Ex Parte HAN

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 29, 2016

12689385 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 29, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/689,385 01119/2010
68103 7590 10/03/2016
Jefferson IP Law, LLP
1130 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 420
Washington, DC 20036
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Kyung-Wan HAN
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.
0202-0333 5746
EXAMINER
HOPKINS, MATTHEW A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2463
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/03/2016 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):
usdocketing@jeffersonip.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte KYUNG-WAN HAN
Appeal2015-002473
Application 12/689,385
Technology Center 2400
Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, JASON V. MORGAN, and
BRUCE R. WINSOR, Administrative Patent Judges.
WINSOR, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection
of claims 1-20, which constitute all the claims pending in this application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant's disclosed invention "relates to ... transmitting a control
packet in a broadband Wide Area Network (WAN). More particularly, the
... invention relates to ... preventing a link from failing due to a loss of a
1 The real party in interest identified by Appellant is Samsung Electronics
Co., Ltd. App. Br. 2.
Appeal2015-002473
Application 12/689,385
control packet in a broadband WAN." Spec. if 2. Claim 1, which is
illustrative, reads as follows:
1. A method for transmitting a control signal for
determining a keep alive status of a counterpart node in a
broadband communication network, the method comprising:
when a period for determining a keep alive status of the
counterpart node to which a data link is connected arrives,
determining whether traffic is received from the counterpart
node;
if it is determined that the traffic is received from the
counterpart node, determining the keep alive status of the
counterpart node using the traffic received from the counterpart
node; and
if it is determined that the traffic is not received from the
counterpart node, transmitting a request signal for determining
the keep alive status of the counterpart node to the counterpart
node,
wherein when the keep alive status of the counterpart
node is determined using the traffic, the request signal is not
transmitted to the counterpart node.
Claims 1-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Payyappilly et al. (US 2009/0003208 Al; Jan 1, 2009)
(hereinafter "Payyappilly") and Duggirala et al. (US 2006/0182141 Al;
Aug. 17, 2006) (hereinafter "Duggirala"). See Final Act. 5-16.
Rather than repeat the arguments here, we refer to the Briefs ("App.
Br." filed May 21, 2014; "Reply Br." filed Dec. 23, 2014) and the
Specification ("Spec." filed Jan. 19, 2010) for the positions of Appellant and
the Final Office Action ("Final Act." mailed May 7, 2013), Advisory Action
("Adv. Act." mailed Aug. 1, 2013), and Examiner's Answer ("Ans." mailed
Oct. 24, 2014) for the reasoning, findings, and conclusions of the Examiner.
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Application 12/689,385
ISSUE
The dispositive issue presented by Appellant's contentions is whether
the Examiner errs in finding the combination of Payyappilly and Duggirala
teaches or suggests:
when a period for determining a keep alive status of the
counterpart node to which a data link is connected arrives, it is
determined whether traffic is received from the counterpart node;
if it is determined that the traffic is received from the counterpart
node, the keep alive status of the counterpart node is determined
using the traffic received from the counterpart node.
App. Br. 4 (discussing claims 1 and 11 ).
ANALYSIS
Appellant contends Payyappilly teaches changing the area over which
a Link Control Protocol (LCP) Echo Request Packet, i.e., a keep alive
request signal, is transmitted based on a location of an access terminal
determined at the time the LCP Request Echo Packet is to be sent. App. Br.
5 (citing Payyappilly i-f 50). Appellant further contends Duggirala teaches
monitoring the number of clients and average number of requests per client
to adjust the keep alive request specification. (App. Br. 5 (referring without
citation to Duggirala i-f 41 ). Appellant explains as follows:
Appellant submits that Payyappilly does not disclose that
traffic is regularly monitored, and that [Duggirala] does not
indicate the time of monitoring the current operating conditions.
In this regard, even if combined, the Examiner's combination of
Payyappilly and [Duggirala] would not have taught or suggested
determining whether traffic is received from the counterpart node
when a period for determining a keep-alive status arrives, as
claimed.
In addition, [Duggirala] controls the keep-alive status by
monitoring the current operating conditions based on the total
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Application 12/689,385
number of clients and the average number of requests per client.
