Ex Parte Crump

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jan 26, 2010

10282541 (B.P.A.I. Jan. 26, 2010)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte MICHAEL WILLIAM CRUMP
____________
Appeal 2009-001355
Application 10/282,5411
Technology Center 2400
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Decided: January 27, 2010
____________

Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JEAN R. HOMERE, and THU A. DANG,
Administrative Patent Judges.

HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 Filed on October 29, 2002. This application claims priority from
provisional application 60/350,484, which was filed on October 29, 2001.
The real party in interest is International Business Machines Corp. (App. Br.
1.)
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I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) (2002) from the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1 through 3, 5 through 15, 17 through
27, and 29 through 36. (App. Br. 2.)2 Claims 4, 16, and 28 have been
cancelled. (Id.) We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) (2008).
We reverse.
Brief Summary of The Invention
Appellant invented a method, apparatus, and program storage medium
for dynamically determining a port number for use in a network connection.
(Spec. 2, Para. [0003].) In particular, the claimed invention parses the
Internet Protocol (“IP”) address of a server to obtain a base first number.
(Spec. 7, Para. [0021].) In order to obtain a port number, or second number,
an interval value is added to the base first number. (Id.) “Additionally, both
the client and server may validate or authenticate each other through a
variety of mechanisms.” (Id.) According to Appellant, the claimed
invention eliminates the need to know or care about an end-user’s
Transmission Control Protocol (“TCP”)/IP port number. (Spec. 10, Para.
[0033].)
Illustrative Claim
Independent claim 1 further illustrates the invention as follows:
1. A method of determining a port number for a network
connection comprising:
(a) determining an Internet Protocol (“IP”) address of a
server;

2 All references to the Appeal Brief are to the Appeal Brief filed on October
25, 2007, which replaced the prior Appeal Brief filed on August 13, 2007.

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(b) determining a first number based on the IP address;
and
(c) calculating a second number to be used as the port
number by:
(i) adding an interval value to the first number
resulting in the second number; and
(ii) repeatedly adding the interval value until the
second number is available for use as the port number.

Prior Art Relied Upon
The Examiner relies on the following prior art as evidence of
unpatentability:
Bal 6,457,061 B1 Sep. 24, 2002
(filed Nov. 24, 1998)
Feder 6,512,754 B2 Jan. 28, 2003
(filed Aug. 24, 1998)
Deac 6,581,107 B1 Jun. 17, 2003
(filed Jul. 27, 1999)

Rejections on Appeal
The Examiner rejects the claims on appeal as follows:
Claims 1, 2, 5 through 9, 13, 14, 17 through 21, 25, 26, and 29
through 33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable
over Bal.
Claims 3, 15, and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Bal and Deac.
Claims 10 through 12, 22 through 24, and 34 through 36 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the
combination of Bal and Feder.

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Appellant’s Contentions
Appellant contends that Bal’s disclosure of using bits from an IP
address, or completely discarding the number based on the IP address, and
generating a new number as the port number, does not teach the addition, or
a repetitive addition, of an interval value to a number that is based on an IP
address. (App. Br. 5-7; Reply Br. 5-7.) Further, Appellant argues that there
is insufficient rationale to combine Bal’s two embodiments to teach the
claimed invention. (App. Br. 7-8, 10-11; Reply Br. 7-8, 10-12.)
Additionally, Appellant alleges that Bal teaches away from the claimed
invention because Bal’s disclosure of generating a new number as the port
number does not indicate that an IP address is utilized to generate the port
number. (App. Br 8; Reply Br. 8.) Appellant also alleges that Bal teaches
away from the claimed invention because Bal’s disclosure of connection
tables falls within the purview of the prior art addressed in Appellant’s
Specification. (App. Br. 8-9; Reply Br. 8-9.) Therefore, Appellant contends
that it is impossible for Bal’s disclosure to produce a client or server product
that connects automatically without the need for human intervention. (Id.)
Examiner’s Findings and Conclusions
The Examiner finds that Bal’s disclosure of generating a port number
by using bits from an IP address, in conjunction with using a sequential
number not based on the IP address, teaches generating a port number by
incrementing a number based on the IP address. (Ans. 8-9.) In particular,
the Examiner finds that Bal’s disclosure of sequentially generating a number
teaches incrementing or adding a value as claimed. (Id.) Further, the
Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to an ordinarily skilled
artisan to repeat the step of generating a port number by incrementing or
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adding to a number based on the IP address because it would yield
predictable results. (Id.)

II. ISSUE
The pivotal issue before us is therefore whether Appellant has shown
that the Examiner erred in concluding that Bal renders independent claims 1,
13, and 25 unpatentable. In particular, the issue turns on whether:
(a) Bal teaches “adding an interval to the first number resulting in
the second number,” as recited in independent claims 1, 13, and 25; and
(b) Bal teaches “repeatedly adding the interval value until the
second number is available for use as the port number,” as recited in
independent claims 1, 13, and 25.

III. FINDINGS OF FACT
The following Findings of Fact (“FF”) are shown by a preponderance
of the evidence.
Bal
1. Bal generally relates to the field of computer networking and, in
particular, to a method and apparatus for generating port addresses that can
be used for implementing a very fast look-up method to be performed for
high-speed address translation. (Col. 1, ll. 7-11.)
2. Bal’s Figure 3A depicts how one embodiment of a network
address translation device generates external IP addresses and port numbers
wherein the port numbers are statistically unique. (Col. 7, ll. 9-13.) First,
the network address translation device generates a legal external IP address
for use with an Internet connection. (Id. at ll. 15-17.) “The legal external IP
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address is selected from a pool of external IP addresses (335) using an IP
address policy (330). To generate a connection port number, a forward
translation (“FWT”) allocation policy (340) is used.” (Id. at ll. 17-21.) In
particular,
[t]he FWT allocation policy (340) generates a connection port number
by combining three different elements. First, the FWT allocation
policy (340) sets the most significant bit to “1” indicating that this is a
FWT generated connect port number. Next, the FWT allocation
policy (340) sets the next most eight significant bits equal to the least
significant bits of the internal IP address of the internal network node
initiating the connection. Finally, the FWT allocation policy (340)
sets the least significant seven bits equal to the least significant seven
bits of the connection port number used by the internal network node
when initiating the connection.

(Id. at ll. 21-34.)
3. Bal discloses that when the forward translation system
generates the same port number for two different connections, a different
connection port number is generated for the second connection. (Col. 8, ll.
2-7.) Referring again to Bal’s Figure 3A, when a connection port number
collision is detected, the forward translation system utilizes a fall-back
system whererin the most significant bit is set to zero. (Id. at ll. 7-10.)
Further, the forward translation system determines whether the remaining
fifteen bits of the connection port number are set to a sequential number
from 1024 and 32,768. (Id. at ll. 10-12.)

IV. PRINCIPLES OF LAW
Obviousness
Appellant has the burden on appeal to the Board to demonstrate error
in the Examiner's position. See In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 985-86 (Fed. Cir.
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2006) (“‘On appeal to the Board, an applicant can overcome a rejection
[under § 103] by showing insufficient evidence of prima facie obviousness
or by rebutting the prima facie case with evidence of secondary indicia of
nonobviousness.’”) (quoting In re Rouffet, 149 F.3d 1350, 1355 (Fed. Cir.
1998)).

V. ANALYSIS
Claims 1, 13, and 25
Independent claims 1, 13, and 25 recite, in relevant parts, 1) “adding
an interval to the first number resulting in the second number,” and 2)
“repeatedly adding the interval value until the second number is available for
use as the port number.”
As detailed in the Findings of Fact section above, Bal discloses
generating a port address. (FF 1.) In particular, Bal discloses that a node
initiates a connection using a network address translation device whereby an
IP address policy is utilized to select a legal external IP address. (FF 2.)
Further, a FWT allocation policy is utilized to generate a port number by
combining three different bits. (Id.) Additionally, Bal discloses that the port
number is generated utilizing bits from an internal IP address of the node
initiating the connection. (Id.) We find that Bal’s disclosure teaches
generating a port number available for use in a network connection utilizing
bits from a node’s internal IP address.
Further, in order to avoid collisions with connections initiated from
other nodes, Bal discloses a fall-back system. (FF 3.) In particular, the
network address translation device sets the first bit to zero and determines
the remaining fifteen bits of the connection port number based on sequential
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numbers ranging from 1024 to 32,768. (Id.) We find that Bal’s disclosure
teaches generating a port number available for use in a network connection
by utilizing a control bit and a range of sequential numbers. At best, we find
that an ordinarily skilled artisan would readily appreciate that Bal’s
disclosure of bits from a node’s internal IP address, in conjunction with a
control bit and a range of sequential numbers, teaches generating a port
number available for use in a network connection by adding the sequential
numbers in the cited range.
However, we find that Bal’s cited disclosure falls short of teaching or
suggesting adding an interval value (e.g., 10,000) to a derived number based
on the IP address of a server to obtain a port number. Additionally, if the
port identified by the port number is unavailable, Bal’s cited disclosure fails
to teach or suggest the repetitive addition of the interval value (e.g., 10,000)
until an available port number is identified. As set forth in the Brief
Summary of The Invention section above, Appellant’s claimed invention
generates a port number for use in a network communication by parsing the
IP address of a server to obtain a base number and adding an interval value
to the base number to obtain a port number. (App. Br. 4.) We find that such
an endeavor is not contemplated by the Bal reference. Therefore, the
Examiner has improperly relied upon Bal’s disclosure to teach or even
suggest the disputed limitations.
Since Appellant has shown at least one error in the rejection of
independent claims 1, 13, and 25, we need not reach the merits of
Appellant’s other arguments. It follows that Appellant has shown that the
Examiner erred in concluding that Bal renders independent claims 1, 13, and
25 unpatentable.
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Claims 2, 3, 5 through 12, 14, 15, 17 through 24, 26, 27, and 29 through 36
Because claims 2, 3, 5 through 12, 14, 15, 17 through 24, 26, 27, and
29 through 36 also incorporate the limitations discussed above, we find that
Appellant has also shown error in the Examiner’s rejection of these claims
for the reasons set forth in our discussion of independent claim 1.

VI. CONCLUSION OF LAW
Appellant has shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1
through 3, 5 through 15, 17 through 27, and 29 through 36 as being
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

VII. DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1 through 3, 5
through 15, 17 through 27, and 29 through 36.

REVERSED

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