Ex Parte Tsunogai

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Sep 24, 2010

10053791 (B.P.A.I. Sep. 24, 2010)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
_____________

Ex parte KATSUYA TSUNOGAI
_____________

Appeal 2009-006327
Application 10/053,791
Technology Center 2400
______________

Before JOHN C. MARTIN, CARL W. WHITEHEAD, JR.,
and BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, Administrative Patent Judges.

MARTIN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1

1 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, or for 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 2009-006327
Application 10/053,791

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 3-5 and 27-36, which are all of the pending claims.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm.

A. Appellant’s invention
Appellant’s invention is a system and method for connecting clients to
a heavily loaded server according to connection priority. Specification
[0001].2
Figure 1 is reproduced below.

2 Because the Application as filed does not contain paragraph or line
numbers, citations herein to the Specification are to corresponding Patent
Application Publication 2002/0099831 A1.
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Figure 1 is a block diagram showing a construction of a connection
accepting system in a preferred embodiment of Appellant’s invention (id. at
[0027]).
Accepting server 30 manages access by client terminals 20 via
network 10 to application server 40 (id. at [0040]). Accepting server 30
includes three counters: (a) a maximum-connection-number setting counter
32 that stores a count representing the maximum number of connections that
can be connected simultaneously to application server 40; (b) a connection-
number counter 33 that indicates the number of client terminals 20 currently
connected to the application server; and (c) a connectable-number counter 34
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that indicates the number of client terminals 20 that can be connected to the
application server (id. at [0041]).
If a client terminal sends a connection request when there is no
currently available connection capacity at server 40 (i.e., the number in
connectable-number counter 34 is “0”), server 30 generates a reference (i.e.,
priority) number that is stored in a connection queue data holding section 35
(id. at [0042], [0050], [0051]). This reference number can take the form of,
for example, “YYYYMMDD#n,” where Y indicates the year, M indicates
the month, D indicates the day, and n indicates a number issued in sequence
on the day of its issue (id.). Server 30 also sends data (e.g., as a cookie)
including this reference number to the requesting client terminal 20 (id. at
[0053]). The client terminal, based on this data, “displays messages
(information on the connection priority), such as ‘Crowded now,’ ‘You can
log in the order of ($Order) of ($Queue Size) people,’ ‘Your reference
number is ($DTX_Ticket),’ etc.” (id. at [0054]).
The data received by this client terminal from server 30 also includes
source code that causes the client terminal to automatically send another
connection request to server 30 after a predetermined time period set by
server 30 (id. at [0055]-[0056]). This “rerun of connection request” is
accompanied by the cookie data that represents the reference number
previously received by the client terminal from server 30 (id. at [0063]).
When a connection by a client terminal is released, the reference
number with the highest connection priority in the connection queue B is
transmitted to the connection-right acquired pool section 36 (id. at [0062]).
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The corresponding client terminal will be permitted to make a connection
the next time it automatically reruns a connection request (id. at [0063]-
[0065]).

B. Claim 3
Claim 3, the sole independent claim, reads as follows:
3. A server for accepting connection requests from client
terminals through a network, comprising:
a connection-order setting unit which, upon receiving a
first connection request from a first client terminal of said client
terminals, sets an order of connection for said first client terminal;
and
a connection managing unit for allowing connection of said
client terminals according to said order of connection, upon
receiving a second connection request from a second client
terminal of said client terminals after said first connection request;
wherein a program for automatically executing said second
connection request again after a predetermined time interval is
transmitted to said client terminal to which said order of
connection has been set.
Claims App. (Br. 6).

C. The references
The Examiner’s rejections are based on the following references:
Bhoj US 6,742,016 B1 May 25, 2004
Roberts US 6,754,693 B1 Jun. 22, 2004

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D. The rejection
Claims 3-5 and 27-36 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) for
obviousness over Bhoj in view of Roberts. Final Action 2.

THE ISSUE
The sole issue raised by Appellant’s arguments is whether the
Examiner erred in finding that Roberts discloses the subject matter recited
in the “wherein” clause of claim 3.3

ANALYSIS
In the rejection of claim 3, the Examiner relies on Bhoj for the recited
“connection-order setting unit” and “connection managing unit” and relies
on Roberts for the subject matter recited in the “wherein” clause. Final
Action 2-3. Appellant questions only the Examiner’s reliance on Roberts.
In the Final Action (at page 3), the Examiner found that “Roberts
teaches . . . a program for automatically executing said second connection
request again is transmitted to said client terminal to which said order of
connection has been set (column 10, lines 7-38; column 16, lines 40-67).”
Appellant responded to this finding by arguing that

3 See Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential)
(“If an appellant fails to present arguments on a particular issue — or, more
broadly, on a particular rejection — the Board will not, as a general matter,
unilaterally review those uncontested aspects of the rejection.”). Designated
precedential at
(Continued on next page.)
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the sections of Roberts cited by the Examiner, as well as Roberts
taken as a whole, do not disclose, inter alia, “wherein a program
for automatically executing said second connection request
again after a predetermined time interval is transmitted to
said client terminal to which said order of connection has been
set.” On the contrary, none of the applets downloadable by the
server 20 in Roberts to a user computer 12 provides this
functionality.
(Br. 5.) The Examiner, in the Answer, responded by additionally relying on
other parts of Roberts (viz., column 20, lines 56-60; column l5, lines 21-35;
column 21, lines 60-67) and explaining why the “wherein” clause is believed
to read on this newly cited material (Answer 10-11). For example, the
Examiner explains that
[t]he subsequent polling of a server to check status in the queue
reads on the limitation of “executing said second connection
request again.” When the user computer 12 polls the server the
applet 22 continues to poll the server 20 for the call request status
244 (column 21, lines 60-67), it is executing the connection
request again.
(Answer 11.) Appellant, who did not file a reply brief, has not pointed out
any error in the Examiner’s reliance on these additional parts of Roberts.
We therefore sustain the rejection of claim 3 as well as the rejection of
dependent claims 4, 5, and 27-36, which are not specifically argued. In re
Nielson, 816 F.2d 1567, 1572 (Fed. Cir. 1987).

http://www.uspto.gov/ip/boards/bpai/decisions/prec/index.jsp.
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Application 10/053,791

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DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 3-5 and 27-36 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) for obviousness over Bhoj in view of Roberts 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). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(v) (2009).
AFFIRMED

gvw

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