Ex Parte Grady et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 26, 2016

11880104 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 26, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
111880,104 07/18/2007
95240 7590 03/01/2016
Silver Spring Networks, Inc,
c/o Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC
PO Box 1404
Alexandria, VA 22313-1404
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Brian Douglas Grady
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.
0072045-000015/SSN-122 5273
EXAMINER
MURPHY, JEROLD B
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2687
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/01/2016 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):
ADIPDOC 1@BIPC.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte BRIAN DOUGLAS GRADY, RAJ V ASW ANI,
and JAMES PACE
Appeal2014-000486
Application 11/880, 104
Technology Center 2600
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, and
MELISSA A. RAAP ALA, Administrative Patent Judges.
SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1-26, which are all the claims pending in this application. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Silver Spring
Networks, Inc. (App. Br. 2).
Appeal2014-000486
Application 11/880, 104
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants' invention relates to "a system and method of operating a
utility network management system for reading of utility meters" (see Spec.
iT 1 ).
Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows:
1. A system associated with a utility network, the
system comprising:
a plurality of utility meters capable of reading commodity
meter information;
a plurality of utility network nodes arranged in a utility
network and capable of interfacing with the utility meters and
receiving the commodity meter information from the utility
meters and transferring that information to a pre-specified
network address;
wherein at least one of the utility nodes, in response to
receiving a read meter request from a meter read program in
accordance with a first data communication protocol:
initiates a session with the at least one utility meter in
accordance with a second data communication protocol distinct
from the first data communication protocol, said session
comprising a serial two-way exchange of a plurality of message
pairs between the at least one utility node and the at least one
utility meter, where each message pair comprises (i) a meter data
request that is sent to the at least one utility meter from the at
least one utility node, and (ii) a reply to the meter data request
that is sent to the at least one utility node from the at least one
utility meter and responsive to the meter read request, such that
the at least one utility node receives, from the least one utility
meter, a plurality of replies individually responsive to a plurality
of individual meter data requests, respectively,
at the termination of the session, formats the plurality of
received replies to the meter data requests into a meter read
request response that contains an indication of a correspondence
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Application 11/880, 104
between each individual received reply and the individual meter
data request to which that received reply is responsive,
respectively, and
transmits the formatted meter read request response to a
pre-specified network address associated with the read meter
request received from the meter read program.
The Examiner's Rejection
Claims 1-26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Mason (US 6,100,817; iss. Aug. 8, 2000) and Shuey (US 6,073,169;
iss. June 6, 2000) (Ans. 4--15).
ANALYSIS
Claim 1
In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner relies on Mason for disclosing all
the recited method steps except for the recited details of the session, message
pairs, and a plurality of replies received at the utility node, for which the
Examiner relies on Shuey (Ans. 4--6). The Examiner specifically relies on
columns 5 and 6 of Mason as disclosing a plurality of utility network nodes
which initiate a session with a utility meter in response to receiving a read
meter request (Ans. 4--5). Additionally, the Examiner finds the disclosure of
Shuey in columns 9-11 provides teachings related to collector nodes that
conduct a plurality of reads on each meter (Ans. 5).
Appellants challenge the Examiner's findings and conclusion with
respect to the teachings of Mason by stating:
In operation, Mason discloses that the node 18 communicates
with the meters 12A-12D according to the CEMBUS protocol,
which requires a certain messaging format, including proper field
use for transmitting and processing packets. Each meter 12A-
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12D has a unique identifier for addressing, and when responding
to the node 18, each meter 12A-12D includes its own unique
address (see Column 10, line 42 to Column 11, line 16). When a
meter 12 transmits information to the node 18, the transmitted
information contains embedded AMR packets (see Column 2,
lines 58-62).
(App. Br. 15.) Appellants further contend the node 18 "merely reassembles
the responses from the meters 12 into the AMR protocol data so that the
responses from the meters 12 can be communicated to the AMR server 20
according to the AMR protocol" and "appends an AMR header to the ANSI
meter specific data so that the meter specific data can now be transmitted
according to the AMR protocol to the AMR server 20" (App. Br. 16 (citing
Mason, col. 9, 1. 53---col. 10, 1. 23, and col. 10, 1. 42---col. 11, 1. 16)).
Appellants further challenge the Examiner's conclusion based on the
following reasons:
(Id.).
First, the node 18 of Mason does not transmit response data with
a plurality of replies from meters, so the response data from the
meter 18 does not include an indication of a correspondence
between each individual reply from the meter and the individual
requests to which that received reply is responsive. . . Second,
the addition of an AMR protocol header to CEBUS protocol
response data from a meter 12 does not provide an indication of
correspondence, since the AMR protocol header merely enables
the response data to be transmitted according to the AMR
protocol.
In response, the Examiner finds Mason embeds the Meter Specific
data fields within the ANSI protocol fields, which are embedded within the
CEBUS RF Protocol fields, which in tum, are embedded within the IP and
TCP protocols used in the response communications from the collector node
18 to automatic meter reading (AMR) server 20 (Ans. 17). The Examiner
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further explains that while the response message of Mason includes the
indication of correspondence between a request and reply data, i.e., the
C12.18 and C12.19 protocols, Shuey is relied upon as disclosing a session
between a collector node and a meter comprises a plurality of message pairs
(Ans. 18 (citing Shuey, col. 11, 11. 57---62)). With respect to the limitation of
formatting the plurality of received replies to the meter data requests into a
meter read request response, the Examiner finds Shuey discloses reading
each of the assigned meters three times in response to a read command (Ans.
19-20 (citing Shuey, col. 7, 11. 51-56)).
In view of the Examiner's findings above, which we agree with and
adopt as our own, Appellants' contentions do not persuade us of Examiner
error. We specifically agree with the Examiner's findings and conclusion
with respect to Mason's CEBUS packets that constitute the formatted data
sent over to the server based on the ANSI meter protocol containing the
specific data for a given meter or meters (Mason, col. 6, 11. 8-14). With
respect to the teachings of Shuey, we are also unpersuaded by Appellants'
arguments because Shuey sends read commands 506 and read meter
responses 508 three times for a plurality of meters (see Shuey, col. 12, 11. 6-
8 and 48-55). As explained by the Examiner (Ans. 20), the nodes transmit
the read meter data after each of the meters reads the data in response to a
read command. In fact, contrary to Appellants' argument (see Reply Br. 8),
although the read request is re-transmitted for the sake of redundancy, the
request is sent to a plurality of meters which results in receiving a plurality
of replies from different meters.
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Claim 2
Appellants contend the cited portion of Shuey does not disclose the
features required by claim 2 (App. Br. 18). We are unpersuaded by
Appellants' argument because the Examiner has identified teachings in
Shuey regarding a plurality of message pairs comprising a request from the
node and a reply from the meter, which we agree would have suggested the
features of claim 2 (see Final Act. 6-7 (citing Shuey, col. 11, 11. 57----62).
Claim 5
Regarding claim 5, Appellants contend the cited portion of Mason
does not disclose or suggest "the AMR server and node exchange messages
using a protocol that includes a definition of a set of primitives that are a
simple pass-thru of read primitives of the C12.18 protocol format" (App. Br.
18-19). Appellants further argue that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim
5 because the proposed rejection relies improperly on the disclosure of the
present application (App. Br. 19).
The Examiner responds by explaining that the broadest reasonable
interpretation of the claim limitation is met by Mason as follows:
[t]he IP and TCP protocols response messages from the Collector
Nodes to the AMR server, includes the C12.18 protocol which is
passed through from the Collector Node 18 to the AMR server in
communication between the AMR server (utility server) and
Collector Node (utility node), (Figs. 1 and 3 and Col. 6, Lines 1-
14 and Col. 9, Lines 55-65.)
(Ans. 20.)
We agree with the Examiner's findings and conclusion and adopt
them as our own. Contrary to Appellants' contention (App. Br. 19), the
Examiner's findings regarding ANSI standard C12.18 protocol are based on
the teachings of Mason, which describe how packet-based ANSI standard
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Application 11/880, 104
C12.18 defines the protocol used to transfer the data structure or tables
obtained by ANSI standard C12.19 for metering devices (see Mason, col. 9,
11. 55---65).
Claim 6
Appellants contend the combination of Mason and Shuey does not
disclose or suggest "the nodes provide annotation information with their
response data transmitted to the server" (App. Br. 19). The Examiner
responds that, as discussed regarding claim 5, TCP or IP protocol includes
the ANSI C12.18 and C12.19 as well as "the Network Headers, NPDU, and
Mode Headers, APDU, fields used to interpret meter data" (Ans. 21 (citing
Mason, Fig. 3; col. 7, 1. 55 - col. 9, 1. 65)). We agree with the Examiner's
findings and conclusion and adopt them as our own.
Claims 11 and 12
Appellants contend the combination of Mason and Shuey does not
disclose or suggest the recited features of claims 11 and 12 (App. Br. 19).
The Examiner provides a comprehensive response to Appellants' conclusory
arguments and cites the relevant portion of Mason disclosing commodity
meters for metering electricity, gas, or water usage based on a set of TL V
values (time, length, value) data elements, such as the amount of charge in
metering electricity usage, as recited in claim 11 (Ans. 22). The Examiner
further explains that the proposed combination teaches or suggests the
limitation of claim 12 because Mason's protocol included in ANSI standard
C12.18 "permits the user to define/select the data transferred" and therefore
suggests adjusting the response size to fit into a response window size (Ans.
23 (citing Mason, col. 7, 11. 33-35; col. 9, 11. 55---61; col. 11, 11. 46-50)). We
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agree with the Examiner's findings and conclusion and adopt them as our
own.
CONCLUSIONS
On the record before us, we conclude that, because the combination of
Mason with Shuey teaches or suggests the disputed claim limitations, the
Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 11, and 12.
Accordingly, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 1, 2, 5, 6,
11, and 12, as well as the remaining claims which are not argued separately
(see App. Br. 18-19) over the combination of Mason and Shuey.
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-26 is 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
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