Ex Parte Newman et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 9, 2014

11784164 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 9, 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.
11/784,164 04/04/2007 Mark W. Newman A1493-US-DIV1 3126
35700 7590 02/10/2014
CASCADIA INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
12360 Lake City Way NE, Ste 501
SEATTLE, WA 98125
EXAMINER
DINH, KHANH Q
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2458
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/10/2014 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 MARK W. NEWMAN, W. KEITH EDWARDS,
and
JANA Z. SEDIVY
____________

Appeal 2011-002197
Application 11/784,164
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JEFFREY S. SMITH, and MICHAEL J.
STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judges.

SMITH, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2011-002197
Application 11/784,164

2

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1-20, which are all the claims pending in the application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

Representative Claim
1. A method for accumulating a historical
context, comprising:

maintaining a historical context of device interactions
and a list of listener devices registered on a service device,
wherein each registered listener device is identified by a device
identification parameter;

receiving by the service device, a request comprising a
requester context and an operation from a requester device;

applying a contextual access policy comprising
contextual access permissions to the request;

checking as a contextual validation that the request
satisfies at least one of the contextual access permissions;

performing the operation on the service device upon the
successful contextual validation of the request;

storing the requester context, the request, and a status of
the operation with the historical context; and

providing notice of the performed operation from the
service device to at least one of the registered listener devices,
each of which are independent of the performed operation.

Appeal 2011-002197
Application 11/784,164

3
Prior Art
Wade US 5,552,776 Sep. 3, 1996
Salmenkaita US 2003/0004937 A1 Jan. 2, 2003

Examiner’s Rejection
Claims 1-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Salmenkaita and Wade.

ANALYSIS
Appellants contend that Salmenkaita teaches away from identifying
each listener device by a device identification parameter, because no user
identification is included in the network server database to ensure privacy.
App. Br. 7-8. Appellants’ contention is inconsistent with paragraphs 139,
176, 178, and 179 of Salmenkaita. For example, Salmenkaita teaches the
network server uses user information stored in a user database. ¶¶ 176, 178.
The user can grant or revoke access by any server to the user’s information.
¶ 179. Salmenkaita further teaches the network server identifies a device. ¶
139. Because Salmenkaita teaches identifying users and devices, we find
that Salmenkaita does not teach away from identifying each listener device
by a device identification parameter.
Appellants further contend that Salmenkaita does not teach providing
notice of an operation to other devices registered on a network server. App.
Br. 8-9. The Examiner finds that Salmenkaita teaches computing usage
statistics for context-activity pairs, associating the statistics with respective
recommendations stored in the database, and sending this information from
the server to third party service providers. Ans. 7. Appellants respond that
purchasing data sets does not teach providing notice to third party service
Appeal 2011-002197
Application 11/784,164

4
providers regarding an occurrence of a performed operation on a service
device. Reply Br. 6-7. However, Appellants have not provided persuasive
evidence or argument to distinguish providing notice of the performed
operation as recited in claim 1 from providing usage statistics for context-
activity pairs and respective recommendations as taught by Salmenkaita.
Further, Salmenkaita teaches sending a list of services used by others
as recommendations to the user’s device. ¶ 157. The scope of “providing
notice of the performed operation from the service device to at least one of
the registered listener devices . . . independent of the performed operation”
encompasses sending a list of services used by another device to the user’s
device as taught by Salmenkaita.
We sustain the rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
Appellants do not provide arguments for separate patentability of claims 2-
20 which fall with claim 1.

DECISION
The rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Salmenkaita and Wade 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). See 37 C.F.R. §
41.50(f).

AFFIRMED

hh