Ex Parte Block

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Aug 22, 2012

09792477 (B.P.A.I. Aug. 22, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE
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.
09/792,477 02/23/2001 Frederick P. Block 400040-A-01-US 9739
34847 7590 08/22/2012
AVAYA INC.
MARGARET CARMICHAEL, DOCKETING SPECIALIST
1300 W. 120TH AVENUE
ROOM B1-F53
WESTMINSTER, CO 80234
EXAMINER
NANO, SARGON N
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2457
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/22/2012 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 BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte FREDERICK P. BLOCK
____________

Appeal 2010-010841
Application 09/792,477
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, KRISTEN L. DROESCH, and
JOHNNY A. KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judges.

KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2010-010841
Application 09/792,477

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant seeks review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of a final rejection
of claims 1-4, 7-14, and 31-381. We AFFIRM.
BACKGROUND
Appellant’s disclosed invention relates to unified messaging systems.
An association is made in an e-mail server between an application of the
unified messaging system and a folder of a mailbox of a user of the system.
The application is illustratively a messaging application such as a voice-mail
server, a fax messaging server, or Web messaging server, and the mailbox is
a mailbox of a user of the application. The folder may be a virtual folder. In
response to an e-mail client opening the folder, the e-mail server of the
system provides data of the user from the application to the e-mail client in
the form of a message in the folder. The e-mail client is the e-mail client of
the user who owns the mailbox, and the data is data about the user that the
user provides to the application, such as the user's personal greeting of the
voicemail, the user's fax and the address (telephone number) of the fax
machine at which the user's fax is enqueued to be printed, or the user
information that is used by Web messaging to create the user's home page.
The user can thus access and review the user data that are used by non-e-
mail applications via a conventional e-mail client. Correspondingly, in
response to the e-mail client storing a message in the folder, the e-mail
server provides the contents of that message as the user's data to the
application. The user can thus change the user data that are used by non-e-
mail applications via the conventional e-mail client. See Spec 2, ll. 1-23.

1 Claims 5, 6, 15-30, 39-42 have been cancelled.
Appeal 2010-010841
Application 09/792,477

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Independent claim 1 is illustrative and is reproduced below:
1. A method of operating a unified messaging system
comprising:
in response to an e-mail client reading a folder of a
user's mailbox of the unified messaging system, which
folder an e-mail server of the unified messaging system
associates with a non-e-mail application of the unified
messaging system, the server obtaining data, that is
dedicated to the non-e-mail application and
which the non-e-mail application uses to perform a non-e-
mail action, from the non-e-mail application and
providing the obtained data to the client in a form of an e-
mail message; and
in response to the e-mail client writing an e-mail
message to the folder, the e-mail server providing contents
of the written e-mail message as the data that is dedicated to
the non-e-mail application to the non-e-mail application, to
cause the non-e-mail application to use the provided
contents to perform the non-e-mail action.

Rejections on Appeal2
Claims 1-4, 7-14, 31, 33-35, and 37 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§103(a) as being unpatentable over Waites (US 6,788,769 B1) in view of
Outlook Net Folders (2007)(“Outlook”). Ans. 3.
Claims 32, 36, and 38 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being
unpatentable over Waites, Outlook, and Montville (US 6,356,937 B1). Ans.
6.

2 The Examiner has withdrawn the rejection of claims 1-4, 7-14, and 31-38
under 35 USC §112. Ans. 2.
Appeal 2010-010841
Application 09/792,477

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ISSUE
Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Waites and
Outlook would have taught or suggested the features recited in exemplary
claim 1?
ANALYSIS
Rejection Based on Waites and Outlook
We adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth by the
Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal
Brief. Ans. 3-4, and 7-8. We concur with the conclusions reached by the
Examiner. We highlight and address specific findings and arguments for
emphasis as follows.
Appellant contends that Waites/Outlook do not teach or suggest
“associating folders of a user's mailbox with non-e-mail applications, and
using an e-mail client to convey information that is dedicated to those
applications and used to perform non-e-mail actions, to and from the
applications by the e-mail client reading and writing the folders,”
(hereinafter the claimed “non-email application” feature). Br. 16, 17.
The Examiner finds that Outlook teaches the “non-email application”
feature by “the use of sharable folders for calendar, hobby, project, etc.
purposes. Ans. 8. Thus, all subscribing applications and users receive
updated items as email messages in their Inbox. For example a shared
journal may be updated via email messages and shared via a sharable
folder.” Ans. 8 (citing page 4). We agree with the Examiner’s finding that
the updated shared journal meets the “non-email application feature.”
Appellant also argues that Outlook contacts folder is “a source from
which a user may, by conventional manual interaction via the Outlook user
Appeal 2010-010841
Application 09/792,477

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interface, discover the telephone number of another user.” Br. 17. Appellant
thus argues that “[t]he Outlook contacts folder is not associated with Waites'
directory system.” Id. We are unpersuaded by Appellant’s arguments
because they are not applicable to the Examiner’s position as explained in
the Answer on pages 7 and 8.
It follows that the Examiner has not erred in concluding that the
combination of Waites and Outlook renders independent claims 1, 34 and 37
unpatentable.
Appellant does not provide separate and distinct arguments for
patentability with respect to dependent claims 2-4, 7-14, 31, 33, and 35. See
Br. 16-18. Consequently, dependent claims 2-4, 7-14, 31, 33, and 35 fall
with independent claims 1 and 34 (respectively). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(vii).
For all these reasons, we sustain the rejection of claims 1-4, 7-14, 31,
33-35 and 37 as obvious over Waites and Outlook.
Rejection Based on Waites, Outlook, and Montville
Appellant contends that Montville does not remedy the above-argued
deficiencies in Waites and Outlook. See Br. 18. As discussed supra, we are
unpersuaded by Appellant’s arguments that the teachings of either Waites or
Outlook are deficient. It follows that the Examiner has not erred in
concluding that the combination of Waites, Outlook, and Montville renders
dependent claims 32, 36, and 38 unpatentable.
DECISION
We AFFIRM the rejection of claims 1-4, 7-14, 31, 33-35 and 37 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Waites and Outlook.
Appeal 2010-010841
Application 09/792,477

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We AFFIRM the rejection of claims 32, 36 and 38 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Waites, Outlook, and Montville.
TIME PERIOD
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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