Ex Parte Meurer

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Sep 24, 2010

10323246 (B.P.A.I. Sep. 24, 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.
10/323,246 12/18/2002 Vance Lee Meurer 020366-087800US 1339
84190 7590 09/24/2010
Qwest Communications International Inc.
1801 California St., #900
Denver, CO 80202
EXAMINER
LEVITAN, DMITRY
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2461
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/24/2010 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 VANCE LEE MEURER
_____________

Appeal 2009-005761
Application 10/323,246
Technology Center 2400
______________

Before JOHN C. MARTIN, CARL W. WHITEHEAD, JR., and
BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, Administrative Patent Judges.

MARTIN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1

1 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, or for 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
(Continued on next page.)
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1-8 and 11-20, which are all of the pending claims.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm.

A. Appellant’s invention
Appellant’s invention relates to processing signals representative of
the condition of network elements and/or support infrastructure.
Specification [0001].2 Appellant’s invention uses an alarm signal
multiplexer to connect a plurality of network items to a telemetry card (id. at
[0021]).
Appellant’s Figure 1 is reproduced below.

mode) shown on the PTOL-90A cover letter attached to this decision.
2 References herein to Appellant’s Specification are to the Application as
filed rather than to corresponding Patent Application Publication
2004/0123189 A1.
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Figure 1 is a schematic block diagram illustrating a network
monitoring system in accordance with Appellant’s invention (id. at [0010]).
In this system, a plurality of monitored network elements 102 are connected
via a network alarm multiplexer 104 to a parallel telemetry card 106, which
communicates with a network monitoring location 108 (id. at [0022]-[0024],
[0027]).
Network elements 102 typically have terminals (not shown) to which
alarm wires are connected (id. at [0023]). The terminals may be wired in a
normally open or normally closed configuration such that the presence or
absence, respectively, of a signal (i.e., current flow) indicates an alarm (id.).
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A wire, typically a twisted pair, extends from the terminals of each
monitored network element 102 to a network alarm multiplexer 104 (id.).
The normally-open/normally-closed, single-wire signal may be thought of as
a one-digit binary signal (id.).
The network alarm multiplexer 104, when it receives an alarm
indication on an input, converts the alarm signal into a binary coded
representation of the input for transmission in the overhead portion of a
network data frame (id. at [0024]).
Appellant’s Figure 2 is reproduced below.

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Figure 2 graphically illustrates a data frame for transporting network
alarm signals in accordance with Appellant’s invention (id. at 0011]). The
single data frame 200 depicted in this figure relates to an Optical Carrier 1
(OC-1) level SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) frame (id. at [0025]).
Each row of the SONET OC-1 data frame 200 includes a header portion 202,
a trailer portion 204, and a payload portion 206, of which header portion 202
and trailer portion 204 are collectively referred to as the “overhead” portion
of the data frame (id. at [0026]).

B. The claims
The independent claims before us are claims 1, 11, 13, and 18, of
which claim 1 reads:
1. A method of monitoring a plurality of network
elements relating to a network, the method comprising:
receiving a[n] X bit signal indicative of an alarm
condition relating to a specific one of the plurality of network
elements, wherein the signal at least identifies the specific one
of the plurality of network elements;
generating a first Y bit signal representative of the alarm
condition relating to the specific one of the plurality of network
elements, wherein Y > X; and
transmitting the Y bit signal over the network to a
network monitoring location in an overhead portion of a data
frame.
Claims App (Br. 8).

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C. The references
The Examiner’s rejections are based on the following references:

Natalini US 2002/0095269 A1 July 18, 2002
Ulysses Black & Sharleen Waters, SONET and T1, Architectures for Digital
Transport Network 118-21 (Prentice Hall 1997) [hereinafter “Black”]

D. The rejection
Claims 1-8 and 11-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for
obviousness over Natalini in view of Black. Final Action 2.

THE ISSUES
The principal issues raised by Appellant’s arguments are: (1) whether
Natalini discloses receiving an “X bit signal” that identifies a specific
network element and (2) whether the Examiner has established a motivation
for combining the references’ teachings.3

ANALYSIS
As explained in more detail below, the Examiner reads all of claim 1
except the recited “overhead portion” on Natalini and relies on Black for a

3 See Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential)
(“If an appellant fails to present arguments on a particular issue — or, more
broadly, on a particular rejection — the Board will not, as a general matter,
unilaterally review those uncontested aspects of the rejection.”). Designated
as precedential at
http://www.uspto.gov/ip/boards/bpai/decisions/prec/index.jsp.
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teaching of sending alarm signals in the overhead portion of a data frame.
Office Action 3-4.
Natalini discloses systems for monitoring appliances and, more
particularly, for providing maintenance services for the appliances. Natalini
[0002]. Figure 1 of Natalini is reproduced below.

Figure 1 is a functional block diagram of Natalini’s appliance
monitoring system (id. at [0016]), which includes a network 10 of one or
more household appliances (e.g., a refrigerator 14, an oven 16, a washing
machine 18, a dishwasher 20, and a freezer 22) that communicate over a
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communications path 40 (id. at [0023]). Each appliance has an associated
monitoring subsystem 30 that monitors and analyzes the operations of the
appliance (id.). Each monitoring subsystem 30, when polled, forwards the
monitored information over the communications path 40 and through a
network gateway 42 to a remote center 50 (id. at [0023], [0052]). Also, in
the event the monitoring subsystem 30 determines that the appliance
requires attention or service, the monitoring subsystem forwards the results
of the analysis in the form of an alarm or warning message to the remote
center via gateway 42 (id. at [0028]). The format of these messages is
described as follows:
The messages sent by the various appliances include in a
header a message field that identifies the message type. In the
exemplary system, there are two types of messages, namely, a
warning and an alarm. The message field thus includes a single
bit that is set to one value for an alarm message and to another
value for a warning message. The message further includes one
or more fault codes that identify the detected faults or conditions.
If the cause of the malfunction can also be determined, a second
fault code that conveys that information may also be included.
The subsystem may also combine several different fault codes into
a single alarm or warning message.
Id. at [0024] (emphasis added).
Gateway 42, when it receives a message, first determines whether the
message is an alarm message or a warning by checking the message field in
the header (id. at [0052]). If the message is an alarm message, the gateway
immediately transmits the message to remote center 50 (id.). If the message
is a warning message, it is retained by the gateway until the next
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transmission is made to the remote center (id.). Each time the gateway
transmits an alarm message to the remote center, the gateway also provides
the remote center with any retained warning messages as well as any
statistical information received by the gateway from the appliances in
response to polling (id. at [0053]).
The Examiner reads all three of the steps of claim 1 (with the
exception of the “overhead portion” language in the “transmitting” step) on
gateway 42. Final Action 3. Regarding the first step of “receiving a[n] X bit
signal indicative of an alarm condition relating to a specific one of the
plurality of network elements, wherein the signal at least identifies the
specific one of the plurality of network elements,” the Examiner found in the
Final Action that Natalini discloses
receiving alarms at gateway 42, wherein the alarm condition is
indicated by a single bit value, X=1, in the received header of the
appliance message, as the data part comprises the alarm fault code
[0024] and [0052], wherein the alarm signal inherently identifies
failed or problem appliance, because the appliance identification is
essential for gateway 42 to provide the appliance identification to
the remote center 50 for proper maintenance actions [0010])[.]
Id. Regarding the second step of “generating a first Y bit signal
representative of the alarm condition” on gateway 42, the Examiner found
that “gateway 42 generates an alarm message, comprising the statistical
information from the appliances to the remote center 50, as shown [i]n Fig. 1
and [0053], wherein the gateway alarm message is clearly larger than one
bit” (id.). Regarding the “transmitting” step, the Examiner further found that
gateway 42 transmits the alarm message to the remote center 52 through a
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telephone or cable link 44 (id.), albeit without transmitting it as overhead. For
a suggestion of using gateway 42 to transmit the entire Y bit alarm message in
the overhead portion of a data frame, the Examiner found that “Black teaches
transmitting the Y bit signal over the network to a network monitoring location
in an overhead portion of a data frame (transmitting alarm and service
information in the data link control channel of DS1 frame, as described on
pages 118-121)” (id. at 4). The Examiner then concluded that
[i]t would have been obvious . . . to add transmitting the Y bit
signal over the network to a network monitoring location in an
overhead portion of a data frame of Black to the system of
Natalini to utilize standard DS1 frame structure to make the
system compatible with the numerous existing devices utilizing
DS1 frame structure.
Id.
Appellant argues that the Examiner erred in reading the recited “X bit
signal” of the “receiving” step on the single-bit message field in Natalini’s
message header because claim 1 requires that the “X bit signal” identify the
particular device to which the message pertains (Br. 5). According to
Appellant,
Natalini’s single bit in the header fails to teach or suggest ‘wherein
the signal at least identifies the specific one of the plurality of
network elements’; the bits needed in the data section must be
included. Natalini, however, does not specify how many additional
bits in the data section are needed to identify the specific device.
(Id.) The Examiner responded to this argument as follows:
Limitations of claim 1: “receiving a X bit signal indicative of
an alarm condition relating to a specific one of the plurality of
network elements” do[es] not require X bit signal to indicate failed
element or limit the alarm message size to one/X bit, but to indicate
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an alarm condition, relating to the details on the alarm, like the
alarm code and the failed device, which can be included in the
payload of the appliance/element message.
Therefore, [the] system of Natalini meets the cited limitations
of claim 1, as the appliance monitoring system, receives a message
from the problem device, comprising X bit signal, clearly described
in [0024], indicative of the device alarm condition, as the details on
the alarm are comprised in the message payload [0024].
(Answer 9 (brackets around paragraph numbers in original).) To the extent
the Examiner is interpreting claim 1 as not requiring that the X bit signal
identify a particular (e.g., failed) element, we disagree. Claim 1’s recitation
of “wherein the signal at least identifies the specific one of the plurality of
network elements” clearly applies to the earlier-recited “X bit signal
indicative of an alarm condition relating to a specific one of the plurality of
network elements.”
On the other hand, we agree with the Examiner that claim 1 does not
limit the “X bit signal” to a single bit or preclude that term from being read,
at least in part, on the network element identification information in the data
section of the alarm/warning message. Appellant, who has not filed a reply
brief, has not shown error in this position of the Examiner.
Appellant further argues, with respect to all of the rejected claims, that
“[t]he existence of the motivation at the time of the Applicant’s invention
appears to be based on facts within the personal knowledge of a member of
the office (i.e., the Examiner)” and that “the record has not established that
the alleged motivation existed at the time of the invention.” (Br. 6.) This
argument is not understood. As noted above, the Examiner relies on Black
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for a suggestion of transmitting alarm information in the overhead portion of
a data frame. Final Action 4.
For the foregoing reasons, we will sustain the rejection of claim 1, the
rejection of independent claims 11 and 13, as to which Appellant relies on
only the claim 1 arguments, and the rejection of dependent claims 2-8, 12,
and 14-17, which are not separately argued. In re Nielson, 816 F.2d 1567,
1572 (Fed. Cir. 1987).
Appellant separately argues independent claim 18, which reads as
follows, and more particularly argues the “absence of an alarm condition”
limitations in the “wherein” paragraph:
18. A system for monitoring a plurality of network
elements relating to a network, the system comprising:
a first receiving arrangement that receives a X bit signal
indicative of an alarm condition relating to one of the plurality
of network elements;
a generating arrangement that generates a first Y bit
signal representative of the alarm condition relating to the one
of the plurality of network elements, wherein Y > X; and
a transmitting arrangement that transmits the Y bit signal
over the network to a network monitoring location in an
overhead portion of a data frame;
wherein the first receiving arrangement is configured to
receive an indication of an absence of an alarm condition
relating to the one of the plurality of network elements, wherein
the generating arrangement is configured to generate a second Y
bit signal representative of the absence of an alarm condition
relating to the one of the plurality of network monitoring
elements, and wherein the transmitting arrangement is
configured to transmit the second Y bit signal over the network
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to the network monitoring location.
(Emphasis added.) Appellant, after correctly noting that the Examiner in the
Final Action reads this “wherein” paragraph on paragraphs [0038] and
[0053] of Natalini, argues that “Natalini . . . is silent on the absence of an
alarm condition signal being the same size (i.e., Y bits) as the alarm
condition [signal]” (Br. 6). The Examiner, who did not specifically address
this “same size” limitation in the Final Action, explained in the Answer that
Natalini teaches a system combining alarms from the monitored
elements and sending a summary/first Y message to the remote
center 50 for analysis [0058] and therefore sending a second
summary/Y message in the same format as the first one, to the
remote center 50 to indicate lack of alarm on the monitored
devices would be obvious to one of ordinary skill[] in the art to
clearly indicate that the monitored elements are operating free of
alarms and no repairs are needed.
(Answer 10.). Appellant has not addressed, let alone shown error in, this
position of the Examiner.
For the foregoing reasons, we will also sustain the rejection of claim
18 and the rejection of its dependent claims 19 and 20, which are not
separately argued. Nielson, 816 F.2d at 1572.

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision that claims 1-8 and 11-20 are unpatentable
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for obviousness over Natalini in view of Black is
affirmed.
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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). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(v) (2009).

AFFIRMED

KIS

Qwest Communications International Inc.
1801 California St., #900
Denver, CO 80202