Ex Parte Ahn

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jul 25, 2012

10781865 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 25, 2012)

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.
10/781,865 02/20/2004 Hong-Jin Ahn 45823 5066
1609 7590 07/26/2012
ROYLANCE, ABRAMS, BERDO & GOODMAN, L.L.P.
1300 19TH STREET, N.W.
SUITE 600
WASHINGTON,, DC 20036
EXAMINER
GUPTA, MUKTESH G
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2444
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/26/2012 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 BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte HONG-JIN AHN
____________

Appeal 2009-015227
Application 10/781,865
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before SCOTT R. BOALICK, DENISE M. POTHIER, and
BRIAN J. MCNAMARA, Administrative Patent Judges.

POTHIER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2009-015227
Application 10/781,865

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner‟s
rejection of claims 1, 7, 12-18, and 23-28. Claims 2-6, 8-11, and 19-22 have
been canceled. App. Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

Invention
Appellant‟s invention relates to performing Traffic Flow Template
packet filtering according to Internet Protocol versions in a mobile
communication system. See generally Spec. 1:13-16. Claim 1 is reproduced
below:
1. A method for performing Traffic Flow Template (TFT) filtering
according to Internet Protocol (IP) versions in a mobile
communication system, the method comprising the steps of:
extracting a first IP version address from a source second IP
version address, wherein the second IP version address contains the
first IP version address; and
generating TFT information using the first IP version address,
wherein the TFT information contains an indication that the second IP
version address contains the first IP version address; and
transmitting the TFT information to a Gateway GPRS (General
Packet Radio Service) Support Node (GGSN).

The Examiner relies on the following as evidence of unpatentability:
Jouppi US 2003/0221016 A1 Nov. 27, 2003
(filed Feb. 12, 2003)
Krishnarajah US 7,145,919 B2 Dec. 5, 2006
(filed Mar. 8, 2002)

Appeal 2009-015227
Application 10/781,865

3
The Rejection
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 7, 12-18, and 23-28 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Jouppi and Krishnarajah. Ans. 4-12.

The Contentions
Regarding representative claim 1, Appellant argues that neither Jouppi
nor Krishnarajah relate to a scheme for reducing computation loads caused
by bit computation. App. Br. 6-8; Reply Br. 6. Appellant also contends that
Jouppi‟s interface identifier containing a 64-bit suffix cannot be the recited
“first IP version address.” App. Br. 7; Reply Br. 4-6. Appellant further
asserts that Krishnarajah does not address what is recited in claim 1. App.
Br. 10-11.

ISSUE
Under § 103, has the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 by finding
that Jouppi and Krishnarajah collectively would have taught or suggested
extracting a first IP version address from a source second IP version
address?

ANALYSIS
Claims 1 and 12-16
1

Based on the record before us, we find no error in the Examiner‟s
rejection of claim 1. Appellant argues that Jouppi and Krishnarajah are
“irrelevant” to the problem the claimed combination resolves and thus does

1
Claims13 and 16 are multiple dependent claims. This reference to claims
13-16 concerns those claims depending directly or indirectly from claim 1.
Appeal 2009-015227
Application 10/781,865

4
not teach or suggest the recited extracting or generating steps. App. Br. 6, 8.
At the outset, we note that claim 1 does not recite turning a
load-intensive bit computation associated with the second IP version address
into the less load-intensive bit computations associated with a first IP
version address when performing TFT filtering operations. App. Br. 6.
Thus, some of Appellant‟s arguments are not commensurate in scope with
claim 1.
To the extent Appellant is arguing that Jouppi and Krishnarajah are
non-analogous art (see Reply Br. 6), “[t]he analogous-art test requires that
the Board show that a reference is either in the field of the applicant's
endeavor or is reasonably pertinent to the problem with which the inventor
was concerned in order to rely on that reference as a basis for rejection.” In
re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 986-87 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (emphasis added and
citation omitted). Jouppi and Krishnarajah are within the same field of
endeavor as Appellant‟s or the field of mobile communication systems that
transmits IP packets to and from terminals (see Spec. 1:13-23). Both
references are therefore analogous.
Appellant also admits that Jouppi teaches extracting a 64-bit identifier
from a source IPv6 address and generating TFT information using the
extracted interface identifier. App. Br. 7. Yet, without further explanation,
Appellant contends that Jouppi‟s identifier cannot be the recited “first IP
version address from a source second IP version address.” App. Br. 7;
Reply Br. 4-6. We disagree.
First, as Appellant admits, the identifier is extracted from the source
IPv6 address (e.g., a second IP version address) and that this address
contains the identifier. See App. Br. 7 (citing Jouppi ¶ 0009); Reply Br. 5.
Appeal 2009-015227
Application 10/781,865

5
Second, Appellant mapped the first IP version address in the disclosure to
page thirty-nine, lines seventeen through twenty, which describes a
low-order 32-bit IPv6 address. See App. Br. 3. The Specification also states
this address as no more than the “low-order 32 bits indicating an IPv4
address . . . .” Spec. 37: 22-23; see also Spec. 39:14-15, 18-19. Other than
the label “IPv4 address,” we fail to see how the bits described in disclosure
differ from a part or all of the identifier in Jouppi, which similarly consists
of bits and is used for filtering. See Jouppi ¶¶ 0002, 0006, and 0009; see
also Ans. 15. Third, despite Appellant‟s contentions (App. Br. 8-9), the
Examiner also cites to Krishnarajah to teach that it is known to include
filters parameters, such as an IP address that may be IPv4, and that
combining such a teaching with Jouppi results in an identifier used to filter
and be part of the TFT that contains an IPv4 address. See Ans. 5-6
(discussing column 14), 17-18. Thus, the combined Jouppi and Krishnarajah
system also contain bits indicating an IPv4 address as broadly as recited.
Based on the evidence in the record, we therefore find that Jouppi‟s
extracted bits alone or Jouppi, when combined with Krishnarajah‟s
teachings, can broadly, but reasonably be construed as the recited “first IP
version address” extracted from the source second IP version address.
Additionally, because Jouppi‟s identifier can reasonably be the recited “first
IP version address,” we disagree with Appellant‟s conclusion that Jouppi
cannot teach the step of generating a TFT using the first IP version address.
See App. Br. 7, 10.
Appellant further argues that the Examiner‟s discussion about
Krishnarajah “„identify[ing] a flow/packet and transmit[ting] it on the radio
bearer configured with the corresponding treatment/class‟” does not relate to
Appeal 2009-015227
Application 10/781,865

6
the claimed subject matter. App. Br. 10. While the Examiner makes this
statement (see Ans. 6), we find that Appellant does not accurately reflect the
Examiner‟s position, in that this explanation is used by the Examiner to
provide a rationale to combine Jouppi with Krishnarajah (see id.) and is not
an attempt to address to any particular recited language in claim 1.
Lastly, Appellant argues for the first time in the Reply Brief that
Jouppi fails to disclose that the TFT filtering system involves TFT
information containing an indication that the second IP version address
contains the first IP version address. Reply Br. 6. This argument is
untimely and has been waived. See Ex parte Borden, 93 USPQ2d 1473,
1474 (BPAI 2010) (informative) (“[T]he reply brief [is not] an opportunity
to make arguments that could have been made in the principal brief on
appeal to rebut the Examiner's rejections, but were not.”).
For the foregoing reasons, Appellant has not persuaded us of error in
the rejection of independent claim 1 and claims 12-16 not separately argued
with particularity (App. Br. 13).

Claims 7, 13-18,
2
and 23-28
3

Regarding independent claims 7 and 23, Appellant refers to the
arguments made for claim 1. App. Br. 12. As to independent claim 17,
Appellant refers to claim 7 and states this claim is allowable for the same
reasons. See id. We are not persuaded for the reasons previously set forth.

2
This reference to claims 13-16 concerns those claims depending directly or
indirectly from claim 7.
3
Claims 25 and 28 are multiple dependent claims. This reference to claims
25-28 concerns those depending directly or indirectly from claims 17 and
23.
Appeal 2009-015227
Application 10/781,865

7
Dependent claims 13-16, 18, and 24-28 are not separately argued with
particularity. App Br. 13. We sustain the rejection of these claims for the
above reasons.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1, 7, 12-18, and 23-28
under § 103.

DECISION
The Examiner‟s decision rejecting claims 1, 7, 12-18, and 23-28 is
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