Ex Parte Bhagwat

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 28, 2016

13537265 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 28, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 13/537,265 06/29/2012 110936 7590 05/02/2016 Great Lakes Intellectual Property, PLLC /CableLabs 44750 Yorkshire Novi, MI 48375 Amo! Bhagwat 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. CTL60325PUS I 60325 9492 EXAMINER FOGG, CYNTHIA M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2427 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/02/2016 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): j. buser@ greatlakesiplaw. com d.smith@cablelabs.com USPTO@dockettrak.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte AMOL BHAGWAT1 Appeal2014-007988 Application 13/537,265 Technology Center 2400 Before DEBRA K. STEPHENS, JASON V. MORGAN, and MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We AFFIRM. Technology The application relates to providing emergency alerts within television signals that cause a gateway, such as a cable modem or set-top box, to provide a uniform resource locator ("URL") to an end device, such as a 1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. App. Br. 1. Appeal2014-007988 Application 13/537,265 television or laptop, where the URL is a link for downloading more information related to the alert. Spec. Abstract, claim 1. Representative Claims Claims 1 and 16 are representative and reproduced below with key limitations emphasized: 1. A system for providing emergency alerts comprising: a service provider configured to transmit television signals, the service provider being configured to transmit a first emergency alert system (EAS) message with the television signals, the service provider being configured to generate the first EAS message in response to receipt of an EAS source message from an emergency entity; and a gateway configured to process the television signals for output by a television, the gateway being configured to embed the EAS alert within the television signals output to the television according to information included within the first EAS message, wherein the gateway is further configured to transmit a first URL to a first device, the first URL pointing to a first EAS manifest stored at the gateway, the first device using the first URL to dmvnload the first EAS manifest from the gatev.,;ay for use in generating the EAS alert. 16. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 further comprising instructions sufficient for: notifj;ing a remote device of the EAS alert using transmission of a notification message carried over the Internet, the remote device being connected to the Internet at a location remote from a wireless home network supported by the gateway, the local device being wirelessly connected to the wireless home network and required to communicate through the gateway in order to connect to the Internet; and determining the remote device based on an association with a subscriber responsible for the gateway where the subscriber requests providing the EAS alert to non-local devices accessmg the internet while connected outside of the home network. 2 Appeal2014-007988 Application 13/537,265 Rejections2 Claims 1, 6, 8-10, 13, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Shin (US 2006/0161946 Al; publ. July 20, 2006) in view of Sennett et al. (US 2009/0286502 Al; publ. Nov. 19, 2009) ("Sennett"). Final Act. 4. Claims 2, 11, 16, 17, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Shin in view of Sennett and further in view of McClenny et al. (US 2008/0059998 Al; publ. Mar. 6, 2008) ("McClenny"). Final Act. 10. Claim 3 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Shin in view of Sennett and further in view of McClenny and Yun (US 2010/0070994 Al; publ. Mar. 18, 2010). Final Act. 19. Claims 4 and 5 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Shin in view of Sennett and further in view of Yun. Final Act. 21. Claim 7 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Shin in view of Sennett and further in view of Kim et al. (US 2010/0186029 Al; publ. July 22, 2010) ("Kim"). Final Act. 23. Claim 12 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Shin in view of Sennett and McClenny and further in view of Kim. Final Act. 24. Claim 14 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Shin in view of Sennett and further in view of HDMI Licensing, LLC, HDMI Licensing, LLC Announces Features of the 2 Although not before us, the Specification is objected to due to informalities. Final Act. 4. 3 Appeal2014-007988 Application 13/537,265 Upcoming HDMJ Specification Version 1.4 (May 27, 2009), available at http://www.hdmi.org/press/press_release.aspx?prid= 101 ("HDMI Press Release"). Final Act. 25. Claims 18 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Shin in view of Sennett, McClenny, and HDMI Press Release. Final Act. 25. ISSUES 1. Did the Examiner err in finding Shin in view of Sennett teaches or suggests "the first URL pointing to a first EAS manifest stored at the gateway, the first device using the first URL to download the first EAS manifest from the gateway," as recited in claim 1? 2. Did the Examiner err by improperly combining the teachings and suggestions of Shin and Sennett? 3. Did the Examiner err in finding Shin in view of Sennett and McClenny teaches or suggests "notifying a remote device of the EAS alert using transmission of a notification message carried over the Internet," as recited in claim 16? ANALYSIS Claims 1-20 In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner relies upon a combination of Shin and Sennett. Final Act. 2. The dispute in this case is whether in adding Sennett's URL to the emergency alert system of Shin it would be obvious for the URL to be a link to a gateway of a home network, as the Examiner determined. We agree with the Examiner for the reasons discussed below. 4 Appeal2014-007988 Application 13/537,265 We find that Shin teaches an emergency alert system in which a gateway, such as a set-top box, sends commands to devices within a home network. Shin Abstract, Figs. 3--4. Such commands include activating an emergency siren, flashing a red light, and displaying an alert message. Id. i-f 28. Shin's gateway determines what command to send by consulting a database stored locally in the gateway, namely EAS Policy DB 34. Id. i-f 26. We find that Sennett teaches an emergency alert system in which an emergency alert message can contain a link to a URL, such as a link to audio or video about the emergency. Sennett i-fi-19-10, Abstract. The URL can be provided by the server that creates the emergency alert message or alternately the end device receiving an alert message can consult a local database of pre-generated URLs. Id. i-fi-112, 17-18. In both cases, we find that Sennett teaches the URL links to an external network, namely emergency information network 14. Id. i-fi-1 14, 21, Fig. 1. In the present application, claim 1 requires "the first URL pointing to a first EAS manifest stored at the gateway, the first device using the first URL to download the first EAS manifest from the gateway" (emphasis added). Appellant contends Sennett fails to teach this limitation because Sennett's URL links to the Internet rather than to the gateway of a home network. App. Br. 7. Appellant further contends that while Shin teaches sending commands to devices in response to an emergency alert, Shin never suggests a command to download or retrieve information. App. Br. 9. We agree with the Examiner that Appellant argues the references individually rather than in combination. Ans. 2. The Examiner correctly finds that in a combination of Shin with the URL from Sennett, the URL would point to Shin's EAS Policy DB 34. Ans. 3. In Shin, the EAS Policy 5 Appeal2014-007988 Application 13/537,265 DB 34 is stored locally at the gateway (i.e., broadcast receiver 1, such as a set-top box); thus, in the proposed combination, a URL to EAS Policy DB 34 would mean that EAS Policy DB 34 is downloaded from the gateway. Ans. 3; Shin Fig. 3. While the URL in Sennett does link to an external network, the Examiner is not using Sennett in isolation. Sennett teaches that the emergency alert message can consist of a URL to the desired data. Sennett i-fi-1 9-10, Abstract. In Shin, the desired data are the commands located in EAS Policy DB 34. Although Shin provides these commands directly to the end devices, we agree with the Examiner it would have been obvious to an artisan of ordinary skill to instead provide a URL linking to the desired commands, as taught or suggested by Sennett. Appellant also argues that modifying Shin with Sennett would render the combination "unsatisfactory for its intended purpose" because the URL would link to an external network. App. Br. 9. Yet as discussed above, this would not be the case with a URL to EAS Policy DB 34, which is instead stored in the gateway of the home network. Moreover, we agree with the Examiner that Appellant has not shown sufficient evidence that such a combination would be unsatisfactory rather than merely being different. Nor has Appellant persuaded us the Examiner's articulated reasoning for combining the teachings of Shin and Sennett (Final Act. 6) is in error. According to Appellant, independent claims 13 and 17 "stand[] rejected on a similar basis as that described above with respect to claim 1." App. Br. 10, 13. Appellant also offers a single additional sentence for each claim identifying a further limitation Appellant believes is missing (id.), but 6 Appeal2014-007988 Application 13/537,265 we agree with the Examiner that Appellant fails to offer sufficient substantive arguments beyond those addressed for claim 1. Ans. 4. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1, and claims 2-20, which Appellant argues are patentable for similar reasons. See App. Br. 10, 13; 37 C.F.R. Â§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (2013). Claim 16 In addition to the arguments above, Appellant further contends the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 16 (which depends from claim 13) because Shin in view of Sennett and McClenny fails to teach or suggest "notifying a remote device of the EAS alert using the transmission of a notification message carried over the Internet." App. Br. 10. We are not persuaded by Appellant's argument. We agree with the Examiner that Appellant is attacking the references individually rather than as a combination. Ans. 4. We find that McClenny teaches or suggests that an emergency alert can be provided to a remote device via the Internet. For example, McClenny teaches that emergency alerts can be both received and sent over a public network 112: "the emergency alert can be received at the second emergency alert system 190 via the public network 112, for instance, from a web browser or web server application operating at a user computing device 168" and "the second emergency alert system 190 can send a unicast message including the emergency alert to the multicast alert server 182 over the public network 112." McClenny i-f 34. McClenny also teaches that public network 112 can be the Internet. McClenny i-f 13. Appellant has not persuasively shown any error in combining such teachings from McClenny with Shin and Sennett. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 16. 7 Appeal2014-007988 Application 13/537,265 DECISION For the reasons above, we affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-2 0. TIME TO RESPOND No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. Â§ 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. Â§ 41.50(Â±). AFFIRMED 8