Ex Parte Furlong et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 8, 2017

11107957 (P.T.A.B. May. 8, 2017)

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.
11/107,957 04/18/2005 Jeff Furlong ALC 3174 8710
7590 05/09/2017
KRAMER & AMADO, P.C.
Suite 240
1725 Duke Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
EXAMINER
RAVETTI, DANTE
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3685
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/09/2017 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 JEFF FURLONG and ROBERT LAUGHLIN COOKSON
Appeal 2015-003739
Application 11/107,9571
Technology Center 3600
Before HUBERT C. LORIN, ANTON W. FETTING, and
BIBHU R. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judges.
LORIN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Jeff Furlong, et al. (Appellants) seek our review under 35 U.S.C.
§ 134 of the final rejection of claims 1—11. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
SUMMARY OF DECISION
We AFFIRM.
1 The Appellants identify Alcatel Lucent as the real party in interest. App.
Br. 1.
Appeal 2015-003739
Application 11/107,957
THE INVENTION
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on
appeal.
1. At an open media platform (OMP) serving a plurality of subscriber
terminals connected in a broadcast entertainment system, the
broadcast entertainment system being equipped with a license
manager that stores generic broadcast licenses, a method of enabling
fast access of the subscriber terminals to a license-protected broadcast
channel, the method comprising:
maintaining at the OMP, a directory with license information
specific to each subscriber terminal (ST) served by the OMP;
on request from a ST to access the license-protected broadcast
channel, providing the license manager with the license information
for the requesting ST and the license-protected broadcast channel;
determining that the ST is authorized to access the license-
protected broadcast channel and particular content on the license-
protected broadcast channel;
prompting the license manager to generate a personalized
broadcast license based upon the determining step, wherein the
personalized broadcast license is uniquely assigned to the ST and
includes subscription details for the ST;
delivering the personalized broadcast license from the license
manager to the ST before completing a channel tune to the license-
protected broadcast channel;
storing and maintaining the personalized broadcast license at
the ST until license terms change;
requesting, with the ST, repeated access to the license-protected
broadcast channel; and
decoding multimedia content carried on the license-protected
broadcast channel using the personalized broadcast license based upon
the requesting step.
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Appeal 2015-003739
Application 11/107,957
THE REJECTIONS
The following rejections are before us for review:
1. Claims 1—11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, as
failing to comply with the written description requirement.
1. Claims 1—11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Lao (US 2002/0198846 Al, pub. Dec. 26, 2002),
Zigmond (US 2005/0187879 Al, pub. Aug. 25, 2005), and Saito (US
2004/0053051 Al, pub. Mar. 18, 2004).
ISSUES
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1—11 under 35 U.S.C. § 112,
first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description
requirement?
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1—11 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lao, Zigmond, and Saito?
ANALYSIS
The rejection of claims 1—11 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, as
failing to comply with the written description requirement.
The Examiner finds that the Specification fails to provide adequate
written descriptive support for “ ... storing and maintaining the personalize
broadcast license at the ST [subscriber terminal] until license terms change”
(claim 1). Specifically, the Examiner finds that the originally-filed
specification fails to disclose “the ‘changing’ of license terms triggers the
ceasing of ‘storing and maintaining’ of licenses.” Final Act. 5. In reaching
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Application 11/107,957
this conclusion, the Examiner considered paras. 4, 27 and 48 of the
Specification. Final Act. 4—5.
Para. 44 should also have been considered. It explains that whenever
a license information changes and updates should be retrieved, the ST client
notifies the appropriate subscriber devices. “The license manager 5 receives
the clients requests, requests authorization/authentication from OMP 10, and
if the request is valid, generates the appropriate license(s) and sends the
license to the subscriber terminal which has been waiting since it lodged the
request.” Para. 44. Licenses are stored locally in the licenses memory
(element 31 in Fig. 1) of the ST (element 2 in Fig. 1). “Figure 2a shows a
scenario whereby the licenses for broadcast content are created and
distributed on initial registration of a user terminal, or on boot-up. . . . Only
the changes [to lisenses] are distributed to the STs.” Para. 52.
One of ordinary skill would infer from these disclosures that the ST
receives an updated license when changes are authorized/authenticated and
that the updated license will necessarily be stored in the ST’s memory. One
would expect that the new updated license is a replacement for the one
stored and maintained in the ST’s memory. Thus, the Specification does not
fail to provide adequate written descriptive support for “. . . storing and
maintaining the personalized broadcast license at the ST [subscriber
terminal] until license terms change” (claim 1).
The Examiner also takes issue with the claim 4 limitation “extending
repeated availability to a new broadcast channel at the OMP; updating the
directory based upon the extending step.” Final Act. 5. The Examiner finds
the original Specification does not disclose a “nexus” between a “‘new’
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Application 11/107,957
broadcast channel and an act of ‘updating’ a directory.” Final Act. 6. The
Examiner considered para. 47 of the Specification. Final Act. 5.
The Appellants disagree, pointing to “paragraph [0068] of the
published version of the specification, for example, discloses ‘a background
update of the license cache in the OMP directory 17.’” App. Br. 5.
We find that the Appellants have the better argument. The
Specification discloses “some options for caching licenses to address the
scalability impact of re-issuing licenses each time a terminal boots as per the
scenario of Figure 2a [‘a scenario whereby the licenses for broadcast content
are created and distributed on initial registration of a user terminal, or on
boot-up’] (para. 52).” Para. 61. “When new licenses (broadcast, VoD, or
PPV) are delivered to the ST 2, a background update of the flash license
cache is initiated, as shown in step 501.” Para. 61. This is one option, as
shown in Fig. 5a. Another option, “shown in Figure 5b, the licenses are
stored in the file system 55 maintained by the OMP 10, and the OMP is also
provided with a cache 19.” Para. 62. As shown in Fig. 1, the cache in OMP
10 communicates with directory 17 “which maintains subscriber information
with the license information accorded to each subscriber device for which
digital content” (para. 43). Thus, when accessing a new channel with
protected content which requires a new license at the OMP, the directory is
concomitantly updated.
Accordingly, the original Specification does disclose a “nexus”
between a “‘new’ broadcast channel and an act of ‘updating’ a directory,” in
contradiction to the Examiner’s position. For that reason, we find that the
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Application 11/107,957
Examiner’s position is not supported by a preponderance of the evidence and
the rejection is not sustained.
The rejection of claims 1—11 under 35 U.S.C. §103 (a) as being unpatentable
over Lao, Zigmond, and Saito.
The Appellants provide no substantive challenge to this rejection.
Instead, the Appellants level a general criticism that “the Examiner provides
no articulated reasoning regarding any of the references” (App. Br. 7). It is
unfounded.
Each reference is comprehensively analyzed for their scope and
content, findings of fact for which have not been disputed. The differences
between the references and the claimed subject matter have also been
articulated, which is also not disputed. And, finally, the Examiner concludes
therefrom that “it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art
at the time of the invention to modify Lao to include the features of
Zigmond because content may be received by a user in a plurality of
different forms (e.g. broadcast channel)” and “it would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to modify the
combination of Lao/Zigmond to include the features of Saito because
maintaining a proper license aids in ensuring only authorized use.” Final
Act. 8.
We are satisfied that a prima facie case of obviousness has been made
out in the first instance by a preponderance of the evidence.
There being no substantive challenge to it, the rejection is sustained.
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CONCLUSIONS
The rejection of claims 1—11 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph,
as failing to comply with the written description requirement is reversed.
The rejection of claims 1—11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Lao, Zigmond, and Saito is affirmed.
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1—11 is 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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