Ex Parte Yao

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 11, 2014

10593524 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 11, 2014)

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.
10/593,524 07/29/2008 Xin Yao 4202-03000 2772
97698 7590 02/12/2014
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
c/o Conley Rose, P.C.
5601 Granite Parkway, Suite 500
Plano, TX 75024
EXAMINER
ZONG, RUOLEI
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2441
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/12/2014 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 1
___________ 2
3
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD 4
___________ 5
6
Ex parte XIN YAO 7
___________ 8
9
Appeal 2011-008370 10
Application 10/593,524 11
Technology Center 2400 12
___________ 13
14
15
Before ANTON W. FETTING, BIBHU R. MOHANTY, and 16
JOHN W. MORRISON, Administrative Patent Judges. 17
FETTING, Administrative Patent Judge. 18
DECISION ON APPEAL 19
Appeal 2011-008370
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE1 1

1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“App.
Br.,” filed November 1, 2010) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed March 21,
2011), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed January 21, 2011).
Xin Yao (Appellant) seeks review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of a non-final 2
rejection of claims 1, 4, 5, 8, 11, 13, 14, 21-24 and 28, the only claims 3
pending in the application on appeal. We have jurisdiction over the appeal 4
pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). 5
The Appellant invented a way of signaling processing in the 6
communication network (Specification para 1). 7
An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of 8
exemplary claim 1, which is reproduced below [bracketed matter and some 9
paragraphing added]. 10
1. A method, comprising: 11
[1] receiving a message by a signaling proxy (SP), 12
wherein the message has 13
a source address 14
and 15
a destination address; 16
[2] processing the message 17
if the destination address of the message is different than 18
a SP address 19
and 20
an address for which the message is intended; 21
and 22
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[3] sending the message. 1
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art: 2
Chen US 2002/0021688 A1 Feb. 21, 2002
Gbadegesin US 6,754,709 B1 Jun. 22, 2004
Akman US 7,146,410 B1 Dec. 5, 2006
Oguchi US 7,574,522 B2 Aug. 11, 2009
Claims 1, 11, 22, and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as 3
anticipated by Gbadegesin. 4
Claim 24 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by 5
Akman. 6
Claims 4 and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable 7
over Gbadegesin and Chen. 8
Claims 5 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable 9
over Gbadegesin, Chen, and Akman. 10
Claim 8 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over 11
Gbadegesin and Akman. 12
Claim 21 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over 13
Gbadegesin, Akman, and Oguchi. 14
Claim 28 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over 15
Akman and Oguchi. 16
Appeal 2011-008370
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ISSUES 1
The issues of anticipation and obviousness turn primarily on the scope of 2
an intended address and whether a network device being between other 3
devices allows for being between in the sense of signal flow. 4
FACTS PERTINENT TO THE ISSUES 5
The following enumerated Findings of Fact (FF) are believed to be 6
supported by a preponderance of the evidence. 7
Facts Related to the Prior Art 8
Gbadegesin 9
01. Gbadegesin is directed to network address translation and proxy 10
application control of network communication to the combination 11
of network address translation and proxy application functionality 12
into a transparent application gateway process. Gbadegesin 1:9-13
13. 14
02. As the number of computers that needed or wanted to be 15
connected to the Internet continued to grow, this number could not 16
be accommodated by the number of available IP addresses. In 17
response, a method was devised whereby a number of computers 18
could be located on a “private” network and would use private IP 19
addresses to communicate with each other. These private IP 20
addresses could be reused on other private networks since no one 21
outside the private network could see these addresses. In order to 22
allow the computers on the private network to communicate with 23
other computers, the private network provides a gateway for all of 24
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the computers on the private network to reach the public network. 1
This gateway computer runs a program called a network address 2
translator (NAT) that has both a private IP address and a public IP 3
address. As computers on the private network attempt to establish 4
sessions with a server on a public network (or another private 5
network), the NAT changes the source address of the message 6
packets from the private address of the client computer to its 7
public IP address. In this way, the private IP address is not 8
communicated on the public network. The messages all appear to 9
have come from the public IP address of the NAT machine. The 10
NAT maintains a mapping of the translation from the private to 11
the public IP address so that when messages are received from the 12
public network in response, the NAT can forward them to the 13
proper client machine. This operation of the NAT is completely 14
transparent to the client computers on the private network, i.e. 15
they each believe that they are communicating directly with the 16
public servers. Gbadegesin 1:17-53. 17
03. While the NAT has greatly alleviated the address depletion 18
problem, especially for home and small business networks, its 19
translation of source addresses is fixed within its programming. 20
That is, the traditional NAT did not allow any application control 21
of the address translations that it performs. The NAT cannot even 22
provide any destination address translations, and does not fully 23
support applications that either assume client and server addresses 24
are both public and therefore equally accessible, or require that 25
servers also initiate network sessions to clients. If added value is 26
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desired, such as centralized virus scanning, site blocking 1
(parental-control filtering), white listing, caching (to speed up 2
response-time), data-transformation (e.g. dithering of images to 3
match screen size), etc., a proxy application must be used instead. 4
Traditional proxies are application programs that serve as the 5
interface between the private and the public network . Unlike 6
NATs, the proxy must be addressed directly by the client 7
machines as seen in the destination address field of message 8
packet, and therefore requires that the client applications be setup 9
to operate with a proxy. Many applications cannot do this, or 10
require specific configuration changes to allow the use of a proxy, 11
and therefore a proxy configuration may not be appropriate, or 12
even possible, for use with all applications. Gbadegesin 2:1-28. 13
04. When a proxy application 98 is used, all communications are 14
sent to the proxy in the user mode. The proxy then determines 15
whether and to whom to forward the communication on the public 16
network. If the proxy determines that the message may be passed 17
to a server on the public network, the proxy establishes a second 18
session, copies the data to the second session, changes the source 19
and destination address, and sends out the message. In operational 20
terms, a client process establishes a first session with the proxy 21
requesting access to a public server. If the proxy agrees, a second 22
session is established with the server on the public network. Since 23
all messages must pass from the kernel-mode network transport, 24
to the user-mode proxy, be copied to a second session, transferred 25
back down to the kernel-mode driver, and finally transmitted to 26
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the network for the network application's other session, a 1
significant performance degradation occurs. Gbadegesin 2:29-50. 2
05. Recognizing that the inability of various applications to utilize a 3
proxy system precludes the adding of value to the network 4
sessions using these applications, various software vendors have 5
introduced transparent proxies. Transparent proxies operate like a 6
traditional proxy in that they provide value to the network 7
connection, and like a traditional NAT in that the network client 8
need not specifically address them. The term transparent refers to 9
the fact that the network client is unaware that its communication 10
is being provided up to the proxy application. The client thinks 11
that its communication is going directly to the network server, in 12
much the same way as it does when a traditional NAT is used. 13
However, the communication is actually redirected to the proxy 14
application before being sent to the public network. As a client on 15
private network attempts to contact a server on a public network, 16
the gateway machine running the transparent proxy intercepts its 17
messages. The transparent proxy operates by performing an 18
address redirection through a traditional NAT up to the proxy 19
application. Once the proxy has processed the message, it is 20
passed back down to be sent to the server. While this redirection is 21
transparent to the client thereby allowing operation of the proxy 22
with clients whose applications would not allow operation with a 23
traditional proxy, this redirection is fixed within the NAT. This 24
requires that all communication be transferred up to the proxy at 25
the application level or user-mode, and back down to the transport 26
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level or kernel-mode prior to being transmitted to the server. 1
Gbadegesin 2:51 – 3:14. 2
06. Gbadegesin provides an application programming interface for 3
intelligent transparent application gateway processes. Specifically, 4
Gbadegesin describes an intelligent transparent proxy that uses an 5
application programming interface for translation of transport-6
layer sessions and an application programming interface for port-7
reservation routines to provide proxy services without requiring 8
that client applications be notified of the proxy at all. More 9
particularly, Gbadegesin describes a generalized network address 10
translator and associated application programming interface (API) 11
that allow both source and destination address translations to be 12
made. The API allows control of the NAT by the proxy thereby 13
providing the benefits of both a proxy server and a network 14
address translator (NAT) while minimizing the transmission 15
delays normally associated with traditional and transparent 16
proxies. Gbadegesin 3:17-34. 17
07. With the intelligent transparent proxy of Gbadegesin, client 18
applications do not know that they are communicating through a 19
proxy, and therefore need not be configured to do so. This is 20
accomplished by allowing the proxy to dynamically command a 21
generalized NAT to effect both source and destination address 22
translations to, essentially, reroute data flow up through the proxy 23
without the client knowing. The address changes are mapped in 24
the or generalized NAT (gNAT), and result in apparent sessions 25
between different clients and servers. As the proxy identifies data 26
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transfers that need not be processed by the proxy, the proxy 1
commands a dynamic address translation at the transport layer. 2
This bypasses the necessity of transferring the data up to the 3
proxy, thereby greatly increasing the performance of the system. 4
Gbadegesin 3:35-49. 5
08. As an example of the operation of the intelligent transparent 6
gateway of Gbadegesin, assume that a client application wanted to 7
establish a session from itself to a server on a public network. The 8
message would hit the translation mapping of the gNAT, and be 9
converted to a message from client to the transparent gateway. 10
The transparent gateway would pass the message up to the proxy 11
for servicing. The proxy is able to then service the message itself, 12
deny transmission of the message, pass the message on without 13
modification, etc. If the message is forwarded to the server, it 14
appears to have originated from the gateway. The translation 15
mapping is recorded so that any return messages may be 16
forwarded to the client application, if the proxy determines that it 17
is appropriate to do so. This forwarding may require servicing by 18
the proxy or may be passed without servicing, dependent only on 19
the proxy commanded translation in the gNAT. Gbadegesin 3:50-20
67. 21
09. In operational terms, Gbadegesin’s dynamic redirection is 22
illustrated in FIG. 11. A client process on a private network sends 23
a message packet destined to server on a public network. The 24
apparent path of the message packet is as illustrated by dashed line 25
127. However, when the message packet hits the dynamic redirect 26
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of the gateway machine running the intelligent transparent proxy 1
application, the message packet is redirected to a proxy session. 2
The intelligent transparent proxy then services this message 3
packet by, in this case, forwarding it to a second session for 4
transport to the server. The proxy could have denied the message 5
packet, forwarded it to a local server (not shown) for servicing, 6
serviced the message itself, etc. Gbadegesin 11:11-25. 7
10. Typical transparent proxies also service the responsive 8
communication from the server as a matter of course. While this is 9
also possible with Gbadegesin’s intelligent transparent proxy, it 10
may decide to open a fast-path data transfer session and forego 11
transitions to and from the user-mode in the gateway machine. 12
The proxy accomplishes this by commanding a dynamic redirect 13
to be mapped in the gNAT. When the server responds, the 14
message packet is seen by the gNAT, which verifies that it has a 15
proxy commanded redirect for that message, and is redirected at 16
the transport-layer to the client. This transmit-proxy, receive-NAT 17
functional operation significantly improves the performance of the 18
system, especially in situations of data streaming, multi-party 19
conferencing, multi-party gaming, etc. Gbadegesin 11:26-41. 20
11. A further dynamic redirection that may be commanded by the 21
intelligent transparent proxy of the instant invention is illustrated 22
in FIG. 12. A client may wish to establish a session with server by 23
addressing messages thereto. This is the apparent session from the 24
client's point of view. However, when the gNAT machine detects 25
the message, it checks to determine if a dynamic redirect exists for 26
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such a session as discussed above. Here, a dynamic redirect does 1
exist to forward the message to the proxy session. The proxy may 2
include a translation of both the source and destination addresses 3
such that the messages are actually forwarded by the proxy to 4
server with an indication that the source was. From the server 5
point of view, an apparent session has been established between S2 6
and C2 The actual session that has been established is between C1 7
and S2, although neither C1 nor S2 knows that this is the case. Each 8
of the required translations is accomplished transparently. 9
Gbadegesin 11:42-60. 10
ANALYSIS 11
Step [1] does not narrow its operation beyond receiving a message. The 12
phrase “by a signaling processor” is ambiguous as to what it modifies, 13
receiving or message, but it is likely that as an adverb phrase, it modifies the 14
verb “receiving.” The message itself is characterized as having a source and 15
destination address, which is inherent in network message packets for 16
routing purposes. 17
Step [3] simply sends the message. 18
Thus, step [2] is the only limitation potentially non-standard, and is 19
therefore the critical limitation at issue. Step [2] processes the message if 20
the destination address meets certain limitations. Step [2] does not specify 21
what happens if this condition is not met. Thus, in reality, so long as the 22
message is processed within the applied art, it is within the scope of claim 1. 23
Logically, A IMPLIES B is the same as B OR NOT A. 24
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Further the destination address is compared to a hypothetical SP address 1
and an address for which the message is in any manner intended. Both such 2
addresses are entirely hypothetical. There are an almost infinitely large 3
number of potential SP addresses that would differ from any given 4
destination address, and an address for which the message is intended is 5
aspirational rather than physical. Thus, there is again an almost infinite 6
number of such intended addresses that would differ from the destination 7
address. The claim does not include any steps that would narrow the scope 8
of the recited SP address or intended address. 9
Thus, claim 1 recites receiving a message, which inherently has both a 10
source and destination address, processing the message, and sending the 11
message. Even were the condition recited in limitation [2] required to be 12
true to process the message, this would require only that some hypothetical 13
SP and intended aspirational addresses differ from the destination address. 14
Thus, facially Gbadegesin is within the scope of this construction of 15
claim 1. 16
We are not persuaded by the Appellant’s argument that Gbadegesin fails 17
to teach the destination address of the message is different than a SP address 18
and an address for which the message is intended. App. Br. 9-11. As the 19
Examiner found, 20
[t]he proxy may include a translation of both the source and 21
destination addresses such that the messages are actually 22
forwarded by the proxy to server S2" (see Col. 11, Line 43- 61). 23
Thus, given that 82 is the address to where the proxy intends to 24
forward the message reads on the ordinary and customary 25
meaning of the destination address (DA) being different than an 26
address for which the message is intended. 27
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Ans. 18. Emphasis omitted. Appellant in turn responds that this address 1
in not known and so cannot be an intended address. Reply Br. 7-8. But 2
intent and knowledge are distinctly different ideas. An address yet to be 3
determined may be intended so long as some way of resolving the 4
determination exists. Again, the claim does not narrow the intention, and 5
indeed an intention is aspirational only. The aspiration does not have to 6
become realized. 7
Separately argued claim 24 recites 8
a signaling proxy (SP) located between a terminal and a server; 9
and 10
a router located between the terminal and the SP, 11
wherein the SP is configured to receive a message and process 12
the message if [] 13
and 14
wherein the router is configured to forward the message to the 15
SP according to a forwarding strategy. 16
Claim 24. 17
We are not persuaded by the Appellant’s argument that 18
claim 24 recites the physical connectivity of the SP, the 19
terminal, and the server, not the message routing between the 20
SP, the terminal, and the server. 21
App. Br. 13. Emphasis omitted. The Examiner found 22
Akman discloses the path on which messages travel: terminal 23
TO Firewall/Router 160 (e.g. router) TO MEGACO NAT 170 24
(e.g. SP) TO Firewall/Router 160 TO MGC (e.g. server) in 25
Akman, see Col 4, Line 42-60 and FIG. 2B. As the messages 26
are sent from the terminal and arrive at the server via the SP, 27
the physical connectivity (or actual communication) of the SP, 28
the terminal, and the server is disclosed by Akman. Therefore 29
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Akman's disclosure reads on the claimed limitation of "a SP 1
located between a terminal and a server". 2
As an aside, the examiner respectfully submits that claim 24 3
says nothing to “the physical connectivity of the SP, the 4
terminal, and the server” (citing page 13 of the brief), as 5
suggested by the appellant. The claim language merely calls for 6
a SP located between a terminal and a server. 7
Ans. 19-20. Appellant in turn responds that the word “between” must 8
connote physical location. Appellant’s own proffered definition allows for 9
separation by time or interval as well as space. Thus, the path of connection 10
separating signals in time allows Akman to be within the scope of being 11
between the terminal and server. More to the point, physical location of 12
client and server is almost meaningless, and any structural configuration that 13
approximates the signal path is at least predictable, if only to visually assist 14
operators in following signal flow. Signal flow is the only context in which 15
a device is between other devices is functionally meaningful in a network 16
flow invention. 17
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW 18
The rejection of claims 1, 11, 22, and 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as 19
anticipated by Gbadegesin is proper. 20
The rejection of claim 24 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by 21
Akman is proper. 22
The rejection of claims 4 and 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as 23
unpatentable over Gbadegesin and Chen is proper. 24
The rejection of claims 5 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as 25
unpatentable over Gbadegesin, Chen, and Akman is proper. 26
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The rejection of claim 8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over 1
Gbadegesin and Akman is proper. 2
The rejection of claim 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over 3
Gbadegesin, Akman, and Oguchi is proper. 4
The rejection of claim 28 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over 5
Akman and Oguchi is proper. 6
DECISION 7
The rejection of claims 1, 4, 5, 8, 11, 13, 14, 21-24 and 28 is affirmed. 8
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this 9
appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. 10
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv) (2011). 11
AFFIRMED 12
13
Vsh 14