Ex Parte Cai et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 30, 2017

11934769 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 30, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
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Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
11/934,769 11/03/2007 Yigang Cai CAI 89-7 6466
50525 7590 02/01/2017
DUFT BORNSEN & FETTIG, LLP
1526 SPRUCE STREET
SUITE 302
BOULDER, CO 80302
EXAMINER
CHU, WUTCHUNG
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2468
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/01/2017 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 @ dbflaw. com
ipsnarocp @ nokia. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte YIGANG CAI and ALEXANDER AIHAO YIN
Appeal 2016-004066
Application 11/934,7691
Technology Center 2400
Before LARRY J. HUME, LINZY T. McCARTNEY, and
JOHN D. HAMANN, Administrative Patent Judges.
HAMANN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants file this appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—20, which constitute all the claims
pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
THE CLAIMED INVENTION
Appellants’ claimed invention relates to “distributing the tasks of
providing value-added services for calls in a VoIP network . . . among VoIP
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Alcatel Lucent USA,
Inc. Br. 3.
Appeal 2016-004066
Application 11/934,769
endpoints, media gateways, or other network nodes, instead of being
provided by one or more centralized media servers.” Spec. 1,11. 12—16.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the subject matter of the appeal and is
reproduced below.
1. A VoIP network, comprising:
a plurality of VoIP endpoints, each VoIP endpoint
comprising at least one media resource adapted to provide
services for calls in the VoIP network; and
a distributed resource server adapted to receive
information on media resources from available VoIP endpoints
of the plurality that are not presently servicing a call, to store
the information on the media resources of the available VoIP
endpoints, and to assign the media resources of the available
VoIP endpoints to provide the services for a call between a first
and a second VoIP endpoint that are presently unavailable for
providing services via the distributed resource server in the
VoIP network, based on the stored information.
REJECTIONS ON APPEAL2
(1) The Examiner rejected claims 1, 3, 4, 6—8, 10, 11, 13—15, and
17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of
Kozdon et al. (US 2005/0069099 Al; published Mar. 31, 2005) (hereinafter
“Kozdon”) and Hoffman et al. (US 2007/0140299 Al; published
June 21, 2007) (hereinafter “Hoffman”).
(2) The Examiner rejected claims 2, 5, 9, 12, 16, and 18 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Kozdon,
Hoffman, and Murai (US 2006/0067310 Al; published Mar. 30, 2006).
2 It appears from the record that the Examiner withdrew the § 112 rejection
of claims 1—20. See Mar. 2, 2015 After Final Response 8; Apr. 17, 2015
Adv. Act. 1 (entering claim amendments).
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Application 11/934,769
(3) The Examiner rejected claims 19 and 20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Kozdon, Hoffman,
and Gidwani (US 6,640,239 Bl; issued Oct. 28, 2003).
ISSUE
The dispositive issue for this appeal is whether the combination of
Kozdon and Hoffman teaches or suggests “a distributed resource server
adapted ... to assign the media resources of the available VoIP endpoints to
provide the services for a call between a first and a second VoIP endpoint,”
as recited in claim 1 and substantively recited in claims 8 and 15.
ANALYSIS
Appellants argue the combination of Kozdon and Hoffman fails to
teach or suggest the disputed limitation. See Br. 6—11. As to Kozdon,
Appellants argue it teaches tracking the availability of a user’s multiple
devices — “a user’s identity may be associated with multiple devices, and
each device may support a different set of capabilities” — and allowing
someone to choose on which device (e.g., one showing as available) they
want to contact the user. Br. 7 (citing Kozdon || 19, 22, 26, 64, 67).
Appellants argue Kozdon is silent as to “assigning media resources from a
VoIP endpoint to a call between other VoIP endpoints,” including arguing
Kozdon’s presence servers also lack this functionality. Id.
As to Hoffman, Appellants argue it teaches a VoIP network having
centralized media servers that provide the media resources to all network
applications — like traditional systems, these servers have no endpoint
functionality. Br. 6—7 (citing Hoffman || 15—16, 35). Appellants further
argue Hoffman’s Internet Protocol Television (“IPTV”), cited by the
Examiner as a VoIP endpoint providing the media services for a call
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Application 11/934,769
between other VoIP endpoints, fails to teach the disputed limitation because
the IPTV only acts as a display to show caller ID information, rather than
providing the caller ID service for the call. See Br. 8—9 (citing Hofmann
HI 42-43, 47).
The Examiner finds the combination of Kozdon and Hoffman teaches
or suggests the disputed limitation. Ans. 3—5. The Examiner finds Kozdon
teaches a presence server, which correspond to the claimed distributed
resource server, that tracks contexts (e.g., available, busy) of one or more
devices (e.g., home telephone, cellular telephone, personal digital assistant)
associated with a person (i.e., an identity). Ans. 3 (citing Kozdon H 22, 25—
26, 37, 42-43). Communications for at least some of these devices can be
implemented using VoIP technology. See id. The Examiner also finds
Kozdon teaches a user can be unavailable on one associated device (e.g.,
using their office VoIP telephone), but another associated device (e.g., their
home VoIP phone) instead can be assigned “to provide services to the user”
in accordance with the claim language. See id. (citing Kozdon H 19, 33,
43). As to Hoffman, the Examiner finds it also teaches or suggests having
an available VoIP endpoint (i.e., an IPTV which can be combined with
Kozdon’s endpoints) that can provide services (e.g., handling of caller ID
with modified alerting service) to a call between other existing VoIP
endpoints. Ans. 3 (citing Hoffman H 32—38; 53).
We are persuaded by Appellants’ arguments. We find the cited
portions of Kozdon and Hoffman fail to teach or suggest having an available
endpoint’s media resources assigned to provide services to a call between
two other VoIP endpoints. See Kozdon H 19, 22, 26, 64, 67; Hoffman
1132—38, 53. For example, Kozdon teaches how to choose which endpoint
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Application 11/934,769
(e.g., a VoIP telephone with an available context associated with the user) to
connect to one end of a VoIP call, instead of teaching assigning an available
endpoint to provide media services to the two endpoints participating in the
call. See Kozdon Figs. 1—2; || 19, 22, 25—26, 42^43, 53. The Examiner’s
finding (Ans. 3) that an available endpoint can be assigned to provide
services to the user relates to choosing an endpoint to participate in the call,
rather than assigning an endpoint’s media resources to provide services to a
call for which it is not part. Furthermore, we agree with Appellants that the
cited portions of Hoffman teaches using the IPTV as a display for the caller
ID information rather than providing caller ID or other services to call
endpoints. See Hoffman Fig. 1; || 15, 32—38, 53; see also Hoffman Fig. 1;
| 53 (teaching that the service broker, which is part of the session control
layer functionality rather than being part of the endpoints, is what provides
for modified caller ID alerting).
Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1,
8, and 15, nor the remaining claims on appeal, each of which depend, at least
indirectly, from one of these independent claims.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—20.
REVERSED
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