the charging enabler, the charging
function to be performed by the first billing system via a first southbound
interface of a plurality of southbound interfaces.” Id.
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Cai discloses a converged service control system for processing call
messages from both a legacy telecommunications network and an IP
Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) network. Cai ¶¶ 5–6, 16. “FIG. 3 illustrates a
converged service control system 300 in an exemplary embodiment of
[Cai’s] invention.” Id. ¶ 32. In the illustrated system,
[p]rotocol interface 302 receives the call messages from legacy
network 310 in the first protocol. Protocol interface 302
converts the call messages in the first protocol to a common
protocol used by converged service control system 300. . . .
Service controller 304 processes the call messages in the
common protocol.
Id. ¶ 36.
Concurrently, protocol interface 302 receives the call messages
from IMS network 330 in the second protocol. Protocol
interface 302 converts the call messages in the second protocol
to the common protocol used by converged service control
system 300. . . . Service controller 304 processes the call
messages in the common protocol.
Id. ¶ 37. Thus, Cai discloses that call messages are received from either a
legacy network or an IMS network, then converted to a common protocol,
and processed in the common protocol.
Cai states that “service controller 304 generates charging messages to
provide online charging and offline charging for legacy network 310 and
IMS network 330.” Id. ¶ 38.5 “[I]f service controller 304 determines that

5 “Online charging is a process where charging information for network
resource usage is collected concurrently with resource usage, but
authorization of the network resource usage must be obtained by the network
prior to the actual resource usage. . . . Offline charging is a process where
charging information for network resource usage is collected concurrently
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online charging is to be applied for the calls, then service controller 304
generates online charging messages. . . . Online charging interface 306
receives the online charging messages and transmits the online charging
messages to an Online Charging System (OCS).” Id. “If service controller
304 determines that offline charging is to be applied for the calls, then
service controller 304 generates offline charging messages. . . . Offline
charging interface 307 receives the offline charging messages and transmits
the offline charging messages to an offline charging system.” Id.
Thus, the paragraph of Cai that the Examiner relies on describes
generating online and offline charging messages and transmitting those
messages to either an online or offline charging system. As Appellant has
pointed out, however, the cited paragraph contains “no discussion of an
‘abstraction layer’ with an abstract interface.” Appeal Br. 7. The Examiner
has not persuasively explained how the elements described in Cai’s
paragraph 38 meet the broadest reasonable interpretation of an “abstraction
layer,” as recited in the claims.
To the extent that the Examiner is interpreting this limitation, or any
of the other limitations of claim 1, “as non-functional descriptive material”
(Final Action 8), we note that
[w]hen determining the scope of a claim directed to a computer-
readable medium containing certain programming, the
examiner should first look to the relationship between the
programming and the intended computer system. Where the
programming performs some function with respect to the

with the resource usage. At the end of this process, Charging Detail Records
(CDRs) are generated and transferred to billing domain 140.” Cai ¶ 11.
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computer with which it is associated, a functional relationship
will be found.
MPEP § 2111.05(B)(III). We do not find any limitations of claim 1 that
would properly be interpreted as non-functional descriptive material.
In addition, we agree with Appellant that Cai does not teach a one-to-
many interface between an application and different billing systems, as
claimed. Appeal Br. 7. Claim 1 requires receiving a request to perform a
charging function using a first network protocol, and requesting the charging
function to be performed by any of a plurality of billing systems using any
of a plurality of network protocols, each of which is specific to one of the
billing systems. See claim 1.
Cai, on the other hand, receives call messages from either a legacy
network or an IMS network, converts those messages into a common
protocol used by the converged system, and processes the call messages in
that common protocol. Thus, although Cai’s system generates and transmits
charging messages to both an online and offline charging system, those
charging messages are in the common protocol used by the converged
system, not in network protocols specific to different billing systems. And,
as Appellant points out (Appeal Br. 8), Cai’s Figure 4 shows both the online
charging system and the offline charging system communicating with a
single billing system (“billing domain 440”).
In summary, the Examiner has not persuasively shown that the
elements of independent claims 1, 40, and 45 are taught in or suggested by
the cited references. We therefore reverse the rejection of claims 1–16 and
40–60 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Cai and Van Der Laak.
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DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–16, 40–60 112, second
paragraph
Indefiniteness 1–16, 40–
60

1–16, 40–60 103(a) Cai, Van Der Laak 1–16, 40–
60
Overall
Outcome
1–16, 40–
60

TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED