Ex Parte CHOI et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 3, 201612026654 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 3, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/026,654 02/06/2008 23373 7590 08/05/2016 SUGHRUE MION, PLLC 2100 PENNSYLVANIA A VENUE, N.W. SUITE 800 WASHINGTON, DC 20037 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Sang-su CHOI 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. Ql02505 3469 EXAMINER CHACKO, JOE ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2456 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/05/2016 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): PPROCESSING@SUGHRUE.COM sughrue@sughrue.com USPTO@sughrue.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITEn STATES PATENT ANn TRA.nEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SANG-SU CHOI, YANG-LIM CHOI, JUN-BUM SHIN, SO-YOUNG LEE, SUN-NAM LEE, and JI-YOUNG MOON Appeal2015-000231 Application 12/026,654 Technology Center 2400 Before JON M. JURGOV AN, ADAM J. PYONIN, and JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judges. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1-5, 7-14, and 16-20, which are all pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We AFFIRM-IN-PART. Appeal2015-000231 Application 12/026,654 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellants' disclosure is directed to "a method and apparatus for controlling transmission of content data. In the method ... verification is performed a plurality of times to determine whether the content data is transmitted within an acceptable transmission range." Abstract. Claims 1, 10, and 19 are independent. Claim 1 is reproduced below for reference: 1. A method of controlling transmission of content data, the method comprising: establishing a communication channel with an external device; sequentially transmitting a first, second, third, ... , Nth pieces of the content data through the communication channel to the external device; verifying, subsequent to transmitting each first, second, .. . , (N-1 )th piece of the content data and prior to transmitting the next one of the second, third, ... , Nth pieces of the content data, whether the first, second, ... , (N-1 )th pieces of the content data are transmitted to the external device within an acceptable transmission range to generate a verification result; and determining whether to transmit the next one of the second, third, ... , Nth pieces of the content data according to the verification result, wherein the verifying comprises measuring a round trip time (R TT) of a packet to determine whether the first, second, .. . , (N-1 )th pieces of the content data are transmitted to the external device within the acceptable transmission range. References and Rejections Claims 1, 7-10, and 16-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Chu (US 2004/0095883 Al; May 20, 2004) and Saito (US 2008/0192935 Al; Aug. 14, 2008). Final Act. 3. 2 Appeal2015-000231 Application 12/026,654 Claims 2-5 and 11-14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Chu, Saito, and Guo (US 7,593,423 B2; Sept. 22, 2009). Final Act. 6. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants' arguments that the Examiner erred. Except as indicated below with respect to dependent claims 5 and 14, we disagree with Appellants that the Examiner erred and adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Final Action and the Examiner's Answer. We highlight and address specific findings and arguments for emphasis as follows. A. Independent Claim 1 Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claim 1, because "Chu and Saito fail to teach or suggest at least 'verifying, subsequent to transmitting each ... piece of the content data and prior to transmitting the next one of the ... pieces of the content data,"' wherein the "'verifying comprises measuring a round trip time (R TT) of a packet."' App. Br. 6. Particularly, Appellants contend "claim 1 is directed to repeatedly measuring the RTT while transmitting the content data," whereas "Saito does not describe repeatedly performing the R TT measurement while transmitting the content data to the external device, after the AKE is successfully completed." App. Br. 7. Appellants also argue that "one skilled in the art would not be motivated to modify Chu based on Saito, to arrive at the features of claim 1." Reply Br. 4; see also App. Br. 8-9. 3 Appeal2015-000231 Application 12/026,654 We are not persuaded the Examiner erred. The Examiner correctly finds Chu teaches verifying-both subsequent and prior to transmitting- pieces of content data as claimed, because Chu discloses transmitting acknowledgements (ACK) in between sending different pieces of content data. See Final Act. 4 (citing Chu Fig. 4, i-f 17). Thus, Appellants' arguments that Saito does not teach or suggest the claimed verifying (see Reply Br. 4) are not persuasive for failing to address the Examiner's findings with respect to the combination of Chu and Saito. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981) ("The test for obviousness is not ... that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art."). Further, we are not persuaded the Examiner's combination of Chu and Saito is in error. Rather, we agree with the Examiner that "Chu can be modified with the R TT measurement after the transmission of data from the sender to receiver described in Saito and therefore would not require any significant modification ... to precisely and easily determine whether the transmission of the contents should be permitted."' Ans. 8; see also Final Act. 3. Chu is directed to acknowledgement-based transmit scheduling, and teaches verifying transmission of each piece of data with an ACK; the ACK will also be used to prepare for the following data transmission. See Chu i-f 16-17, Title. Saito teaches using RTT to "determine whether the transmission of the contents should be permitted." Saito i-f 100. From the record before us, we do not find that using R TT as taught by Saito during Chu's ACK timing was "uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art" or "represented an unobvious step over the prior 4 Appeal2015-000231 Application 12/026,654 art." Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007). Rather, the Examiner's findings are reasonable because an artisan of ordinary skill is "a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton," and this is a case in which the artisan would "be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle." KSR Int 'l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 420, 421 (2007). Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent claim 1, and claims 2--4, 7-13, and 16-20, which are not separately argued with specificity. See App. Br. 9-10. B. Dependent Claim 5 Appellants contend the Examiner erred in rejecting dependent claim 5, because Guo's "disclosure is irrelevant to the claimed 'verification is periodically performed according to an amount of the content data to be transmitted"' as claimed. App Br. 10. We are persuaded by Appellants' arguments. The Examiner finds Guo's disclosure of an "increase or decrease in [the] contention window[, which] will help verify whether the transmission of the user will be a failed transmission or successful transmission," is "equivalent to the recited ... limitation." Ans. 9; see also Guo 7:62----67, 9:15--40. We agree with Appellants, however, that "changing the contention window size is not the same as or an equivalent of the" the recitations of claim 5. Reply Br. 7. That is, we find Guo' s disclosure of calculating the number of failed transmissions to determine a contention window size does not teach or suggest verifying according to an amount of content data to be transmitted. See Guo 7:62----67. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection 5 Appeal2015-000231 Application 12/026,654 of dependent claim 5, and dependent claim 14 which recites limitations commensurate in scope. DECISION The Examiner's rejections of claims 1--4, 7-13, and 16-20 are affirmed. The Examiner's rejection of claims 5 and 14 is reversed. 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-IN-PART 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation