Ex Parte Hodges et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 31, 2012

10720941 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 31, 2012)

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. 10/720,941 11/24/2003 Donna K. Hodges 030006 5264 38516 7590 01/02/2013 AT&T Legal Department - SZ Attn: Patent Docketing Room 2A-207 One AT&T Way Bedminster, NJ 07921 EXAMINER TIV, BACKHEAN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2451 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/02/2013 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 DONNA K. HODGES, BARRETT MORRIS KREINER, and STEVEN N. TISCHER ____________________ Appeal 2010-006421 Application 10/720,941 Technology Center 2400 ____________________ Before SCOTT R. BOALICK, JEFFREY S. SMITH, and TRENTON A. WARD, Administrative Patent Judges. WARD, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Appeal 2010-006421 Application 10/720,941 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants’ claimed invention involves methods for providing communications services to various client devices. See Spec. ¶ 13. Claim 1 is provided below with certain disputed limitations emphasized: 1. A method of providing communications services, comprising: receiving a first data stream at a computer, the first data stream comprising packets of data packetized according to a packet protocol; recursively segmenting the first data stream into segments, such that a characteristic of a preceding segment determines how a current segment is segmented; dispersing the segments via a network for subsequent processing services; receiving results of the processing services; aggregating the results of the processing services into a second data stream; and communicating the second data stream via the network. THE REJECTION The Examiner rejected claim 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Feig (US Pat. App. Pub. No.: 2006/0041679 A1; Feb. 23, 2006, eff. filed Dec. 15, 2000), Hui (US Pat. App. Pub. No.:2005/0094725 A1; May 5, 2005, filed Nov. 4, 2003), and Chayes (US Pat. App. Pub. No.: 2004/0267686 A1; Dec. 30, 2004, filed Jun. 24, 2003). Ans. 3-9.1 1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to (1) the Appeal Brief (“App. Br.”) filed December 11, 2009, and (2) the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”) mailed January 22, 2010, and (3) the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”) filed March, 19, 2010. Appeal 2010-006421 Application 10/720,941 3 CONTENTIONS The Examiner finds that Feig discloses the recited features of claim 1 except “Feig does not explicitly show receiving results of the subsequent processing service; aggregating the results of the subsequent processing service; and communicating the aggregated results to a client communication device, wherein the aggregated results are formatted according to the segmentation profile,” and “Feig does not explicitly show recursively segmenting the first data stream into segments, such that a characteristic of preceding segment determines how a current segment is segmented.” The Examiner cites Hui and Chayes, in combination with Feig, as teaching these features and concludes that the claim would have been obvious. Ans. 4-5. Appellants argue that “[t]he proposed combination of Feig with Chayes teaches away and cannot support a prima facie case for obviousness” because if Feig is combined with Chayes, “then Feig's principle of operation must be drastically changed.” App. Br. 9. ISSUE Under § 103, has the Examiner erred in rejecting the claims because the combination of Feig and Chayes teaches away from Appellants’ invention? ANALYSIS Appellants argue that the proposed combination of Feig with Chayes teaches away because “[i]f Feig is combined with Chayes, as the Office proposes, then Feig's principle of operation must be drastically changed.” Appeal 2010-006421 Application 10/720,941 4 App. Br. 11 (emphases omitted). We are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s rejection, because we agree with the Examiner that the Appellants attack the references individually, without taking into consideration the teachings of the combinations of references. Ans. 9. “One cannot show non-obviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references.” Ans. 9 (citing In re Keller, 642F. 2d 413 (CCPA 1981) and In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, (Fed. Cir. 1986)). The Examiner relies upon Chayes for its disclosure regarding recursive segmentation, not the entire invention disclosed in Chayes. See e.g., App. Br. 10 (citing portions of Chayes not relied upon by in the Examiner’s rejection). First, Appellants attack the combination relied upon by the Examiner by arguing that “Chayes only teaches receiving ‘news group data’ as ‘matrices and arrays’”; thus, “Feig's principle of operation must be changed to receive a matrix of news group information and to somehow ‘strip’ video frames from the matrix.” App. Br. 10. Despite Appellants’ attempts to limit the disclosure in Chayes to a particular embodiment, Appellants’ concede that Chayes discloses that “the newsgroup data can be ‘formatted in any suitable manner.’” App. Br. 10 (quoting Chayes, ¶ 44). In fact, Chayes discloses that the “data reception component 52 can receive newsgroup [data] formatted in any suitable manner (e.g., data contained in matrices, vectors, XML data, . . . ).” Chayes, ¶ 44. As Chayes discloses many data formats, Appellants’ arguments that “impressible changes” would be required of Feig are unpersuasive. Second, Appellants argue that the principle of operation of Feig must be impermissibly changed to generate a ‘weighted graph’ from video frames Appeal 2010-006421 Application 10/720,941 5 stripped from a multimedia file, because Chayes teaches a “weighted graph.” App. Br. 11. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument because the Examiner does not rely upon the “weighted graph” disclosed in Chayes. Instead, the Examiner relies upon Chayes for its disclosure regarding recursively segmenting data, “such that a characteristic of preceding segment determines how a current segment is segmented.” Ans. 10. A reference “teaches away” when it suggests that the developments flowing from its disclosures are unlikely to produce the objective of the Appellants' invention. See In re Gurley, 27 F.3d 551, 553 (Fed. Cir. 1994). Appellants fail to present any persuasive arguments as to how the teachings of Chayes regarding recursive segmentation of the data, combined with the teachings of Feig and Hui, would be unlikely to produce the objective of Appellants’ invention. We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-20. ORDER The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-20 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)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED Vsh