Ex Parte Hazzani

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 8, 2017

12608474 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 8, 2017)

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.
12/608,474 10/29/2009 Gideon Hazzani 10171-000120 6520
75158 7590
Verint Systems, Inc.
Meunier Carlin & Curfman, LLC
999 Peachtree Street NE
Suite 1300
Atlanta, GA 30309
EXAMINER
DU, HUNG K
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2645
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/10/2017 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):
laaronson@mcciplaw.com
KCarroll@mcciplaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte GIDEON HAZZANI
Appeal 2016-0055821
Application 12/608,474
Technology Center 2600
Before JOHN A. JEFFERY, JUSTIN BUSCH, and ALEX S. YAP,
Administrative Patent Judges.
YAP, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1—20, which are all the claims pending in this application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Verint Systems, Ltd.
(Br. 3.)
Appeal 2016-005582
Application 12/608,474
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellant’s invention “relates generally to location tracking, and
particularly to methods and systems for correlating multiple location
indications of users of wireless communication terminals.” (Oct. 29, 2009
Specification (“Spec.”) p. 1.) Claim 1 is representative and is reproduced
below (with minor reformatting):
1. A method comprising:
selectively tracking a subset of users of wireless
communication terminals associated with a wireless
communication network;
accepting a first location indication regarding a first
location of a user of the subset of users from the wireless
communication network, the first location being
determined from a wireless communication terminal
associated with the user and being determined at a given
time;
accepting a second location indication regarding a second
location of the user from a second system at the given
time, the second system being different from the wireless
communication network;
processing, at a correlation processor of a monitoring
center, the first and second location indications so as to
detect a violation of a predefined rule specifying a
legitimate relationship between the wireless
communication terminal at the first location and the user
at the second location;
intercepting e-mail, instant messaging, or any other
suitable IP-based application in which the user is
identified using a unique identifier to verify identity of
the user; and
invoking an action with respect to the detected violation.
2
Appeal 2016-005582
Application 12/608,474
Prior Art and Rejections on Appeal
The following table lists the prior art relied upon by the Examiner in
rejecting the claims on appeal:
US 2005/0054290 A1 Mar. 10, 2005
US 2006/0237531 A1 Oct. 26, 2006
US 2006/0282660 A1 Dec. 14, 2006
Claims 1—6 and 8—20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Heffez in view of Varghese. (See Final Office Action
(mailed Apr. 17, 2015) (“Final Act.”) 3-9.)
Claim 7 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Heffez, in view of Varghese, and further in view of
Fogan. (See Final Act. 9—10.)
Fogan et al.
(“Logan”)
Heffez et al.
(“Heffez”)
Varghese et al.
(“Varghese”)
ANAFYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We are not persuaded that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1—20.
With respect to independent claims 1 and 12, the Examiner finds that
Varghese teaches or suggests “intercepting e-mail, instant messaging, or any
other suitable IP-based application in which the user is identified using a
unique identifier to verify identity of the user”:
Varghese fig 5 steps 512-520 par 0144-0148 discusses after the
pre-authentication, financial institutions requiring higher
security such as a bank provide a login interface for the user to
3
Appeal 2016-005582
Application 12/608,474
submit additional information such as username and password
for further verification before executing a requested financial
transaction involving an amount over a threshold[.]
(Final Act. 5—6, emphasis omitted, 2—3.) Appellant disagrees and contends
that the rejections do not show “intercepting e-mail, instant messaging, or
any other suitable IP-based application . .
The Examiner then alleged, “the submission of identifying
information is the interception of application messages.” This
definition, however, is erroneous. Appellant notes that the
dictionary definition of intercepting is “(1) taking, seizing, or
halting (someone or something on the way from one place to
another); cut off from an intended destination: i.e. intercepting a
messenger or (2) seeing or overhearing (a message,
transmission, etc., meant for another): i.e. intercepting the
enemy’s battle plan.” This is not the same as submitting
identifying information. As such, neither Heffez nor Varghese,
when properly combined, teach or suggest intercepting email,
instant messaging, or any other suitable IP-based application in
which the user is identified using a unique identifier to verify
identity of the user.
(Br. 7—8, emphasis omitted.) In other words, according to Appellant,
“[wjhile Varghese may disclose a method of verifying identify of the user, it
does not teach or suggest any method of intercepting e-mail, instant
messaging, or any other suitable IP-based application.” {Id. at 7.)
Appellant has not persuaded us of Examiner error. We agree with,
and adopt as our own, the Examiner’s findings regarding Varghese. (Ans.
3—4, Final Act. 2—3, 5—6.). Figure 13A of Varghese is reproduced below.
4
Appeal 2016-005582
Application 12/608,474
1302 SERVICE PROVIDER SERVER
1304
SERVICE
PROVIDER
SERVER
Server app. A
Sewer app. 8
Server app, C
Server app. D
1306 FIG. 13A
Figure 13 A “illustrates an exemplary embodiment. . . directed to providing
authentication services to online service providers who make available to
individual users online server applications.” (Varghese 1 67.) As the
Examiner explains:
Varghese Fig 13A discloses an online service provider system
comprising a user device (720), a firewall (1305), service
provider server (1304), and authentication server (1306)
interconnected over the network (710). The network (710) is a
public Internet; the public Internet is a global system of
interconnected Internet Protocol (IP) networks where each
connected device is locatable by an IP address. Thus the
application on the user device [720] used to access the service
provider server (1304) over the network (710) is IP-based ....
When a user attempts to access any applications (A,B,C,D) on
the service provider server (1304), the firewall (1305) performs
a pre-authentication before permitting access to the applications
(A,B,C,D) .... Secondary authentication protocols is applied
after the device ID has been confirmed .... The secondary
authentication protocol includes providing additional login
information. ... In order words, the destination of the request
is the service provider application on the service provider server
5
Appeal 2016-005582
Application 12/608,474
(1304), not to the firewall. Therefore the firewall halts or cut
offfrom the service provider server destination the request from
an IP-based application on user device (720) to access the
applications (A,B,C,D) on the service provider server (1304) to
perform pre-authentication before permitting access to the
applications (A,B,C,D) on the service provider server (1304) in
which at least the device ID of the user device (720) is used as a
unique identifier to identify the user as an authorized user.
Thus, Varghese teaches “intercepting . . . any other suitable IP-
based application in which the user is identified using a unique
identifier to verify the identity of the user”.
(Ans. 3—4, original emphasis omitted, italics added; Final Act. 2—3, 5—6.)
Therefore, even under Appellant’s construction of the term “intercepting,”
Varghese teaches or suggests a firewall 1305 intercepting an IP-based
application (i.e., user device 720) in which the user is identified using a
unique identifier (i.e., additional user login) to verify identity of the user.
Appellant does not respond to the Examiner’s explanation.
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded of Examiner error in
the rejection of independent claims 1 and 12. Thus, we sustain the 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 rejection of these claims, as well as the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections of
claims 2—11 and 13—20, which depend on either claim 1 or 12, and are not
argued separately. (Br. 5—8.)
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1—20 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
6