Ex Parte Cudak et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 28, 2016

13659216 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 28, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/659,216 10/24/2012 56102 7590 03/30/2016 IBM (ROC-KLS) c/o Kennedy Lenart Spraggins LLP 8601 Ranch Road 2222 Ste. 1-225 AUSTIN, TX 78730 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR GARYD.CUDAK 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. RPS920120099US2 2942 EXAMINER A YOTUNDE, AYODEJI 0 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2649 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/30/2016 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): office@klspatents.com kate@klspatents.com hanna@klspatents.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte GARY D. CUDAK, CHRISTOPHER J. HARDEE, RANDALL C. HUMES, and ADAM ROBERTS Appeal2014-006894 Application 13/659,216 Technology Center 2600 Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and JOYCE CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judges. SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1---6, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We affirm. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is International Business Machines Corporation (Br. 1 ). Appeal2014-006894 Application 13/659,216 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellants' invention relates to a system and method for evaluating wireless network access connections via near field communications (Spec. 1: 14--16). Claim 1 is illustrative and reads as follows: 1. A method evaluating wireless network access connections via near field communications, the method compnsmg: identifying, by a requesting device, one or more network connections available to the requesting device; requesting, by the requesting device to one or more responding devices using a near field communications connection, information describing the performance of the network connections experienced by the one or more responding devices; receiving, by the requesting device, the information describing the performance of the network connections experienced by the one or more responding devices; and connecting, by the requesting device, to a preferred network connection in dependence upon the information describing the performance of the network connections experienced by the one or more responding devices. The Examiner's Rejections The Examiner rejected claims 1-5 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 102(b) as being anticipated by Kolehmainen (US 2006/0183462 Al; Aug. 17, 2006) (Final Act. 3-6). The Examiner further added Floros (US 2006/0045050 Al; Mar. 2, 2006) to reject claim 6 as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) (Final Act. 6-7). 2 Appeal2014-006894 Application 13/659,216 Issue on Appeal Appellants' contentions present the following issue: Has the Examiner erred in finding Kolehmainen discloses the steps of requesting and receiving by the requesting device "the information describing the performance of the network connections experienced by the one or more responding devices" and connecting to a preferred network based on that information, as recited in claim 1? ANALYSIS With respect to independent claim 1, Appellants contend the cited portions of Kolehmainen in paragraphs 4 and 23 do not disclose the disputed claimed method steps because "the cited reference does not make any use of information describing the performance of the network connections experienced by the one or more responding devices" (Br. 4). Appellants argue that: Kolemainen's credentials are clearly not information describing the performance of the network connections experienced by a device. Instead, credentials are described by Kolemainen at paragraph 0065 as including "a password, account information, public key certificate, cost limits, a single key challenge- response such as s/key, and the like," none of which represent information describing the performance of the network connections experienced by a device. (Br. 5). Appellants further assert their Specification defines the information describing the requesting device as "information about the requesting device - not information describing the performance of the responding devices" (Br. 6). 3 Appeal2014-006894 Application 13/659,216 In response, the Examiner finds the cited portion of Kolehmainen in paragraph 41 discloses that the performance of the network, which take place through using authorization of computing device as remote access manager 269 for obtaining an appropriate credential and performing other actions such as requesting an account environment, is described to be established at the other computing device (Ans. 3). The Examiner further finds paragraph 23 of Kolehmainen provides for the information describing the performance of the network connection as one or more client applications that are included in the mobile device 104 and are configured to manage the described actions or performance on behalf of the client device or the responding device (Ans. 3--4). We agree with the Examiner's findings and conclusion. We also observe that the broadest reasonable interpretation of the recited "information describing the performance of the network connections experienced by the one or more responding devices'' encompasses the information describing the requesting device. As further found by the Examiner (Ans. 4) and consistent with Appellants' disclosure (see Spec. 7:6-7), Kolehmainen's credentials may include information such as a password, account information, public key certificate, or cost limits (see Kolehmainen i-f 65). These types of credentials are associated with the responding device and may include "information identifying secure network resources that the responding devices is [sic] authorized to access" (Ans. 4 (citing Kolehmainen i-f 67)). Therefore, by identifying the credentials associated with a resource that the responding device is authorized to access, Kolehmainen's requesting device requests, receives, and connect based on 4 Appeal2014-006894 Application 13/659,216 the information describing the network connection performance experienced by the responding device, as required by claim 1. For the above-stated reasons, we are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments that the Examiner erred in finding the disclosure of Kolehmainen teaches the disputed features of claim 1. Accordingly, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. Â§ 102(b) rejection of claim 1, as well as claims 2-5 which are not argued separately (see Br. 3---6). We also sustain the 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) rejection of claim 6, which is argued based on the same reasons presented for claim 1 and the failure of Floros to cure the alleged deficiency of Kolehmainen (see Br. 7). DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1---6 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. Â§ 1.136(a)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 5