Ex Parte Blaukopf et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 22, 201310303805 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 22, 2013) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte DANIEL BLAUKOPF and DOV ZANDMAN ____________ Appeal 2010-010624 Application 10/303,805 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, and JEFFERY S. SMITH, Administrative Patent Judges. MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2010-010624 Application 10/303,805 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1-11, 13, 15-22, 30-39, 44-51, 53-61, 65, 66, and 71-78 . We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. THE INVENTION Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a mediator which translates encoded messages from a client into standard web service request formats. A code generator is provided to automatically create optimized and specialized client and server code using templates, in which the code is optimized according to the characteristics of the client and the specified services. Abstract. Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A method of client/server communication comprising the steps of: identifying characteristics of a client and a service to be obtained for said client from an application server, said client being a thin client operating in a first platform independent environment, said application server operating in a second platform-independent environment; responsively to said characteristics and said service, and external to said client: automatically compiling a client program for said client from a platform independent source code, automatically defining a first message format that is optimized according to said characteristics and said service, and Appeal 2010-010624 Application 10/303,805 3 automatically generating a mediator program, said mediator program being adapted to process messages encoded in said first message format; sending said client program to said client; wherein said client program enables said client to generate a request for said service and encode said request according to said first message format to define an encoded message; receiving said encoded message from said client at a mediator server (20) disposed external to said client; executing said mediator program in said mediator server (20) to re- encode said encoded message into a second message format that is acceptable to said application server to define a re-encoded message, wherein a size of said re-encoded message exceeds a size of said encoded message; and transmitting said re-encoded message to a provider of said service, wherein said client program is compiled from a predefined template and wherein said mediator program is generated responsively to said template. REFERENCES and REJECTIONS 1. The Examiner rejected claims 1-3, 8, 9, 20, 30, 31, 36, 38, 49, 53, 54, 59, 65, and 76 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Jing et al., Client-Server Computing in Mobile Environments, ACM Computing Surveys, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 117-157 (1999) hereinafter “Jing,” and further in view of Taylor (US 2003/0093551 A1; published May 15, 2003), and Chidambaran (US 6,327,606 B1; issued Dec. 4, 2001). Appeal 2010-010624 Application 10/303,805 4 2. The Examiner rejected claims 7, 15, 22, 35, 44, 51, 58, 71, and 78 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Jing, Taylor, Chidambaran as applied to claims 1, 8, 30, 36, 53, and 59 above, and further in view of Edgar (US 2002/0087729 A1; published Jul. 4, 2002). 3. The Examiner rejected claims 4-6, 10, 19, 32-34, 39, 48, 55-57, 66, and 75 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Jing, Taylor, Chidambaran as applied to claims 1, 8, 24, 30, 36, 53, and 59 above, and further in view of Shakib (US 6,321,274 B1; issued Nov. 20, 2001). 4. The Examiner rejected claims 11, 13, and 61 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Jing, Taylor, Chidambaran as applied to claims 8 and 59 above, and further in view of Brassard (US 6,742,175 B1; issued May 25, 2004). 5. The Examiner rejected claims 16 and 45 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Jing, Taylor, Chidambaran as applied to claims 8 and 36 above, and further in view of Karakashian (US 2004/0064503 A1; published Apr. 1, 2004). 6. The Examiner rejected claims 17, 18, 46, 47, 73, and 74 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Jing, Taylor, Chidambaran as applied to claims 8, 36, and 59 above, and further in view of Hattori (US 2003/0009539 A1; published Jan. 9, 2003). 7. The Examiner rejected claims 21, 37, 50, 60, 72, and 77 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Jing, Taylor, Chidambaran as applied to claims 8, 36, and 59 above, and further in view of Applicant admitted prior art. Appeal 2010-010624 Application 10/303,805 5 ISSUE The issue is whether the Examiner erred in finding that the combination of Jing, Taylor, and Chidambaran teaches the limitations of: (i) automatically defining a first message format that is optimized according to said characteristics and said service; … (ii) receiving said encoded message from said client at a mediator server (20) disposed external to said client; [and] … (iii) executing said mediator program in said mediator server (20) to re-encode said encoded message into a second message format that is acceptable to said application server to define a re-encoded message, wherein a size of said re-encoded message exceeds a size of said encoded message; and transmitting said re-encoded message to a provider of said service as recited in claim 1. (Emphasis added). ANALYSIS Appellants argue that Jing does not teach the limitations of: (i) automatically defining a first message format that is optimized according to said characteristics and said service; … (ii) receiving said encoded message from said client at a mediator server (20) disposed external to said client; [and] … (iii) executing said mediator program in said mediator server (20) to re-encode