Ex Parte Chaudhry

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 13, 2016

11960547 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 13, 2016)

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. 11/960,547 12/19/2007 Kapil Chaudhry PD-207122 4694 20991 7590 04/13/2016 THE DIRECTV GROUP, INC. PATENT DOCKET ADMINISTRATION CA / LA1 / A109 2230 E. IMPERIAL HIGHWAY EL SEGUNDO, CA 90245 EXAMINER FLYNN, NATHAN J ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2421 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/13/2016 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte KAPIL CHAUDHRY1 ____________ Appeal 2014-006283 Application 11/960,547 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before KRISTEN L. DROESCH, TERRENCE W. McMILLIN, and MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges. McMILLIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is a decision2 on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1, 4, 6–10, 15–18, 21, and 23–26, which are all the pending claims. App. Br. 2. Claims 2, 3, 5, 11–14, 19, 20, and 22 are cancelled. Id. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is The DIRECTV Group, Inc. App. Br. 2. 2 Our decision refers to the Final Office Action mailed August 12, 2013 (“Final Act.”); Appellant’s Appeal Brief filed January 13, 2014 (“App. Br.”); the Examiner’s Answer mailed March 5, 2014 (“Ans.”); Appellant’s Reply Brief filed May 5, 2014 (“Reply Br.”); and the Specification filed December 19, 2007 (“Spec.”). Appeal 2014-006283 Application 11/960,547 2 REJECTIONS ON APPEAL Claims 1, 4, 6, 9, 10, 17, 18, 21, 23, and 26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Yampanis (US 2008/0178239 A1; published July 24, 2008) (“Yampanis”) and Tsutsui et al. (US 2007/0186254 A1; published Aug. 9, 2007) (“Tsutsui”). Final Act. 3. Claims 7, 8, 15, 16, 24, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Yampanis, Tsutsui, and O’Neil (US 2009/0113489 A1; published Apr. 30, 2009) (“O’Neil”). Final Act. 13. THE CLAIMED INVENTION According to Appellant, “[t]he present disclosure relates generally to communication systems having a primary service provider, a user network device and an intermediate web provider, and more particularly, to a method and system for communicating a content list and content to the user network device.” Spec. ¶ 1. Independent claims 1 and 10 are directed to methods and independent claim 18 is directed to a system. App. Br. 19, 21, and 23. Claim 1 recites: A method comprising: communicating user identifier data for a user network device to an intermediate web provider from the user network device; communicating the user identifier data from the intermediate web provider to a primary service provider; authenticating the user network device using the user identifier data at the primary service provider; providing content clips to the intermediate web provider from a primary service provider; storing the content clips at the intermediate web provider; Appeal 2014-006283 Application 11/960,547 3 forming a content list corresponding to the content clips stored at the intermediate web provider; communicating the content list to the user network device from the intermediate web provider; forming a selection from the content list at the user network device; communicating the selection to the intermediate web provider from the user network device; communicating a first content clip from the content clips corresponding to the selection from the intermediate web provider to the user network device; and displaying the first content clip on a display of the user network device. App. Br. 19. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the rejections of claims 1, 4, 6–10, 15–18, 21, and 23–26 in light of Appellant’s arguments presented in the Appeal Brief and the Reply Brief. We are not persuaded that Appellant identifies reversible error. We agree with and adopt the Examiner’s findings, reasoning, and conclusions as set forth in Final Office Action (Final Act. 2–11) and the Examiner’s Answer (Ans. 2–4). We highlight the following for emphasis. Claim 1 Appellant argues that Tsutsui fails to teach or suggest (1) the intermediate web provider receiving and storing content clips; and (2) the primary web provider providing the content clips to the intermediate web provider. App. Br. 11; Reply Br. 2. This argument is misdirected. The Examiner relies on Yampanis for disclosing these limitations. Ans. 3 Appeal 2014-006283 Application 11/960,547 4 (“Yampanis is relied upon to disclose a client facing tier 102 or ‘intermediate web provider’ for receiving and storing television or movie content (reads on content clips) transmitted from the acquisition tier 106 or ‘primary service provider’ (¶¶ 0023 & 0031).”) Id.; see also Final Act. 4. Appellant acknowledges the Examiner relies on Yampanis, not Tsutsui, for these teachings and acknowledges Yampanis provides these teaching in the following passage from the Appeal Brief: The Examiner states that Yampanis discloses “providing content clips (i.e., content acquired by the acquisition tier 106) to the intermediate web provider (102 – fig. 1) from a primary service provider (106 – fig. 1).” See the present [Final] Office Action, p. 4. Thus, the Examiner analogizes: (i) the acquisition tier 106 of Yampanis with the primary service provider of claim 1; and (ii) the client facing tier 102 of Yampanis with the intermediate web provider of claim 1. In this regard, FIG. 1 of Yampanis shows that the acquisition tier 106 (i.e., the alleged primary service provider) includes a video on demand (VOD) import server 158 and that the client facing tier 102 (i.e., the alleged intermediate web provider) includes a VOD server 136. Yampanis states that the “VOD import server 158 receives and stores television or mobile content received at the acquisition tier 106 and communicates the stored content to the VOD server 136 at the client-facing tier 102 via the private network 110.” See Yampanis, paragraph [0031]. App. Br. 9. Yampanis supports the findings of the Examiner and clearly teaches the disputed elements. Appellant’s argument is not persuasive because it fails to address the teachings of the combination of references, Yampanis and Tsutsui.. One cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually when the rejection is based on a combination of references. In re Keller, 642 F.2d Appeal 2014-006283 Application 11/960,547 5 413, 425 (CCPA 1981). Each reference cited by the Examiner must be read, not in isolation, but for what it fairly teaches in combination with the prior art as a whole. See In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F. 2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). We are not persuaded of error in the rejection of claim 1. Claims 4, 6–10, 15–18, 21, and 23–26 Appellant does not present separate arguments in support of any of the other claims. App. Br. 13–17. We sustain the rejection of independent claims 10 and 18 and dependent claims 4, 6–9, 15–17, 21, and 23 –26 for the reasons stated above with regard to independent claim 1. DECISION The rejections of claims 1, 4, 6–10, 15–18, 21, and 23–26 are 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