Ex Parte Reisman

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 29, 2016

12893112 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 29, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/893, 112 09/29/2010
105758 7590 07/01/2016
Renaissance IP Law Group LLP (Portland - North)
7327 SW Barnes Road #521
Portland, OR 97225
Richard R. Reisman
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
47003/0028 3505
EXAMINER
RASHID, HARUNUR
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2497
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/01/2016 ELECTRONIC
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.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address( es):
matthew. phillips@renaissanceiplaw.com
docket. clerk@renaissanceiplaw.com
PhillipsPatentLawyer@gmail.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte RICHARD R. REISMAN
Appeal2014-000545
Application 12/893, 112
Technology Center 2400
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, CATHERINE SHIANG, and NORMAN
H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges.
SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
.6. .... ,1 .... ,....,-TTr'1.r-"\ l\-1,....Al/'\.r'" , .. C- "1 • ,• Appeuant' appeals unaer j) u.~.L. s U4~aJ rrom me nna1 reJecuon
of claims 4 and 6-14.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellant identifies Intellectual Ventures I LLC, as the real party in
interest (App. Br. 1).
2 Claims 1-3 and 5 have been canceled.
Appeal2014-000545
Application 12/893, 112
STATEivIENT OF THE CASE
Appellant's invention relates to "providing services from a remote
computer system to a user station over a communications network" (Spec.
i-f 2). Claim 4 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows:
4. A computer implemented method, comprising:
receiving first user identification information at a remote
computer system over a communications network from a user
station during a first user-initiated communication session for a
user not previously identified to the remote computer system;
sending second information that is a function of the first
user identification information and that is different from the
first user identification information from the remote computer
system to the user station over the communications network
during the first user-initiated communication session to be
stored automatically at the user station;
storing third information that is based on the first user
identification information at a location remote from the user
station and accessible to the remote computer system;
receiving at the remote computer system the second
information over the communications network during a
subsequent and separate user-initiated communication session
automatically from the user station;
retrieving the stored third information at the remote
computer system using the received second information, during
the subsequent and separate communication session;
using the retrieved third information for interaction with
the remote computer system during the subsequent and separate
communication session;
receiving first user station identification information at
the remote computer system from the user station during the
first user-initiated communication session;
sending fourth information that is a function of the first
user station identification information and that is different from
the first user station identification information to the user
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Appeal2014-000545
Application 12/893, 112
station over the communications network during the first user-
initiated communication session to be stored automatically at
the user station;
storing fifth information that is based on the first user
station identification information at the location remote from
the user station and accessible to the remote computer system;
receiving the fourth information over the
communications network during the subsequent and separate
user-initiated communication session automatically from the
user station; and
retrieving the stored fifth information using the received
fourth information during the subsequent and separate
communication session.
Claims 4 and 6 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated
by Johnson (US 5,560,008; Sept. 24, 1996) (see Final Act. 29-33).
Claims 2 and 5 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Johnson and Loucks (US 5,481,720; Jan. 2, 1996) (see
Final Act. 34--35).
Claims 7-13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Johnson and Kaplan (US 5,237,157; Aug. 17, 1993) (see Final Act. 35-
39).
Claim 14 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Johnson, Kaplan, and Schlafly (US 4,734,858; Mar. 29, 1988) (see
Final Act. 40).
ANALYSIS
Appellant argues Johnson "fails to teach or suggest the limitation that
'a first user-initiated communication session for a user not previously
identified to the remote computer system,'" as recited in every independent
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Appeal2014-000545
Application 12/893, 112
claim (App. Br. 9). Appellant contends Johnson's verifier 415 verifies the
true identity, which must be already known and if not, there would be no
identity to verify (App. Br. 16). Additionally, Appellant asserts "[t]he
request for service contains enough information to insure [sic] that the
remote user is authorized to use the server and the set of credentials and
capabilities the user is to have when using resources on the server machine"
(App. Br. 17 (citing Johnson Fig. 4A; col. 5, 11. 48-54)).
In response, the Examiner explains the broadest reasonable
interpretation of the claim term "[ n Jot [p ]reviously [i]dentified to the
[r]emote [c]omputer [s]ystem" is met by Johnson's disclosure of
[T]he server builds a set of credentials that represent[ s]
all of the interesting security facts about the remote user. This
information includes the user id, the group id that the user is in,
the group set of other group ids that the user has access to, an
account id, the set of privileges of the user that allow the user to
bypass the normal security restrictions on the system, etc. The
server establishes all of the credentials for the user, and stores
this information in a data structure called the credentials
structure, and returns a small value (e.g. 64 bits) to the client
machine where the user is running. This returned small value is
referred to as the credentials identifier.
(Ans. 3--4 (citing Johnson col. 5, 11. 53---67)). The Examiner further explains
the server builds the set of credentials because the user is unknown to the
server (Ans. 4).
We are persuaded by Appellant's contentions that the Examiner erred.
As stated by Appellant (Reply Br. 3), "Johnson's system already knows the
identity of the user before constructing the set of credentials, as evidenced
by, for example, Johnson's 'verifier field' and 'authentication info'." We
are further persuaded by Appellant's assertion that cryptographically
constructing the verifier field 415 "is not possible unless the identity of the
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Appeal2014-000545
Application 12/893, 112
user and its computer is known beforehand" because Johnson states "[tlhe
verifier field in the {request for service/ message is checked for validitv.
step 802, to insure that the identitv of the remote machine is known" (see
Reply Br. 4 (citing Johnson col. 10, 11. 64---66)).
Accordingly, we do not sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) rejection of
claim 4, or independent claim 6, which recites similar limitation. Similarly,
we do not sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejections of the remaining claims
because the Examiner has not identified any teachings in the other applied
prior art to overcome the above-noted deficiency of Johnson.
DECISION
We reverse the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 4 and 6-14.
REVERSED
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