ALCATEL LUCENT

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 30, 2020

2019003383 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 30, 2020)

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.
14/762,236 07/21/2015 Philippe Bereski LUTZ 202047US01 2296
48116 7590 12/30/2020
FAY SHARPE/NOKIA
1228 Euclid Avenue, 5th Floor
The Halle Building
Cleveland, OH 44115-1843
EXAMINER
ZONG, RUOLEI
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2441
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/30/2020 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):
docketing@faysharpe.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte PHILIPPE BERESKI and CHRISTOPHE DOITEAUX
Appeal 2019-003383
Application 14/762,236
Technology Center 2400
Before ERIC B. CHEN, MICHAEL J. ENGLE, and
PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges.
BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–7 and 9–17. Claim 8 has been
cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Alcatel
Lucent. Appeal Br. 1.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to controlling simultaneous access to data
produced by devices (such as cameras or sensors) coupled to a mobile
system (such as a car computer system), which in turn is coupled to
customer premises equipment. Spec. 5, ll. 8–17. Claims 1 and 9 are
independent. Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed subject matter, and it is
reproduced below with the key limitation in italics:
1. A method for controlling access from at least one central
application, via a client gateway connected to a mobile
communication network, to data originating from at least two
devices having respective IP prefixes and coupled to a mobile
system comprising a first operating system being capable of
exchanging data with a customer premises equipment coupled
with the mobile system, and a second operating system
comprising a tunnel layer and allowing coupling the at least two
devices to the mobile system, said method comprising:
obtaining, by said second operating system, a first IP
address from said customer premises equipment, through said
first operating system; and
transmitting, by said second operating system, said first IP
address and said IP prefixes to said client gateway, through said
first operating system and said customer premises equipment, to
request the establishment of a tunnel between said second
operating system and said client gateway, and thereby allowing
said central application to access, via said client gateway, data
generated by said devices;
wherein said established tunnel is of a GRE type.
Appeal Br. 13 (Claims Appendix).
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REFERENCES2
The references relied upon by the Examiner as prior art are:
Name Reference Date
Park US 8,050,192 B2 Nov. 1, 2011
Hoskins US 2003/0106067 A1 June 5, 2003
Hellhake US 2007/0038743 A1 Feb. 15, 2007
Sood US 2012/0084411 A1 Apr. 5, 2012
Monica US 2013/0182845 A1 July 18, 2013
Rutherford, Mark, “Infantry to lead the way with a new PDA,” available at
http://www.cnet.com/news/infantry-to-lead-the-way-with-a-new-pda/,
Sept. 19, 2007 (“Rutherford”).
REJECTIONS
Claims 1–7, 9, 12–15, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Monica, Sood, Park, and Hoskins. Non-Final
Act. 3–9.
Claims 10 and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Monica, Sood, Park, Hoskins, and Rutherford. Non-Final
Act. 9–10.
Claim 16 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Monica, Sood, Park, Hoskins, and Hellhake. Non-Final
Act. 10–11.
ISSUE
Has the Examiner erred in finding Sood teaches or suggests
“transmitting, by said second operating system, said first IP address and said

2 All citations herein to the references are to the first named inventor/author
only.
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IP prefixes to said client gateway, through said first operating and said
customer premises equipment,” as recited in claim 1?
ANALYSIS
The Examiner’s Conclusion of Obviousness of Claim 1
In rejecting claim 1,3 the Examiner treats the preamble as limiting, and
finds the preamble is taught or suggested by the combination of Monica,
Sood, and Park. More specifically, the Examiner finds that Monica’s
description of a Wi-Fi hotspot in a vehicle teaches “a mobile system
comprising a first operating system.” Non-Final Act. 3 (citing Monica ¶¶ 7,
11, 37, 40, 77, 111). The Examiner finds that Monica does not explicitly
disclose that the Wi-Fi hotspot, which the Examiner finds corresponds to the
mobile system, is capable of exchanging data with customer premises
equipment (“CPE”) coupled to the mobile system. Id. The Examiner
introduces Sood, finding that “Sood discloses a device with a first operating
system being capable of exchanging data with a customer premises
equipment coupled with the mobile system.” Non-Final Act. 3 (citing Sood
¶¶ 19–20). The Examiner finds that Monica and Sood together teach “a
second operating system comprising a tunnel layer,” because Sood describes
a virtual manager 310 that establishes a VPN tunnel 450 with a VPN
gateway 210 using an external IP address received from a DHCP server.
Non-Final Act. 4 (citing Sood ¶¶ 20, 25, 27).

3 The Examiner treats claims 1 and 9 together, making specific findings with
reference to claim 9. Similarly, Appellant argues against the rejection of
claims 1 and 9 collectively. We select claim 1 as representative, and our
decision with respect to claim 1 is dispositive as to claim 9, which recites a
limitation commensurate in scope to the disputed limitation.
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The Examiner finds that Monica and Sood describe connecting only
one device to the mobile system, and therefore do not teach “allowing
coupling of at least two devices to the mobile system.” Non-Final Act. 3.
The Examiner introduces Park, finding that it teaches a allowing multiple
devices (specifically, cameras) to connect into a system. Non-Final Act. 4
(citing Park col. 4, ll. 45–67). The Examiner further finds Park teaches
camera configuration, in which each device is issued its own IP address and
is accessed from the Internet by an external user terminal, which teaches or
suggests the limitation “the at least two devices comprising a sensor and/or a
camera, and having respective IP prefixes and producing data to be accessed
from at least one central application via a client gateway connected to a
mobile communication network.” Non-Final Act. 4–5 (citing Park col. 5,
ll. 9–35).
The Examiner further finds that Sood teaches the limitation
“obtain[ing] a first IP address for said second operating system from said
customer premises equipment and through said first operating system.”
Non-Final Act. 5. Specifically, the Examiner finds Sood’s description of a
virtual machine residing on a mobile node having a guest OS 310 which
obtains an IP address from a DHCP server (e.g., customer premises
equipment) within a virtual mobile router 400 (first operating system)
teaches this limitation. Non-Final Act. 5 (citing Sood ¶¶ 19–20).
With respect to the disputed limitation, the Examiner finds that Sood
and Park collectively teach the step of “transmitting said first IP address and
said IP prefixes by said second operating system to said client gateway,
through said first operating system and said customer premises equipment,
for requesting the establishment of a tunnel between said second operating
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system and said client gateway.” Non-Final Act. 5–6. Specifically, the
Examiner finds that Sood teaches that upon receiving an IP address from a
DHCP server on an external network 200, the virtual machine 310 (i.e., the
second operating system) establishes a VPN tunnel 450 with the VPN
gateway 210 using the IP received from the external network. Non-Final
Act. 5–6 (citing Sood ¶¶ 20, 25, and 27). The Examiner relies on Park for
teaching that IP prefixes can be assigned to multiple devices. Non-Final
Act. 6 (citing Park col. 5, l. 65–col. 6, l. 3.).
Last, the Examiner finds that Monica, Sood, and Park do not
specifically teach the use of a GRE type tunnel. Non-Final Act. 6. To
address this deficiency, the Examiner introduces Hoskins, finding that it
teaches the use of GRE tunneling, and that it would have been obvious to
incorporate Hoskins into the vehicle and method of Monica, Sood, and Park
in order to ensure that users are not limited to transporting unicast packets.
Non-Final Act. 6 (citing Hoskins ¶ 231).
Appellant’s Contention4
Appellant argues the rejection is in error because “Sood does not
teach that any first IP address and said IP prefixes transmitted to a client
gateway would be transmitted through the customer premises equipment.”
Appeal Br. 9. Appellant notes that the Examiner relies on Sood’s virtual
mobile router (VMR) 400 as corresponding to the recited “first operating
system,” and the Examiner relies on the DHCP server 410 within the VMR
as corresponding to the recited “customer premises equipment.” Id.

4 Appellant presents arguments additional to those discussed herein.
However, we find this issue dispositive of the rejections on appeal, and we
do not reach Appellant’s other arguments.
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Appellant asserts that “if this [is] accepted, Sood would not teach that [the]
first IP address and said IP prefixes to said client gateway would be
transmitted through the customer premises equipment.” Id. Appellant
further explains:
Particularly, Sood’s path A passes through virtual adapter 440,
virtual adapter 445, and router 415; but, Sood’s path A does not
pass through the DHCP server/client 410. Sood’s path B, as
shown in figure 4, passes through virtual adapter 440, virtual
adapter 445, and router 415. Figure 4 also shows path B passing
from the driver 435 to NIC interface 425 although there is no
path B connection shown from the router 415 to the driver 435.
Nothing about Sood figure 4 indicates path B passing through the
DHCP server 410.
Id.
Our Review
We agree with Appellant that the Examiner has not sufficiently shown
that Sood teaches or suggests transmitting “through said first operating
system and said customer premises equipment.” As noted above, the
Examiner maps the recited “first operating system” to Sood’s virtual mobile
router 400, the recited “customer premises equipment” to Sood’s DHCP
server/client 410 within the virtual mobile router,5 and the recited “client
gateway” to Sood’s VPN gateway 210. Non-Final Act. 5. The Examiner
further maps the guest operating system 311 on Sood’s virtual machine 310
to the recited “second operating system.” Id.

5 The Examiner alternatively finds that the DHCP server within the external
network 200 also can be considered “customer premises equipment.”
However, because a DHCP server on an external network generally is not
located at the customer premises, it normally cannot be considered
“customer premises equipment.”
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Sood teaches a system that allows a mobile device to roam between
different networks, while maintaining a persistent IP tunnel. See Sood
Abstract, ¶ 15 (“[A] mobile router (‘MR’) may enable existing VPN tunnels
to persist, even when [mobile node] 125 roams, i.e., as [mobile node] 125’s
IP address changes.”). Sood describes a mobile node 125 which includes a
virtual machine 310 and a virtual mobile router 400. Sood ¶ 19. The virtual
machine 310 includes a guest operating system 311 that is assigned an
internal IP address by a DHCP server/client 410 residing in the virtual
mobile router 400. Sood ¶ 20 (“DHCP Server/Client 410 may function as a
DHCP server for MN 125 internally (i.e., it may allocate internal IP
addresses on request).”).
Once the internal IP address has been assigned to the Guest OS on the
virtual machine, the DHCP server/client 410 of the virtual mobile router 400
acts as a DHCP client by requesting an external IP address for the mobile
node 125 from DHCP servers on a corporate internet or external network.
Sood ¶ 20 (“VMR 400 may request an IP address from a DHCP server on
Corporate Intranet 100 or External Network 200.”). The IP address received
in response to this request is referred to as the “external” or “original” IP
address. Id. (“Upon receipt of an address from the DHCP server on External
network 200 (‘external’ IP address, hereafter referred to as the ‘Original
Address’).”). The virtual machine then uses the Original/External address to
establish a VPN tunnel 450 with an external VPN gateway 210. Sood ¶ 20
(“VM 310 may establish VPN Tunnel 450 with VPN Gateway 210 using the
Original Address. . . . All network traffic between VM 310 and VPN
Gateway 210 may thereafter be encrypted and transmitted to and from via
VPN Tunnel 450.”).
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Based on the Examiner’s mapping of the prior art to the claim, in
order for Sood to disclose the disputed limitation, the guest operating system
310 (the second operating system) would need to transmit the internal IP
address (a first IP address received from the customer premises equipment)
to the VPN gateway 210 (said client gateway) and the IP address would need
to pass through both the virtual mobile router 400 (first operating system)
and the DHCP server/client for 10 (customer premises equipment) in making
the request for a VPN tunnel. However, Sood does not teach using the
internal IP address to establish the VPN tunnel, but instead teaches using
the Original/External address to establish the VPN tunnel.
Moreover, the Examiner points to nothing in Sood that indicates that
DHCP server/client 410 participates in the routing of the request to establish
the tunnel. The VPN tunnel “Path A” depicted in Figure 4 of Sood passes
from virtual adapter 440 in the virtual machine 310, to virtual adapter 445
within virtual mobile router 400, then to router 415 and NIC interface 420,
and then to VPN gateway 210. The DHCP server/client 410 is outside of
this path. As we noted above, in order for Sood to share the same
configuration as the claim, the internal IP address must be transmitted
through the DHCP server/client as part of making the VPN tunnel request.
As such, the transmission of data in Sood’s network configuration differs
from the configuration of Appellant’s claim 1. The Examiner does not
provide any reasoning for why it would have been obvious to use the
internal IP address, instead of the external IP address establish the gateway.
Without such an explanation, we are persuaded that the Examiner has failed
to sufficiently explain why the disputed limitation would have been obvious,
and we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1.
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Remaining Claims
Because we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1, for the same
reason we also do not sustain the rejection of independent claim 9, which
recites a limitation commensurate in scope. The remaining claims depend
from claims 1 and 9, and they stand together with their respective
independent claims.
CONCLUSION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject the claims.
DECISION SUMMARY
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–7, 9, 12–
15, 17
103(a) Monica, Sood,
Park, Hoskins
1–7, 9, 12–
15, 17
10, 11 103(a) Monica, Sood,
Park, Hoskins,
Rutherford
10, 11
16 103(a) Monica, Sood,
Park, Hoskins,
Hellhake
16
Overall
Outcome
1–7, 8–17

REVERSED