This differs from the present claims, wherein the keep-alive
status of the counterpart node is determined based on whether
traffic is received from the counterpart node. Moreover,
[Duggirala] enables or disables dynamic keep-alive by
controlling the keep-alive specification, whereas the present
claims do not refer to transmitting a request signal to determine
the keep-alive status to the counterpart node when traffic is
received from the node. [Duggirala] does not describe disabling
keep-alive when traffic is received, accordingly, [Duggirala]
does not disclose the claimed reference to, when traffic is
received from the node, a keep-alive status is determined using
the received traffic, and a request signal to determine the keep-
alive status is not transmitted to the counterpart node.
Reply Br. 2.
We agree with Appellant for the reasons stated by Appellant. The
Examiner finds that although Payyappilly teaches adjusting aspects of a
keep-alive request signal based on a determination made at the time the
request signal is to be sent, Payyappilly does not teach not transmitting the
request signal to a counterpart node if it is determined traffic is received
from the counterpart node. Ans. 7 (citing Payyappilly i-fi-f l 0, 50, 54 ). We
agree. The Examiner then explains Duggirala remedies this deficiency as
follows:
Duggirala remedies this deficiency by monitoring the traffic for
specific nodes in determining the number of requests and average
number of requests per node (i-f 41 ).
By monitoring individual traffic to a node, Duggirala can
determine a keep alive mode to enable echo requests during
periods where the data traffic activity falls. (i-f 31-i-f 32).
[Duggirala] discloses a 10 millisecond time period to monitor
data traffic in order to ascertain whether keep alive messages
may be enabled. (See i139). If the data traffic between two nodes
meets certain thresholds, [Duggirala]] discloses adjusting the
keep-alive specifications to optimize the network transmission.
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Appeal2015-002473
Application 12/689,385
(See if 40). [Duggirala]discloses using the traffic between nodes
(using traffic received from counterpart) to determine that the
keep alive messages should be sent or not sent (disabled) (See
ir 36, ir 41-42).
Ans. 7-8.
Even accepting, arguendo, the Examiner's characterization of
Duggirala, the Examiner has not demonstrated the combination of
Payyappilly and Duggirala teaches or suggests the invention of claim 1. In
particular, Duggirala teaches "the keep-alive autonomic adjustment
mechanism 124 may autonomically enable and disable the keep-alive
mechanism 126 in addition to autonomically adjusting the keep-alive
specification 127. In this manner keep-alives may be disabled if the current
operating conditions so warrant." Duggirala if 31 (bold-facing omitted,
italics added). Duggirala further teaches the following:
In the case of few clients and few requests per client in row 510
of PIG. 5, the load on the server is very light, so any performance
enhancement provided by enabling keep-alives would be
minimal. As a result, the keep-alive autonomic adjustment
mechanism 124 could disable keep-alives, as shown in row 510
of PIG. 5.
Id. if 36 (bold-facing of numbers omitted, italics added); see also id. if 38.
Thus, although Duggirala does teach disabling the sending of keep-
alive request signals (i.e., "the request signal is not transmitted to the
counterpart node," as recited in claim 1 ), it teaches doing so in response to
determining that server load is low, not in response to "determining whether
traffic is received from the counterpart node [when a period for determining
a keep alive status of the counterpart node to which a data link is connected
arrives]" as recited in claim 1. The Examiner does not articulate any
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Application 12/689,385
rationale that fills the gaps in the combined teachings of Payyappilly and
Duggirala (i.e., the determination of whether traffic is received as recited).
We conclude the Examiner has failed to establish a prima facie case of
obviousness of claim 1. Accordingly, constrained by the record before us,
we are unable to sustain the rejections of (1) claim 1; (2) independent claim
11, which was rejected on a similar basis as claim 1 (compare Final Act. 11-
12 with id. at 5-7) and was argued together with claim 1 (App. Br. 4--5); and
(3) claims 2-10 and 12-20 which depend, directly or indirectly, from claims
1 and 11 respectively, see In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1076 (Fed. Cir. 1988)
("Dependent claims are nonobvious under section 103 if the independent
claims from which they depend are nonobvious. ").
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-20 is reversed.
REVERSED
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