Ex Parte Krause et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jan 25, 2012

10387126 (B.P.A.I. Jan. 25, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte JOEL M. KRAUSE, G. LANCE LOCKHART, JOHN
TRUETKEN, CHRISTOPHER MARTIN, and JEFFREY HALTOM
____________

Appeal 2009-011465
Application 10/387,126
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, KRISTEN L. DROESCH,
and BRUCE R. WINSOR, Administrative Patent Judges.

SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of
claims 1-15 and 17-29, which constitute all the claims pending in this
application since claim 16 has been canceled. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants’ invention relates to an integrated customer premises
equipment (CPE) device used in communications networks including an
integrated Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) enabled CPE device that
provides customers with firewall capabilities, quality of service (QoS)
processing, routing capabilities, and Ethernet switching functionality (see
Spec. ¶¶ [0001], [0005]).
Exemplary independent claim 1 reads as follows:
1. A network device comprising:
one or more voice ports configured to communicate with one or
more analog devices;
one or more data ports configured to communicate with one or
more Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) devices;
one or more network ports configured to communicate with a
network; and
network management logic that allows the network device to be
remotely controlled and configured, the network management logic
including:
filtering logic configured to filter traffic received from
the one or more network ports, and
quality of service (QoS) logic configured to perform QoS
processing on traffic received from the one or more voice ports,
the one or more data ports, and the one or more network ports.
Rejections
The Examiner relies on the following prior art in rejecting the claims:
Cooper US 5,144,651 Sep. 1, 1992
Rabenko US 2001/0033583 A1 Oct. 25, 2001
Borella US 6,353,614 B1 Mar. 5, 2002
Gallant US 2002/0131575 A1 Sep. 19, 2002
Kahveci US 6,938,080 B1 Aug. 30, 2005
Voit US 2006/009870 A1 May 11, 2006

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Claims 1, 5, 6, 8, 11-15, 17, 21, 23, 25-27, and 29 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kahveci and Voit.
Claims 2 and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Kahveci, Voit, and Borella.
Claims 3, 18, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Kahveci, Voit, and Cooper.
Claims 4 and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Kahveci, Voit, and Gallant and over Kahveci, Voit, and
Cooper.
1

Claims 7, 9, 10, 22, and 28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Kahveci, Voit, and Rabenko.

ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
contentions that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants’
conclusions. We adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by
the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and (2) the
reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to
Appellants’ Appeal Brief. However, with respect to the claims argued by
Appellants, we highlight and address specific findings and arguments for
emphasis as follows.
Claims 1, 5, 6, 8, 11, 14, and 15
Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting these claims
as obvious because the references “do not disclose or suggest a network

