Ex Parte Saksena et al

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardAug 27, 2014

11301350 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Aug. 27, 2014)

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. 11/301,350 12/09/2005 Vikram Saksena SNS-014 7028 101957 7590 08/28/2014 Straub & Pokotylo 788 Shrewsbury Avenue Tinton Falls, NJ 07724 EXAMINER HARLEY, JASON A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2468 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/28/2014 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte VIKRAM SAKSENA, MIKE HLUCHYJ, and UMAMAHESWAR REDDY ____________________ Appeal 2012-002706 Application 11/301,350 Technology Center 2400 ____________________ Before: JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and ERIC S. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judges. DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2012-002706 Application 11/301,350 2 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1–17, 19, and 21–28. 1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. The claims are directed to executing, at local nodes, centrally provisioned telephony services. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A computer-implemented method comprising: provisioning a telephony service at a central node; transmitting at least a portion of the telephony service to a first local node; and executing at least an executable portion of the telephony service at the first local node, the executable portion of the telephony service comprising a set of call session control instructions. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Patil Barak Birch US 2002/0120746 A1 US 2002/0126820 A1 US 2005/0249190 A1 Aug. 29, 2002 Sept. 12, 2002 Nov. 10, 2005 1 The Examiner has not specifically addressed claims 18 and 20 in any of the outstanding rejections (see Ans. 4–15; Final Rej. 2–13). Thus, although Appellants state “[t]he standing rejections to claims 1–28 are hereby appealed” (Br. 4), no rejection of claims 18 and 20 is before us on appeal. We, therefore, do not address claims 18 and 20 in this decision. Appeal 2012-002706 Application 11/301,350 3 REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 12, 14–17, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 102(e) as being anticipated by Birch. Claims 2, 6, 9–11, 13, and 21–26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Birch and Barak. Claim 4 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Birch and Patil. Claims 27 and 28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Birch, Barak, and Patil. ANALYSIS The Anticipation Rejection Appellants contend “Birch only discloses providing CCXML [Call Control Extensible Markup Language] service nodes with ‘routing requirements,’ which, as described above, merely provide instructions on how to route the call for setup” (Br. 9). Thus, “while Birch describes that the CCXML service node can setup a call, Birch teaches that the CCXML does not control the maintenance of the call between parties . . . . Accordingly, the ‘routing requirements’ of Birch have not been shown to be the same as or equivalent to the ‘call session control instructions’ of claim 1” (Id.). Appellants also contend the Examiner improperly combines Birch’s CCXML Service Node and Parlay Gateway to meet the limitation of a “local node,” as recited in claim 1 (Br. 10–11). We disagree with Appellants. Appellants’ Specification provides “[a]n exemplary telephony service is a personal dialing plan that includes group dialing information” (Spec. ¶ 27). Appeal 2012-002706 Application 11/301,350 4 “Upon execution, the telephony service automatically calls all of the individual telephone numbers in that particular group and conferences them together for a phone call. This can be accomplished, for example, by using a CCXML script for automatically calling the individual numbers and conferencing them together. In such an example, the script is the executable portion that is executed by the local node to perform the desired service.” (Id.). We thus find that the “executable portion of the telephony service comprising a set of call session control instructions,” recited in claim 1 encompasses a CCXML script for setting up a call. Birch describes a flexible telephone network where, in order to establish a call between two parties, “[t]he telephony application supplies a routing requirement to the server and parlay gateway combination 202. The server and parlay gateway combination 202 dynamically transforms the routing requirement into a CCXML routing application and the service node is adapted to execute the CCXML routing application to route the telephone call.” (Birch ¶ 21; Figs. 2 and 3). More specifically, “[t]he CCXML service node 200 executes the CCXML script which sets up an outbound call and releases the calling and called parties back to the SSP 100 (effectively routing the inbound call to the called party as shown by the arrows that make the outbound call, answer the outbound call, answer the incoming call, release the link, etc., in FIG. 3)” (Birch ¶ 24; Fig. 3). Thus, Birch discloses a CCXML service node that executes a CCXML script for setting up a call, which we find meets the limitation of “a set of call session control instructions” based on the above construction. Appellants’ argument that Birch’s “[r]elease of the call back to a Service Switching Point (SSP)—a well-defined element of SS7 (signaling Appeal 2012-002706 Application 11/301,350 5 system)-based networks for performing call session control—emphasizes that the CCXML service node performs no call session control services” (Br. 9), is not persuasive. Claim 1 does not require that the “call session control instructions” include control instructions for an entire call session, i.e., until a call is over. Nor does claim 1 require “maintenance of the call between parties,” as Appellants argue (id.). Accordingly, we are not persuaded that Birch’s CCXML script, which at least sets up and establishes a call between two parties, fails to describe the claimed “instructions.” We are also not persuaded by Appellants’ argument (Br. 10–11) that the Examiner improperly relied on both Birch’s CCXML Service Node and Parlay Gateway to meet the “local node” limitation in claim 1. The Examiner’s response clarifies that Birch’s CCXML Service Node alone is relied upon for describing the claimed “local node” (Ans. 20). In the absence of a Reply Brief to the contrary, and in light of the record, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that Birch’s CCXML Service Node describes the “local node” recited in claim 1. We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1, and claims 3, 5, 7, 8, 12, 14–17, and 19 not specifically argued separately. The Obviousness Rejections Appellants present no new arguments regarding claims 2, 4, 6, 9–11, 13, and 21–28, but rather rely on the same arguments presented for the similar limitations in claim 1 (See Br. 12–13). However, as discussed above, we are not persuaded by Appellants’ claim 1 arguments. We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 2, 4, 6, 9–11, 13, and 21–28. Appeal 2012-002706 Application 11/301,350 6 CONCLUSIONS Under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e), the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 12, 14–17, and 19. Under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 2, 4, 6, 9–11, 13, and 21–28. DECISION For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1–17, 19, and 21–28 are 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)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED kis