Ex Parte Mitra et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 17, 2014

11679515 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 17, 2014)

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.
11/679,515 02/27/2007 Debasis Mitra Mitra 27-3 3678
46304 7590 07/17/2014
RYAN, MASON & LEWIS, LLP
48 South Service Road
Suite 100
Melville, NY 11747
EXAMINER
LI, SHI K
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2637
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/17/2014 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 DEBASIS MITRA and QIONG WANG
____________

Appeal 2012-000467
Application 11/679,515
1

Technology Center 2600
____________

Before JEFFREY T. SMITH, MAHSHID D. SAADAT, and
ROBERT E. NAPPI, 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 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1
According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Lucent Technologies
Inc., which was later renamed Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc. (App. Br. 1).

Appeal 2012-000467
Application 11/679,515

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants’ invention relates to a time scale separated approach to
performance of network management and provisioning optimizations in a
communication network (see Spec. 1:22-24).
Exemplary Claim
Claim 1 reads as follows with the disputed limitation in italics:
1. A method of configuring a network, the method
comprising the steps of:
performing network management optimizations at
respective points in time separated by intervals of a first time
scale;
performing network provisioning optimizations at
respective points in time separated by intervals of a second time
scale, the intervals of the second time scale being on average
substantially longer than the intervals of the first time scale; and
configuring the network utilizing information specified
by the network management and network provisioning
optimizations;
wherein a given one of the intervals of the second time
scale has a length which is determined based on results of
performance of one or more of the network management
optimizations; and
wherein the steps of performing network management
optimizations, performing network provisioning optimizations
and configuring the network are implemented under control of a
network device comprising a processor coupled to a memory.

The Examiner’s Rejections
The Examiner rejected claims 1-8 and 15-19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Mishra (US 2007/0118643 A1) and Gersht (A.
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Application 11/679,515

3
Gersht et al., Real-Time Bandwidth Allocation and Path Restorations in
SONET- Based Self-Healing Mesh Networks, IEEE, pp. 250-255, 1993).
(Ans. 4-7).
The Examiner further relied on Smith (US 7,171,124 B2) to reject
claims 11 and 12 (Ans. 7); Codato (G. Codato et al., Combinatorial
Benders’ Cuts for Mixed-Integer Linear Programming, Operations
Research, Vol. 54, No. 4, pp. 1-22, July-August 2006) to reject claim 13
(Ans. 7-8); Codato and Mitra (US 2007/0019955 A1) to reject claim 14
(Ans. 8-9); and Elwalid (A. Elwalid et al., Distributed Nonlinear Integer
Optimization for Data-Optical Internetworking, IEEE Journal on Selected
Areas in Communications, Vol. 24, No. 8, pp. 1502-1513, August 2006) to
reject claim 20 (Ans. 9-10).

ANALYSIS
In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner found Mishra teaches planning,
provisioning, and optimization of telecommunication networks (Ans. 5
(citing Mishra, ¶¶ 80, 84, 174)). Additionally, Gersht was added for
teaching network control optimization such as optimization of demand
admission and bandwidth allocation in telecommunication networks (id.
(citing Gersht, p. 251, col. 2, lines 18-22)). At pages 8-9 of the Appeal
Brief, Appellants’ arguments with respect to the obviousness rejection of
independent claim 1 focus on the contention that the optimal provisioning in
Gersht is invoked at fixed intervals and not based on results of performance
of network management optimizations. Appellants further point out that
Mishra cannot teach the missing feature because the Examiner found
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generating data utilization after network management optimization to be
absent in Mishra (App. Br. 9).
The Examiner responds by mapping the network management to
Gersht’s Network Level Control (NLC) system responsible for optimizing
network admission and bandwidth allocation (Ans. 11). The Examiner
further explains the NLC disclosed by Gersht is invoked periodically (every
five minutes) for optimal provisioning, which is based on loads and demand
projections for an upcoming period (id.).
Appellants further contend that:
Even if one were to accept the Examiner’s characterization of
Gersht’s NLC as being analogous to network management
optimization in addition to, or instead of, network provisioning
optimization, it is still unclear how Gersht could remedy
Mishra’s failure to disclose an arrangement in which the times
at which network provisioning optimization is performed are
based on results of performance of one or more of the network
management optimizations.
(Reply Br. 3).
We agree with Appellants. We find that Gersht, at best, merely
discloses a bandwidth allocation arrangement in which NLC is invoked
periodically “based on loads and demand projections for an upcoming
period” (Gersht, p. 251, col. 1). Although Gersht discusses optimal
provisioning, we find that the Examiner’s rejection improperly equates this
teaching with a situation “wherein a given one of the intervals of the second
time scale has a length which is determined based on results of performance
of one or more of the network management optimizations,” as recited in
claim 1. As asserted by Appellants (Reply Br. 3), Gersht invokes NLC at
fixed intervals, instead of relying on results of prior invocations of NLC, or
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the recited results of performance of one or more network management
optimization.

CONCLUSION
Based on the analysis above, we are persuaded by Appellants’
contentions that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a). Therefore, in view of the above discussion and the failure of the
Examiner to point to any teachings in the other applied prior art references to
overcome the deficiencies of Mishra and Gersht, we do not sustain the
rejection of claim 1, independent claims 17 and, which recite similar
features, or the remaining claims dependent thereon.

DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-20 is reversed.

REVERSED

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