Ex Parte Cucinotta et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 21, 2018

13944964 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 21, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
13/944,964 07/18/2013 Tommaso Cucinotta
32498 7590 08/23/2018
CAPITOL PA TENT & TRADEMARK LAW FIRM, PLLC
P.O. BOX 1995
VIENNA, VA 22183
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.
129250-002391 1097
EXAMINER
SHAW, PETER C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2493
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/23/2018 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):
j curtin @cappat.com
knetznik@cappat.com
ipsnarocp@nokia.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte TOMMASO CUCINOTTA and ALESSANDRA SALA
Appeal 2018-001419
Application 13/944,964
Technology Center 2400
Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, AMBER L. HAGY, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
MacDONALD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL 1
1 Appellants indicate the real party in interest is Alcatel-Lucent (now a part
of Nokia). App. Br. 1.
Appeal 2018-001419
Application 13/944,964
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § I34(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1-13 and 29-41. Appellants have withdrawn claims 14--28. App.
Br. 9. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM.
Illustrative Claim
Illustrative claim 1 under appeal reads as follows ( emphasis,
formatting, and bracketed material added):
1. A method for protecting private data comprising:
[A.] receiving one or more permissions associated with a directional
flow of data, and a user, an application or a device from an
element in a first device to an element in a second device;
[B.] modifying one or more of the received permissions;
[C.] identifying one or more permissions from the received and
modified permissions associated with the directional flow of
data, and the user, application or device; and
[D.] controlling, through operation of a stored operating system (OS)
at a device within a cloud-based network, the directional flow
of data from the first device to the second device based on the
identified permissions.
Rejections
A.
The Examiner rejected claims 1---6, 9, 12, 13, 29-34, 37, 40, and 41
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of
Banerjee (US 8,578,442 Bl; iss. Nov. 5, 2013) and Jerger et al.
(US 6,345,361 Bl; iss. Feb. 5, 2002).
2
Appeal 2018-001419
Application 13/944,964
Appellants present arguments for claim 1. Appellants do not argue
separate patentability for claims 2---6, 9, 12, 13, 29--34, 37, 40, and 41.
Except for our ultimate decision, we do not address claims 2-6, 9, 12, 13,
29-34, 37, 40, and 41 further herein.
B.
The Examiner rejects claims 7, 8, 10, 11, 3 5, 3 6, 3 8, and 3 9 under
35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Banerjee,
Jerger, and Amendola et al. (US 2011/0320809 Al; pub. Dec. 29, 2011).
Final Act. 7-11.
Appellants do not present arguments for claims 7, 8, 10, 11, 35, 36,
38, and 39. Thus, the rejections of these claims tum on our decision as to
claim 1. Except for our ultimate decision, we do not address the § 103
rejections of claims 7, 8, 10, 11, 35, 36, 38, and 39 further herein.
Issues on Appeal
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 1 as being obvious?
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments (Appeal Brief and Reply Brief) that the Examiner has erred. We
disagree with Appellants. Except as noted below, we adopt as our own
( 1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from
which this appeal is taken and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in
the Examiner's Answer in response to Appellants' Appeal Brief. We concur
with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the following
points.
3
Appeal 2018-001419
Application 13/944,964
Appellants raise the following argument in contending that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a).
[T]he combination of Banerjee and Jerger does not appear to
disclose or suggest "permissions" associated with a "directional
flow of data".
In the specification a "directional flow of data" is
explained as being the "sequence of operations required to store
data within memory 30a, and subsequently transfer the data ( e.g.,
a copy) to device 2 ... it may be said that the data flow has a
'direction'. In this case, the direction is from the memory 30a
within device 3 to the memory 20a within device 2. Data that
flows in a direction may be referred to as a directional flow of
data" (see paragraph [0029].
In contrast Jerger uses the phrase "directional" in the
hierarchical sense of defining permissions between different
levels of users. Indeed, Jerger's Abstract describes a "directional
permission set" as being directional in that "it maintains the
distinction between the 'superior' user-defined set and the
'inferior' requested set".
Thus, contrary to the Examiner's pos1t10n, the
combination of Banerjee and Jerger does not disclose or suggest
the claimed permissions associated with a directional flow of
data.
App. Br. 4.
The Examiner's parsing of the claim is improper because
it ignores the relationship between the permissions and the
directional flow of data.
App. Br. 5.
The Examiner presents the following response to Appellants' above
arguments.
Examiner submits that Banerjee at Col. 4 lines 20-28, describes
permissions that are given to a user a client accessing an
enterprise resource over a network, locally or remotely see also
Banerjee at Fig. 1 and Col. 3 lines 43-48. Examiner interprets
4
Appeal 2018-001419
Application 13/944,964
this to be analogous to a directional flow of data where data is
transferred back and forth between the client and resource via
commands such as READ, WRITE and/or MODIFY see
Banerjee at Col. 4 lines 10-20. Examiner points out that the
instant application appears to specifically consider READ and
WRITE as the type of such permissions see specification at
[0004], [0011] and [0033].
To reinforce the rejection with respect to the association
of the permission with a flow of data and a "user, application or
device", Examiner introduced the prior art reference, Jerger,
which in the Abstract, discusses permission sets associated with
protected data based on parameters that include READ/WRITE
permissions see also Col. 5, lines 13-20, which as explained
above is an example of a permission for directional flow of data.
Ans. 4--5.
We agree with the Examiner that, contrary to Appellants' argument,
the READ/WRITE permissions of each ofBanjerjee and Jerger are
permissions "associated with a directional flow of data" as required by
claim 1, because an artisan would recognize that the read/write functions
are directional. 2
2 The Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary (Microsoft Press 1991 ), states
the term "read" means:
For a computer, to gather information from an input source.
Reading is the means by which a computer receives information,
typically from a disk drive, the opposite is writing-transferring
information to storage such as a disk or to a device such as a
printer or the screen.
5
Appeal 2018-001419
Application 13/944,964
CONCLUSIONS
(1) The Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 1-13 and 29-41
as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
(2) Claims 1-13 and 29--41 are not patentable.
DECISION
The Examiner's rejections of claims 1-13 and 29--41 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)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
6