1
The Examiner applies Gallant for teaching the subject matter of claim 4
and Cooper for teaching the subject matter of claim 20.
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device that includes network management logic that allows the network
device to be remotely controlled and configured,” as recited in claim 1 (App.
Br. 8). Appellants specifically assert that paragraph [0226] of Voit does not
disclose that the web server 81 and the test server 83 can be remotely
configured nor that the remote GUI, which the Examiner corresponds to the
recited network management logic, includes filtering logic and QoS logic
(App. Br. 8-9). Additionally, Appellants contend that the combination of the
references is improper since the Examiner has not explained how controlling
a web server or a test server of Voit could be incorporated into Kahveci to
control the RAN that is analogous to a client and is not discussed as being
remotely controlled or configured (App. Br. 10-11).
We agree with the Examiner’s findings and conclusions regarding the
teachings of Kahveci and Voit (see Ans. 4-6 and 14-16) and find that the
combination of the applied prior art as a whole discloses or suggests the
claimed network device including network management logic that allows the
network device to be remotely controlled and configured. Specifically, we
agree with the Examiner’s characterization of the Residential Access Node
(RAN) of Kahveci as the claimed network device. As the Examiner finds
(id.), a RAN includes a hardware platform for communication with the
network and the customer premises and a software platform for distributing
capabilities into customer homes in a distributed application environment
(see Kahveci, col. 5, ll. 24-34, 58-64). Kahveci further discloses that a
RAN, through different layers of Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) stack
layer and an application programming interface, provides management
controlling functions such as “account registration, account authentication,
address provisioning, firewall and other security measures, billing services,
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QoS management, and subscriber network interface management.” See
Kahveci, col. 8, l. 54 – col. 9, l. 9.
We also find the Examiner’s stated rationale for the proposed
combination to be reasonable and based on “an apparent reason to combine
the known elements in the fashion claimed” which includes an “articulated
reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness.” KSR Int’l v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417-18 (2007).
Such reasoning can be based on interrelated teachings of multiple patents,
the effects of demands known to the design community or present in the
marketplace, and the background knowledge possessed by a person having
ordinary skill in the art. Id.
In the present case, the Examiner found that the proposed combination
would have resulted in improved cost management of RAN by controlling
the services to a customer premises remotely (Ans. 6, 15). We disagree with
Appellants’ position (Reply Br. 4-6) and find this articulated rationale to be
sufficient to justify this combination. In other words, we find that the
proposed substitution would merely require the ordinarily skilled artisan to
use common sense to appreciate that remotely controlling and configuring a
server would result in a more efficient way for a RAN to perform its
functions with respect to the services provided to the subscribers. Therefore,
we find no error in the Examiner’s rejection of these claims.
Claim 12
Appellants contend that Kahveci’s RAN, as described in column 8,
lines 54-66 of the reference, does not include network management logic
that detects faults associated with the network device (App. Br. 11-13). The
Examiner responds by asserting that the recited “fault associated with the
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network device,” as described in paragraph [0033] of Appellants’
Specification, includes “system faults, network interface problems,
hardware/software failures, and the like,” and is similar to monitoring
network interface problems by the firewall in Kahveci (Ans. 16-17).
Contrary to Appellants’ position (Reply Br. 7) that Kahveci does not
disclose that the firewall monitors network interface problems and attacks,
we agree with the Examiner (Ans. 17) that network interface problems and
attacks are the same type of faults performed by Kahveci’s firewall “which
monitors network interface problems and attacks.” Therefore, we find no
error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 12.
Claim 13
Appellants contend that the cited portions of Kahveci in column 8,
line 62 to column 9, line 1, do not disclose that network management logic
monitors configuration information associated with the network device, and
instead describe a subscriber network interface management (App. Br. 14-
16). The Examiner responds that Kahveci’s RAN performs functions related
to storing the configuration as well as network interface management for the
subscribers, which is similar to the disclosed function in paragraph [0034] of
Appellants’ Specification (Ans. 17-18).
We concur with the Examiner and further note that Kahveci’s recited
functions, in addition to network interface management of the subscriber,
include account registration and authentication, address provisioning,
firewall and QoS management (see Kahveci, col. 8, l. 54 – col. 9, l. 9),
which correspond to the configuration of the RAN or the network device.
Therefore, we find no error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 13.
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Claims 2, 17, 21, 23-27, and 29
Appellants present arguments similar to those provided for claims 1
and 17 (App. Br. 16-27), which were found to be unpersuasive. We agree
with the Examiner’s stated position and response (Ans. 4-8, 18-19). For the
same reasons discussed above with respect to claims 1 and 17, we conclude
that the Examiner did not err in rejecting these claims.
Claim 3
In addition to relying on the arguments presented for claim 1,
Appellants contend that the relied on portion of Cooper in column 5 does not
disclose or suggest “that channel unit 24 . . . includes at least one FXS/FXO
voice port and at least one T1 or fractional T1 trunk group” (App. Br. 28).
Appellants further challenge the combinability of the references and assert
that the skilled artisan would not have been motivated to combine Kahveci
and Cooper absent hindsight because Cooper is not analogous to Kahveci
(App. Br. 29-30).
In response, the Examiner points to column 5, lines 11-17 and 39-43
of Cooper and explains that the disputed claim feature is disclosed as the
local exchange carrier (LEC) connected to the local channel unit 16 which
includes the proper foreign exchange subscriber (FXS) and the point of
presence (POP) that uses a T1 link (Ans. 10, 20). We agree with the
Examiner’s findings and the articulated reasoning with some rational
underpinning (see Ans. 20-21) in support of the rejection. Therefore, we
find no error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 3.
Claims 4 and 20
Appellants contend that, in addition to the reasons stated for base
claims 1 and 17 (see App. Br. 30-31, 41-47), the proposed combination of
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Kahveci, Voit, with Cooper or Gallant does not disclose or suggest
“SIP/TDM conversion logic connected to the at least one FXS/FXO voice
port and the at least one of a T1 or fractional T1 trunk group and configured
to translate signals between SIP and a TDM signaling protocol” (App. Br.
30). We agree with the Examiner’s findings and conclusions (see Ans. 10-
11, 21-24) and adopt them as our own. Therefore, we conclude that the
Examiner did not err in rejecting these claims.
Claims 7, 9, 10, 18-20, 22, and 28
Appellants present arguments similar to those provided for claims 1
and 17 to assert the patentability of claims 18-20 (App. Br. 33-41) and
claims 7, 9, 10, 22, and 28 (App. Br. 47-48), which were found to be
unpersuasive. For the same reasons discussed above with respect to claims 1
and 17, we conclude that the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 7, 9,
10, 18-20, 22, and 28.

CONCLUSION
On the record before us, we conclude that, because the references
teach or suggest all the claim limitations, the Examiner has not erred in
rejecting claims 1-15 and 17-29 as being obvious.

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-15 and 17-29 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).
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AFFIRMED

ELD