Ex Parte Roy et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Sep 15, 2010

10387177 (B.P.A.I. Sep. 15, 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.
10/387,177 03/12/2003 Satyajit Roy PD-980126A 6843
7590 09/16/2010
Hughes Electronics Corporation
Patent Docket Administration
P.O. Box 956
Bldg. 1, Mail Stop A109
El Segundo, CA 90245-0956
EXAMINER
MILLS, DONALD L
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2462
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/16/2010 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 SATYAJIT ROY, RODERICK RAGLAND,
and DOUGLAS M. DILLON
____________________

Appeal 2009-006130
Application 10/387,1771
Technology Center 2400

____________________

Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, MARC S. HOFF, and THOMAS S. HAHN,
Administrative Patent Judges.

HOFF, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL2

1 The real party in interest is The DIRECTV Group, Inc.
2 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, or 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 mode)
shown on the PTOL-90A cover letter attached to this decision.
Appeal 2009-006130
Application 10/387,177

STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1-32. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part.
Appellants’ invention concerns reverse coding of encoded binary files
prior to Internet transmission, to reduce the bandwidth needed (Spec. 1). 8
bit-per-byte binary files that have been transformed by the “uuencode”
utility into 6 bit-per-byte ASCII text are reverse coded back to original 8 bit-
per-byte binary form, thus avoiding the data-expansive effects of encoding
8-bit bytes into 6-bit bytes (Spec. 2-3).
Claims 1 and 29 are exemplary of the claims on appeal:
1. A system for processing packets of binary data, said binary data
including characters in an encoded binary format, said characters having
been in an original binary format prior to encoding, comprising:
means for receiving said packets, for searching said packets and
identifying said characters in said encoded binary format, and for reverse
coding and returning said characters to said original binary format to form
reverse coded characters and means for transmitting said reverse coded
characters after reverse coding.

29. A system for compression of data streams received in packets, the
packets being produced by different applications and each application
producing packets having distinct port numbers, said system comprising:
application packet demultiplexer means for receiving said packets and
for separating said packets into different application packet streams, each of
said streams being for a different application, a plurality of application
specific compression algorithms, each of said algorithms receiving and
compressing one of said application packet streams, and packet multiplexer
means connected to receive and multiplex said compressed application
packet streams.

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The Examiner relies upon the following prior art in rejecting the
claims on appeal:
Ji US 5,889,943 Mar. 30, 1999
Parzych US 6,115,384 Sep. 5, 2000
“Fourelle’s Venturi Compression Technology Adopted by Wireless Internet
Industry Leaders” (Business Wire), Business Wire, Oct. 1997, pp. 1-4.
Claims 1-28 and 32 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being
anticipated by Ji.
Claim 29 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being
anticipated by Business Wire.
Claims 30 and 31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Business Wire in view of Parzych.
Throughout this decision, we make reference to the Appeal Brief
(“App. Br.,” filed March 26, 2008), the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed
August 27, 2008) and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed June 27,
2008) for their respective details.

