Ex Parte Bedi et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 24, 2017

11459654 (P.T.A.B. May. 24, 2017)

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.
11/459,654 07/25/2006 Bharat Veer Bedi GB920040127US1 1743
05/26/201784986 7590
GRAS SO PLLC
1818 LIBRARY STREET, SUITE 500
RESTON, VA 20190
EXAMINER
BELANI, KISHIN G
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2443
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/26/2017 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):
admin@grassoip.com
vromme @ grassoip. com
fgrasso@grassoip.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte BHARAT VEER BEDI and
ANDREW JAMES STANFORD-CLARK
Appeal 2015-002002
Application 11/459,654
Technology Center 2400
Before: ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, JASON V. MORGAN, and
JOHN A. EVANS, Administrative Patent Judges.
MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2015-002002
Application 11/459,654
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1—
20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
THE INVENTION
The claimed invention is directed to managing subscription requests
in a publish/subscribe messaging system. Clients register a subscription at a
message broker via one protocol and receive messages matching that
subscription on another protocol. Abstract.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A method of communication in a publish/sub scribe
messaging system, the messaging system comprising a plurality
of publishers publishing messages to a broker and a plurality of
subscribers subscribing to messages received from one or more
publishers via the broker, the method comprising the steps of:
receiving at a broker a single subscription request as a unilateral
transmission from a requesting subscriber via a first
communication protocol the subscription request indicating a
topic for messages published by one or more publishers in
which the requesting subscriber is interested;
determining at the broker and after receipt by the broker of the
subscription request if said received single subscription request
includes an indicator requesting published messages from one
or more publishers to be sent by the broker via a second
communication protocol;
responsive to said determining step, the broker transmitting one
or more messages, previously received by the broker from a
publisher to the requesting subscriber, via said second
communications protocol if said single subscription request
does include said indicator; and
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Application 11/459,654
the broker transmitting one or more messages previously
received from a publisher to the requesting subscriber via said
first communication protocol if said subscription request does
not include said indicator, wherein output communication
protocol is parsed from said subscription request, wherein the
message received by the broker is a message previously
published by a publisher.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Bird et al.
Diwan
Sekaran
Darugar et al.
McNamara
US 2003/0236856 Al
US 2005/0114884 Al
US 2006/0271686 Al
US 7,349,980 B1
US 7,549,096 B2
Dec. 25, 2003
May 26, 2005
Nov. 30, 2006
Mar. 25, 2008
June 16, 2009
REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1, 7, and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C §112 first
paragraph as failing to comply with the written description requirement.
Claims 1, 2, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Darugar in view of Diwan.
Claims 3—6 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Darugar in view of Diwan and Sekaran.
Claims 7, 8, 12, and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Darugar in view of Diwan and McNamara.
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Application 11/459,654
Claims 9-11 and 14—17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Darugar in view of Diwan in view McNamara and
furter in view of Sekaran.
Claims 18 and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Darugar in view of Diwan and Bird.
ISSUES
The pivotal issues are whether the Examiner erred in finding that:
1. The Specification does not have adequate written description
support for the term “unilateral” and
2. Darugar in view of Diwan teaches or suggests the limitation of
“determining at the broker and after receipt by the broker of the
subscription request if said received single subscription request
includes an indicator requesting published messages from one or
more publishers to be sent by the broker via a second
communication protocol” as recited in claim 7.
ANALYSIS
We adopt the Examiner’s findings in the Answer and Final Action and
we add the following primarily for emphasis. We note that if Appellants
failed to present arguments on a particular rejection, we will not unilaterally
review those uncontested aspects of the rejection. See Ex parte Frye, 94
USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential); Hyatt v. Dudas, 551 F.3d
1307, 1313—14 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (The Board may treat arguments Appellants
failed to make for a given ground of rejection as waived).
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Application 11/459,654
Claims 1, 7, and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112 first
paragraph
Appellants argue that there is explicit and implicit description in their
Specification for support of the term “unilateral” wherein the subscriber
making requests unilaterally, with no other actor as formulating or sending
the requests from the subscriber to the broker (App. Br. 22). Appellants
provide a number of definitions but highlight that unilateral is defined as
“ONE-SIDED” (App. Br. 21). Appellants further provide numerous
citations from the Specification indicating that the subscriber requests the
delivery protocol and address (App. Br. 21—22).
We agree with Appellants to the extent that the term unilateral is
defined as one-sided but we do not agree to the extent that the term means
“no other actor as formulating or sending the requests from the subscriber to
the broker” (see App. Br. 21). In other words, “unilateral” does not mean
directly, and it could involve more than one intermediate one sided actors.
To the extent that Appellants are contradicting the term “unilateral” to mean
not just one-sided, but also directly, then there is confusion of what the term
means in light of the Specification since we cannot find anything in the
Specification limiting or excluding multiple one sided actors.1 However, we
do agree with Appellants that there is support in the Specification for the
“unilateral” recitation given its ordinary meaning as one-sided. Thus, we
disagree with the Examiner, that there is no disclosure in Appellants’
Specification of the term unilateral.
1 Should there be further prosecution, the Examiner is encouraged to
consider whether the respective claims should be rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph.
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Accordingly, we reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 7, and
12 under 35U.S.C. § 112 first paragraph.
Claims 1, 2, and 19 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103
Appellants argue that Darugar does not teach or suggest “a broker” as
required by claim 1 because a broker cannot be represented by two different
processes such as a Network Services engine 52 handling a publication
process and a Web Services Network Manager 90 that handles subscriptions
(App. Br. 6—9).
We do not agree with Appellants’ argument. We give claims their
broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification. In re
Am. Acad. ofSci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
Appellants’ own Specification recites that “[bjroker 70 may be a process, a
set of processes or other executing component” (emphasis added) (para. 19,
last sentence). Thus, we agree with the Examiner that a broker is a software
entity made up of computer-executable routines that perform different
functions and the routines may be collectively called a broker or split in two
or more groups such as the Network Services Engine handling publication
functions and the Web Services Network Manager handling subscription
functions (Ans. 27).
Appellants further argue that Diwan does not teach or suggest a
subscriber providing an indicator in the subscription request regarding a
communication protocol (App. Br. 10—12).
We do not agree with Appellants’ argument. We agree with the
Examiner (Ans. 30), as we previously determined, in the Opinion dated
07/02/2013 (Dec. 5—6), that Diwan teaches use of different protocols for
receiving subscription requests (i.e., HTTP, VoIP, SMTP, and TELNET)
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and for delivering requested information (i.e., broadcast or multicast with
specified group ID or unicast) (Dec. 5 citing paras. 20, 24, 35, and 43).
Accordingly, Diwan does disclose a second communication protocol. Id.
The Examiner found, and we agreed, that Diwan teaches “delivering the
customized bundles to the subscribers according to the delivery rules
specified by the subscribers,” which the Examiner equated to an indicator
specifying how to deliver the requested information (Dec. 5 citing Ans. 27,
Abstract, para. 10). Furthermore, Diwan describes different protocols in use,
both for receiving subscription requests and distributing requested
information (Dec. 5 citing paras. 20, 24, 35, and 43). Specifically, Diwan
teaches that the rules field 316 may store rules that control the manner in
which the agent 190 bundles and distributes the information it receives from
the information providers (para. 35, Dec. 5—6). Figure 3 shows a subscriber
database used to store subscriber ID, subscription request, and delivery rules
specified/selected by a subscriber (Dec. 6). So, unless it was determined that
the subscription request included one or more delivery rules, the rules field
would not exist in the subscriber database shown in Figure 3 (Dec. 6 citing
Ans. 27).
We further note that, contrary to Appellants’ argument (App. Br. 14),
a motivational statement to combine was provided by the Examiner in page
7 of the Final Action for claim 1, and Appellants have not provided an
explanation as to why this motivational statement is inadequate.
Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection
of claim 1 and for the same reasons the rejections of claims 2 and 19.
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Claim 7
Appellants argue that McNamara does not process subscription
requests, only messages and it parses data that is then converted to a
different protocol rather than parsing an output protocol (App. Br. 14—15).
Appellants further argue that there is no motivation found in the prior art and
the motivational statement was based on Appellants’ own Specification
(App. Br. 17). Appellants’ claim 7 essentially adds to the limitations of
claim 1, the limitation of “parsing output communication protocol from said
subscription request” (claim 7).
We do not agree with Appellants’ argument. The Examiner finds, and
we agree, that Diwan teaches or suggests subscription requests wherein the
requested topics 314 and delivery rules 316 (i.e., indicator) are extracted
from subscription requests and stored in a subscriber database (Fig. 3 and
paras. 33—35; Ans. 33—34). The Examiner relied on McNamara for the
teaching of parsing data (i.e., extracting data from a message) (Ans. 34).
Thus, one skilled in the art at the time of the invention would realize that
when Diwan is extracting data relating to topics or delivery rules, in essence
parses the data as described by McNamara. In other words, the parsing of
the output protocol is already taught by Diwan teaching extracting the
delivery rules which would indicate the type of protocol to use for delivery.
We agree with the Examiner that to the extent that the only limitation of
claim 7 that Diwan does not explicitly recite is “parsing”; the Examiner
relied on McNamara for the explicit teaching of “parsing” data. Thus, the
combination teaches the limitation of “parsing output communication
protocol from said subscription request” as recited in claim 7.
Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claim 7.
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Claims 1, 3—6, and 8—20
We also affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 3—6, and 8—20
for the same reasons as stated above, and for the findings in the Final
Action, and the Examiner’s Answer.
CONCLUSIONS
1. The Examiner erred in finding that Appellants’ Specification does
not have adequate written description support for the term
“unilateral”.
2. The Examiner did not err in finding that Darugar in view of Diwan
teaches or suggests the limitation of “determining at the broker and
after receipt by the broker of the subscription request if said
received single subscription request includes an indicator
requesting published messages from one or more publishers to be
sent by the broker via a second communication protocol” as recited
in claim 7.
DECISION
For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—20 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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