Ex Parte MannDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 24, 201713892672 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 24, 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. 13/892,672 05/13/2013 Robert A. MANN ALC 3868 3518 76614 7590 10/26/2017 Terry W. Kramer, Esq. Kramer & Amado, P.C. 330 John Carlyle Street 3rd Floor Alexandria, VA 22314 EXAMINER ROY, SANJOY K ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2457 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/26/2017 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): mail@krameramado.com ipsnarocp @ nokia. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ROBERT A. MANN Appeal 2016-008084 Application 13/892,6721 Technology Center 2400 Before IRVIN E. BRANCH, JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, and NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 1—20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 Appellant identifies Alcatel Lucent as the real party in interest. App. Br. 1. Appeal 2016-008084 Application 13/892,672 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Exemplary Claim Exemplary independent claim 1 is reproduced below. 1. A method performed by a Diameter Routing Agent (DRA) for processing a Diameter message, the method comprising: receiving a Diameter message at the DRA from an origin device; locating, based on an instruction to perform load balancing, an applicable load balancing pool of a plurality of load balancing pools for the Diameter message; identifying a pool host from the applicable load balancing pool to receive the Diameter message; modifying a destination address of the Diameter message to include an address of the identified pool host; and transmitting the Diameter message based on the modified destination address. Relerences and Rejections 1. Claims 1, 5, 8, 9, 13, 16, 19, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Yigang (US 2010/0299451 Al, Nov. 25, 2010). Final Act. 5-8. 2. Claims 2, 10, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Yigang and Jorgenson (US 6,813,635 Bl, Nov. 2, 2004). Final Act. 9—10. 3. Claims 3,4, 11, 12, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Yigang and Collins (US 2005/0071455 Al, Mar. 31, 2005). Final Act. 10-16. 2 Appeal 2016-008084 Application 13/892,672 4. Claims 6 and 14 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Yigang and Balyan (US 2009/0080440 Al, Mar. 26, 2009). Final Act. 16-17. 5. Claims 7 and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Yigang and Craig (US 2011/0202676 Al, Aug. 18, 2011). Final Act. 18—19. ANALYSIS Claim 1 Claim 1 recites “locating, based on an instruction to perform load balancing, an applicable load balancing pool of a plurality of load balancing pools for the Diameter message.” The Examiner finds Yigang’s “clusters] work[] as the load balancing pool[s].” Final Act. 6. The Examiner notes that Yigang teaches that “the network includes one or more diameter server clusters working as load balancing pools, and the router selects one of the cluster, cluster 30 as the destination pool that the server 31 belongs to.” Final Act. 6. Appellant argues2 “Yigang fails to locate an applicable load balancing pool based upon the instruction to perform load balancing.” App. Br. 7. Appellant alleges the Examiner “neglects to explain how an applicable load balancing pool is located out of a plurality of load balancing pools.” App. Br. 7. According to Appellant, while Yigang determines which server to choose in a particular cluster, Yigang fails to disclose selecting a cluster from a plurality of clusters. See App. Br. 7—8. 2 Appellant presents additional arguments in their Appeal Brief. However, because the identified argument is dispositive of the appeal, we do not reach the merits of these additional arguments. 3 Appeal 2016-008084 Application 13/892,672 We are persuaded by Appellant’s arguments. Claim 1 requires “locating ... an applicable load balancing pool of a plurality of load balancing pools.” Claim 1 also requires “identifying a pool host from the applicable load balancing pool.” Thus, claim 1 requires both selecting a pool from a plurality of load balancing pools and then selecting a host in the selected load balancing pool. The Examiner maps Yigang’s clusters to the claimed load balancing pools and Yigang’s Diameter servers to the claimed pool hosts. Yigang discloses “[t]he network 2 further includes one or more Diameter server clusters 30, wherein the illustrated server cluster includes three exemplary Diameter servers (hosts) 31, 32, and 33.” Yigang 121. Yigang further discloses “the router 20 performs load balancing with respect to the servers 31-33 of the cluster 30 through se[le]ction of the server that will handle a given session, where the router 20 can select from any number of available and suitable equipped Diameter servers . . . .” Yigang 124. Based on Yigang’s disclosure, we agree with the Examiner that Yigang teaches selecting a server out of a plurality of servers in a given cluster. But Yigang does not explicitly disclose selecting a cluster out of a plurality of clusters. In fact, although Yigang mentions that the network can include one or more server clusters (Yigang 121), Yigang’s further description appears to relate only to the case where there is a single cluster. Thus, we do not discern where Yigang describes selecting a particular cluster from a plurality of clusters, nor has the Examiner cited to any portion of Yigang disclosing such selection. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1. We also do not sustain the rejection of independent claims 9 and 16, which contain similar limitations and were rejected based 4 Appeal 2016-008084 Application 13/892,672 on similar findings. See Final Act. 5—7. Dependent claims 5, 8, 13, 19, and 20 stand with their independent claims. The Examiner rejected dependent claims 2—4, 6, 7, 10-12, 14, 15, 17, and 18 over additional prior art, but did not rely on this additional art to teach the disputed limitation. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 2-4, 6, 7, 10-12, 14, 15, 17, and 18. DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—20 is reversed. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation