Ex Parte LyonDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 8, 201713019953 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 8, 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. 13/019,953 02/02/2011 Barrett Gibson Lyon FORT-010600 1456 64128 7590 MICHAEL A DESANCTIS HAMILTON DESANCTIS & CHA LLP FINANCIAL PLAZA AT UNION SQUARE 225 UNION BOULEVARD, SUITE 150 LAKEWOOD, CO 80228 EXAMINER HENDERSON, ESTHER BENOIT ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2458 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/10/2017 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): mdesanctis @ hdciplaw.com docket @ hdciplaw .com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte BARRETT GIBSON LYON Appeal 2016-006061 Application 13/019,953 Technology Center 2400 Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, GREGG I. ANDERSON, and SHARON FENICK, Administrative Patent Judges. ANDERSON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—20.1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 In this Opinion, we refer to the Appeal Brief (“Br.,” mailed November 30, 2015), the Final Office Action (“Final Act.,”mailed June 23, 2015), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,”mailed March 22, 2016), and the original Specification (“Spec.,”filed February 2, 2011). Appeal 2016-006061 Application 13/019,953 STATEMENT OF THE CASE A. The Invention The invention describes how content requests and Domain Name System (“DNS”) requests are handled on a hybrid system, i.e., the same system. Spec. ]f 1. A third party request handling server 104 services requests for content from publisher 102 from client 106. Id. at| 10. The server redirects the requests to endpoints to service the requests, such as content server 108. Id. The client uses DNS server 110 to resolve desired Uniform Resource Locators (“URLs”) and “connect to appropriate servers, such as request handling server 104.” Id. Figure 1C of Appellant’s Specification is reproduced below. FIG. 1C “Figure 1C is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a manner in which a content request from a client is serviced.” Spec. 15. As shown in Figure 1C, the request handling server 104 “also functions as a name server that is capable of at least partially resolving the domain name of publisher 102.” Id. at 114. “Employing request handling server 104 as a name server for at least partially resolving the domain name of publisher 102 provides the flexibility to dynamically select and/or change the type of DNS response 2 Appeal 2016-006061 Application 13/019,953 provided for the domain name of publisher 102 based on one or more criteria and/or publisher preferences.” Id. at| 15. B. Illustrative Claim Claims 1, 13, and 17 are independent claims, respectively to a method, a system, and a computer program product. Claims 2—12 depend directly or indirectly from claim 1. Claims 14—16 depend from claim 13. Claims 18—20 depend from claim 17. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative: 1. A method for responding to a request, comprising: receiving a request at a server that is at least in part configured with DNS (Domain Name System) functionality; in the event that the request comprises a content request, responding to the request, by the server, by either directly servicing the request or redirecting the request to another server capable of handling the request; and in the event that the request comprises a DNS request, at least partially resolving, by the server, a domain name of the request and responding to the request with a DNS response. C. The Rejections Claims 1—20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) as being unpatentable over Sivasubramanian, et al. (US 2009/0327517 Al, published Dec. 31, 2009) (“Sivasubramanian”). Final Act. 3. D. Issue Only those arguments actually made by Appellant in the Briefs have been considered in this Decision. Arguments that Appellant did not make in the Briefs are waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv)(2012). 3 Appeal 2016-006061 Application 13/019,953 Appellant’s arguments present the following issue: Must claim 1 be construed narrowly to require that only a single server process both content requests and DNS requests? ANALYSIS The issue above at Statement of the Case section D is the only issue raised on appeal. See Br. 11 (“Nowhere in Sivasubramanian is it taught or reasonably suggested that the same server or processor of a system can process both content requests and DNS requests as required by independent claims 1, 13 and 17.”) Appellant proceeds to argue that the Examiner has not shown that both content requests and Domain Name System (“DNS”) requests are handled on the same server. Id. at 11—13. The same issue is presented as to the remaining independent claims 13 and 17. Id. at 13—14. No additional arguments are advanced relating to the dependent claims. See id. at 14 (wherein Appellant argues simply that all pending claims should be allowed for the reasons set forth in relation to the independent claims). Turning to the merits, Appellant argues that the claim language be interpreted to mean “the same server or processor of a system can process both content requests and DNS requests as required by independent claims 1, 13 and 17.” Br. 11 (emphasis added). We begin by construing the language from claim 1, which recites, in pertinent part, as follows: receiving a request at a server that is at least in part configured with DNS (Domain Name System) functionality; in the event that the request comprises a content request, responding to the request, by the server, by either directly servicing the request or redirecting the request to another server capable of handling the request. (Emphasis added.) 4 Appeal 2016-006061 Application 13/019,953 The claim language does refer to “a” server and later to “the server,” suggesting a single server. However, nothing in the claim language requires that a single server handles both the request for content and the DNS request. Indeed, the first mention of “a server” is only for “domain name service (DNS) functionality.” When the content is requested, according to the claim, “the server” may be used or the request may be “redirect[ed] ... to another server capable of handling the request.” Thus, the claim includes the case where more than one server is used for the claimed method. That the “same server” is not required is also supported by the Specification, which discloses [a]s depicted in Figure ID, request handling server 104 includes a web server 118 and a DNS server 120. In various embodiments, web server 118 and DNS server 120 may comprise different physical units or may be a part of the same physical unit. Spec. 118. Further, as the Examiner pointed out, the Specification and drawings showed that “the invention’s servers are separate entities.” Ans. 4 (citing Spec., Figs. IB, 1C, ID). The Examiner found that while the invention may “be embodied in the same domain (as shown in Figure 1 D), the Web server and the DNS server are separate entities from the request handling server[,] which appellants are contesting is one server.” Id. On this record, therefore, applying the broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the specification, claim 1 is not limited to a single “server or processor of a system [that] can process both content requests and DNS requests.” Instead, claim 1 is broad enough to read on separate servers for handling content requests and for DNS requests. 5 Appeal 2016-006061 Application 13/019,953 The Examiner has shown that Sivasubramanian includes two servers, one for each type of request. See Final Act. 3-4 (citing Sivasubramanian | 19 (for content requests), || 36-37 (for DNS requests)). Appellant does not argue that Sivasubramanian fails to disclose two servers, one for content requests and one for DNS name requests. Indeed, Appellant argues that Sivasubramanian teaches a Webserver for content, Br. 12 (citing Sivasubramanian, Fig. 1, element 110), and separate DNS servers, id. (citing Sivasubramanian, 119, Fig. 1, numbers 118, 124, 130). We therefore sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. Appellant does not separately argue the other claims. See Br. 13—14. Accordingly, we also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2—20. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)( 1 )(iv)(2012). CONCEUSION The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1—20 under § 103. DECISION 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)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation