Ex Parte Pulkkinen et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 18, 2013

10512048 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 18, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte KARI PULKKINEN and KARI PASONEN
___________

Appeal 2011-012876
Application 10/512,048
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before ANTON W. FETTING, MEREDITH C. PETRAVICK, and
PHILIP J. HOFFMANN, Administrative Patent Judges.

PETRAVICK, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2011-012876
Application 10/512,048

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Kari Pulkkinen et al. (Appellants) seek our review under 35 U.S.C.
§ 134 of the final rejection of claims 17-21 and 23. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

SUMMARY OF DECISION
We AFFIRM. 1

THE INVENTION
Claim 17, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on
appeal.
17. A method for managing customer accounts in
connection with a Pre-Paid platform, the method
comprising:
receiving, at a proxy, a request for service
from a subscriber;
determining, at the proxy, a service code
associated with the requested service;
sending charge data, including the service
code, to a charging module;
converting, in the charging module, the
received charge data and service code into a
predefined format accepted by the Pre-Paid
platform;
sending the converted charge data to the
Pre-Paid platform;

1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“Br.,”
filed Feb. 15, 2011), the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed May 31, 2011),
and the Advisory Action, mailed Sep. 17, 2010.

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Application 10/512,048

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receiving an indication from the Pre-Paid
platform as to whether the subscriber has an
adequate balance to cover the requested service;
and
controlling, by the proxy, whether or not the
requested service is provided based on the received
indication, the converted charge data including at
least a B-number and a time definition.

THE REJECTION
The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of
unpatentability:
Cool
Titus
Odijk
Wallenius
US 5,218,632
US 2002/0029189 A1
US 2002/0156732 A1
US 6,760,417 B1
Jun. 8, 1993
Mar. 7, 2002
Oct. 24, 2002
Jul. 6, 2004
The Examiner took official notice that “it is old and well known in
telecommunication art [that] the charge data includes at least a B-
number and time definition.” [Hereinafter, Official Notice I.]
Advisory Action 2.

The Examiner took official notice that the use of INAP protocol and
CAP protocol are old and well known. [Hereinafter, Official Notice
II.] Ans. 6.

The following rejection is before us for review:
1. Claims 17-21 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as
being unpatentable over Odijk, Titus, Wallenius, and Official
Notice I, evidenced by Cool2, and Official Notice II.

2 We note that Official Notice I and Cool was added to the rejection of
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Application 10/512,048

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ISSUE
The issue is whether the combination of the prior art teaches that the
converted charge data including at least a B-number and a time definition.

FINDINGS OF FACT
We adopt the Examiner’s findings of fact, which appear in the Answer
and are supported by at least a preponderance of the evidence. Ethicon, Inc.
v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (explaining the general
evidentiary standard for proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office).

ANALYSIS
The Appellants argue claims 17-21 and 23 as a group. See Br. 6. We
select claim 17 as the representative claim for this group, and the remaining
claims 18-21 and 23 stand or fall with claim 17. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(vii).
After careful reviewed and consideration of all of Appellants’
arguments (Br. 4-6), we find them unpersuasive as to error in the Examiner’s
rejection for the reasons set forth by the Examiner on pages 17-19 of the
Examiner’s Answer, which we will not reproduce here. In particular, we
agree with the Examiner that the limitation at issue is non-functional
descriptive material. Ans. 7. Non-functional descriptive material cannot

claims 17-21 and 23 in the Advisory Action.
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render non-obvious an invention that otherwise would have been obvious.
In re Ngai, 367 F.3d 1336, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2004); cf. In re Gulack, 703 F.2d
1381, 1385 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (when descriptive material is not functionally
related to the substrate, the descriptive material will not distinguish the
invention from the prior art in terms of patentability).

DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 17-21 and 23 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).

AFFIRMED

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