Ex Parte Oschwald et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 30, 2017

12489896 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 30, 2017)

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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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