Ex Parte Oschwald et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 30, 201712489896 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 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. 12/489,896 06/23/2009 Christian Oschwald P2599US00 2451 11764 7590 Ditthavong & Steiner, P.C. 44 Canal Center Plaza Suite 322 Alexandria, VA 22314 EXAMINER NGUYEN, DINH ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2645 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/01/2017 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): docket@dcpatent.com Nokia. IPR @ nokia. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte CHRISTIAN OSCHWALD, ANDREAS FOLLMANN, MATTHEW LING, HARRI KRISTIAN WIKBERG, JEANNY WANG, and NORBERT RIEDEL SHEIMER Appeal 2016-006104 Application 12/489,896 Technology Center 2600 Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and ERIC S. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judges. DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2016-006104 Application 12/489,896 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 1—14, 16—19, and 21.1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. The invention relates to using an independent messaging service while executing an application, for example, a social networking service client (see Spec. 22—23). Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method comprising: monitoring a messaging service for arrival of a message at an apparatus; determining whether the message indicates an application that is different from the messaging service; determining whether the application is installed on the apparatus; and if the application is installed on the apparatus and is different from the messaging service, initiating removal of the message from a queue of received messages for the messaging service and selecting one or more actions for the application based on the message. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Checkoway et al. US 2002/0035607 A1 Mar. 21, 2002 1 The Examiner indicated claims 15 and 20 contain allowable subject matter (Final Act. 23—24), and thus claims 15 and 20 are not before us on appeal. 2 Appeal 2016-006104 Application 12/489,896 Davis et al. Zintel et al. Kunz et al. US 2008/0134052 Al June 5, 2008 US 2008/0172467 Al July 17, 2008 US 2010/0250685 Al Sept. 30, 2010 REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1—3, 6, 9-11, 14, 17, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Zintel and Kunz. Claims 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 16, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Zintel, Kunz, and Davis. Claim 21 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Zintel, Kunz, Davis, and Checkoway. Appellants contend “Zintel et al. merely discloses transmission of an application or service data through an email to an appropriate application or service but does not disclose monitoring of the messaging service in order to take further actions. ... In opposition to the claimed feature, the monitored arrival is of messages at the email service servers and not the client device as later correlated to the claimed ‘apparatus.’” (App. Br. 7). Appellants further contend “Zintel does not disclose determining whether an application is installed or not, since Zintel only ever contemplates a single application for use” (App. Br. 9). Appellants also contend Kunz fails to remedy the alleged deficiencies of Zintel (App. Br. 10). We disagree with Appellants. Zintel discloses “using email messages and envelopes to transport application or service data” (Zintel, 116). In one example, a client device can be “a cellular telephone 112 which may be a client of the email service 110” (Zintel, 126). Zintel further describes the following: ANALYSIS 3 Appeal 2016-006104 Application 12/489,896 The cellular telephone 112 may include a computer- readable storage medium including computer executable instructions configured to implement a mail handling client. In one embodiment, the mail handling client can detect that the email envelope 108 includes an indication that the email message and the email envelope 108 contains application or service data intended for an application or service client executing on the cellular telephone 112. (Zintel, 128). Here, we find Zintel discloses an email client running on a cellular telephone that detects the existence of application data in an email received by the cellular telephone. This suggests the limitation of “monitoring a messaging service for arrival of a message at an apparatus,” as recited in claim 1. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument that “the monitored arrival is of messages at the email service servers and not the client device” (App. Br. 7; see also Reply Br. 2-4), because Zintel discloses it is the mail handling client that detects the application data in an email, where the mail handling client is executed by the cellular telephone (Zintel, 128). Zintel further discloses, in Figure 3, a flowchart where an email message with application data is intercepted at step 302, and an application to which the data should be applied is identified in a separate step 306. We agree with the Examiner (see Ans. 5) and find Zintel’s identification step 306 suggests determining whether an application is installed on Zintel’s cellular telephone because data cannot be applied to an application that does not exist on the cellular telephone. Appellants argue Zintel’s step 306 “at most, identifies which application the message refers to but not, as claimed, ‘whether the application is installed on the apparatus’” (Reply Br. 5). We agree that Zintel identifies the application to which message data applies. But, given that Zintel also discloses, in step 308, actually routing data to the 4 Appeal 2016-006104 Application 12/489,896 appropriate application (Zintel, Fig. 3), we find Zintel must determine the application is installed on the cellular telephone. Accordingly, we find Zintel discloses “determining whether the application is installed on the apparatus,” as recited in claim 1. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments regarding Kunz’s failure to cure the deficiencies of Zintel (App. Br. 10), because Zintel discloses the limitations for which it is relied upon by the Examiner, as discussed above. Further, Appellants have not presented persuasive arguments showing Kunz fails to disclose the limitation for which it is relied upon, namely, “initiating removal of the message from a queue of received messages for the messaging service and selecting one or more actions for the application based on the message” (Final Act. 6). Specifically, Appellants assert “Kunz merely discloses receiving messages and then provide a user interface to display the messages” (App. Br. 9), and “‘content channel 122’ of Kunz is clearly being correlated to the claimed ‘application’ by the Examiner however a ‘content channel’ cannot reasonably be considered an ‘application’” (App. Br. 10). Kunz discloses configuring a content channel that uses electronic messages transmitted between clients by ascertaining which messages received by a client belong to the content channel (see Kunz, || 64—65). Kunz provides an example content channel “Mike’s Baby channel that Mike distributes to friends and family. When Mike’s mom opens her email application, Mike’s content channel message may appear in her inbox.” (Kunz, 170). After subscribing to the channel, there appears “a ‘Mike’s Baby’ item in a content channel list portion of the user interface. Mike’s content channel message may also be removed from her inbox.” (Id.). Accordingly, we find Kunz discloses removing a message from a messaging service queue, as recited in claim 1. 5 Appeal 2016-006104 Application 12/489,896 We also find Kunz’s content channel to be “an application” because Kunz’s “channel tool 124 may enable content channels 122 to be configured via a client using . . . suitable programming languages and coding techniques” (Kunz, | 54). In other words, Kunz’s content channel can be a program, i.e., “an application,” as recited in claim 1. Thus, Kunz meets the claim 1 limitation “initiating removal of the message from a queue of received messages for the messaging service and selecting one or more actions for the application based on the message.” We are, therefore, not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1, which Appellants designate as its own claim grouping (App. Br. 4). Although Appellants provide various other groupings of claims, Appellants have not presented specific separate arguments for these other groupings (see App. Br. 11—14). Accordingly, we are also not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 2—14, 16—19, and 21 for the same reasons as discussed above. CONCLUSION The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1—14, 16—19, and 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). DECISION For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—14, lb- 19, and 21 is affirmed. 6 Appeal 2016-006104 Application 12/489,896 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 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation