Ex Parte Adolph et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 28, 2015

10496713 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 28, 2015)

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. 10/496,713 05/26/2004 Dirk Adolph PD010072 1539 7590 04/28/2015 Joseph S Tripoli Thomson Multimedia Licensing Inc Patent Operations CN 5312 Princeton, NJ 08543-0028 EXAMINER CHOKSHI, PINKAL R ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2425 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/28/2015 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 PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte DIRK ADOLPH, MEINOLF BLAWAT, HUI LI, and HARALD SCHILLER ____________ Appeal 2012-008037 Application 10/496,713 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before JEAN R. HOMERE, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., and MICHELLE N. WORMMEESTER, Administrative Patent Judges. WORMMEESTER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 11–19, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. Claims 1–10 have been cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Appeal 2012-008037 Application 10/496,713 2 INVENTION Appellants’ invention relates to processing broadcast data. Specification 1. Exemplary independent claim 11 reads as follows: 11. Method for processing broadcast data including user data comprising at least one of: audio data and video data; and additional information including linking information pointing to an external data source comprising: receiving said broadcast data from a broadcast source; receiving supplementary data from said external data source by using said linking information which points to said external data source; storing said supplementary data; adapting said linking information into adapted linking information, wherein said adapted linking information points to said stored supplementary data instead of pointing to said external data source after said supplementary data received and stored; storing said user data together with said adapted linking information. REJECTIONS The Examiner rejects claims 11–13, 16, and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Blackketter (US 6,772,438 B1, issued Aug. 3, 2004), Shintani (US 2002/0095687 A1, published July 18, 2002), and Russin (US 6,831,667, issued Dec. 14, 2004). See Ans. 4–8. The Examiner rejects claims 14 and 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Blackketter, Shintani, Russin, and Schein (US 6,732,369 B1, issued May 4, 2004). See Ans. 8–10. The Examiner rejects claims 17 and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Blackketter, Shintani, Russin, and Yap (US 2002/0092021 A1, published July 11, 2002). See Ans. 10–11. Appeal 2012-008037 Application 10/496,713 3 ANALYSIS Appellants argue that the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claim 11 because the applied prior art fails to teach or suggest “storing said user data together with said adapted linking information.” See App. Br. 4–8. We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ contentions, but we are unpersuaded of error and adopt as our own the Examiner’s findings and conclusions set forth in the Answer. We address specific arguments for emphasis as follows. Appellants contend that “[t]he limitation of ‘storing adapted linking information together with said user data’ (emphasis added) of claim 11 is not mentioned by Shintani . . . . That is, the cited references of Shintani, with Russin and Blackketter do not disclose this claimed element.” App. Br. 5–6. As to the recited adapted linking information, Appellants point out that “claim 11 explicitly recites ‘adapting said linking information into adapted linking information, wherein said adapted linking information points to said stored supplementary data instead of pointing to said external data source after said supplementary data received and stored.’” App. Br. 5. We are unpersuaded by Appellants’ contention in this regard. The Examiner points out that the rejection of claim 11 is based on the combined teachings of Blackketter, Shintani, and Russin, not on the teachings of Shintani alone. See Ans. 11–13. For example, the Examiner directs us to disclosure in Blackketter that describes storing locally television content and web content for future access. See Ans. 5 (citing Blackketter 4:30–31), 6 (citing Blackketter 2:30–39). Blackketter further describes using a trigger that identifies the web content by file name to access the stored web content at a later time. See Ans. 6; Blackketter 2:30– Appeal 2012-008037 Application 10/496,713 4 39. The Examiner finds that the cited disclosure in Blackketter teaches storing user data (television content) and supplementary data (web content), where adapted linking information (trigger) is used to access the supplementary data. See Ans. 5–6. According to the Examiner, Blackketter does not “explicitly teach” storing the adapted linking information (trigger). Id. at 6. For this limitation, the Examiner directs us to disclosure in Shintani that describes downloading (or storing) a URL to an interactive content (web content) cache and indexing the URL for retrieval. See Ans. 6 (citing Shintani ¶ 39), 12 (same). The Examiner finds that the discussion about indexing in Shintani teaches adapted linking information. See Ans. 12. Finally, the Examiner directs us to disclosure in Russin that describes downloading web content and then changing the data pointers from the server location to the local memory address. See Ans. 7 (citing Russin 6:19– 24, 7:9–14), 12 (same). The Examiner relies on this disclosure in Russin for teaching the limitation of adapting the linking information into adapted linking information, where the adapted linking information points to the stored supplementary data instead of pointing to an external data source after the supplementary data is received and stored. See Ans. 7. Based on the record before us, we agree with the Examiner that the combined teachings of Blackketter, Shintani, and Russin satisfy the disputed limitation of storing user data together with adapted linking information. See Ans. 5–7, 11–12. Appellants further contend that “the indexing operation to which the Examiner refers to as being performed in Shintani is actually the indexing of additional interactive content, not the URL serving as a link thereto.” App. Br. 6. According to Appellants, “it is clear that what is being downloaded from the Internet is not a URL as likened by the Examiner, but is additional Appeal 2012-008037 Application 10/496,713 5 interactive content to which the URL serves as a link.” Id. (citing Shintani ¶ 38). Although Shintani discusses downloading interactive content, as Appellants contend (App. Br. 6), Shintani also discusses downloading the associated URL, as the Examiner points out (Ans. 6, 12). See Shintani ¶ 38 (“the present invention utilizes an interactive content cache 70 to enhance the performance of the system when users are downloading content associated with a particular URL), ¶ 39 (“the URL is downloaded via the Internet 44 to the interactive content cache”). Shintani further discusses indexing the URL for retrieval. See Ans. 6 (citing Shintani ¶ 39), 12 (same). Accordingly, we are unpersuaded by Appellants’ contention. Appellants further contend that “Russin is completely silent with respect to broadcast data” and that “[Russin’s] icons from a web page are not stored supplemental data.” App. Br. 7. As discussed above, the Examiner relies on the combined teachings of Blackketter, Shintani, and Russin in rejecting claim 11. See Ans. 5–7, 11–13. Even if Russin is silent as to broadcast data, we note that the Examiner relies on Blackketter for teaching receiving broadcast data. See Ans. 12–13; Blackketter 2:30–39. Further, even if the icons in Russin are not considered to be stored supplemental data, we also note that the Examiner relies on Blackketter for teaching storing web content. See Ans. 6; Blackketter 2:30–39. Appellants do not dispute the Examiner’s findings as to Blackketter in this regard. Accordingly, we are unpersuaded by Appellants’ contention. Finally, Appellants contend “that the rejection of independent claim 11 should be withdrawn for similar reasons to claim 1.” App. Br. 8. We note that claim 1 has been cancelled. Accordingly, we are unpersuaded by Appellants’ contention as being moot. Appeal 2012-008037 Application 10/496,713 6 In view of the foregoing, we are unpersuaded of error in the Examiner’s findings and conclusions as to independent claim 11. Appellants do not argue separately any feature recited in dependent claims 12–19. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s § 103 rejection of claims 11–19. DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 11–19 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)(iv). AFFIRMED ACP