Ex Parte Kotha et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 30, 201712764232 (P.T.A.B. May. 30, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 12/764,232 04/21/2010 Saikrishna M. Kotha DC-17860 6990 33438 7590 06/01/2017 TERRILE, CANNATTI, CHAMBERS & HOLLAND, LLP P.O. BOX 203518 AUSTIN, TX 78720 EXAMINER YOUNG, STEVE R ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2477 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/01/2017 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): tmunoz @ tcchlaw. com kchambers@tcchlaw.com heather@tcchlaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SAIKRISHNA M. KOTHA and GAURAV CHAWLA Appeal 2016-007919 Application 12/764,232 Technology Center 2400 Before JOHN A. EVANS, LARRY J. HUME, and STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges. EVANS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s Final Rejection of Claims 1, 4—7, 10-13, and 16—18. See Claims Appx. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM.2 1 The Appeal Brief identifies Dell Products L.P., as the real party in interest. App. Br. 1. 2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed December 9, 2015, “App. Br.”), the Examiner’s Answer (mailed June 15, 2016, “Ans.”), the Final Action Appeal 2016-007919 Application 12/764,232 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The claims relate to systems and methods for enabling the use of a device to control multiple devices that participate in the presentation of content. See Abstract. INVENTION Claims 1, 7, and 13 are independent. The claims have not been argued separately and therefore stand or fall together. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). An understanding of the invention can be derived from reading of exemplary claim 1, which is reproduced below with some formatting added: 1. A method for enabling traffic for a particular source to be paused on a particular priority queue, the particular source corresponding to a logical link of a physical network link, the physical network link including a corresponding independent queue, the method comprising: identifying the physical network link by a priority field; determining when a particular source is responsible for network congestion; generating a source specific pause frame, the source specific pause frame being directed to the particular source responsible for the congestion; and pausing traffic generated by the particular source in response to the source specific pause frame; and (mailed July 17, 2015, “Final Act.”), and the Specification (filed April 21, 2010, “Spec.”) for their respective details. 2 Appeal 2016-007919 Application 12/764,232 wherein the source specific pause frame conforms to a Data Center Bridging (DCB) standard; the DCB standard includes a Priority Based Flow Control (PFC) capability, the source specific pause frame being included within PFC capability; handling of the source specific pause frame is different from handling of a standard PFC frame, the handling of the source specific pause frame triggering an affected priority queue to rearrange itself to transmit packets from other sources contributing to the affected priority queue while pausing packets from a source causing the congestion; the source specific pause frame allows a switch to specify both a media access control (MAC) address and a priority queue when sending the source specific pause frame, the switch specifying the MAC address and the priority queue via a unicast address; and, an operation code corresponding to a reserved number is used to specify the source specific pause frame. References and Rejections The Examiner relies upon the prior art as follows: Jain US 7,761,589 B1 Filed Nov. 4, 2003 Croft, Jr., et al, (“Croft”) US 7,948,883 B1 Filed July 12, 2007 Mikkel Hagen, Data Center Bridging Tutorial, https://www.iol.unh.edu/ services/testing/dcb/training/ (“Hagen”). 3 Appeal 2016-007919 Application 12/764,232 Claims 1, 4—7, 10-13, and 16—18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Jain, Croft, and Hagen. Final Act. 2—17. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the rejections of Claims 1, 4—7, 10-13, and 16—18 in light of Appellants’ arguments the Examiner erred. We have considered in this decision only those arguments Appellants actually raised in the Briefs. Any other arguments which Appellants could have made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). We are not persuaded that Appellants identify reversible error. Upon consideration of the arguments presented in the Appeal Brief and Reply Brief, we agree with the Examiner that all the pending claims are unpatentable. We adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth in the rejection from which this appeal is taken and in the Examiner’s Answer, to the extent consistent with our analysis below. We provide the following explanation to highlight and address specific arguments and findings primarily for emphasis. We consider Appellants’ arguments seriatim, as they are presented in the Appeal Brief, pages 4—6. Claims 1,4-7,10-13, and 16-18: Obviousness over Jain, Croft, and Hagen Appellants argue all claims in view of the limitations of Claim 1. App. Br. 5—6. Source-specific pause frame. We find the Examiner has made extensive findings with respect to the claimed “source specific pause frame.” See Final Act 3^4; Ans. 18. 4 Appeal 2016-007919 Application 12/764,232 Appellants’ traversal merely concludes the claim limitations distinguish over Jain’s teachings: However, it is respectfully submitted that generating a source specific pause frame and pausing traffic generated by the particular source in response to the source specific pause frame is patentably distinct from the VLAN tagging with a PAUSE frame mechanism disclosed by Jain. App. Br. 4. Appellants do not file a reply brief. Appellants’ conclusory arguments are unpersuasive. See, e.g., Ex parte Cabral, No. 2010-001572, 2012 WL 683718, at *3 (BPAI 2012) (non- precedential) (“Apart from summarily asserting that Prabhakar does not teach or suggest the features of the dependent claims . . . Appellants do not particularly show error in the Examiner’s rejection. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (noting that an argument that merely points out what a claim recites is unpersuasive)”); see also Ex parte Belinne, No. 2009- 004693, 2009 WL 2477843 (BPAI 2009) (informative) (“[W]e find that the Examiner has made extensive specific fact finding . . . with respect to each of the argued claims. Appellants’ argument. . . repeatedly restates elements of the claim language and simply argues that the elements are missing from the reference. However, Appellants do not present any arguments to explain why the Examiner’s explicit fact finding is in error.”). Attorney argument is not evidence. In re Pearson, 494 F.2d 1399, 1405 (CCPA 1974). Nor can it take the place of evidence lacking in the record. Meitzner v. Mindick, 549 F.2d 775, 782 (CCPA 1977). Lawyers’ arguments and conclusory statements, which are unsupported by factual evidence, are entitled to little 5 Appeal 2016-007919 Application 12/764,232 probative value. In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997); In re Huang, 100 F.3d 135, 139-40 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (Arguments of counsel cannot take the place of factually supported objective evidence). Data Center Bridging (DCB) standard including a Priority Based Flow Control (PFC) capability The Examiner makes extensive findings regarding the claimed Data Center Bridging (DCB) standard and the Priority Based Flow Control (PFC) capability. See Final Act. 4, 6; Ans. 19. Appellants merely present a conclusory argument that: Hagen generally discloses Data Center Bridging, there is no disclosure or suggestion within Hagen of a source specific pause frame (where the source specific pause frame is directed to the particular source responsible for the congestion) conforming to a Data Center Bridging (DCB) standard, much less where the DCB standard includes a Priority Based Flow Control (PFC) capability and the source specific pause frame is included within the PFC capability. App. Br. 4. Appellants do not file a reply brief. For the reasons discussed above, we find Appellants’ conclusory arguments are unpersuasive. Wherein handling of the source specific pause frame is different from handling of a standard PFC frame. The Examiner makes extensive findings that Jain teaches handling of source-specific pause frames differs from that of standard PFC frames. See Final Act. 4; Ans. 19. 6 Appeal 2016-007919 Application 12/764,232 Appellants merely present a conclusory argument that: handling of the source specific pause frame being different from handling of a standard PFC frame is patentably distinct from the VLAN tagging of Jain. Additionally, it is respectfully submitted that the handling of a PAUSE frame of Jain is not a disclosure or suggestion of the handling of the source specific pause frame triggering an affected priority queue to rearrange itself to transmit packets from other sources contributing to the affected priority queue while pausing packets from a source causing the congestion. App. Br. 5. Appellants do not file a reply brief. For the reasons discussed above, Appellants’ conclusory arguments are unpersuasive. A switch specifying both a media access control (MAC) address and a priority queue. The Examiner makes extensive findings that Jain teaches the source- specific pause frame allows a switch to specify both a MAC address and a priority queue when sending a source-specific pause frame, including via a unicast address. See Final Act. 4—5; Ans. 19—21. Appellants argue: a source specific pause frame allowing a switch to specify both a media access control (MAC) address and a priority queue when sending the source specific pause frame as disclosed and claimed is patentably distinct from the priority mask field of Jain. 7 Appeal 2016-007919 Application 12/764,232 Appellants further argue: nowhere within Jain is there any disclosure or suggestion of the switch specifying the MAC address and the priority queue via a unicast address. App. Br. 5. Appellants do not file a reply brief. For the reasons discussed above, we find Appellants’ conclusory arguments are unpersuasive. Operation code. The Examiner finds an operation code corresponding to a reserved number is used to specify the source-specific pause frame. See Final Act. 5; Ans. 22. Appellants argue: nowhere within the cited portion of Jain (or anywhere else in Jain) is there any disclosure or suggestion of an operation code corresponding to a reserved number being used to specify the source specific pause frame. . . . This deficiency of Jain is not cured by Croft of [sic “or”] Hagen. App. Br. 5—6. Appellants do not file a reply brief. For the reasons discussed above, we find Appellants’ conclusory arguments are unpersuasive. 8 Appeal 2016-007919 Application 12/764,232 DECISION We AFFIRM the Examiner's rejection of Claims 1, 4—7, 10—13, and 16-18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). AFFIRMED 9 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation