Ex Parte Tremblay

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 11, 2016

13075812 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 11, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 13/075,812 03/30/2011 Richard Tremblay 24112 7590 03/14/2016 COATS & BENNETT, PLLC 1400 Crescent Green, Suite 300 Cary, NC 27518 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 4015-7404 I P32976-US1 2423 EXAMINER MIRZA, ADNAN M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2443 MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE 03/14/2016 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 RICHARD TREMBLAY Appeal2014-004785 Application 13/075,812 1 Technology Center 2400 Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JOHN P. PINKERTON, and JAMES \V. DEJlVfEK, Administrative Patent Judges. DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL 1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson. (App. Br. 2.) Appeal2014-004785 Application 13/075,812 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134 from a rejection of claims 1- 27. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We reverse. The claims are directed to SCTP endpoint migration. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method of seamlessly migrating an application at one Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) endpoint of an association to another SCTP endpoint, the method comprising: determining the application is to be migrated from a first SCTP endpoint associated with a second SCTP endpoint to a third SCTP endpoint; and migrating the application from the first SCTP endpoint to the third SCTP endpoint at the SCTP layer without packet loss occurring as a result of the migration. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Saksena et al. Watanabe US 2010/0150161 Al US 8,089,936 B2 REJECTION The Examiner made the following rejection: June 17, 2010 Jan. 3, 2012 Claims 1-27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Saksena in view of Watanabe. 2 Appeal2014-004785 Application 13/075,812 ANALYSIS Appellant addresses the claims together. (App. Br. 4.) Independent claims 14 and 20 contain similar limitations as independent claim 1. We address independent claim 1 as the illustrative claim. With respect to illustrative claim 1, the Examiner maintains that the Saksena reference teaches "determining the application is to be migrated from a first SCTP endpoint associated with a second SCTP endpoint to a third SCTP endpoint (Page 2, Paragraph. 0011)." (Final Act. 2.) Appellant contends the Saksena reference "is directed to SCTP transport path selection, not application migration." (App. Br. 4.) Appellant argues "[a]dditionally, Saksena's teachings only implicate two endpoints (i.e., nodes 12 and 14), and there is no disclosure of three endpoints." Id. The Examiner does not respond to Appellant's argument and finds the Watanabe reference generally teaches the use of the same standard - "the SCTP is regulated by the following non-patent document l (RFC4960) (col. 1, lines 63-67 & col. 2, lines 1-2)." (Ans. 4.) The Examiner also reproduces paragraph 8 of the Saksena reference and maintains that "' [ m ]igrating an Application' as data transfer where an application sends a request to another application on another device." (Ans. 4-- 5.) We disagree with the Examiner's finding because the Examiner has not addressed the differences between "an application" and "data." Additionally, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner has not addressed the claimed "migrating the application from the first SCTP endpoint to the third SCTP endpoint." (See generally Reply Br. 2--4) (emphases added). Consequently, we find the Examiner has not set forth sufficient factual findings to support a reasoned conclusion of obviousness of illustrative claim 1 and its respective dependent claims 2-13. 3 Appeal2014-004785 Application 13/075,812 Independent claims 14 and 20 contain similar limitations, and we cannot sustain the rejection of claims 14--27 based upon a lack of sufficient factual findings, as discussed supra, to support the ultimate conclusion of obviousness. CONCLUSIONS The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-27 based upon obviousness. DECISION For the above reasons, we reverse the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-27. REVERSED 4