Ex Parte Chaudhry

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 13, 2016

11960547 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 13, 2016)

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.
11/960,547 12/19/2007 Kapil Chaudhry PD-207122 4694
20991 7590 04/13/2016
THE DIRECTV GROUP, INC.
PATENT DOCKET ADMINISTRATION
CA / LA1 / A109
2230 E. IMPERIAL HIGHWAY
EL SEGUNDO, CA 90245
EXAMINER
FLYNN, NATHAN J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2421
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/13/2016 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 PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte KAPIL CHAUDHRY1
____________

Appeal 2014-006283
Application 11/960,547
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before KRISTEN L. DROESCH, TERRENCE W. McMILLIN, and
MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges.

McMILLIN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

This is a decision2 on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1, 4, 6–10, 15–18, 21, and 23–26,
which are all the pending claims. App. Br. 2. Claims 2, 3, 5, 11–14, 19, 20,
and 22 are cancelled. Id. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is The DIRECTV Group,
Inc. App. Br. 2.
2 Our decision refers to the Final Office Action mailed August 12, 2013
(“Final Act.”); Appellant’s Appeal Brief filed January 13, 2014 (“App.
Br.”); the Examiner’s Answer mailed March 5, 2014 (“Ans.”); Appellant’s
Reply Brief filed May 5, 2014 (“Reply Br.”); and the Specification filed
December 19, 2007 (“Spec.”).
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Application 11/960,547

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REJECTIONS ON APPEAL
Claims 1, 4, 6, 9, 10, 17, 18, 21, 23, and 26 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Yampanis (US 2008/0178239
A1; published July 24, 2008) (“Yampanis”) and Tsutsui et al. (US
2007/0186254 A1; published Aug. 9, 2007) (“Tsutsui”). Final Act. 3.
Claims 7, 8, 15, 16, 24, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Yampanis, Tsutsui, and O’Neil (US
2009/0113489 A1; published Apr. 30, 2009) (“O’Neil”). Final Act. 13.

THE CLAIMED INVENTION
According to Appellant, “[t]he present disclosure relates generally to
communication systems having a primary service provider, a user network
device and an intermediate web provider, and more particularly, to a method
and system for communicating a content list and content to the user network
device.” Spec. ¶ 1. Independent claims 1 and 10 are directed to methods
and independent claim 18 is directed to a system. App. Br. 19, 21, and 23.
Claim 1 recites:
A method comprising:
communicating user identifier data for a user network
device to an intermediate web provider from the user network
device;
communicating the user identifier data from the
intermediate web provider to a primary service provider;
authenticating the user network device using the user
identifier data at the primary service provider;
providing content clips to the intermediate web provider
from a primary service provider;
storing the content clips at the intermediate web provider;
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Application 11/960,547

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forming a content list corresponding to the content clips
stored at the intermediate web provider;
communicating the content list to the user network
device from the intermediate web provider;
forming a selection from the content list at the user
network device;
communicating the selection to the intermediate web
provider from the user network device;
communicating a first content clip from the content clips
corresponding to the selection from the intermediate web
provider to the user network device; and
displaying the first content clip on a display of the user
network device.

App. Br. 19.

ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the rejections of claims 1, 4, 6–10, 15–18, 21, and
23–26 in light of Appellant’s arguments presented in the Appeal Brief and
the Reply Brief. We are not persuaded that Appellant identifies reversible
error. We agree with and adopt the Examiner’s findings, reasoning, and
conclusions as set forth in Final Office Action (Final Act. 2–11) and the
Examiner’s Answer (Ans. 2–4). We highlight the following for emphasis.

Claim 1
Appellant argues that Tsutsui fails to teach or suggest (1) the
intermediate web provider receiving and storing content clips; and (2) the
primary web provider providing the content clips to the intermediate web
provider. App. Br. 11; Reply Br. 2. This argument is misdirected. The
Examiner relies on Yampanis for disclosing these limitations. Ans. 3
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(“Yampanis is relied upon to disclose a client facing tier 102 or
‘intermediate web provider’ for receiving and storing television or movie
content (reads on content clips) transmitted from the acquisition tier 106 or
‘primary service provider’ (¶¶ 0023 & 0031).”) Id.; see also Final Act. 4.
Appellant acknowledges the Examiner relies on Yampanis, not Tsutsui, for
these teachings and acknowledges Yampanis provides these teaching in the
following passage from the Appeal Brief:
The Examiner states that Yampanis discloses “providing
content clips (i.e., content acquired by the acquisition tier 106)
to the intermediate web provider (102 – fig. 1) from a primary
service provider (106 – fig. 1).” See the present [Final] Office
Action, p. 4. Thus, the Examiner analogizes: (i) the acquisition
tier 106 of Yampanis with the primary service provider of claim
1; and (ii) the client facing tier 102 of Yampanis with the
intermediate web provider of claim 1.
In this regard, FIG. 1 of Yampanis shows that the
acquisition tier 106 (i.e., the alleged primary service provider)
includes a video on demand (VOD) import server 158 and that
the client facing tier 102 (i.e., the alleged intermediate web
provider) includes a VOD server 136. Yampanis states that the
“VOD import server 158 receives and stores television or
mobile content received at the acquisition tier 106 and
communicates the stored content to the VOD server 136 at the
client-facing tier 102 via the private network 110.” See
Yampanis, paragraph [0031].

App. Br. 9. Yampanis supports the findings of the Examiner and clearly
teaches the disputed elements.
Appellant’s argument is not persuasive because it fails to address the
teachings of the combination of references, Yampanis and Tsutsui.. One
cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually when the
rejection is based on a combination of references. In re Keller, 642 F.2d
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Application 11/960,547

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413, 425 (CCPA 1981). Each reference cited by the Examiner must be read,
not in isolation, but for what it fairly teaches in combination with the prior
art as a whole. See In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F. 2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir.
1986). We are not persuaded of error in the rejection of claim 1.

Claims 4, 6–10, 15–18, 21, and 23–26
Appellant does not present separate arguments in support of any of the
other claims. App. Br. 13–17. We sustain the rejection of independent
claims 10 and 18 and dependent claims 4, 6–9, 15–17, 21, and 23 –26 for the
reasons stated above with regard to independent claim 1.

DECISION
The rejections of claims 1, 4, 6–10, 15–18, 21, and 23–26 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