Ex Parte Jenne et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 10, 2017

12609624 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 10, 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.
12/609,624 10/30/2009 Nathan Stanley Jenne 82259546 8772
56436 7590
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
EXAMINER
DAVIS, ZACHARY A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2492
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/12/2017 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):
hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com
chris. mania @ hpe. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte NATHAN STANLEY JENNE and SHAUN WAKUMOTO
Appeal 2016-002454
Application 12/609,6241
Technology Center 2400
Before LARRY J. HUME, JUSTIN BUSCH, and SCOTT B. HOWARD,
Administrative Patent Judges.
HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1—20, which constitute all of the claims pending in
this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP
(“HPDC”) as the real party in interest. HPDC is a wholly owned affiliate of
Hewlett-Packard Company. The general or managing partner of HPDC is
HPQ Holdings, LLC. App. Br. 3.
Appeal 2016-002454
Application 12/609,624
THE INVENTION
The disclosed and claimed inventions are directed to authentication
methods and devices. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the
claimed subject matter:
1. A device comprising:
a predetermined number of authentication slots
representing a maximum number of users who are allowed to be
authenticated by the device;
a port to receive an authentication request from a user;
a memory;
a queue to be maintained in said memory; and
a processing engine to monitor said port and said
authentication slots such that if an authentication request from a
user is received and no authentication slots are available, an
identifier associated with the user is enqueued on said queue, and
wherein if one of said authentication slots becomes
available and said queue is not empty, an identifier is dequeued
from said queue and placed in the available authenticated slot,
and the processing engine is to authenticate the user associated
with the dequeued identifier.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence in rejecting the
claims on appeal is:
Dommety et al. (“Dommety”) US 7,536,464 B1 May 19, 2009
Haverinen et al. (“Haverinen”) US 7,617,524 B2 Nov. 10, 2009
Cavage et al. (“Cavage”) US 8,176,494 B2 May 8, 2012
Sunder et al. (“Sunder”) WO 2004/109535 Al Dec. 16, 2004
Catalyst 2950 Desktop Switch Software Configuration Guide, April 2002
(herein after “Cisco”).
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Application 12/609,624
REJECTIONS
Ground A. Claims 1—3, 5—10, 12—16, and 18—20 stand rejected under
pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Haverinen in view of
Cavage. Final Act. 5—8.
Ground B. Claims 4, 11, and 17 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Haverinen in view of Cavage
and Dommety. Final Act. 8.
Ground C. Claims 1—4, 6—11, 13—17, 19, and 20 stand rejected under
pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Cisco in view of
Sunder. Final Act. 9-13.
Ground D. Claims 5, 12, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Cisco in view of Sunder and Haverinen.
Final Act. 13—14.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellants’
arguments the Examiner erred. In reaching this decision, we have
considered all evidence presented and all arguments made by Appellants.
We disagree with Appellants’ arguments with respect to claims 1—20, and
we incorporate herein and adopt as our own: (1) the findings and reasons set
forth by the Examiner regarding Grounds C and D in the action from which
this appeal is taken (Final Act. 9-14), and (2) the reasons and rebuttals set
forth in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellants’ arguments
regarding Grounds C and D (Ans. 9-11). We incorporate such findings,
reasons, and rebuttals herein by reference unless otherwise noted. However,
we highlight and address specific findings and arguments for emphasis as
follows.
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Application 12/609,624
Appellants argue the Examiner erred in finding Sunder teaches or
suggests “a predetermined number of authentication slots representing a
maximum number of users who are allowed to be authenticated by the
device,” as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 17—18; Reply Br. 9-10.
Specifically, Appellants argue:
[I]n Sunder, the receiver component 84 receives incoming
requests and adds the requests to the message queue. However,
Sunder does not disclose that the requests are for authenticating
the users. Thus, in Sunder, the worker threads which process the
requests in the message queue are not equivalent to the
predetermined number of authentication slots that represent the
maximum number of users allowed to be authenticated.
App. Br. 18.
The Examiner finds worker threads (authentication slots) process data
requests, such as an authentication request. Final Act. 10-11 (citing Sunder
13,12). The Examiner maps that to the “predetermined number of
authentication slots” limitation, recited in claim 1. Id.
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument the Examiner erred.
