Ex Parte Chen et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 9, 2016

13396347 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 9, 2016)

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.
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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.
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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).
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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
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