Ex Parte Bhogal et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 4, 2014

11609604 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 4, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte KULVIR S. BHOGAL, KENNETH W. BORGENDALE,
PAUL D. LEWIS, RAMANUJAM RAVISANKAR, and JOHN J. WANG
____________________

Appeal 2011-006908
Application 11/609,604
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before GLENN J. PERRY, TRENTON A. WARD, and
PATRICK M. BOUCHER, Administrative Patent Judges.

BOUCHER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2011-006908
Application 11/609,604

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims
1–13 and 16–20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

Illustrative Claim
The claimed subject matter relates to “subscribing for application
messages in a multicast messaging environment” (Spec., p. 1, ll. 12–13).
Claim 1 is illustrative and is reproduced below:
1. A method of subscribing for application messages
in a multicast messaging environment, the method comprising:
requesting, by a message receiving device, a stream
administration server to initialize a message subscription for
application messages from a message sending device;
receiving, in the message receiving device from the
stream administration server, a data communications endpoint
of a multicast message stream from the message sending
device;
beginning to listen, by the message receiving device, for
the application messages at the data communications endpoint;
and
notifying, by the message receiving device after
beginning to listen for the application messages, the message
sending device to publish the application messages at the data
communications endpoint.

References
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Carmeli
Nikolov
US 2004/0205439 A1
US 2005/0246186 A1
Oct. 14, 2004
Nov. 3, 2005
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Application 11/609,604

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Rejections
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1–13 and 16–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, as indefinite (Ans. 3–4).
Claims 1, 3–6, 8–13, and 17–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as anticipated by Nikolov (Ans. 4–11).
Claims 2, 7, and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Nikolov and Carmeli (Ans. 11–13).

ANALYSIS
§ 112 Rejection
The rejection of claims 1–13 and 16–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 112,
second paragraph, presents us with the issue of whether the recitation of
“receiving . . . a data communications endpoint of a multicast message
stream,” which is recited in each of independent claims 1, 8, and 13, renders
the claims indefinite.
During patent examination, claims must be given their broadest
reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification. In re Amer.
Acad. of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Applying the
broadest reasonable interpretation, the Examiner finds that a “data
communication endpoint” is hardware such as a host computer, and that “[i]t
is unclear to the [E]xaminer . . . how a device computer can receive a data
communication[s] endpoint which is a hardware computer within a
message.” Ans. 4. Appellants respond by identifying assertions in the
specification that a “communications endpoint is composed of a network
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Application 11/609,604

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address and a port for a sending device or a receiving device” and that a
“data communications endpoint . . . represents a data structure that includes
a network address at which the message receiving device may listen for
application messages from the message sending device.” Br. 6 (citing Spec.,
p. 9, ll. 7–9; p. 26, ll. 25–30).
The test for definiteness under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, is
whether “those skilled in the art would understand what is claimed when the
claim is read in light of the specification.” Orthokinetics, Inc. v. Safety
Travel Chairs, Inc., 806 F.2d 1565, 1576 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (citations
omitted). In light of the Specification’s disclosures identified by Appellants,
we conclude that one of skill in the art would reasonably understand
references to a “data communication endpoint” in the “receiving” limitations
of the independent claims to refer to data identifying at least a network
address, as Appellants assert. See Br. 6.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejections of claims 1–13 and
16–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph.

Prior-Art Rejections
Appellants present arguments collectively that the Examiner erred in
rejecting independent claims 1, 8, and 13 as anticipated by Nikolov. Br. 7–
16. Separate patentability is not argued for any of dependent claims 3–6,
9–12, or 17–20, which Appellants assert are “not anticipated by Nikolov for
the same reasons [as] the independent claims.” Id. at 16. Although
arguments that the Examiner erred in rejecting dependent claims 2, 7, and 16
as obvious over Nikolov and Carmeli are presented under a separate
heading, Appellants likewise merely reference the arguments presented for
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the independent claims. Therefore, we treat claim 1 as representative of all
pending claims. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
Appellants contend that “there is no disclosure, teaching, or
suggestion anywhere in Nikolov of the kind of subscribing for application
messages by receiving a data communication endpoint and notifying a
message sending device to publish application messages at the data
communication endpoint as recited in the claims of the present application.”
Br. 9. We are not persuaded by this contention.
As the Examiner notes, Nikolov discloses a Java message service that
uses a header containing predefined fields, including a unique identifier, a
destination, and other fields. Ans. 15 (citing Nikolov ¶ 18). Both clients
and providers use the header values “to identify and to route messages.”
Nikolov ¶ 18. The Examiner concludes that the identified destination in
Nikolov’s header is data that represent an address of a component in the
networking system where messages are published, consistent with
Appellants’ construction of a “data communications endpoint” as data
identifying a network address. See Ans. 15. The fact that the focus of
Nikolov’s disclosure is on prioritizing producers and consumers in a
messaging system does not diminish the relevance of its disclosures related
to subscribing for application messages. See Br. 9.
Appellants also contend that Nikolov does not disclose the claimed
step of “notifying, by the message receiving device after beginning to listen
for the application messages, the message sending device to publish the
application messages at the data communications endpoint.” Id. at 12–16.
We are not persuaded by this contention.
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The Examiner finds that, in Nikolov, acknowledgment of a message
by the receiving device acts to notify the sending device to send the next
message, and that such an acknowledgment is therefore a notification to
publish messages sent after the receiving device has begun listening. Ans.
18. In contrast, Appellants characterize the limitation as requiring that “the
receiving device begins listening before there is anything to receive.” Id. at
14 (emphasis by Appellants). But this characterization differs from what the
claim recites.
The claim limitation is broader than Appellants suggest, requiring
only that notification to publish application messages occur after the
message receiving device begins to listen. It includes no language that limits
the recited “notifying” to occur only a single time or otherwise to occur in an
exclusive way that would impose on it the requirement that “notifying”
occur “before there is anything to receive.”
For these reasons, we sustain the rejection of claims 1, 3–6, 8–13, and
17–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Nikolov, and we sustain
the rejection of claims 2, 7, and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Nikolov and Carmeli.

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–13 and 17–20 is 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
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