Sunder explicitly states that one of the purposes of the data requests is for
authentication. Sunder 13 (“The receiver component 84 determines the type
of request from the network server 22. For example, the request may be a
control request (e.g.[,] shutdown/ dump queue) or a data request (e.g.[,]
authentication/accounting).”). We agree with the Examiner that page 13
explicitly teaches authenticating data, and that finding is further supported
by other discussions in Sunder. See, e.g., Sunder 5 (“Network access
devices typically encrypt a network user credential, such as a password,
input by a network user to authorize access to a network by the user.”), 6
(“The connection application 16 may then transmit the user authentication
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Appeal 2016-002454
Application 12/609,624
request to the roaming access service provider’s network and a connection to
the Internet 18 may be established if the authentication request succeeds.”).2
Appellants also argue the Examiner erred in finding Sunder teaches
the processing engine limitation recited in claim 1. App. Br. 18—19; Reply
Br. 10-11. According to Appellants, Sunder does not teach the recited
processing engine because it places the request in the queue even if there is
an available slot:
Furthermore, in Sunder, when the receiver component 84
receives a request, the receiver component 84 simply adds the
request into the message queue, regardless of whether a worker
thread is available to process the request. In other words, upon
receiving a request, the receiver component 84 of Sunder adds
the request to the message queue, without determining whether
a worker thread is available to process the request before
placing the request into the message queue. Accordingly, the
receiver component 84 of Sunder does not place a received
request into the message queue based on the condition "if no
authentication slots are available" as recited in independent claim
1. Therefore, Sunder fails to teach or suggest, “a processing
engine to monitor said port and said authentication slots such that
if . . . no authentication slots are available, an identifier
associated with the user is to be enqueued on said queue,” as
recited in independent claim 1.
App. Br. 18—19 (emphasis added).
During prosecution, claims must be given their broadest reasonable
interpretation while reading claim language in light of the specification as it
would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Am. Acad, of
Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Under this standard,
we interpret claim terms using “the broadest reasonable meaning of the
2 Although we do not rely on it in this Decision, we note that the Applicant
Admitted Prior Art shown in Figure 1 also teaches this limitation.
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Application 12/609,624
words in their ordinary usage as they would be understood by one of
ordinary skill in the art, taking into account whatever enlightenment by way
of definitions or otherwise that may be afforded by the written description
contained in the applicant’s specification.” In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048,
1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997). An applicant may rebut this presumption, however,
by acting as his own lexicographer, providing a definition of the term in the
specification with “reasonable clarity, deliberateness, and precision.” See In
re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480 (Fed. Cir. 1994). In the absence of such a
definition, limitations are not to be read from the specification into the
claims. In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
“[Although the specification often describes very specific embodiments of
the invention, we have repeatedly warned against confining the claims to
those embodiments. . . . [CJlaims may embrace ‘different subject matter
than is illustrated in the specific embodiments in the specification.’”
Phillips v. AWHCorp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc)
(citations omitted).
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument the Examiner erred.
Although claim 1 requires the processing engine to place the authentication
request into the queue if there are no slots available, the claim does not
specify what happens if there is an available slot. Accordingly, the broadest
reasonable construction of the claim encompasses the teaching in Sunder
where the request is placed in the queue prior to being placed in the
available slot. Because Appellants’ arguments are not commensurate with
the scope of the claims, they are unpersuasive. See In re Self, 671 F.2d
1344, 1348 (CCPA 1982).
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Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, along
with the rejection of claims 8 and 15, which are argued on the same ground
(App. Br. 19), along with claims 2—4, 6, 7, 9-11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, and 20,
which are not argued separately (App. Br. 19-20).
With respect to dependent claims 5, 12, and 18, Appellants merely
contend, because the additional reference used in the rejections of these
claims (Haverinen) does not cure the shortcomings of the other references
applied against claims 1, 8 and 15, the Examiner failed to make a prima
facie case of obviousness for these claims. App. Br. 20. Because we
determine the rejection of claim 1 is not erroneous for the reasons discussed
above, we sustain the rejections of these claims.
Because we find claims 1—20 unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
for the reasons set forth in Grounds C and D, we need not address the
Examiner’s alternative rejection set forth in Grounds A and B.
DECISION
For the above reasons, we affirm the Examiner’s decisions rejecting
claims 1—20.
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). See 37
C.F.R. §41.50(f).
AFFIRMED
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