Ex Parte Cai et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 13, 201712171629 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 13, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 12/171,629 07/11/2008 Yigang Cai LUTZ 2 00590 3290 48116 7590 03/15/2017 FAY STTARPF/T TTf’F.NT EXAMINER 1228 Euclid Avenue, 5th Floor BIBBEE, CHAYCE R The Halle Building Cleveland, OH 44115-1843 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2624 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/15/2017 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): docketing @ faysharpe.com ipsnarocp @ nokia. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte YIGANG CAI and ALOK SHARMA Appeal 2015-001791 Application 12/171,629 Technology Center 2600 Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, NABEEL U. KHAN, and AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges. THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—20, all the pending claims in the present application. See Claim Appendix. We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM-IN-PART. The present invention relates generally to providing short message service (SMS) delivery to recipients migrated across different technology networks. See Abstract. Appeal 2015-001791 Application 12/171,629 Claim 1 is illustrative: 1. A method comprising: receiving a short message service (SMS) text message from a sender at a short message service center (SMSC), wherein the SMS text message includes a destination number for a recipient of the SMS text message; sending a first routing request to a database in a first network for SMS routing information for the destination number via a first signal transfer point (STP); receiving from the first STP a message indicating whether the destination number is a migrated or a non-migrated destination number based on data received from the first database; receiving an error indication at the SMSC if the destination number and the first routing request are for different communication networks; and sending a second routing request to a second database in a second network for SMS routing information for the destination number via a second STP. Appellants appeal the following rejections: Rl. Claims 1—5, 9-12, and 15—18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Smith (US 7,013,156 B2, Mar. 14, 2006) and Calatrava-Requena (US 6,748,229 Bl, June 8, 2004); R2. Claims 6, 8, 13, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Smith, Calatrava-Requena, and Rekieta (US 6,098,076, Aug. 1, 2000); and R3. Claims 7, 14, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Smith, Calatrava-Requena, Rekieta, and Fridman (US 2008/0130663 Al, June 5, 2008). 2 Appeal 2015-001791 Application 12/171,629 ANALYSIS Claims 1, 3—5, 9, 11, 12, 15, 17, and 18 Issue 1: Did the Examiner err in finding that Smith and Calatrava- Requena collectively teach or suggest a message indicating whether the destination number is a migrated or a non-migrated destination number, as set forth in claim 1? Appellants contend that “Smith does not disclose the claimed message indicating whether the destination number is a migrated or non-migrated destination number based on data received from the first database” (App. Br. 10). Appellants further contend that “Smith contains no specific disclosure of number portability (or migration) anywhere. Smith simply mentions the scenarios of inter-technology roaming between two different types of networks” (App. Br. 11). In response, the Examiner finds that in Smith “upon receipt of an SRI from an ITU GSM carrier, the Virtual Carrier Network’s HLR . . . responds with an SRI ACK or appropriate error message depending upon whether the message is deliverable or not, thus receiving a message indicating whether the destination number is migrated or non-migrated” (Ans. 10). We agree with the Examiner. Specifically, Smith discloses “a model to receive SMS messages from a GSM network by an Intermediary for further transmission to ANSI carriers . . . If the intended recipient is serviced by an ANSI carrier, this SRI call usually fails because of incompatibility of GSM and ANSI SS7 networks” (Smith 3:38—50). In other words, Smith discloses that usually if the SMS message attempts inter-technology roaming (i.e., from one network to a different network) a failure message generally follows. The Examiner finds, 3 Appeal 2015-001791 Application 12/171,629 and we agree, that Smith’s failure awareness reasonably indicates whether the destination number is migrated or non-migrated. Consistent with Appellants’ Specification, Smith teaches a failure when a destination number is ported into a different network, indicating a migration of the destination number (see Spec. 138). Thus, we find unavailing Appellants’ contention that “Smith does not disclose the claimed message indicating whether the destination number is a migrated or non-migrated destination number based on data received from the first database” (see App. Br. 10), given the aforementioned consistent