Ex Parte ELIAS et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 28, 2015

11379465 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 28, 2015)

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.
11/379,465 04/20/2006 MARK ELIAS PD2160 9888
83417 7590 12/28/2015
AT&T Legal Department - HFZ
ATTN. Patent Docketing
One AT&T Way
Room 2A-207
Bedminster, NJ 07921
EXAMINER
WU, TSUNG YIN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2454
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/28/2015 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 PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte MARK ELIAS and SHERRY SOJA-MOLLOY
____________

Appeal 2013-010858
Application 11/379,465
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before JEFFREY S. SMITH, HUNG H. BUI, and
JOHN F. HORVATH, Administrative Patent Judges.

SMITH, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final
Rejection of claims 9–21, which are all the claims remaining in the
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

Illustrative Claim
9. A tangible computer-readable storage medium, excluding
propagating signals, and storing computer instructions which, when
executed, cause a computer to perform actions comprising:
detect an update to be made to a virtual private network operating in a
multi-protocol label switching network, the update being prompted by a
customer relations management system tracking customer network
subscriptions,
generate a first border gateway protocol message to reconfigure the
virtual private network based on the detected update, the computer to
generate the first border gateway protocol message at a location separate
from a plurality of routers that are to implement the virtual private network,
and
transmit the first border gateway protocol message to a route reflector
in the multi-protocol label switching network to propagate the first border
gateway protocol message to at least a subset of the plurality of routers to
cause the virtual private network to be reconfigured.

Prior Art
He US 2004/0034702 A1 Feb. 19, 2004
Ahuja US 6,981,055 B1 Dec. 27, 2005
Ould-Brahim US 7,274,704 B1 Sep. 25, 2007
Semeria (Chuck Semeria, “RFC 2547bis: BGP/MPLS VPN
Fundamentals”, Juniper Networks, Inc. 2001).

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Examiner’s Rejections
Claims 9, 10, and 15–17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over He and Ahuja. Ans. 5–9.
Claims 12, 14, 19, and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over He, Ahuja, and Ould-Brahim. Ans. 9–11.
Claims 11, 13, 18, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over He, Ahuja, and Semeria. Ans. 11–13.
Claims 14 and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over He, Ahuja, and Semeria. Ans. 13–14.

ANALYSIS
We adopt the findings of fact made in the Final Rejection and
Examiner’s Answer as our own. We concur with the conclusions reached by
the Examiner for the reasons given in the Examiner’s Answer. We highlight
the following for emphasis.

Claims 9, 12, 14, and 15
Appellants contend the combination of He and Ahuja does not teach
“detect an update to be made to a virtual private network” as recited in claim
9. Reply Br. 2. According to Appellants, He only teaches detecting an
update performed in the past. Id. Appellants’ contention is based on the
premise that a change in the status of a VPN tunnel or a VPN member
leaving a group is the same as a change to the virtual private network itself.
App. Br. 7. However, the virtual private network remains unchanged, even
if the status of elements of the network change. For example, when a VPN
member leaves the group, affected sites still send data to the site that has left
the group until the BGP router reflector communicates with the affected sites
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with routing updates. See He ¶ 32. Further, the policy information
discussed in paragraphs 26-29 of He includes changes to the virtual private
network, such as access restrictions to particular routes, which are detected
by the BGP and distributed to VPN sites. The detected policy updates to the
network are not made until the BGP distributes the updates to the VPN sites.
Appellants have not provided persuasive evidence or argument to distinguish
“detect an update to be made to a virtual private network” from detecting a
change in status requiring updates to routes in the VPN, or from detecting
policy information to restrict access to particular routes in the VPN, as
taught by He.
Appellants also contend the combination of He and Ahuja does not
teach a customer relations management system tracking customer network
subscriptions. App. Br. 5-7; Reply Br. 3. The Examiner finds He’s VPN
management center, which tracks policy information to restrict access of
certain devices to the VPN (He ¶¶ 26-28), teaches tracking customer
network subscriptions because one of ordinary skill would restrict access to
a customer’s device when the customer’s subscription expires. See Ans. 15.
Appellants have not provided persuasive evidence or argument to rebut the
Examiner’s findings.
We sustain the rejection of claim 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Appellants
do not provide arguments for separate patentability of dependent claims 12,
14, and 15, which fall with claim 9.

Claim 10
Appellants contend the combination of He and Ahuja does not teach
including “provisioning information in the first border gateway protocol
message” as recited in claim 10. App. Br. 10–11; Reply Br. 6–7. According
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to Appellants, the route updates taught by paragraph 32 of He are not the
same as provisioning information disclosed in paragraphs 13, 14, and 16 of
Appellants’ Specification. Id. Paragraph 14 of Appellants’ Specification
discloses provisioning information can be in the form of control information.
Paragraph 15 discloses several non-limiting examples of control
information, including a change to an IP address managed by the router, and
a modification of a particular route in the VPN. The scope of the claimed
“provisioning information,” when read in light of Appellants’ Specification,
encompasses a modification of a particular route in the VPN as taught by
paragraph 32 of He. See Ans. 17–18.
Further, paragraph 40 of He teaches communicating policy
information along with routing information. Appellants have not provided a
definition of “provisioning information” that excludes the policy information
taught by He. Therefore, He teaches including “provisioning information in
the first border gateway protocol message” as recited in claim 10.
We sustain the rejection of claim 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.

Claim 11
Appellants contend the combination of He, Ahuja, and Semeria does
not teach “the provisioning information is included in one or more
extensions of the first border gateway protocol message” as recited in claim
11. App. Br. 11–12; Reply Br. 7–8. Appellants’ contention is based on the
premise that the scope of the claimed provisioning information excludes
routing information. Id. Appellants’ contention is inconsistent with
paragraphs 14 and 15 of Appellants’ Specification, as discussed in our
analysis of claim 10.
We sustain the rejection of claim 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
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Claim 13
Appellants present arguments for the patentability of claim 13 (App.
Br. 13–14) similar to those presented for claims 10 and 11 which we find
unpersuasive. We sustain the rejection of claim 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.

Claims 16–21
Appellants contend the combination of He and Ahuja does not teach
“router configuration information other than routing information used to
exchange routes” as recited in claim 16. App. Br. 8–10; Reply Br. 4–6.
Appellants contend this claim term must be given its broadest reasonable
interpretation consistent with Appellants’ Specification. App. Br. 8–9.
According to Appellants, their Specification discloses examples of the
claimed “router configuration information other than routing information
used to exchange routes” in paragraphs 14 and 15. Reply Br. 4. Appellants
conclude the meaning of the claimed “router configuration information” is
clear (from the disclosure in paragraphs 14 and 15 of Appellants’
Specification). Id.
Paragraph 14 of Appellants’ Specification discloses “distributing
provisioning information in the form of control information. . . .” Paragraph
15 further discloses:
the control information can comprise any number of
configurable parameters including, but not limited to, a change
in the number of routes allocated to the router 104 operating in
the VPN 108, a change to the IP addresses managed by the
router, a modification of a particular route in the VPN, or a
merging of the VPN to another VPN in the MPLS network 102.
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Emphasis added. The scope of the claimed “router configuration
information other than routing information used to exchange routes,” when
read in light of paragraphs 14 and 15 of Appellants’ Specification (as argued
by Appellants on page 4 of the Reply Brief), encompasses information for
modifying a particular route, such as by restricting access to the route as
taught by paragraph 28 of He, or by withdrawing a route as taught by
paragraph 32 of He.
Further, the Examiner finds paragraphs 26–28 of He teach
communicating policy information. See Ans. 15. Cumulative to the
Examiner’s finding, we highlight paragraph 40 teaches communicating the
policy information along with routing information, to emphasize that policy
information is something “other than routing information used to exchange
routes.” Appellants have not provided a definition of “router configuration
information other than routing information used to exchange routes” that
excludes the policy information taught by He.
We sustain the rejection of claim 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Appellants do not present arguments for separate patentability of claims 19
and 21 which fall with claim 16. Appellants present arguments for the
patentability of claims 17, 18, and 20 (App. Br. 11–14) similar to those
presented for claims 10, 11, and 13, which we find unpersuasive.

DECISION
The rejections of claims 9–21 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). See 37 C.F.R. §
41.50(f).

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AFFIRMED

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