Ex Parte MeskauskasDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 27, 201310854532 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 27, 2013) Copy Citation 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. 10/854,532 05/26/2004 Paulius Meskauskas 800.0883.U1 (US) 7171 10948 7590 03/27/2013 Harrington & Smith, Attorneys At Law, LLC 4 Research Drive, Suite 202 Shelton, CT 06484 EXAMINER GILLIS, BRIAN J ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2446 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/27/2013 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 PAULIUS MESKAUSKAS ____________ Appeal 2010-010370 Application 10/854,5321 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before MARC S. HOFF, STANLEY M. WEINBERG, and JOHN A. EVANS, Administrative Patent Judges. EVANS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) involving claims to methods for application message decompression. The Examiner has rejected the claims as obvious and as directed to non-statutory subject matter. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Apr. 1, 2010), the Answer (mailed May 6, 2010), and the Reply Brief (filed July 6, 2010). 1 The real party in interest is Nokia Corporation. Appeal 2010-010370 Application 10/854,532 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE According to Appellant’s invention, a transport layer stream with application messages, including application messages compressed according to a signaling compression method, is received and transferred to an application client, which transfers unidentified application messages to a decompression entity configured to identify and decompress application messages compressed according to the signaling compression method. The application messages compressed according to the signaling compression method are decompressed and transferred back to the application client. (Abstract). Claims 1-15 are on appeal. Claims 1, 7, and 11-15 are independent. An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of exemplary claim 1, which is reproduced below: 1. A method of decompressing application messages, comprising: receiving transport layer data packet stream including application messages, at least one of the application messages being compressed according to a signalling compression method; transferring the received transport layer data packet stream to at least one application client; identifying uncompressed application messages directed to said at least one application client; transferring unidentified application messages to a decompression entity configured to identify and decompress application messages compressed according to said signalling compression method; decompressing said at least one application message compressed according to said signalling compression method; and Appeal 2010-010370 Application 10/854,532 3 transferring the decompressed application messages back to said at least one application client. The claims are rejected as follows: 1. Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claimed system comprising endpoints is purportedly software per se as described in paragraphs 27 and 53-55 of the Specification. (Ans. 4 (citing MPEP § 2106)). 2. Claims 1-5, 12, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Price (R. Price et al., Signaling Compression (SigComp) (Jan. 2003)), Garakani (US 2005/0015514 A1, filed May 30, 2003), and Svanbro (US 2002/0057716 A1, filed Mar. 21, 2001). (Ans. 4-10). 3. Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Price, Garakani, Svanbro, and Symbian (Symbian Developer Library, Subsystems and APIs (2002)). (Ans. 11-12). 4. Claims 7, 9, 10, 13, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Price and Pusl (CN 1361997, Jul. 31, 2002). (Ans. 12-16). 5. Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Price, Pusl, and Gadepalli (US 2003/0191860 A1, filed Apr. 5, 2002). (Ans. 16). 6. Claim 11 is also rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Price, Pusl, Garakani, and Svanbro. (Ans. 16-20). Appeal 2010-010370 Application 10/854,532 4 Claim Groupings Based on Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief, we will decide the appeal on the basis of claims as set forth below. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). THE NON-STATUTORY SUBJECT MATTER REJECTION CONTENTIONS AND ISSUE The Examiner has rejected claim 11 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. (Ans. 4). The Examiner finds that the claimed system comprising of endpoints is software per se as described in paragraphs 27 and 53-55 of the Specification. (Id.). Appellant contends that the claimed endpoints are user equipment and are thus, items of manufacture. (App. Br. 11 (citing Spec. ¶ 0027)). The issue with respect to this rejection is whether the claimed “endpoints” are pure software, or comprise articles of manufacture. ANALYSIS The Specification discloses that: “the endpoints of the message transfer (e.g. user equipments UE of a mobile network) typically comprise all necessary elements for both compression and decompression of the SigComp messages.” (Spec. ¶ 0027). The endpoints are thus defined as “user equipment,” i.e., articles of manufacture. Therefore, Appellant is persuasive that the claims do not recite pure software. Appeal 2010-010370 Application 10/854,532 5 THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTIONS CLAIMS 1-5, 12, AND 14 Contentions and Issue The Examiner has rejected claims 1-5, 12, and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Price, Garakani, and Svanbro. (Ans. 4-10). Appellant contends that Price describes traditional SigComp architecture, including the use of a compressor dispatcher and a decompressor dispatcher. (App. Br. 12). Appellant contends that the claimed invention eliminates the need for these components of Price’s architecture. (Id.). Appellant contends that Svanbro does not disclose an application client and that Svanbro fails to teach or suggest application layer or transport layer activity. (Id.). Appellant contends that the claims recite that the transport layer data packet stream is transferred to at least one application client where the transport layer data packet stream is split by transferring unidentified (e.g., compressed) application messages to a decompression entity according to a signaling compression method. (Reply Br. 3-4). The Examiner finds that packet stream splitting is by the combination of Price (Figure 1) teaching receiving transport layer data and transferring data to an application client, Svanbro (¶¶0036 and 0037) teaching the feature of transporting the data stream received to a terminal or application client, and Garakani (Figure 3 and ¶ 0029) teaching the feature of identifying uncompressed data directed towards the application client. (Ans. 21). Appeal 2010-010370 Application 10/854,532 6 The issue is whether the cited art discloses transferring a transport layer packet stream having compressed application messages to an application client. Analysis Claim 1 recites “receiving transport layer data packet stream including application messages, at least one of the application messages being compressed.” Claim 1 further recites “transferring the received transport layer data packet stream to at least one application client.” Claim 14 recites “software code for transferring the received transport layer data packet stream to at least one application client.” Claim 12 recites “transferring the received transport layer data packet stream to at least one application client.” Appellant contends that the claims require that a transport layer packet stream, comprising compressed application messages, is transferred to an application client. (App. Br. 12; Reply Br. 3-4). The Examiner finds that Price teaches receiving transport layer data and transferring data to an application client (Ans. 21 (citing Price p. 6; Fig. 1)). However, Price Figure 1 shows the transport layer packet stream being received by a decompressor dispatcher, following which, decompressed data is transferred to a local application. We do not agree that Price teaches transferring a transport layer packet stream, comprising compressed application messages, to an application client. We find that Svanbro and Garakani are silent as to an application client. Therefore, we decline to sustain the rejection of claims 1-5, 12, and 14. CLAIM 6 Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Price, Garakani, Svanbro, and Symbian. (Ans. 11-12). Claim 6 depends from claim Appeal 2010-010370 Application 10/854,532 7 1. The Examiner does not find that Symbian teaches the disputed limitation discussed above. We, therefore, do not sustain the rejection of claim 6. CLAIMS 7, 9, 10, 13, AND 15 Claims 7, 9, 10, 13, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Price and Pusl. (Ans. 12-16). The Examiner finds that Price teaches transferring an application message from a client to a compressor, and Pusl (p. 3, ll. 27-33) teaches compressing the message and transferring it back to the application client. (Ans. 23). Appellant contends that independent claims 7, 13, and 15 recite “transferring from at least one application client at least one application message to a compression entity between an application layer and a transport layer.” (App. Br. 15-16). Appellant argues that neither Price nor Pusl teaches transferring an application message from a client to a compressor, as found by the Examiner (Ans. 21). Rather, Price teaches that “[a] compressor receives an application message from the compressor dispatcher.” (App. Br. 16 (emphasis omitted)). We agree. Appellant traverses the Examiner’s finding that “it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use the transferring back to the client feature in Pusl et al with the system in Price et al because maximum flexibility is provided to the terminal.” (Ans. 13). Appellant contends that where Price teaches that the compression or decompression is carried out in the terminal, it is not obvious to modify Price with a reference, such as Pusl, that teaches the compression or decompression is not carried out by the terminal itself. (App. Br. 17). We agree. Pusl teaches that the compression/decompression functions are not performed on the terminal, but on a separate, remote module. Appeal 2010-010370 Application 10/854,532 8 We find Appellant persuasive that the cited art does not disclose transferring a message from a client to a compressor as claimed. CLAIM 8 Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Price, Pusl, and Gadepalli. (Ans. 16). Claim 8 depends from claim 7. We agree with Appellant (App. Br. 17) that Gadepalli does not address the deficiencies of Price and Pusl, as discussed above. CLAIM 11 Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Price, Pusl, Garakani, and Svanbro. (Ans. 16-20). The Examiner finds that Price teaches transferring application messages from an application client to a compressor. (Ans. 18). Appellant re-alleges his argument that Price does not teach transmitting messages from an application to a compressor, but rather Price teaches transmitting messages from an application to a compressor dispatcher. We agree with Appellant for the reasons discussed above. SUMMARY We reverse the rejection of claims 1-15. REVERSED babc Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation