Ex Parte Konno et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 13, 2013

10594462 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 13, 2013)

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. 10/594,462 07/30/2007 Mika Konno 00002-5080 1296 12268 7590 08/14/2013 AlbertDhand LLP 11622 El Camino Real Suite 100 San Diego, CA 92130 EXAMINER QUADER, FAZLUL ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2164 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/14/2013 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 MIKA KONNO, MARJA HELLE, ARTO VUORINEN, JUSSI HAMALAINEN, PETTERI VAIRIO, KARI KUNNAS, VALTTERI EROMA, WALDEMARK SAKALUS, AND RAPHAEL GRIGNANI ____________ Appeal 2011-003635 Application 10/594,462 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before ERIC B. CHEN, BRUCE R. WINSOR, and CATHERINE SHIANG, Administrative Patent Judges. SHIANG, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-3, 5-20, 22, 24-32, 34-41, and 43-59. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. Appeal 2011-003635 Application 10/594,462 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The present invention relates to transferring data between a sending device and a receiving user equipment. See generally Spec. p. 1. Claim 1 is illustrative: 1. A computer-implemented method for transferring a data file between a sending device and a receiving user equipment, the method comprising: assessing, based on information relating to a transfer method and/or receiving user equipment, if the data file is to be modified; in response to finding that the data file is to be modified, creating a clone data file of the original data file and modifying the clone data file, based on said information, into a form suitable for transferring; and transferring the modified clone data file from the sending device to the receiving user equipment, wherein said information used in the assessing and modifying comprises an indication of capacity and/or format of a message which is to be used by the receiving user equipment to send the received modified clone data file to another device, and wherein the assessing and modifying comprise assessing the data file and modifying the clone data file to be compatible with said message. THE REJECTIONS The Examiner rejected claims 1-3, 5-20, 22, 24-32, 34-41, and 43-59 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Elliott (US 2002/0064149 A1), Yeager (US 2004/0088348 A1), and Arimilli (US 2004/0111575 A1). See Ans. 3-21. Appeal 2011-003635 Application 10/594,462 3 ISSUE The dispositive issue argued by Appellants is:1 Under 35 U.S.C. § 103, has the Examiner erred by concluding that Elliott, Yeager, and Arimilli collectively teach: “wherein said information used in the assessing and modifying comprises an indication of capacity and/or format of a message which is to be used by the receiving user equipment to send the received modified clone data file to another device” (emphasis added), as recited in claim 1? ANALYSIS On this record, we find that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1. The Examiner finds that wherein said information used in the assessing and modifying comprises an indication of capacity and/or format of a message which is to be used by the receiving user equipment to send the received modified clone data file to another device, and wherein the assessing and modifying comprise assessing the data file and modifying the clone data file to be compatible with said message (Elliott: [0457]; [0463], a gateway converts incompatible data if necessary; [1702], extending and modifying objects through deriving new kind of objects)[.] Ans. 4. We disagree. The cited portions of Elliott state: [0457] Message switching is another switching strategy that has been considered. With this form of switching, no physical path is established in advance between the sender and receiver; instead, whenever the sender has a block of data to be sent, it is 1 Appellants raise additional issues. Because the identified issue is dispositive of the appeal, we do not reach the additional issues. Appeal 2011-003635 Application 10/594,462 4 stored at the first switching office and retransmitted to the next switching point after error inspection. Message switching places no limit on block size, thus requiring that switching stations must have disks to buffer long blocks of data; also, a single block may tie up a line for many minutes, rendering message switching useless for interactive traffic. [0463] In terms of architecture, two given networks are connected by a computer that attaches to both of them. Internet gateways and routers provide those links necessary to send packets between networks and thus make connections possible. Without these links, data communication through the Internet would not be possible, as the information either would not reach its destination or would be incomprehensible upon arrival. A gateway may be thought of as an entrance to a communications network that performs code and protocol conversion between two otherwise incompatible networks. For instance, gateways transfer electronic mail and data files between networks over the internet. [1702] []Subclassing and inheritance make it possible to extend and modify objects through deriving new kinds of objects from the standard classes available in the system. Thus, new capabilities are created without having to start from scratch. Elliott, ¶¶ [0457], [0463], [1702]. We agree with Appellants that Elliott’s paragraphs [0457], [0463], and [1702] do not teach the disputed claim limitation for the reasons stated by Appellants. See Br. 8-9. The Examiner also contends that “Yeager . . . discloses, ‘various transfer methods’ (Yeager: [0460]) and further emphasizes on [sic] optimizing and reliability of transporting data.” Ans. 5. Yeager states: Appeal 2011-003635 Application 10/594,462 5 [0460] In one embodiment, enhanced pipes with additional properties such as reliability, security, and quality of service may be supported. In embodiments where the peer-to-peer platform runs on top of transports that have such properties, an implementation may optimize and utilize the transports. For example, when two peers communicate with each other and both have TCP/IP support, then an implementation may use the bidirectional capabilities of TCP/IP to create bidirectional pipes. Other data transfer methods that may be implemented by pipes as provided at the service layer to provide different quality of service include, but are not limited to: synchronous request-response (the endpoint sends a message, and receives a correlated answer), streaming (efficient control-flow data transfer), bulk transfer (bulk reliable data transfer of binary data), and secure (secure reliable data streams). Yeager, ¶ [0460]. We agree with Appellants that Yeager’s paragraph [0460] does not teach the disputed claim limitation for the reasons stated by Appellants. See Br. 10-12. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1- 3, 5-20, 22, 24-32, 34-41, and 43-59. ORDER The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-3, 5-20, 22, 24-32, 34-41, and 43-59 is reversed. REVERSED rwk