Ex Parte Karaoguz et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 5, 2014

11039020 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 5, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE 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. 11/039,020 01/18/2005 Jeyhan Karaoguz 14528.00364 9424 16378 7590 12/05/2014 BGL/Broadcom P.O. Box 10395 Chicago, IL 60610 EXAMINER SHARMA, SUJATHA R ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2648 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/05/2014 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 JEYHAN KARAOGUZ, MARC ABRAMS and NAMBIRAJAN SESHADRI ___________ Appeal 2012-007245 Application 11/039,020 Technology Center 2600 ____________ Before KEVIN F. TURNER, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR. and JOHNNY A. KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judges. WHITEHEAD JR., Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants are appealing the final rejection of claims 1-45 under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a). Appeal Brief 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) (2012). We affirm. Introduction The invention is directed to “simplified (e.g., one-button) and/or automatic registration, authentication, and access of wireless access devices to services available via a broadband network gateway.” Specification [0027]. Appeal 2012-007245 Application 11/039,020 2 Representative Claim (disputed limitations emphasized) 1. A system supporting user controlled access to multimedia information, the system comprising: a gateway communicatively coupled to a broadband network and at least one wireless interface, the gateway capable of selectively exchanging multimedia information among the at least one wireless interface and the broadband network, and of communicating with a plurality of access devices via the at least one wireless interface; the gateway capable of providing to the plurality of access devices via the at least one wireless interface, access to at least one media-related service; the gateway capable of controlling access to multimedia information by each of the plurality of access devices based upon respective registration information for each of the plurality of access devices and of enabling restricted access by unregistered access devices, based upon user-managed access control information; and software supporting user management of the registration information for each of the plurality of access devices and the access control information, via one or both of the gateway and/or the broadband network. Rejections on Appeal Claims 1–14 and 39–45 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being unpatentable over Chow (US Patent Application Publication Number 2002/0191635 A1; published December 19, 2002) and Rawat (US Patent Number 7,281,029 B2; issued October 9, 2007). Answer 4–9. Appeal 2012-007245 Application 11/039,020 3 Claims 15–38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being unpatentable over Chow, Rawat and Yamaguchi (US Patent Application Publication Number 2001/0038609 A1; published November 8, 2001). Answer 9–12. ANALYSIS Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed September 2, 2011), the Answer (mailed February 1, 2012) and Reply Brief (April 2, 2012) for the respective details. We have considered in this decision only those arguments Appellants actually raised in the Briefs. We adopt the findings of fact made by the Examiner in the Final Rejection and Examiner’s Answer as our own. We agree with the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–45 for the reasons given by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer. We highlight the following for emphasis. Appellants contend, “Rawat teaches a central database accessible from any Internet-capable device, where the central database securely holds a user name, password, and URL of the login page for each particular Web site at which the user has an account.” Appeal Brief 5. Appellants contend Rawat fails to address the noted deficiency of Chow because “registration information” for an “access device” as required in claim 1 is not the same as Rawat’s teaching of user specific information because the claimed “registration information” may apply to multiple users of the access device. Id. at 5–6; see Answer 5. We do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive because Rawat teaches managing user access to the Internet for automating interactions and Appeal 2012-007245 Application 11/039,020 4 transactions occurring on the Internet. Rawat, column 1, lines 22–25. In this capacity, Rawat is a gateway that is capable of controlling access to multimedia information available via the Internet in the same manner as the claimed invention. Id. at columns 3–4. Further, Appellants’ plurality of access devices fail to distinguish over the prior art because such multiplicity would only require routine skill in the art to employ.1 Consequently, we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claim 1, as well as dependent claims 2–14, not separately argued for the reasons articulated above.2 See Appeal Brief 2–7. Appellants argue claim 15 is distinguish over the prior art because the claimed “determining allowable access” is not the same as “controlling access” as taught by the prior art. Id. at 8. We do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive because they are considered conclusory and fail to explain the patentable distinction between determining allowable access and controlling access. We do not find Appellants’ arguments that claim 24 distinguishes over the cited prior art persuasive because of specifying multimedia content or information available over the Internet fails to explain the patentable distinction of the invention. Id. The prior art provides a gateway to the 1 “It is well settled that the mere duplication of parts has no patentable significance unless a new and unexpected result is produced.” See In re Harza, 274 F.2d 669, 671 (1960). 2 Mere arguments and conclusory statements that are unsupported by factual evidence are entitled to little probative value. See In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997); see also In re De Blauwe, 736 F.2d 699, 705 (Fed. Cir. 1984). Appeal 2012-007245 Application 11/039,020 5 Internet where various multimedia content or information is available in the same manner as the claimed invention. Rawat, Abstract. We sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of independent claims 15 and 24, as well as claims 16–23 and 25–45 for the reasons articulated above.3 Although, some of the claims appear to be addressed separately by Appellants, they are in actuality, conclusory statements that have little probative value. DECISION The Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejections of claims 1–45 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)(1)(iv). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED cam 3 Should there be further prosecution of this application (including any review for allowance), the Examiner may wish to review claims 27–38 for compliance under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in light of the recently issued preliminary examination instructions on patent eligible subject matter. See “Preliminary Examination Instructions in view of the Supreme Court Decision in Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, et al.,” Memorandum to the Examining Corps, June 25, 2014.