Ex Parte AhnDownload PDFBoard of Patent Appeals and InterferencesJul 25, 201210781865 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 25, 2012) Copy Citation 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 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation