Ex Parte Fosback et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 23, 2016

12538050 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 23, 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.
12/538,050 08/07/2009 Jason Robert Fosback 337722-304700/P8133US1 6612
133036 7590 12/28/2016
DLA Piper LLP (US)
2000 University Avenue
East Palo Alto, CA 94303-2215
EXAMINER
TANG, KAREN C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2447
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/28/2016 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):
ApplePros Admin @ dlapiper.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte
JASON ROBERT FOSBACK, RICARDO D. CORTES,
and MAX MULLER
Appeal 2016-002433
Application 12/538,0501
Technology Center 2400
Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, SHARON FENICK, and
JOHN R. KENNY, Administrative Patent Judges.
FENICK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—25, all the pending claims in the
present application. (Appeal Br. 2.) We have jurisdiction over the appeal
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b)(1).
We REVERSE.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Apple Inc. (Appeal
Br. 2.)
Appeal 2016-002433
Application 12/538,050
Invention
Appellants’ invention relates to transporting media content data over a
network to a media submission system. A client media submission program
supports this submission to the media submission system using a plurality of
transport mechanisms. One of the transport mechanisms to be utilized for the
media submission is determined based at least in part on configuration
criteria from the media submission subsystem regarding possible transport
mechanisms. The media content data is submitted over the network to the
media submission system using the determined one of the transport
mechanisms. (Abstract.)
Illustrative Claim
Claim 1, reproduced below with emphasis added, is illustrative:
1. A computer implemented method for transporting media
content data over a network to a media submission system, the
method comprising:
providing a client media submission program that supports
media submission to the media submission system using a
plurality of transport mechanisms;
obtaining configuration criteria at the client media
submission program from the media submission system;
providing a client validation of the configuration criteria
from the media submission system, by validating at the client
media submission program at least a portion of the configuration
criteria from the media submission system, the validating
comprises ranking the transport mechanisms based at least in
part on at least one of (i) media type of the media content data,
(ii) size of the media content data or (Hi) media encoding type of
the media content data;
determining one of the transport mechanisms to be utilized
for the media submission based at least in part on the rank of the
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Application 12/538,050
transport mechanisms provided by the client validation of the
configuration criteria from the media submission system; and
submitting the media content data over the network to the
media submission system using the determined one of the
transport mechanisms, wherein the submitting uses the client
media submission program to submit the media content data over
the network to a media storage server using the determined one
of the transport mechanisms.
Rejections
Appellants appeal the following rejections:
Claims 1—4, 6—19, and 21—24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Natarajan et al. (US 2002/0078211 Al; June 20, 2002)
(“Natarajan”), Van (US 6,658,476 Bl; Dec. 2, 2003), and Jorgenson et al.
(US 2005/0232227 Al; Oct 20, 2005)(“Jorgenson”). (Final Action 2—31.)
Claims 5 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Natarajan, Van, Jorgenson, and Kim (US 2008/0155552 Al; June 26,
2008) . (Final Action 31—33.)
Claim 25 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Natarajan, Van, Jorgenson, and Zhang et al. (US 2009/0198830 Al; Aug. 6,
2009) (“Zhang”). (Final Action 34.)
ANALYSIS
The Examiner finds that the combination of Natarajan, Van, and
Jorgenson teaches or suggests the limitations of claim 1, including the
limitation concerning, “providing a client validation of the configuration
criteria from the media submission system, by validating at the client media
submission program at least a portion of the configuration criteria from the
media submission system, the validating comprises ranking the transport
mechanisms based at least in part on at least one of (i) media type of the
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Application 12/538,050
media content data, (ii) size of the media content data or (iii) media
encoding type of the media content data.” (Final Action 2—6.) Specifically
with respect to the limitation that the validation comprises ranking transport
mechanisms based at least in part on at least one of the media type, size, or
media encoding of the media content data which is submitted, the Examiner
finds that Jorgenson discloses such ranking. (Id. at 6.) The Examiner
explains that Jorgenson’s disclosure of the determination of a usable
protocol from a plurality of protocols is based on “judging at least the size of
the packets” sent using the protocol. (Answer 8.)
Jorgenson relates to analyzing performance and thereby characterizing
the segments of a network path where a sampling phase of sending packets
(marker and load packets) is used to collect information about a network and
segments of the paths in the network. (Jorgenson, Abstract.) Appellants
argue that Jorgenson does not teach or suggest a ranking of transport
mechanisms based in part on at least one of the media type, size, or media
encoding of the media content data. (Appeal Br. 12.) Appellants argue,
“Jorgenson uses marker packets and marker replies to characterize the
network path.” (Id. ) While Appellants agree that packets of different sizes
are used on the network of Jorgenson (Reply 3), Appellants argue that the
Examiner errs in mapping the size of the load and marker packets of
Jorgenson to the size of the media content data (Id. at 4).
We agree with the Appellants. While Jorgenson does teach in the
portions cited by the Examiner that packet size may change the network
performance (110) and that different-sized packets may be used to sample
the network path performance flflf 44, 51, 60), the Examiner does not cite a
teaching in Jorgenson in which the actual data size to be transmitted within a
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Application 12/538,050
specific packet size (the claimed “size of media content data” or “media
encoding type”) is evaluated in order to determine a transport mechanism for
the data. In the claims, the emphasis is on the size of the media content data,
as one example, not the size of the packet which carries the content.
Typically, on the internet, the network breaks data content into parts of
certain size bytes called packets, which suggests that the size of the data
content is generally larger than the size of a packet. Here, the Examiner
finds that one protocol (“the usable protocol”) is selected in Jorgenson in the
sampling phase. (Answer 8.) The sampling phase, in Jorgenson, is taught
or suggested as a phase which occurs in order to obtain characteristics of a
network path, and we agree with Appellants that Jorgenson does not teach
that the size of the packets used to obtain the network path characteristics
also teach or suggest any of a media type, size, or media encoding type of
some data. (Jorgenson 144.)
Thus, we agree with the Appellants that the Examiner has not shown
how Jorgenson’s teachings, in combination with those of Natarajan and Van,
render obvious the disputed claim limitations, and we find Appellants’
argument to be persuasive. Because we agree with at least one dispositive
argument advanced by Appellants, we need not reach the merits of
Appellants’ other arguments.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection
of independent claim 1. Additionally, we do not sustain the rejections of
independent claim 10, 11, and 16, or dependent claims 2—9, 12—15, and 17—
25, all argued in whole or in part on the same basis.
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DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejections of claims 1—25 as
obvious.
REVERSED
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