Ex Parte St. Laurent et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 19, 2014

11854417 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 19, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE 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. 11/854,417 09/12/2007 Darren M. St. Laurent PD-207099 4844 20991 7590 08/19/2014 THE DIRECTV GROUP, INC. PATENT DOCKET ADMINISTRATION CA / LA1 / A109 2230 E. IMPERIAL HIGHWAY EL SEGUNDO, CA 90245 EXAMINER KHIRODHAR, MAHARISHI V ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2463 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/19/2014 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 DARREN M. ST. LAURENT, DANIEL M. MINER, DAVID T. BOLTZ, MITCHELL B. WASDEN, and CARL OSTROM ____________ Appeal 2013-003868 Application 11/854,417 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, and CARLA M. KRIVAK, Administrative Patent Judges. KRIVAK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1–25. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a “method and system for monitoring and controlling the switching of a back-up multiplexer circuit Appeal 2013-003868 Application 11/854,417 2 module at a local collection facility from a remote facility of a signal collection and uplinking system” (Spec. ¶ [0001]). Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A method comprising: receiving a plurality of channel signals at a local collection facility; generating a plurality of encoded signals from the plurality of channel signals at the local collection facility; multiplexing the plurality of encoded signals at a primary multiplexer to form a first multiplexed signal; communicating the first multiplexed signal to a remote facility; commanding switching to a back-up multiplexer at the local collection facility from the remote facility; after commanding, multiplexing the plurality of encoded signals at the back–up multiplexer to form a second multiplexed signal; communicating the second multiplexed signal to the remote facility; and generating an output signal for use by a user device at the remote facility in response to the second multiplexed signal. REFERENCES and REJECTIONS The Examiner rejected claims 1, 8–10, 14, 21, and 22 are unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) based upon the teachings of Sanders Appeal 2013-003868 Application 11/854,417 3 (US 2006/0018254 A1; published Jan. 26, 2006) in view of Raman (US 6,910,078 B1; issued June 21, 2005). The Examiner rejected claims 2–3, 11–13, 15, 16, and 23–25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings Sanders, Raman, and Patil (US 2005/0002339 A1; published Jan. 6, 2005). The Examiner rejected claims 4, 17, and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Sanders, Raman, Patil, and Birch (US 5,583,562; issued Dec. 10, 1996). The Examiner rejected claims 5–7, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Sanders, Raman, and Birch. ANALYSIS Appellants assert the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Sanders and Raman discloses the limitations of the claimed invention. Particularly, Appellants assert the combination does not teach or suggest communicating a first multiplexed signal to a remote facility, as claimed, and communicating a second multiplexed signal to the remote facility (App Br. 6, 9). Further, Appellants argue the Examiner’s reliance on Raman for teaching “commanding switching to a back-up multiplexer at the local collection facility from the remote facility” is also in error (App. Br. 9–11). Appellants also contend the Examiner gave the term “remote” an improper and overly broad construction (Reply Br. 3). We do not agree. Upon consideration of the evidence on this record and each of Appellants’ contentions, we find the preponderance of evidence supports the Examiner’s conclusions that Appellants’ claims are obvious over the combination of cited references. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s Appeal 2013-003868 Application 11/854,417 4 rejections of each of these claims for the reasons set forth in the Answer (Ans. 4–12). For emphasis only, we provide the following. We agree with the Examiner the term “remote” can be broadly, but reasonably interpreted as a few feet, across multiple geographical locations, etc. (Ans. 5, 7). Remote is not defined in Appellants’ Specification nor have Appellants identified any specific meaning of the claim term. Thus, even if the multiplexers were co–located, they could be considered “remote” from each other. We also agree with the Examiner’s findings regarding Raman disclosing “commanding switching to a back-up multiplexer at the local collection facility from the remote facility” (Ans. 9–11). That is, Raman discloses the backup multiplexer takes over when the primary multiplexer fails (Ans. 11). We are therefore not persuaded the Examiner’s reading of the claims on the cited combination of references is overly broad, unreasonable, or inconsistent with the Specification. Thus, in light of the broad terms recited in the claims and the arguments presented, Appellants have failed to clearly distinguish their claimed invention over the prior art relied on by the Examiner. We therefore sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1 and independent claim 14, having similar limitations. We also sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims 2–13 and 14–25, dependent respectively from claims 1 and 14, and not argued with particularity. DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is affirmed. Appeal 2013-003868 Application 11/854,417 5 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 bar