Ex Parte Kracht

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Sep 13, 2010

09922175 (B.P.A.I. Sep. 13, 2010)

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.
09/922,175 08/01/2001 James E. Kracht CISCO-3550 7564
757 7590 09/13/2010
BRINKS HOFER GILSON & LIONE
P.O. BOX 10395
CHICAGO, IL 60610
EXAMINER
PATEL, ASHOKKUMAR B
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2449
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/13/2010 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 JAMES E. KRACHT
____________________

Appeal 2009-004765
Application 09/922,1751
Technology Center 2400

____________________

Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, MARC S. HOFF,
and THOMAS S. HAHN, Administrative Patent Judges.

HOFF, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL2

1 The real party in interest is Cisco Technology.
2 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, or filing a request for rehearing, as
recited in 37 C.F.R. § 41.52, begins to run from the “MAIL DATE” (paper
delivery mode) or the “NOTIFICATION DATE” (electronic delivery mode)
shown on the PTOL-90A cover letter attached to this decision.
Appeal 2009-004765
Application 09/922,175

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1-5, 13-16, 19-22, and 25-29. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We reverse.
Appellant’s invention relates to an auto-configuring Integrated
Communication System (ICS) comprising an ICS chassis that includes a
number of slots for routers, and other cards. Upon system initialization, the
ICS automatically configures itself to identify all internal cards of the system
by first verifying that a system switch processor (SSP) has been assigned an
IP address. In a second step, the system requests a discovery protocol data
package from the SSP and determines whether the discovery package
corresponds to at least one internal card. If the package corresponds to at
least one internal card, then the system discovers more information directly
from the card or indirectly from the SSP (Abstract; Spec. 12:3-13:12).
Claim 1 is exemplary:
1. In a communications system apparatus with an Ethernet backplane
and at least one internal occupant, a method for identifying internal
occupants comprising:
verifying that a system switch processor ("SSP") has been assigned an
IP address;
requesting a discovery protocol data package from said SSP;
determining whether said discovery protocol data package
corresponds to said at least one internal occupant; and
if said discovery protocol data package corresponds to said at least
one internal occupant, then discovering occupant information corresponding
to said at least one internal occupant.

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Application 09/922,175

The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Fee US 6,415,314 B1 Jul. 2, 2002

Claims 1-5, 13-16, 19-22, and 25-29 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e) as being anticipated by Fee.
Rather than repeat the arguments of Appellant or the Examiner, we
make reference to the Appeal Brief (filed June 19, 2008), the Reply Brief
(filed April 11, 2008), and the Examiner’s Answer (mailed August 28, 2008)
for their respective details.

ISSUE
Appellant contends that Fee does not show “verifying that a system
switch processor (SSP) has been assigned an IP address,” since Fee teaches a
symmetric system where all nodes self-assign an IP address to themselves
without waiting or verification (App. Br. 5; Reply Br. 4). Appellant asserts
that Fee fails to disclose the claimed limitation of "requesting a discovery
protocol data package from said SSP," in that the Examiner has erred in his
finding that the Distributed Chassis Agent (DCA) of Fee is equivalent to the
SSP and that the DCA requests a discovery protocol data package from itself
as the SSP (App. Br. 6). Furthermore, Appellant argues that Fee merely
discloses that the DCA uses Management Information Bases (MIBs) to
gather information about the chassis (App. Br. 6). Finally, Appellant asserts
that the DCA and the SSP are not equivalent, since the DCA is a distributed
chassis agent (software) and the SSP of Appellant’s claimed invention is a
system switch processor (hardware) (App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 2-3).
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Appeal 2009-004765
Application 09/922,175

Appellant’s contentions present us with the following dispositive
issue:
Does Fee disclose a method for identifying internal cards within a
communications system apparatus that requests a discovery protocol data
package from a system switch processor (SSP)?

FINDINGS OF FACT
The following Findings of Fact (FF) are shown by a preponderance of
the evidence.
The Invention
1. Cards that occupy slots in the ICS chassis include a built-in
discovery protocol known in the art, such as the Cisco Discovery Protocol
(CDP). Each card periodically sends messages that include an IP address
and platform string to the SSP. The SSP derives interface information and
generates a CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol) data package for each card that
contains an IP address, interface information, and a platform string. The ICS
maintains a central data table that contains the discovery information that it
receives from each of the cards during the process, in accordance with the
Appellant’s invention, the ICS requests the CDP data package from the SSP
and gathers additional information from each card (Figs. 2, 3, and 6; Spec.
10:3-11:2 and 13:19-14:4).
Fee
2. Fee discloses that discovery is a continuous process wherein
each module located within the networking chassis broadcasts an unsolicited
message on both the local and remote system management bus (SMB1 and
SMB10) networks. The message may include basis information such as:
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Application 09/922,175

Slot ID, LLAP address, MAC address, IP address, etc. (Figs. 1 and 3; col. 6,
l. 45-col. 7, l. 24).
3. Fee discloses that each module builds its own slot table,
wherein the SMB is monitored for messages to determine (1) the presence or
absence of a module, (2) the ability to communicate with a module over the
SMB, and (3) current status of each module (col. 7, ll. 22-34).
4. Fee discloses that each module may be polled for information
about its resources and its applications (including interface information and
platform information) (col. 7, ll. 35-49).
5. Fee discloses that when a module needs information that is
stored remotely on another module, that each module has the ability to
“fetch the rest from the remote modules” (col. 8, ll. 57-65).
6. Fee discloses that a module is selected to be the DCA based
upon the module’s available resources, current applications, current profile,
etc. Once the DCA is selected, the DCA uses a MIB tree to gather
information about the chassis and to effect control on the chassis such that
the control is distributed across all modules within the chassis where each
module maintains some of the data locally and fetches the rest from the
remote modules (col. 7, l.50-col. 8, l.65).

PRINCIPLES OF LAW
Anticipation pursuant to 35 U.S.C § 102 is established when a single
prior art reference discloses expressly or under the principles of inherency
each and every limitation of the claimed invention. Atlas Powder Co. v.
IRECO Inc., 190 F.3d 1342, 1347 (Fed. Cir. 1999); In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d
1475, 1478-79 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
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Appeal 2009-004765
Application 09/922,175

ANALYSIS
Claims 1-5, 13-16, 19-22, and 25-29
Independent claim 1 recites “requesting a discovery protocol data
package from said SSP.” Independent claims 13, 19, and 25 recite a similar
claim limitation.
We consider Appellant’s arguments to be persuasive to show
Examiner error. Specifically, we do not agree with the Examiner’s finding
that Fee discloses that the system “request[s] a discovery protocol data
package from said SSP” (Ans. 4-6). As the Specification discloses, the cards
of the ICS chassis periodically send messages that include an IP address and
platform string to the SSP (FF 1). The SSP derives interface information
and generates a CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol) data package for each card
that contains an IP address, interface information and a platform string (FF
1).
Although the Examiner finds that the Fee DCA is equivalent to the
SSP, Fee does not disclose that the DCA derives interface information to
generate a discovery protocol data package (Ans. 4-6). Rather, Fee discloses
that discovery is a continuous process wherein each module broadcasts an
unsolicited message on both the local and remote system management bus
(SMB1 and SMB10) networks (FF 2). Further, Fee discloses that each
module builds its own slot table, wherein the SMB is monitored for
messages to determine (1) the presence or absence of a module, (2) the
ability to communicate with a module over the SMB, and (3) current status
of each module (FF 3). In addition, Fee discloses that each module may be
polled for information about its resources and its applications (FF 4).
Finally, Fee discloses that when a module needs information that is stored
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remotely on another module, that each module has the ability to “fetch the
rest from the remote modules” (FF 5).
More particularly, Fee discloses that after a module is selected as the
DCA, the DCA uses a MIB tree to gather information about the chassis and
to effect control on the chassis such that the control is distributed across all
modules within the chassis where each module maintains some of the data
locally and fetches the rest from the remote modules (FF 6).
The distinction between the Appellant’s invention and Fee is that
Appellant’s ICS populates one central data table (FF 1). Fee does not
disclose a central slot table that must be populated by the system. Fee
discloses that each module maintains its own slot table (FF 3). Thus, there is
no need for the system in Fee to request a discovery protocol data package
from the DCA or any module.
Claim 1 requires that the system requests the discovery protocol data
package from the SSP. Fee does not disclose that the system requests from
the DCA a discovery protocol data package that contains an IP address,
interface information and a platform string associated with each module.
Therefore, we find that Fee does not disclose “requesting a discovery
protocol data package from said SSP.” As a result, we will not sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1, 13, 19, and 25 and that of
dependent claims 2-5, 14-16, 20-22, and 26-29 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b), we
reverse the Examiner’s rejection.

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CONCLUSION
Fee does not disclose a method for identifying internal cards within a
communications system apparatus that requests a discovery protocol data
package from a system switch processor (SSP).

ORDER
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-5, 13-16, 19-22, and 25-29 is
reversed.

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Appeal 2009-004765
Application 09/922,175

REVERSED

ELD

BRINKS HOFER GILSON & LIONE
P.O. BOX 10395
CHICAGO, IL 60610

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