Ex Parte Alperin et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJun 27, 201311255089 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 27, 2013) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte JORDAN ALPERIN and RICH CERAMI ____________________ Appeal 2011-001345 Application 11/255,089 Technology Center 2400 ____________________ Before THU A. DANG, JAMES R. HUGHES, and GREGORY J. GONSALVES, Administrative Patent Judges. DANG, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-001345 Application 11/255,089 2 I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1-30. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. A. INVENTION Appellants’ invention relates generally to communications networks and more particularly to providing support for a variety of media types across different platform types (Spec. 1, [0001]). B. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM Claim 1 is exemplary: 1. A system for providing cross-platform support for a variety of media types, the system comprising: a plurality of servers, each server providing content of one or more different media types and a plurality of services; plurality of managers, each manager communicatively coupled with one or more of the servers and adapted to translate content of the servers with which the manager is connected from the media types of the servers to one or more of a plurality of common language messages each of the plurality of common language messages related to one of the plurality of services of the servers with which the manager is connected; a communications bus communicatively coupled with each of the managers and adapted to receive and transport the one or more common language messages from the managers; and a plurality of end devices of different types, each end device communicatively coupled with the bus and adapted to receive and translate the common language messages to a format specific to the end device based on the type. Appeal 2011-001345 Application 11/255,089 3 C. REJECTIONS The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Arwald US 7,212,543 B1 May 1, 2007 Chesnais US 7,272,662 B2 Sept. 18, 2007 Claims 1-30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Chesnais and Arwald. II. ISSUES The main issues before us are whether the Examiner has erred in determining that the combination of Chesnais and Arwald teaches or would have suggested a plurality of managers, “each manager… adapted to translate content … to one or more of a plurality of common language messages”, and a plurality of end devices, “each end device… adapted to receive and translate the common language messages to a format specific to the end device based on the type” (claim 1, emphasis added). III. FINDINGS OF FACT The following Findings of Fact (FF) are shown by a preponderance of the evidence. Chesnais 1. Chesnais discloses a plurality of Receiving Transport Agents (RTAs) 230 that convert received incoming messages into a Uniform Media Format (UMF) and deliver the converted message to a Message Manager Appeal 2011-001345 Application 11/255,089 4 (MM) module 260 (col. 7, ll. 53-63; Fig. 3-4), wherein the MM module 260 dispatches the message to the appropriate Delivery Transport Agent (DTA) 290 corresponding to the communications channel 220 utilized to send the transmitted message to the recipient’s communications device 210 (col. 8, ll. 29-33; Fig. 3). Arwald 2. Arwald discloses an inter-object communication session, wherein adapters 21a and 21f are equipped to perform entire protocol conversion process (col. 8, ll. 45-67). IV. ANALYSIS Although Appellants concede that Arwald’s receiving adapter “would receive information from a transmitting adapter based on the transmitting adapter’s protocol” and “would then convert the transmitting adapter’s protocol into a protocol of the receiving adapter” (App. Br. 6), Appellants argue that “[n]owhere does this teach or suggest utilizing a common language” (id.). That is, Appellants admit that Arwald “involves translating between languages of the end devices” (App. Br. 7). Appellants then contend that the combination of Chesnais and Arwald “would render the prior art invention being modified unsatisfactory for its intended purpose and/or change the principle of operation of the prior art invention being modified” (App. Br. 9) By arguing that Arwald does not teach “utilizing a common language” (App. Br. 6), Appellants appear to be arguing that Arwald alone fails to anticipate the claimed invention. However, as the Examiner points out, “one cannot show nonobviousness by attaching references individually where the Appeal 2011-001345 Application 11/255,089 5 rejections are based on combinations of references” (Ans. 17). That is, the test for obviousness is not what the references show individually but what the combined teachings would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). The Examiner points that “[t[he examiner interprets Uniform Media Format [of Chesnais] as a common language message format”, finds that “Arwald discloses end devices 21f, which are equipped to perform the entire protocol conversion process”, and thus concludes that it would have been obvious “to modify the server of Chesnais by including the translator from the server in the end device as taught by Arwald, in order for Chesnais’s system to performed [sic] translation at the end devices” (Ans. 17). We find no error in the Examiner’s findings and conclusion. We give the claim its broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the Specification. See In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997). We note that claim 1 merely requires that the plurality of managers are “adapted to” to translate and the plurality of end devices are “adapted to” receive and translate the common language messages. We find such “adapted to” language to merely represent a statement of intended uses of the managers and end devices which do not limit the claim. Particularly, an intended use will not limit the scope of the claim because it merely defines a context in which the invention operates. Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc. v. Schering-Plough Corp., 320 F.3d 1339, 1345 (Fed. Cir. 2003). Thus, we give claim 1 its broadest reasonable interpretation as merely requiring managers capable of translating data and end devices capable of receiving and translating data. Appeal 2011-001345 Application 11/255,089 6 Chesnais discloses RTAs that convert received incoming messages into UMF format to be sent to a plurality of recipient devices (FF 1). In particular, Chesnais discloses a plurality of devices that are capable of translating messages to messages of a common format to be received at end devices. Thus, Chesnais discloses a plurality of managers “adapted to translate content … to one or more of a plurality of common language messages” for transporting to a plurality of end devices of different types, as required by claim 1. Furthermore, Arwald discloses adapters provided to perform protocol conversion at end devices (FF 2). As Appellants concede, Arwald’s receiving adapter would “convert the transmitting adapter’s protocol into a protocol of the receiving adapter” (App. Br. 6), wherein Arwald “involves translating between languages of the end devices” (App. Br. 7). Thus, Arwald discloses a plurality of end devices of different types, each being capable of receiving and converting received messages to a format specific to the end device based on the type. Accordingly, we find no error in the Examiner’s conclusion that the combination of Chesnais and Arwald would at least have suggested a “each end device… adapted to receive and translate the common language messages to a format specific to the end device based on the type” as required by claim 1. Although Appellants contend that the combination of Chesnais and Arwald “would render the prior art invention being modified unsatisfactory for its intended purpose and/or change the principle of operation of the prior art invention being modified” (App. Br. 9), Appellants appear to have viewed the references from a different perspective than the Examiner. The Appeal 2011-001345 Application 11/255,089 7 issue here is not whether it would have been obvious to combine the entire system of Chesnais with the entire system of Arwald, but rather whether a person of ordinary skill, upon reading Arwald, would be discouraged from converting the received common language messages at the end devices in the system of Chesnais, to a format specific to the end device as taught by Arwald. The Supreme Court has determined that the conclusion of obviousness can be based on the interrelated teachings of multiple patents, the effects of demands known to the design community or present in the marketplace, and the background knowledge possessed by a person having ordinary skill in the art. KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007). The skilled artisan would “be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle” since the skilled artisan is “a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.” Id. at 420-21. We are not persuaded and Appellants have presented no persuasive evidence that combining the teaching of converting received messages to a format specific to the end device based on the type as taught by Arwald with the teaching of sending common language to end devices as taught by Chesnais was “uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art.” Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR at 418). Therefore, we find the Examiner’s proffered combination of familiar prior art elements according to their established functions (Ans. 17) would have conveyed a reasonable expectation of success to a person of ordinary skill having common sense at the time of the invention. Appeal 2011-001345 Application 11/255,089 8 Accordingly, we find that Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 over Chesnais and Arwald. Appellants do not provide arguments for independent claims 15 and 26 separate from those of claim 1 (App. Br. 5), and thus, claims 15 and 26, and claims 2-14, 16-25, and 27-30 respectively depending from claims 1, 15, and 26 fall with claim 1 over Chesnais and Arwald. V. CONCLUSION AND DECISION The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-30 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) are 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 tkl Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation