Ex Parte Begen et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 19, 201613468572 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 19, 2016) 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. 13/468,572 05/10/2012 Geoffrey C. Begen STAP.P0033US.C1/11205247 3827 29053 7590 12/21/2016 NORTON ROSE FULBRIGHT US LLP 2200 ROSS AVENUE SUITE 3600 DALLAS, TX 75201-7932 EXAMINER SIMITOSKI, MICHAEL J ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2493 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/21/2016 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): doipdocket@nortonrosefulbright.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte GEOFFREY C. BEGEN and KEITH D. BUSSELL Appeal 2015-003245 Application 13/468,572 Technology Center 2400 Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, JOHN P. PINKERTON, and NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges. NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the rejection of claims 4 through 7, 9 through 14, 16 through 23, and 26. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Appeal 2015-003245 Application 13/468,572 INVENTION Appellants’ disclosed and claimed invention is directed to a system to facilitate single user sign-in for multiple accounts. Abstract. Claim 4 is representative of the invention and reproduced below. 4. A system comprising: entity credentials, wherein said entity credentials are associated with a business entity and comprise information utilized to authenticate said entity with a secure application; user credentials, wherein said user credentials are associated with a particular user, and wherein a plurality of users that includes said particular user are associated with said entity, and wherein each of said plurality of users have respective user credentials; a data mapping operable to map each of said plurality of users’ respective user credentials of said plurality of users to said entity credentials of said entity; and a processor-based bridge server, operable to receive said user credentials of said particular user and operable to retrieve, from said data mapping, said entity credentials associated with said received user credentials and operable to send said entity credentials to said secure application on behalf of said particular user, wherein said secure application is associated with a value account stored on a server in communication with said bridge server, and wherein modifying of said value account by said plurality of users is serialized. REJECTIONS AT ISSUE1 The Examiner has rejected claims 4 through 7, 9 through 14, 16, and 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Johnson (US 7,735,122 Bl; June 8,2010), Welch et al. (Von Welch et al., A AAAA model to support 1 Throughout this Decision we refer to the Appeal Brief filed August 21, 2014 (“App. Br.”), Examiner’s Answer mailed October 27, 2014, and the Final Action mailed March 24, 2014 (“Final Act.”). 2 Appeal 2015-003245 Application 13/468,572 science gateways with community accounts, Concurrency Computat.: Pract. Exper. (2006) (“Welch”)), Fransdonk (US 2005/0066353 Al; Mar. 24, 2005), and Lomet et al. (US 5,485,607; Jan. 16, 1996). Final Act. 4—8. The Examiner has rejected claims 18 through 23 and 26 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Johnson, Welch, Fransdonk, Lomet, and Justus et al. (US 2004/0003081 Al; Jan. 1, 2004). Final Act. 8—10. The Examiner has rejected claims 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, and 21 on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 21 and 39 of US Patent 8,046,823 in view of Johnson, Welch, and Lomet. Final Act. 11. ISSUES Double Patenting Rejection Appellants argue on page 5 of the Appeal Brief that they will address the Examiner’s double patenting rejection at a later time. Thus, Appellants have not identified an error in the Examiner’s rejection, and we sustain it pro-forma. Obviousness Rejection Appellants argue, on pages 5 through 14 of the Appeal Brief, that the Examiner’s rejection of claims 4 through 7, 9 through 14, 16, and 17 is in error. These arguments present us with the issue: did the Examiner err in finding the skilled artisan would modify Johnson’s device to use community credentials as Johnson teaches away from such a modification? Appellants argue, on pages 14 through 16 of the Appeal Brief, that the Examiner’s rejection of claims 18 through 23 and 26 is in error. These 3 Appeal 2015-003245 Application 13/468,572 arguments present us with the issue: did the Examiner err in finding the combination of Johnson, Welch, Fransdonk, Lomet, and Justus teaches multiple users being members of multiple entities and multiple entity credentials mapped to multiple applications as recited in independent claim 18? ANALYSIS We have reviewed Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief, the Examiner’s rejections, and the Examiner’s response to Appellants’ arguments. Appellants’ arguments have not persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s rejections of claims 4 through 7, 9 through 14, 16 through 23, and 26. With respect to the first issue, Appellants argue that Johnson teaches away from using community credentials (as taught by Welch) as Johnson is concerned with preventing an organization from unwittingly exposing internal credentials. App. Br. 8 (citing Johnson, col. 1,11. 25—34). Appellants argue the Examiner’s proposed modification would potentially send the organization’s credentials to malicious users which Johnson teaches away from doing. App. Br. 9 (citing Johnson, col. 1,11. 32—34, col. 5,11. 42— 44). Further, Appellants argue that one would be discouraged from combining the references as one could not retain the benefits of Johnson when combined with Welch. App. Br. 10. In response to Appellants’ arguments, the Examiner provides a detailed explanation of how the references are combined and why Johnson does not discourage the claimed device. Answer 3. In this response, the Examiner identifies that Johnson teaches it is important that the entities internal credentials are not exposed and that modifying Johnson to make use 4 Appeal 2015-003245 Application 13/468,572 of community accounts to access providers does not expose entities internal credentials. We have reviewed the Evidence cited by the Examiner and the Examiner’s rationale and we concur. We do not find that Johnson discourages the use of community accounts, and thus teaches away from the claimed invention. Accordingly, Appellants’ argument directed to the first issue has not persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s rejection of claims 4 through 7, 9 through 14, 16, and 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), and we sustain the rejection. With respect to the second issue, Appellants present several arguments. First, Appellants argue that neither Welch nor Justus teaches multiple entities. App Br. 15, 16. We are not persuaded by this argument. The Examiner finds Justus teaches and suggests that a user can access multiple applications, that a user can access an application through a group, and that the skilled artisan would recognize that the user is in a group for each application (i.e. multiple groups). Answer 11. We concur and additionally note that Welch in section 4.4 discusses multiple groups. Appellants additionally argue “while [Justus teaches] multiple users may be part of a single group Justus does not teach multiple users being members of multiple groups.” App. Br. 15. We disagree; as discussed above, we concur with the Examiner that Justus teaches and suggests multiple groups. Further, we note that representative claim 18 does not recite multiple users being members of multiple groups. Further, Appellants argue that “claim 18 not only requires multiple entities, but claim 18 also requires multiple applications and that the multiple entity credentials be mapped to the multiple applications,” which is not taught by the references. App. Br. 15. We are not persuaded as we do 5 Appeal 2015-003245 Application 13/468,572 not see that claim 18 is limited to multiple entity credentials being mapped to multiple applications; rather, claim 18 recites credentials to authenticate “each respective entity with a secure application” (emphasis added) (i.e. one entity credential, one entity one application). Accordingly, Appellants’ arguments directed to the second issue have not persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s rejection of claims 18 through 23 and 26. DECISION We sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims 4 through 7, 9 through 14, 16 through 23, and 26 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) and of claims 4, 7, 11, 18, and 21 on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness type double patenting. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation