Ex Parte Goodman et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 26, 2013

11554052 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 26, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte BRIAN D. GOODMAN, JOHN W. RONNEY,
RAMESH SUBRAMANIAN, and WILLIAM C. SWEENEY
____________

Appeal 2010-008581
Application 11/554,052
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, JEFFREY S. SMITH,
and JOHN A. EVANS, Administrative Patent Judges.

RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1-11 and 14-20. Claims 12 and 13 are objected to as containing
allowable subject matter, but are dependent on a rejected base claim. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
Appeal 2010-008581
Application 11/554,052

2
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner,
we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Oct. 19, 2009), the Answer (mailed Sep.
28, 2009), and the Reply Brief (filed Mar. 1, 2010).

Appellants’ Invention
Appellants’ invention relates to a peer-to-peer network that includes a
server which maintains a list of clients connected to the peer-to-peer
network. The server generates a unique seed list for each of the clients
which is a portion of the list of computers connected to the peer-to-peer
network. See generally Abstract.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows:
1. A method of operating a peer-to-peer network including a plurality of
clients and a server, each of the clients having a unique client address, said
method comprising the steps of:
receiving, from the server at a first client of the plurality of clients, a
first unique seed list comprising a first portion of a list of connected client
addresses generated by the server;
receiving, from the server at a second client of the plurality of clients,
a second unique seed list comprising a second portion of the list of
connected client addresses, the first unique seed list including a second
client address corresponding to the second client and the second unique seed
list including a third client address corresponding to a third of the clients;
sending a search request from the first client to at least the second
client by utilizing the first unique seed list; and
sending the search request from the second client to at least the third
client by utilizing the second unique seed list.

The Examiner’s Rejections
The Examiner’s Answer cites the following prior art references:
Appeal 2010-008581
Application 11/554,052

3
Marmor US 2002/0062310 A1 May 23, 2002
(filed Sep. 18, 2001)
Villavicencio US 7,231,661 B1 June 12, 2007
(filed June 21, 2001)

“Toadnode FAQ,” http://web.archive.org/web2000815065608/http://www.
toadnode.com/FAQs.htm.

Claims 1-11, 14-16, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Marmor in view of Toadnode FAQ.
Claims 17, 19, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Marmor in view of Toadnode FAQ and
Villavicencio.

ANALYSIS
Claims 1-11, 14-16, and 18
Appellants contend, with respect to independent claims 1, 14, and 18,
that neither of the applied Marmor and Toadnode FAQ references, alone or
in combination, teaches or suggests the claimed feature of receiving from a
server a unique client seed list generated from a common list of connected
clients. In particular, Appellants argue that Marmor, relied upon by the
Examiner for the unique seed list feature, at best sends only the same seed
list to each client, not a unique list from a list of connected clients (App. Br.
6-8; Reply Br. 5-9).
We agree with Appellants as our interpretation of the disclosure of
Marmor coincides with that of Appellants. In addressing the claimed
“unique seed list” feature, the Examiner directs attention to the portion of
Marmor at paragraphs [0030] and [0041] and the illustration in Figure 3 of
Marmor’s drawings. This disclosure describes the sending of a query from
Appeal 2010-008581
Application 11/554,052

4
computer 1 to computers 2 and 3 and the subsequent passing of this query to
computers 4, 5, and 6.
According to the Examiner, the fact that peer computer 1 sends a
search request directly to peer computers 2 and 3, but not directly to peer
computers 4, 5, and 6 implies that peer computer 1 will have a unique seed
list containing the addresses of peer computers 2 and 3, but not the addresses
of peer computers 4, 5, and 6. We find there is no support for this asserted
implication by the Examiner and such implication is based on unwarranted
speculation.
Appellants argue, and we agree, that, contrary to the Examiner’s
asserted implication, the peer computers in Marmor create their own seed
list which includes those connected computers which respond with a PONG
packet in response to an initial PING packet sent by the originating
computer (¶¶ [0029]-[0030]). As further argued by Appellants, all of the
peer computers in Marmor that have responded with a PONG packet to a
passed along PING packet will constitute a connected computer seed list and
it will be the same for each connected computer, not a unique seed list
generated from a list of connected computer addresses as claimed (App. Br.
8-9; Reply Br 8-9). In other words, the fact that an originating peer
computer in Marmor sends a search request directly to only a subset of
connected peer computers does not necessarily imply that only such subset
constitutes a unique seed list for such originating peer computer as posited
by the Examiner.
We further agree with Appellants that the Toadnode FAQ reference
does not overcome the above discussed deficiencies of Marmor. The
Toadnode FAQ reference discloses the use of a seed server which maintains
Appeal 2010-008581
Application 11/554,052

5
a list of connected clients and sends this list to each connecting client (p. 2,
3d full para.). In relying upon Toadnode, the Examiner directs attention to
the statement in the cited portion which indicates that the information in the
connected client list will help a connected client “find a few nodes” to
establish communication.
According to the Examiner, this “find a few nodes” disclosure implies
that not all of a list of connected peer computers is supplied to each peer
node computer and, therefore, a unique seed list is provided to each peer
computer (Ans. 19). As with the Examiner’s approach to Marmor, we find
that such an implication is based on unwarranted speculation. Appellants
argue, and we agree, that the Examiner’s cited portion of Toadnode FAQ
unambiguously discloses that a seed server provides a list of addresses of
active connected peer computers to each peer computer that starts the
Toadnode program, i.e., the same list to all newly connected peer computers.
We further agree with Appellants, that Toadnode FAQ’s “find a few nodes”
statement merely means that newly connected peer computer will be able to
“find a few nodes” for which to establish communication (App. Br. 11;
Reply Br. 10-11).
In view of the above discussion, since we are of the opinion that the
proposed combination of references set forth by the Examiner does not
support the obviousness rejection, we do not sustain the rejection of
independent claims 1, 14, and 18, nor the rejection of claims 2-11, 15, and
16 dependent thereon.

Appeal 2010-008581
Application 11/554,052

6
Claims 17, 19, and 20
We also do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of
dependent claims 17, 19, and 20 in which the Examiner applies
Villavicencio to the Marmor/Toadnode FAQ combination to address the
authorization credential features of the rejected claims. We find nothing in
Villavicencio which overcomes the innate deficiencies of Marmor and
Toadnode FAQ discussed supra.

CONCLUSION OF LAW
Based on the analysis above, we conclude that the Examiner erred in
rejecting claims 1-11 and 14-20 for obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

DECISION
The Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 1-11 and 14-20
is reversed.

REVERSED

babc