disclosures in Smith and Appellants’ Specification. Appellants further contend that “in Calatrava-Requena, routing information is obtained by the IMSC through the HLR — not the second STP” (App. Br. 12). Here, the Examiner “is interpreting the SMS-GMSC as disclosed in col. 12 lines 39-44 of Calatrava-Requena as a first STP . . . thus [] the [ISMC] can read upon a second STP” (Ans. 10). We agree with the Examiner. Although Appellants’ contention highlights that Calatrava-Requena’s “routing information is obtained by the [ISMC] through the HLR” (see App. Br. 12), we point out that claim 1 recites, inter alia, “sending a second routing request to a second database in a second network ... via a second STP” (see claim 1). In other words, Appellants appear to be arguing the “receipt” of routing information at the ISMC (i.e., STP) as opposed to the sending of a routing request via a second STP, as required by claim 1. For at least this reason, we find Appellants’ contention unavailing, because 4 Appeal 2015-001791 Application 12/171,629 Appellants fail to rebut why Calatrava-Requena’s ISMC is not a second STP that sends a routing request, as proffered by the Examiner. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. Appellants’ arguments regarding the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 9 and 15 rely on the same arguments as for claim 1, and Appellants do not argue separate patentability for dependent claims 3—5, 11, 12, 17, and 18. See App. Br. 9-13. We, therefore, also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 3—5, 9, 11, 12, 15, 17, and 18. Claims 2, 10, and 16 Issue 2: Did the Examiner err in finding that Calatrava-Requena teaches updating at least one destination number migration record in the first database, as set forth in claim 2? Appellants contend that “Calatrava-Requena stores the subscriber’s roaming record on a transient basis ... As soon as subscriber moves . . . roaming record entry is deleted from the database. . . . On the other hand, claim 2 recites . . . the destination number migration record is maintained on a permanent basis” (App. Br. 14). First, we note, as a matter of claim construction, claim 2 does not necessarily require maintaining the destination number migration record on a permanent basis, as argued by Appellants. Instead, claim 2 merely requires, inter alia, updating at least one destination number migration record in the first database via the SMSC (see claim 2). We find that even if Calatrava-Requena maintains the subscriber’s roaming record on a transient basis, as argued by Appellants, such a transient update still reads on the claimed “updating at least one destination number migration record . . . ,” as set forth in claim 2. Thus, 5 Appeal 2015-001791 Application 12/171,629 Appellants’ aforementioned contention relating to permanency is not commensurate with the scope of claim 2. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 2. Appellants’ arguments regarding the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 10 and 16 rely on the same arguments as for claim 2. See App. Br. 13—14. We, therefore, also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 10 and 16. Claims 6—8, 13, 14, 19, and 20 Issue 3: Did the Examiner err in finding that Rekieta teaches or suggests redefining the destination number range . . . when more than a predefined number of subscribers . . . have migrated to a different network, as set forth in claim 6? Appellants contend that “[wjhile Rekieta uses the terms ‘migration of information’ and ‘range of PSNs,’ [Ajppellants could find no specific disclosure in Rekieta of SMS management of migration number ranges,” as set forth in claim 6 (App. Br. 19). Although the Examiner finds that Rekieta “discloses adding a new SCP pair and then migrating information from one SCP pair to another, thus by adding a new pair the ranges are being redefined” (Ans. 12), we find that the Examiner fails to explain how Rekieta’s adding of a Service control Point (SCP) pair is equivalent to looking at when more than a pre-defined number of subscribers in a destination number range have migrated to a different network, as required by claim 6. Thus, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner has not shown the specifics of claim 6 in Rekieta (nor in any of the other cited prior art). 6 Appeal 2015-001791 Application 12/171,629 In view of the above discussion, we are of the opinion that the proposed combination of references set forth by the Examiner does not support the obviousness rejection of representative independent claim 6. We, accordingly, do not sustain the rejection of independent claims 6, 13, and 19, or the rejection of claims 7, 8, 14, and 20 which are dependent thereon. DECISION We reverse the § 103(a) rejections of claims 6—8, 13, 14, 19, and 20. We affirm the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection of claims 1—5, 9—12, and 15-18. 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-IN-PART 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation