Ex Parte Auriemma et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 25, 2017

12205470 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 25, 2017)

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.
12/205,470 09/05/2008 Stephen T. Auriemma LOT920030090US3_8150-0249 6908
52021 7590 07/27/2017
Cuenot, Forsythe & Kim, LLC
20283 State Road 7
Ste. 300
Boca Raton, EL 33498
EXAMINER
BELANI, KISHIN G
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2443
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/27/2017 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):
ibmptomail@iplawpro.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte STEPHEN T. AURIEMMA, MARIA M. CORBETT,
MICHAEL R. O'BRIEN, and ASHOK C. MAMMEN
Appeal 2017-0037841
Application 12/205,470
Technology Center 2400
Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, HUBERT C. LORIN, and
ANTON W. FETTING, Administrative Patent Judges.
CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is an appeal from the final rejection of claims 16—29. We have
jurisdiction to review the case under 35 U.S.C. §§ 134(a) and 6.
1 The Appellants identify IBM Corporation as the real party in interest.
Appeal Br. 1.
Appeal 2017-003784
Application 12/205,470
The invention relates generally to performing an optimized slow
synchronization procedure for documents and other files between a client
and server. Spec. 1 11. 8—16.
Claim 16 is illustrative:
16. A method for optimizing a slow synchronization between a
client and a server, comprising:
sending, by the server to the client and responsive to
receiving a synchronization package having missing or corrupt
synchronization anchors, a request to initiate a slow
synchronization process;
receiving, by the server, a slow synchronization package;
determining, by the server and from the slow
synchronization package, whether the client is designated
proprietary; and
processing, by the server and only upon the client being
designated proprietary, the slow synchronization package,
wherein the slow synchronization package includes only
summary data related to documents stored at the client.
Claims 16—29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Sivaraman (US 2004/0205263 Al, pub. Oct. 14, 2004) and Feague
(US 6,247,135 Bl, iss. June 12, 2001).
We REVERSE.
ANALYSIS
Each of independent claims 16 and 23 recite “determining, by the
server and from the slow synchronization package, whether the client is
designated proprietary.”
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Appeal 2017-003784
Application 12/205,470
We are persuaded by the Appellants’ arguments that Feague does not
teach a mechanism by which to determine whether a client is designated
proprietary. Reply Br. 5; see also Appeal Br. 8—14, Reply Br. 2—6.
The Examiner finds that Sivaraman does not disclose determining if a
client is “proprietary,” and instead finds that Feague discloses determining if
a client is “proprietary,” at the disclosed cyclic redundancy check value
(CRC), citing Feague column 4 line 19 through column 5 line 67, column 11
lines 30-36, and column 13 lines 16—64. Answer 3.
We begin with claim construction. Claims 16 and 23 each concern
synchronizing data files between a client and a server, to achieve data
consistency between the two platforms. See Spec. 11. 12 to 2 1. 6. The
claimed method determines if a client is “proprietary.” The Specification
describes that
a proprietary client and server may depart from the SyncML
specification during the slow sync process when missing or
corrupt anchors are received. A proprietary client may send only
summary data for all of its records rather than the entire
document, as is done in a normal SyncML slow sync. A client
may be designated proprietary by placing a notation in the Meta
element of the SyncML header.
Id. 6 11. 1—6. The term “proprietary” is therefore shorthand for a client (and
server) that are allowed to ignore requests to synchronize all affected data
files, and instead send, and process on receipt, only “summary” information
about the files. A full synchronization of all data files is referred to as a
“slow sync.” Id. 1 11. 18—21. Therefore, normally, a “slow synchronization
package” is, to a client, “the contents of its entire database.” Id. 7 11. 1—3.
The claim recites that the server determines, from the client-sent slow
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Appeal 2017-003784
Application 12/205,470
synchronization package, whether the client is “proprietary,” by looking for
a designation in the package itself.2
As noted by the Appellants, “CRC values are not unique IDs. They
are error checking codes used to determine whether there was an error
during transmission of data.” Appeal Br. 10. The Examiner, apparently
agreeing, mistakenly concludes that whether a client is proprietary is about
the “content of the data,” not the client. Answer 12. This is incorrect,
because the claim itself recites that a client may be proprietary, and this
condition is merely communicated in the data.
The Examiner further postulates that “adding a CRC code value to the
transmitted data can qualify a client as proprietary” {Id.), and leaving a CRC
out could mean a client is not proprietary {Id. 16). The problem with the
Examiner’s position is that it is conjecture. Feague does not determine if a
client is proprietary from the content of data sent in a “slow synchronization
package,” as claimed. Instead, Feague discloses “the ability for a
synchronization system’s engine (sync engine) to query the client or target
device about a particular attribute and to find out what the device’s
capabilities are in that respect.” Feague col. 4 11. 19—23. If Feague receives
from its query a value of “HEADERS” for the “RECORD_FILTERING”
attribute, Feague can then request summary information about files. Id. col.
11 11. 31—34. This “HEADERS” information, however, does not appear in a
“slow synchronization package” in response to a request made to a client to
send all data, as claimed.
2 In independent method claim 16, if the client is not “proprietary,” the final
two limitations are not performed and the method ends after the determining
step, with the server receiving a full-data slow synchronization package from
a non-proprietary client.
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Appeal 2017-003784
Application 12/205,470
Therefore, the Examiner has not sufficiently established the
obviousness of the claimed method and system over the combination of
Sivaraman and Feague. For this reason, we do not sustain the rejection of
independent claims 16 and 23, nor of dependent claims 17—22 and 24—29
that were rejected along with claims 16 and 23.
DECISION
We reverse the rejection of claims 16—29 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
REVERSED
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