Ex Parte Chen et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 9, 201613396347 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 9, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/396,347 02/14/2012 77399 7590 11/14/2016 Leydig, Voit & Mayer, Ltd (for Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd) Two Prudential Plaza Suite 4900 180 North Stetson Avenue Chicago, IL 60601 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Liangde CHEN 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. HW709841 8383 EXAMINER MOOR THY, ARA VIND K ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2492 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/14/2016 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): Chgpatent@leydig.com uspatent@huawei.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte LIANGDE CHEN, CHUNMAO LI, JIAN YU, and XIUHUA LIU Appeal2015-007826 Application 13/396,34 7 Technology Center 2400 Before JOHNNY A. KUMAR, JOHN P. PINKERTON, and TERRENCE W. McMILLIN, Administrative Patent Judges KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 11 and 12. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Appeal2015-007826 Application 13/396,347 Exemplary Claim 11. A method for managing permission information, in a file encryption system, the method executed by a server, and the permission information includes information for restricting usage of an electronic file, the method comprising: receiving an identifier of an electronic file and an encrypted first permission information of the electronic file from a client device; searching for a second permission information of the electronic file according to the identifier; determining that no second permission information of the electronic file is found; decrypting, based upon the determining, the first permission information of the electronic file received from the client device; and sending the decrypted first permission information to the client device. Rejection Claims 11 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Dossett (US 2009/0249060 Al, Oct. 1, 2009) and Beedubail (US 2007/0100830 Al, May 3, 2007). ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants' contentions that the Examiner has erred. Further, we have reviewed the Examiner's response to Appellants' arguments. We adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer (Ans. 2-3) in response to Appellants' Appeal Brief. 2 Appeal2015-007826 Application 13/396,347 The dispositive issue on appeal is whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Dossett and Beedubail teaches or suggests "receiving an identifier of an electronic file and an encrypted first permission information of the electronic file from a client device; searching for a second permission information of the electronic file according to the identifier," as recited in independent claim 11. Appellants contend: Beedubail is silent with regard to explicitly or implicitly referring to the data processing system as a server-client architecture. Thus, since there is only one device disclosed in Beedubail, the ACLid, which is relied upon by the Examiner to teach the identifier of an electronic file in claim 11, cannot possibly be received from another device, e.g., a client device, as required by claim 11. Furthermore, the identifier as recited in claim 11 is an identifier of an electronic file, not an identifier of the permission information of the electronic file. The Examiner seems to equate the electronic file in claim 11 to resources (e.g., data, files, or objects) in Beedubail and the permission information in claim 11 to ACL in Beedubail. See final Office action, page 3, paragraph 11. However, the Examiner relies on the ACLid, which is an identifier of the ACL - not an identifier of the resources - in order to teach the identifier of the electronic file in claim 11. Thus, the ACLid at most can be treated as an identifier of the permission information; however, this is different than the identifier of the electronic file, as disclosed in claim 11, because permission information is not the electronic file but rather information regarding who may access the electronic file. App. Br. 3--4. 3 Appeal2015-007826 Application 13/396,347 The Examiner finds, and we agree, the disputed feature of claim 11 is met by the combination of Dossett and Beedubail because Dossett teaches that a file can include a file ID [as shown in figure 3 and described in paragraph 0031]. Beedubail teaches that the resource can include a resource identifier [0028]. Beedubail teaches searching for a second permission information of the electronic file (i.e. for each child resource, a determination is first made as to whether the ACL map table includes an entry that indicates the current ACL of the child resource maps to a previously computed ACL) [0027]. The combination of the Dossett and Beedubail reference teaches that the server receives an identifier of the electronic file and searches for a second permission information of the electronic file according to the identifier. Ans. 2-3. We disagree with Appellants (App. Br. 4--5) that the Examiner has not articulated how the claimed features are met by the references' teachings with some rational underpinning to combine Dossett and Beedubail. We specifically agree vvith the Examiner's determination that: Beedubail teaches determining that no second permission information of the electronic file is found (i.e. a determination is made that no new ACL exists) [0027]. Dossett teaches the feature of decrypting the first permission information of the electronic file received from the client device (i.e. the DRM server decrypts the security role issuance) [0052]. The examiner asserts that the combination of both the Dossett and the Beedubail reference teach the features of "determining that no second permission information of the electronic file is found; decrypting, based upon the determining, the first permission of the electronic file received from the client device" as recited in claims 11 and 12. Ans. 3. See KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). 4 Appeal2015-007826 Application 13/396,347 Thus, Appellants have not shown error in the Examiner's rejections of claim 11, as well as claim 12 not argued separately. DECISION The Examiner's rejections of claims 11 and 12 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)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation