Ex Parte Billau et al

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardMar 26, 2019

15465756 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Mar. 26, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 15/465,756 03/22/2017 54640 7590 03/28/2019 PERRY+ CURRIER INC. 1300 YONGE STREET SUITE 500 TORONTO, ON M4T-1X3 CANADA FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Ronald L. Billau 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. P8375US02 8442 EXAMINER SPRINGER, JAMES E ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2454 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/28/2019 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): docketing@pckip.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte RONALD L. BILLAU, VINCENZO V. DI LUOFFO, DAN P. DUMAROT, MATTHEW J. PASCHAL, BRANDON W. SCHULZ, and JAMES E. WOODBURY Appeal2018-007156 Application 15/465,756 Technology Center 2400 Before JOHNNY A. KUMAR, JOHN A. EVANS, and JOHN P. PINKERTON, Administrative Patent Judges. KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2018-007156 Application 15/465,756 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellants 1 appeal 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. Illustrative Claim Illustrative claim 1 under appeal reads as follows: 1. A surveillance video broker for managing access to surveillance video by multiple clients, comprising: at least one processor; a memory; at least one network adapter for communicating with a plurality of surveillance domains and a plurality of clients over at least one network; a video access controller embodied as a plurality of instructions recordable in said memory and executable on said at least one processor, said video access controller including: a registration function for independently registering a plurality of surveillance domains and a plurality of clients, each surveillance domain producing at least one respective surveillance video stream, each surveillance domain comprising a respective set of one or more video cameras operated by a respective operating entity common to all video cameras of the respective set, wherein at least some of the video surveillance domains are operated by different respective operating entities; a surveillance video access authorization function which, responsive to a request from a client registered by said registration function to access in real time surveillance video produced by a target surveillance domain of said plurality of surveillance domains, causes at least one surveillance video authorization record corresponding to the target surveillance domain to be accessed to determine whether real-time access to the target surveillance domain's surveillance 1 Appellants identify International Business Machines Corporation as the real party in interest (Br. 2). 2 Appeal 2018-007156 Application 15/465,756 video is authorized, and if real-time access to the target surveillance domain's surveillance video is authorized, automatically grants real-time access to the requested surveillance video; wherein at least one surveillance video authorization record specifies conditional authorization based on a respective at least one specified condition, said surveillance video access authorization function automatically determining whether the at least one specified condition is satisfied to determine whether real-time access to the corresponding target surveillance domain's surveillance video is authorized; wherein each surveillance domain registered by said registration function independently defines a respective set of clients authorized to access surveillance video produced by the respective surveillance domain in at least one corresponding surveillance video authorization record, each surveillance video authorization record corresponding to a single respective surveillance domain of said plurality of surveillance domains, each surveillance video authorization record granting real-time surveillance video access to one or more respective clients independently of association of the one or more respective clients with the respective operating entity of the corresponding surveillance domain and independently of whether the one or more clients have been granted access to one or more other surveillance domains, wherein a first client is granted real-time access to surveillance video produced by a first set of video surveillance domains containing multiple video surveillance domains but fewer than all of said plurality of video surveillance domains by respective one or more surveillance video authorization records corresponding to each surveillance domain of the first set, and wherein a second client is granted real-time access to surveillance video produced by a second set of surveillance domains containing some but not all of the surveillance video sources to which the first client has access by respective one or more surveillance video authorization records corresponding to each surveillance domain of the second set. 3 Appeal 2018-007156 Application 15/465,756 Rejections on Appeal Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1 and 2 of U.S. Patent No. 9,681,104. 2 Claims 1--4, 6, 10-12, and 14 is/are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. Â§ I03(a) as being unpatentable over Grass (US 2011/0058034 Al; published Mar. 10, 2011), in view of Banet et al. (EP 1 401 205 Al; published Mar. 24, 2004), hereafter "Banet," and further in view of Smarr et al. (US 2012/0110096 Al; published May 3, 2012), hereinafter "Smarr." Claims 5, 9, and 13 are rejected as being unpatentable over Grass, in view of Banet, further in view of Smarr, and further in view of Morris et al. (US 8,305,211 Bl; issued Nov. 6, 2012), hereinafter "Morris." Claims 7, 8, 15, and 16 are rejected as being unpatentable over Grass, in view of Banet, further in view of Smarr, and further in view of Su et al. (US 2007/0223424 Al; published Sept. 27, 2007), hereinafter "Su." Claims 17-20 are rejected as being unpatentable over Grass, in view of Banet, further in view of Smarr, and further in view of Naidoo et al. (US 2003/0062997 Al; published Apr. 3, 2003), hereinafter Naidoo. Appellants ' Contentions 1. Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103 because none of the cited references discloses or suggests key claim limitations, specifically that authorization records independently 2 Arguments are not presented for the nontatutory double patenting rejection. Therefore, we affirm the Examiner's rejection proforma. Except for our ultimate decision, this rejection of these claims is not discussed further herein. 4 Appeal 2018-007156 Application 15/465,756 authorize real-time access to surveillance video, without regard to client affiliations with the operator of the surveillance domain or the authorizations granted to other clients. Br. 12 ( emphasis omitted). Neither Smarr nor Grass nor Banet discloses or suggests video surveillance authorization records which independently authorize real-time surveillance video access as claimed by Appellant[s], Smarr relates to the use of social media, and does not disclose or suggest anything with respect to the authorization to access surveillance video in real time . ... Smarr's disclosure relates entirely to the use of social media, and Smarr's authorization is an authorization by social media friends to access specified social media content. There is no disclosure or suggestion in Smarr that this social media content might include real-time surveillance video. Br. 16-19. 2. Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 9, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103 because the cited references do not disclose or suggest notification records specifying clients to be notified of events occurring in a surveillance domain, the notifications being independent of authorization to access surveillance video of the domain. Naidoo does not disclose or suggest the operative claim limitation because, although notification of an alarm condition is disclosed, this notification is not independent of access to the surveillance video. Morris discloses that certain trigger situations may cause a "peering invitation" to be issued, to allow sharing of resources. The Examiner apparently considers the "peering invitation" to be an alert notification, but this notification is not independent of access to surveillance video, and therefore fails to meet the limitations of the claim. Br. 19--22 ( emphasis omitted). 5 Appeal 2018-007156 Application 15/465,756 Issue on Appeal Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1-20 as being obvious? ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants' arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants' conclusions. Except as noted herein, we adopt as our own: (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which the appeal is taken (Final Act. 4--25); and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer (Ans. 2-10) in response to the Appellants' Appeal Brief. We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the following. As to Appellants' above contention 1, Appellants' arguments are unpersuasive because they are not directed to the Examiner's specific determination. See Final Act. 4--10. Instead, Appellants attack the references individually for lacking a teaching for which the Examiner relied on a combination of references to show. It is well established that one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413,426 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). The effect of Appellants' arguments is to raise and then knock down a straw man rejection of claim 1 that was never made by the Examiner, in that the Examiner did not rely solely on the one reference as argued. In other words, Appellants argue against purported findings of the Examiner that were never made. This form of argument is inherently 6 Appeal 2018-007156 Application 15/465,756 unpersuasive to show Examiner error. Our reviewing court requires that references must be read, not in isolation, but for what they fairly teach in combination with the prior art as a whole. Merck, 800 F .2d at 1097. The Examiner finds, and we agree, It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to implement the content authorization technique of Smarr within the Grass-Banet system in order to control access to video surveillance domains with predictable results. One would be motivated to make the combination in order provide the end user the benefit of greater control over who has access to his video surveillance content. It would have been readily apparent that this technique could be applicable to any type of content, including video surveillance data, as all such content poses the same privacy concerns so the problem to be solved is identical. A high likelihood of success is anticipated because the Smarr system is already adapted to provide selective access to personal surveillance data e.g. GPS location. See Smarr, 666 of FIG. 6B, par O 117. One would further be motivated to make the combination in view of the suggestion in Grass-Banet that end users' may be given additional control over who has access to surveillance data besides group membership. See Grass, par 0038 [ Other rules that may be applied by the video surveillance service center to the access of video surveillance information are, for example ... access permission control to individual video surveillance information.]. Accordingly, it would have been readily apparent that the advanced access permission control techniques of Smarr could have readily been implemented within the Grass-Banet system. Final Act. 10. The Examiner also finds, and we agree, Grass teaches "surveillance video authorization records granting access independently of association [with] the operating entity" (Ans. 3, citing Grass ,r,r 38, 39); and Smarr teaches "techniques for sharing content, including video content, in a social media setting and explicitly discloses that access to different content may be 7 Appeal 2018-007156 Application 15/465,756 authorized to individuals as well as groups." (Ans. 4, citing Smarr, ,r,r 38, 155, and 156). As to Appellants' contention 2 regarding claims 9, 19, and 20 (Br. 19-- 22), the Examiner has rebutted each of Appellants' arguments with reasoning supported by sufficient evidence. (Ans. 8-10). Therefore, we adopt the Examiner's findings and underlying reasoning, which are incorporated herein by reference. We see no error in these unrebutted findings. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's Â§ 103 rejection of claims claims 1, 9, and 19, as well as the remaining claims not separately argued. We observe no Reply Brief is of record to rebut the Examiner's findings and responses to Appellants' arguments about the disputed features. Therefore, in the absence of persuasive rebuttal evidence or argument to persuade us otherwise, we adopt the Examiner's findings and underlying reasoning, which are incorporated herein by reference. Consequently, we sustain the rejection of claims 1-20. DECISION We affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-20 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a). We summarily affirm the Examiner's provisional rejection of claims 1-20 on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting. 8 Appeal 2018-007156 Application 15/465,756 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)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 9