ISSUES
With respect to the § 102 rejection of claims 1-28 over Ji, Appellants
argue that Ji does not anticipate the claimed invention because Ji does not
teach transmitting reverse coded characters after reverse coding (App. Br.
10). According to Appellants, Ji’s invention decodes original encoded
portions of a message merely to determine whether a virus is present then
transmits the original encoded portions (App. Br. 9-10).
With respect to the § 102 rejection of claim 32 over Ji, Appellants
argues that Ji fails to produce packets of reverse coded data, including in
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said packets identifiers that said packets include said reverse coded data
(App. Br. 10). Appellants assert that “it is clear that the packet identifier is
something in addition to the reverse coded data and not the reverse coded
data itself” (Reply Br. 3), and that “to read the claim in the manner proposed
by the Examiner” (in which the presence of ASCII coded data is considered
a sufficient identifier) “renders the packet identifier limitation meaningless”
(Reply Br. 3).
With respect to the § 103 rejection of claim 29, Appellants argue that
Business Wire does not teach the demultiplexer or packet multiplexer recited
in claim 29 (App. Br. 11). With respect to claims 30 and 31, Appellants
contend that Parzych does not cure the deficiencies of Business Wire
asserted with respect to parent claim 29.
Appellants’ contentions present us with the following issues:
1. Does Ji teach forming reverse coded characters and means for
transmitting said reverse coded characters after reverse coding, as recited in
claim 1?
2. Does Ji teach including, in packets of reverse coded data, identifiers
that said packets include said reverse coded data, as recited in claim 32?
3. Does Business Wire teach application packet demultiplexer means
for receiving said packets and separating them into different application
packet streams, and packet multiplexer means connected to receive and
multiplex compressed application packet streams, as recited in claim 29?
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FINDINGS OF FACT
The following Findings of Fact (FF) are shown by a preponderance of
the evidence.
Ji
1. Ji teaches storing each of the encoded portions of the message
in its own temporary file at the gateway node 33 in step 828 (col. 12, ll. 19-
20).
2. In step 830, each of the encoded portions stored in its own file
is individually decoded using uudecode program. Such decoding programs
known in the art convert the ASCII files back to their original binary code
(col. 12, ll. 23-27).
3. In step 832, the SMTP proxy server calls and executes a virus-
checking program on each message portion stored in its temporary file(s)
(col. 12, ll. 27-29).
4. If no viruses are detected, the method continues to steps 824,
814, 816, and 826 (i.e., the transmission of the message to the SMTP
daemon, and then through the third command port to the client) (col. 12, ll.
4-16 and 31-33).
Business Wire
5. Business Wire teaches “intelligently” compressing and caching
streaming data on all TCP/IP networking platforms and end-user modems (p.
3).
6. Business Wire teaches that a standard client application (e.g.,
web browser) communicates through a local Venturi proxy, which in turn
communicates across a bandwidth-constrained link to a Venturi compression
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server proxy. The Venturi server then communicates to a network-based
application (e.g., web server) (p. 3).

PRINCIPLES OF LAW
“A rejection for anticipation under section 102 requires that each and
every limitation of the claimed invention be disclosed in a single prior art
reference.” See In re Buszard, 504 F.3d 1364, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2007)
(quoting In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1478-79 (Fed. Cir. 1994)).
On the issue of obviousness, the Supreme Court has stated that “the
obviousness analysis cannot be confined by a formalistic conception of the
words teaching, suggestion, and motivation.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc.,
550 U.S. 398, 419 (2007). Further, the Court stated “[t]he combination of
familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when
it does no more than yield predictable results.” Id. at 416. “One of the ways
in which a patent’s subject matter can be proved obvious is by noting that
there existed at the time of the invention a known problem for which there
was an obvious solution encompassed by the patent’s claims.” Id. at 419-
420.

ANALYSIS
CLAIMS 1-28
We select claim 1 as representative of this group of claims, pursuant
to our authority under 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).
Appellants’ argument supra that Ji does not teach forming reverse
coded characters and transmitting reverse coded characters after reverse
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coding is not persuasive to show that the Examiner erred in rejecting
representative claim 1.
The essence of Appellants’ position is that Ji does not teach
transmitting unencoded (i.e., reverse coded) message portions (App. Br. 10).
Figure 8B of Ji is reproduced below:

Figure 8B of Ji is a flow chart of a preferred method for sending
messages from a network.
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According to Appellants, Ji decodes encoded messages at step 830 for
the purpose of performing virus detection on the decoded message (step 832)
(App. Br. 9; FF 2). Appellants state that “[i]t should be noted that in the text
and in the drawings that the original encoded portions are transmitted. It is
not believed that the Ji reference transmits the unencoded portions” (App.
Br. 10).
We do not agree with Appellants’ interpretation of the teachings of Ji,
for three reasons. First, we find no teaching in Ji that the message decoded at
step 830 is re-encoded before transmission. Ji teaches that if no virus is
detected, “the method continues to steps 824, 814, 816, and 826 as has been
described above” (FF 4). Those steps, illustrated at the lower left of Figure
8B, merely call for the transmission of the message to the SMTP daemon
and then to the client (Id.) No re-encoding of the message is shown or
described. Second, if it is determined at step 822 that the message contains
no encoded portions, steps 824, 814, 816, and 826 are also executed, in order
to transmit the message to the client with no encoding shown or described
(Id.). Thus, we find that Figure 8B and its accompanying description (cols.
11, 12) teach that whether an original message includes encoded portions or
not, the device of Ji transmits an unencoded version (which corresponds to
“reverse coded” in the case of a previously encoded message) of the original
message content. Last, Appellants cite no evidence in support of their belief
that Ji does not transmit an unencoded version of the message.
Thus, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that Ji teaches forming
reverse coded characters (at step 830) and transmitting said reverse coded
characters (at step 826). Because Appellants have not established that the
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Examiner erred in rejecting representative claim 1 as being anticipated by Ji,
we will sustain the Examiner’s § 102 rejection of claims 1-28.
CLAIM 32
Appellants’ arguments, summarized supra, are not persuasive to show
that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 32. The Examiner finds that claim
32 “does not set forth any structural limitations regarding the term
‘identifiers’” and “interprets the presence of decoded ASCII data (‘reverse
coded data’) as a sufficient ‘identifier of the inclusion of ‘reverse coded
data’” (Ans. 12).
We agree with the Examiner’s findings. The claim merely recites
“identifiers that said packets include said reverse coded data,” without
further limitation of the term “identifier.” The Examiner is correct that the
presence of ASCII data, rather than uuencoded data, serves as an identifier
that the data has been reverse coded. We do not agree with Appellants’
argument that the language of claim 32 requires an identifier be included
that is separate and distinct from the reverse coded data.
Because Appellants have not shown error in the Examiner’s § 102
rejection of claim 32, we will sustain the rejection.
CLAIM 29
Claim 29 recites a system for compression of data streams received in
packets, including application packet demultiplexer means for receiving said
packets and for separating said packets into different application packet
streams, as well as packet multiplexer means connected to receive and
multiplex said compressed application packet streams.
The Examiner finds that Business Wire discloses compressing and
streaming TCP/IP packet data (Ans. 12; FF 5), further finding that Business
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Wire discloses a dual-proxy server that communicates with a web-server,
which thus “inherently utilizes a multiplexer and demultiplexer to perform
data transmission and reception” (Ans. 13; FF 6). We do not agree with the
Examiner’s finding of inherency, as the Examiner has cited no evidence in
support of his claim. We find no support in Business Wire for the notion that
the claimed packet demultiplexer and packet multiplexer are necessarily
present in Business Wire’s data compression and streaming device.
With respect to claims 30 and 31, we have reviewed Parzych and find
that it does not cure the deficiency of Business Wire in teaching packet
demultiplexer and packet multiplexer means.
We therefore find that Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred
in finding claim 29 to be anticipated by Business Wire, and we will not
sustain the § 102 rejection of claim 29.
CLAIMS 30 AND 31
We have reviewed Parzych and find that it does not cure the
deficiency of Business Wire, explained supra with respect to parent claim
29, in teaching packet demultiplexer and packet multiplexer means.
Appellants have therefore demonstrated error in the Examiner’s § 103
rejection of claims 30 and 31 over Business Wire in view of Parzych, and we
will not sustain the rejection.

CONCLUSIONS
1. Ji teaches forming reverse coded characters and means for
transmitting said reverse coded characters after reverse coding, as recited in
claim 1.
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2. Ji teaches including, in packets of reverse coded data, identifiers
that said packets include said reverse coded data, as recited in claim 32.
3. Business Wire does not teach application packet demultiplexer
means for receiving said packets and separating them into different
application packet streams, and packet multiplexer means connected to
receive and multiplex compressed application packet streams, as recited in
claim 29.

ORDER
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-28 and 32 is affirmed. The
Examiner’s rejection of claims 29-31 is reversed.
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).

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AFFIRMED-IN-PART

ELD

HUGHES ELECTRONICS CORPORATION
PATENT DOCKET ADMINISTRATION
P.O. BOX 956
BLDG. 1, MAIL STOP A109
EL SEGUNDO, CA 90245-0956
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