said encoded message into a second message format that is acceptable to said application server to define a re-encoded message, wherein a size of said re-encoded message exceeds a size of said encoded message; and transmitting said re-encoded message to a provider of said service as recited in claim 1. (Emphasis added). Appeal 2010-010624 Application 10/303,805 6 Appellants specifically argue that Jing’s section 3.1, contrary to Examiner’s finding that it teaches feature (i) of claim 1, does not relate to defining an optimized message format, but rather relates to optimization of applications for use on a portable information appliance (Br. 10). We do not agree. The Examiner found (Ans. 19) that Jing discloses creating messages using “CSI/SSI protocols [which] facilitate highly effective data reduction and protocol optimization.” § 2.1.2, pg. 123. Jing also teaches that by creating messages using this format, traffic volume and latency are reduced (§ 2.1.2, pg. 122; Ans. 19). The Examiner found (Ans. 18), and we agree, that Jing teaches a filtering process wherein proxies automatically translate to and from a compact subset of HTML based on negotiated device capabilities (§ 2.2.3, p. 128). In other words, the translation process depends on the device capabilities, and the protocols (i.e., what is translated) are customized based on the device capabilities (Ans. 18). This is consistent with Appellants’ Specification which describes optimizing an existing message format based on the device characteristics (Ans. 18, Spec., ¶ [0075]). Thus, we find no error in the Examiner’s finding that Jing teaches feature (i) of claim 1. Appellants further argue that Jing’s section 2.1.2, contrary to the Examiner’s finding that it teaches feature (ii) of claim 1, does not relate to a mediator server, but rather relates to communications between a client side intercept and a server side intercept, each of which is separately disposed from a respective client and server (Br. 10). We do not agree with Appellants’ argument. The feature (ii) of claim 1 requires “receiving said encoded message from said client at a mediator Appeal 2010-010624 Application 10/303,805 7 server (20) disposed external to said client” (emphasis added). We agree with the Examiner that the Server Side Intercept (i.e., mediator server) is disposed external to the client (see Fig. 4, p. 123). Thus, we find no error with the Examiner’s finding that Jing teaches feature (ii) of claim 1. Appellants also argue that Jing’s section 2.1.2, contrary to Examiner’s assertion that it teaches feature (iii), is related to communications in the opposite direction (i.e., from a server intermediary to a client intermediary) (Br. 10). We do not agree with Appellants’ arguments. Jing teaches that the Server Side Intercept (SSI) “reconstitutes the HTML data stream and forwards it to the designated CSI Web server (or proxy server)” (p. 123 (emphasis added in original), Ans. 20). As seen in Figure 4, the Web server (or proxy server) is not at the client location (Fig. 4, p. 123, Ans. 20). Accordingly, we find no error with the Examiner’s finding that Jing teaches feature (iii) of claim 1. Appellants further argue with respect to claim 36 that the Examiner’s rejection failed to show that the cited prior art teaches the limitation of “responsively to said characteristics and said services, automatically generating a mediator program for installation in a computing device external to said client, said mediator program accepting input from said client to said first protocol and being further adapted to reformulate said first messages as second messages according to a second protocol” (Br. 13). We do not agree. Jing teaches a mediator program residing on a device external to a client that accepts input from the client to a first protocol and being further adapted to reformulate the first messages as second messages according to a second protocol (see SSI, p. 123, Ans. 21). Jing Appeal 2010-010624 Application 10/303,805 8 further teaches optimizing applications based on the characteristics of a client (§ 3.1, p. 129, Ans. 21). The Examiner relied on Taylor for teaching automatically generating a mediator program (Fig. 2, ¶¶[0094]-[0097], Ans. 21). We note that Appellants did not file a Reply Brief disputing these findings. Accordingly, we affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1 and 36, and for the same reasons the rejections of claims 2-3, 8, 9, 20, 30, 31, 38, 49, 53, 54, 59, 65, and 76. We note that Appellants’ arguments (Br. 11-17) merely repeating the language of the claims and asserting without further argument that the references do not teach the claimed features are not considered separate arguments for patentability. See In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011). Accordingly, we also affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 4-7, 10, 11, 13, 15-19, 21, 22, 32-35, 37, 39, 44-48, 50- 51, 55-58, 60-61, 66, and 71-75, and 77-78. CONCLUSION The Examiner did not err in finding that the combination of Jing, Taylor, and Chidambaran teaches the limitations of: (i) automatically defining a first message format that is optimized according to said characteristics and said service; … (ii) receiving said encoded message from said client at a mediator server (20) disposed external to said client; [and] … (iii) executing said mediator program in said mediator server (20) to re-encode said encoded message into a second message format that is acceptable to said application server to define a re-encoded message, wherein a size of said re-encoded message exceeds a size of said encoded message; and transmitting said re-encoded message to a provider of said service Appeal 2010-010624 Application 10/303,805 9 as recited in claim 1. (Emphasis added). DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-11, 13, 15-22, 30-39, 44- 51, 53-61, 65, 66, and 71-78 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 rwk Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation