Ex Parte Gonzalez et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 16, 2016

13023907 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 16, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/023,907 02/09/2011
25537 7590 09/20/2016
VERIZON
PA TENT MANAGEMENT GROUP
1320 North Court House Road
9th Floor
ARLINGTON, VA 22201-2909
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Christopher M. Gonzalez
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.
20100636 9602
EXAMINER
KING, MONICA C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2844
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/20/2016 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):
patents@verizon.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte CHRISTOPHER M. GONZALEZ, S. A. VETHA MANICKAM,
MADAN PONNA, SHARAD KUMAR, JAMES CARLETON HICKS,
VENKATA RAMANA MURTHY POLUDASU, and
DINY AR KA VOUSOUR
Appeal2015-000265
Application 13/023,907
Technology Center 2800
Before ROMULO H. DELMENDO, GEORGE C. BEST, and
JENNIFER R. GUPTA, Administrative Patent Judges.
DELMENDO, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
The Applicants (hereinafter the "Appellants") 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C.
§ 134(a) from a decision of the Primary Examiner to reject claims 1-25.2
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 The Appellants state that the real parties in interest are "Verizon
Communications Inc. and its subsidiary companies" (Appeal Brief filed
May 30, 2014, hereinafter "Appeal Br.," 3).
2 See Appeal Br. 1, 14--26; Non-Final Office Action delivered electronically
on January 14, 2014, hereinafter "Non-Final Act.," 1.
Appeal2015-000265
Application 13/023,907
BACKGROl.J1'-JD
The subject matter on appeal relates to a method, a user device, or a
non-transitory computer-readable medium in which a toolbar application
that is resident on the user's device provides sign-on service to various types
of resources (e.g., single-sign on protected sites, non-single-sign on
protected sites, mainframe sessions, mainframe applications, or a user device
application resident on the user device) (Specification, hereinafter "Spec.,"
i-fi-f 13-14; Abstract; Claims Appendix, hereinafter "Claims App.").
Representative claim 1 is reproduced from pages 28-29 of the Appeal Brief
(Claims App.), with key limitations highlighted in italics:
1. A method comprising:
receiving, by a toolbar application of a user device and
from a user of the user device, a sign-on request to sign-on to
the toolbar application, wherein the toolbar application is
resident on the user device;
determining whether the sign-on request is valid;
receiving, by the toolbar application, user profile
information pertaining to the user in response to determining
that the sign-on request is valid;
receiving a request to connect to a single sign-on site, to
connect to a non-single sign-on site, to connect to a system, to
initiate a mainframe session, or to use a mainframe application
or a user device application resident on the user device, wherein
the toolbar application is capable of receiving the request via
any of the toolbar application, a graphical element on a desktop
associated with the user device, a graphical element in a taskbar
associated with the user device, and a graphical element in a
system tray associated with the user device;
determining, by the toolbar application of the user
device, whether the user is authorized to connect to, initiate, or
use the single sign-on site, the non-single sign-on site, the
system, the mainframe session, the mainframe application, or
the user device application based on the user profile
information;
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Application 13/023,907
selecting, by the toolbar application of the user device,
one or more user credentials to allow the user to connect to,
initiate, or use the single sign-on site, the non-single sign-on
site, the system, the mainframe session, the mainframe
application, or the user device application in response to
determining that the user is authorized; and
signing-on, by the toolbar application of the user device,
to the single sign-on site, the non-single sign-on site, the
system, the mainframe session, the mainframe application, or
the user device application based on the selected one or more
user credentials, wherein the toolbar application is capable of
performing the receiving, the determining, the selecting, and the
signing-on, pertaining to the single sign-on site, the non-single
sign-on site, the system, the mainframe session, the mainframe
application, and the user device application.
THE REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
follows:
I. Claims 1-10 and 20-25 as unpatentable over Kuzin et al.
(hereinafter "Kuzin")3 in view of Thomas et al. (hereinafter
"Thomas");4 and
II. Claims 11-19 as unpatentable over Kuzin in view of Gonzalez
et al. (hereinafter "Gonzalez")5 and Thomas.
(Examiner's Answer delivered electronically on August 13, 2014,
hereinafter "Ans.," 3; Non-Final Act. 3-13.)
3 US 2010/0146611 Al, published June 10, 2010.
4 US 2004/0039827 Al, published February 26, 2004.
5 US 8,220,039 B2, issued July 10, 2012.
3
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Application 13/023,907
DISCUSSION
The Examiner construed the limitation "the toolbar application is
resident on the user device" in claim 1 as requiring "simply the 'toolbar'
software (as all things are software on computers) that is resident and local
on the computer device" (Ans. 4). According to the Examiner, "although the
underlying application in which the icon [i.e., toolbar] is associated with
may be resident of some server (e.g., a server that stores wireless
information), the toolbar application that is claimed in the claims is a
resident such as a script of the user device" (id. at 5). Based on this
construction, the Examiner found that Kuzin describes the limitation (id.;
Non-Final Act. 3).
The Appellants contend that the Examiner's rejection should be
reversed because "[t]he user in Kuzin is not requesting to sign-on to a
toolbar application of a user device, wherein the toolbar application is
resident on the user device" (Appeal Br. 16). Specifically, the Appellants
point out that, in contrast to the claimed subject matter, "Kuzin discloses that
the user signs on (logs on) to a web-based logon server (i.e., a remote
device) via a user interface of the web site and client 1 (script) of the web
page/server" (id.) (emphasis omitted). According to the Appellants, the
Examiner's claim construction is inconsistent with the Appellants'
disclosure (Reply Brief filed September 26, 2014, 3).
We agree with the Appellants that the Examiner's rejection was based
on an unreasonable claim construction. See, e.g., In re Suit co Surface, Inc.,
603 F.3d 1255, 1259-60 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (The PTO's "construction [must]
be 'consistent with the specification, ... and ... claim language should be
4
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Application I3/023,907
read in light of the specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary
skill in the art'" (quoting In re Bond 9IO F.2d 83 I, 833 (Fed. Cir. I990))).
In the context of the claim language read in light of the Specification
as a whole, we conclude that the limitation "a sign-on request to sign-on to
the toolbar application, wherein the toolbar application is resident on the
user device" would have been understood by one skilled in the relevant art to
require a sign-on request and subsequent sign-on into the toolbar application
to be performed at the user's device. The Appellants' Figure IA shows that
toolbar applications I55-I through I55-X are provided in user devices I50-I
through I50-X, respectively, separately from network I05. The
Specification explains that "the toolbar may act as an interface between the
user and sites, sessions, systems, and applications" (e.g., "the toolbar may
include user interfaces that permit a user to select a particular sign-on site,
non-single sign-on site, mainframe session, mainframe application, system,
or user device application") (Spec. i-f I4) (emphases added). Thus, although
authentication may be performed remotely in network I 05 (SSO device I I 5)
after toolbar I55-X sends a signal following sign-on (id. i-f 32), the
Specification as a whole does not provide any indication that the sign-on
into the toolbar application may be performed through a web-based server.
The Examiner appears to have taken the position that a description in
the Specification (i-f 2 I) supports the proposed "broadest reasonable
interpretation" (Ans. 4). That description, however, relates to possible
variations in environment IOO (Fig. IA) such as placing "mainframes I40
and/or applications I45" in network I05-not toolbar applications I55-I
through I55-X that must be "resident on the user device," as required by
representative claim I.
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Application 13/023,907
Thus, under the broadest reasonable construction consistent with the
Specification, we find that Kuzin does not describe the disputed claim
limitations. Specifically, Kuzin describes "a mechanism for sharing user
credentials between multiple client applications when connecting to a
predefined set of remote resources" (Kuzin i-f 3). Kuzin discloses that "user
credentials may be collected by one of the client applications and then
passed to a credential store running as a local component object model
(COM) server with the user's logon session" (id. i-f 33). Although Kuzin
teaches that the credential store runs as a local COM server with the user's
logon session, the user enters the credentials "via a web form" (id. i-f 44).
Furthermore, according to Kuzin, "[t]he credential store may be a dynamic
object that stores a user's credentials in memory ... and later deleted when
they are no longer needed" (i.e., when the user logs off) (id. i-fi-135, 72),
implying that the credential store is operated remotely or separately from the
user's local device. These facts indicate that Kuzin's mechanism for sharing
user credentials between multiple client applications is not a toolbar
application that must be resident on the user device, as required by the
claims. 6
For these reasons, we cannot uphold the Examiner's rejections.
SUMMARY
Rejections I and II are reversed. Therefore, the Examiner's decision
to reject claims 1-25 is reversed.
REVERSED
6 Because the Examiner did not rely on Thomas or Gonzalez to account for
the disputed limitations (Non-Final Act. 5, 12), we need not discuss them.
6