Ex Parte Xiong et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 28, 2016

13721807 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 28, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
131721,807 12/20/2012 True Xiong
36738 7590 06/30/2016
ROGITZ & AS SOCIA TES
750B STREET
SUITE 3120
SAN DIEGO, CA 92101
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.
201003299.02 1333
EXAMINER
SCHNURR, JOHN R
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2427
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/30/2016 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):
Noelle@rogitz.com
eofficeaction@appcoll.com
J ohn@rogitz.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte TRUE XIONG, CHARLES MCCOY,
LEO M. PEDLOW, and LING JUN WONG
Appeal2014-007548
Application 13/721,807
Technology Center 2400
Before MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, JON M. JURGOV AN, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2014-007548
Application 13/721,807
STATE~vfENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 6-13. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
THE INVENTION
The claims are directed to control of an Internet Protocol Television
(IPTV) using a second device. Spec., Title. Claim 6, reproduced below, is
representative of the claimed subject matter:
6. Consumer electronic (CE) control device comprising:
network interface;
processor configured for communicating with the Internet
through the network interface;
input device configured for communicating with the
processor;
the processor configured for executing logic including:
sending login information to a proxy server;
receiving from the proxy server, responsive to reception
thereby of correct login information, a local IP address of an
IPTV client;
using the local IPTV address to access the IPTV client
directly to request information about the IPTV client;
sending the information about the IPTV client to the proxy
server;
responsive to sending the information about the IPTV
client to the proxy server, receiving content information;
presenting the content information from which a user can
select a selected content; and
commanding the IPTV client to play the selected content.
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Appeal2014-007548
Application 13/721,807
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Parmar
Sekimoto
Petersson
US 2009/0052863 Al
US 2009/0164786 Al
US 2011/0209188 Al
REJECTIONS
Feb.26,2009
June 25, 2009
Aug. 25, 2011
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 6-8, 10, and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Petersson and Parmar. Final Act. 3-5.
Claims 9, 12, and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Petersson, Parmar, and Sekimoto. Final Act. 5---6.
APPELLANTS' CONTENTION
Petersson's multimedia subsystem (MS) must already know the IP
address of the destination client terminal (e.g., a set-top box or "STB") such
that it "makes no technical sense" to instead obtain the IP address from an
application server as taught by Parmar, thereby rendering the combination of
the references improper for lack of motivation for making the asserted
modification. App. Br. 3--4.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants'
conclusions. We adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by
the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken (Ans. 2-7) and
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Appeal2014-007548
Application 13/721,807
(2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in
response to Appellants' Appeal Brief (Ans. 2-3) and concur with the
conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the following for
emphasis.
Appellants argues:
Petersson's user MS already knows the address of the relied-
upon client terminal (STB), the entire point of Petersson being to
enable a properly authenticated MS to authorize an application
server to send content to a S TB affiliated with the MS. If
Petersson were to be modified not to know the STB information
in advance, but rather to ask the application server for it, the
application server would not know what Petersson expects it to
know, i.e., that it is authorized to send content to the address
identified by the user MS since the user MS already knows the
address and approves of it by sending the address to the
application server, see the abstract of Petersson and paragraphs 9
and 12.
App. Br. 3--4. The Examiner finds it would have been obvious to modify
Petersson to use Parmar's proxy server to obtain a local address of an IPTV
so as to limit access to only authorized users of the IPTV Final Act. 4.
Appellants' argument fails because, inter alia, it does not take into
consideration the impact of the Court's explicit rejection in KSR of the rigid
requirement that the art suggest a modification. KSR Int 'l Inc. v. Teleflex
Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 415 (2007) ("We begin by rejecting the rigid approach of
the Court of Appeals."). The Court's decision in KSR repudiated reliance on
a "teaching, suggestion or motivation" as a requirement to show
obviousness. Instead, we look to whether the Examiner has provided some
articulated reasoning addressing why a person having ordinary skill in the art
would recognize that there was an apparent reason to combine the known
elements in the fashion claimed by the claim at issue. KSR, 550 U.S. at 418.
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Appeal2014-007548
Application 13/721,807
\Ve conclude the Examiner provides such articulated reasoning in the
rejection from which this appeal is taken. See Final Act. 4. In particular, we
agree that a reason to incorporate a proxy server of Parmar into the system
of Petersson includes limiting access to the IPTV client to users authorized
by the server. In contrast, Appellants fail to provide persuasive evidence or
explanation showing that the Examiner's asserted combination is anything
other than the mere substitution of one element (proxy server authorization
of and provision of a local IP address of an IPTV client to a multimedia
subsystem (MS)) for another known in the field (an authenticated MS
already having the required IP address) and is a combination of familiar
elements yielding no more than predictable results. See KSR, 550 U.S. at
416-1 7. Such a combination is itself a sufficient reasoning with rational
underpinning to support a finding of obviousness. Accordingly, Appellants'
contention is unpersuasive of Examiner error.
For the reasons discussed supra, we are unpersuaded of Examiner
error. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of independent claim 6 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) over Petersson and Parmar, together with the rejection of
dependent claims 7, 8, 10, and 11, which are not separately argued. We
further sustain the rejection of dependent claims 9, 12, and 13 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) over Petersson, Parmar, and Sekimoto, these dependent
claims also not separately argued.
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Appeal2014-007548
Application 13/721,807
DECISION
The Examiner's decision to reject claims 6-13 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)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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