Ex Parte Joseph et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 14, 201814207345 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 14, 2018) Copy Citation 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. 14/207,345 03/12/2014 Kuriacose Joseph DTV212073 1170 141451 7590 AT&T Legal Dept. - [HDP] Attention: Patent Docketing, Room 2A-207 One AT&T Way Bedminster, NJ 07921 EXAMINER TAYLOR, JOSHUA D ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2426 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/14/2018 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte KURIACOSE JOSEPH, SCOTT D. CASAVANT, SEAN S. LEE, PHILLIP T. WANG, CHRISTOPHER YANG, WOEI-SHYANG YEE, WESLEY W. HUIE, and GERARD V. TALATINIAN Appeal 2017-007691 Application 14/207,345 Technology Center 2400 Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, SCOTT E. BAIN, and STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1—3, 5, 9-15, 18, 21, 23, 26, and 28, i.e., all pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as The DIRECTV Group, Inc. App. Br. 2. Appeal 2017-007691 Application 14/207,345 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Invention According to the Specification, the invention “relates to a content communication system, and, more specifically, to operating user devices with user settings from another user receiving device using a mobile device.” Spec. 11.2 The Specification explains that (1) “a first user device . . . receives first user settings and stores the first user settings therein”; (2) “[t]he first user device communicates first user settings to a second user receiving device”; and (3) “[t]he second user receiving device operates with the first user settings.” Abstract. Exemplary Claim Independent claim 1 exemplifies the claims at issue and reads as follows: 1. A method comprising: associating an identifier with a first user receiving device; a mobile user device obtaining the identifier associated with the first user receiving device; communicating the identifier associated with the first user receiving device from the mobile user device to a second user receiving device; identifying first user profile settings comprising parental controls and a viewing history with pause and resume points associated with the first user receiving device based on the identifier; 2 This decision uses the following abbreviations: “Spec.” for the Specification, filed March 12, 2014; “Final Act.” for the Final Office Action, mailed June 2, 2016; “App. Br.” for the Appeal Brief, filed November 1, 2016; “Ans.” for the Examiner’s Answer, mailed March 2, 2017; and “Reply Br.” for the Reply Brief, filed April 26, 2017. 2 Appeal 2017-007691 Application 14/207,345 communicating, from the first user receiving device to the second user receiving device, the first user profile settings and the viewing history with pause and resume points; storing the first user profile settings in the second user receiving device; and operating the second user receiving device in response to the first user profile settings and first content use data. App. Br. 20 (Claims App.). The Prior Art Supporting the Rejections on Appeal As evidence of unpatentability, the Examiner relies on the following prior art: Das et al. (“Das”) Brown et al. (“Brown”) Patterson et al. (“Patterson”) Phillips et al. (“Phillips”) US 6,493,688 B1 US 6,658,415 B1 US 2011/0321072 Al US 2012/0114313 Al The Rejections on Appeal Dec. 10, 2002 Dec. 2, 2003 Dec. 29, 2011 May 10, 2012 Claims 1—3, 9, 11, 13—15, 21, and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Phillips and Brown. Final Act. 3—14. Claims 3, 10, 12, 15, 26, and 28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Phillips, Brown, and Das. Final Act. 14—18.3 Claims 5 and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Phillips, Brown, and Patterson. Final Act. 18—19. 3 The Examiner rejects claims 3 and 15 based on the three-reference combination of Phillips, Brown, and Das as well as the two-reference combination of Phillips and Brown. Final Act. 5, 11, 14—16. 3 Appeal 2017-007691 Application 14/207,345 ANALYSIS We have reviewed the rejections of claims 1—3, 5, 9-15, 18, 21, 23, 26, and 28 in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner erred. Based on the record before us and for the reasons explained below, we concur with Appellants’ contention that the Examiner erred in finding that the cited portions of Phillips and Brown teach or suggest a “mobile user device” communicating an “identifier associated with” a “first user receiving device” to a “second user receiving device.” The § 103(a) Rejection of Claims 1—3, 9, 11, 13—15, 21, and 23 Appellants argue that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 because Phillips and Brown fail to teach or suggest “communicating the identifier associated with the first user receiving device from the mobile user device to a second user receiving device,” as recited in claim 1. See App. Br. 8—9, 11; Reply Br. 2, 5. More specifically, Appellants assert that “Phillips simply discloses a renderer [14] sending a media request and a user identifier to a broker 12 and the broker 12 responding by sending requested media and resume points back to the renderer 14.” App. Br. 9; see Reply Br. 5. Appellants also assert that Brown discloses “an authority enabled platform 35 sending a [universal communications identifier] UCID of a user to a remote server system 38” and the “remote server system 38 sending authority settings to an authority enabled platform 35.” App. Br. 11. The Examiner relies on the combination of disclosures in Phillips and Brown for teaching or suggesting the disputed limitation. Final Act. 3—5; Ans. 4—5, 8. The Examiner finds that: (1) Phillips teaches that “users can Tog in’ to a profile from a plurality of different devices by sending viewer credentials”; and (2) Brown teaches “the concept that user profile settings 4 Appeal 2017-007691 Application 14/207,345 can be transferred between a plurality of devices based on a universal communications identifier.” Final Act. 4; Ans. 4. The Examiner determines that “it is the combination of Phillips and Brown that discloses the concept of communicating an identifier from a first user device to a second user device.” Ans. 8. Based on the record before us, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner has not adequately explained how the cited portions of Phillips and Brown teach or suggest a “mobile user device” communicating an “identifier associated with” a “first user receiving device” to a “second user receiving device.” In Phillips, a rendering device corresponds to “any device capable of receiving a media item and displaying, playing or otherwise rendering the media item,” including “laptop computers, desktop computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile telephones, televisions (TVs), portable game players, and the like.” Phillips 132. When a user operates a rendering device, it establishes credentials for the user, including a user identifier, and sends the credentials to a media broker. Id. 45—47, Fig. 4. Phillips explains that a user may begin watching a media item on one rendering device, pause the media item, and later continue watching the media item on another rendering device. Id. Tflf 27—29, 45—53, Fig. 4. To permit switching rendering devices, the media broker stores user records, and each user record includes, among other things, a user identifier, a user viewing history, and resume-point information. Id. 40-42, Figs. 2—3. When a user desires to continue watching a media item on a different rendering device, the media broker determines the resume points for the media item based on the user identifier sent from the different rendering device to the media broker. Id. 48-49, Fig. 4. Then, the media broker 5 Appeal 2017-007691 Application 14/207,345 sends the resume points to the different rendering device, thus enabling the user to continuing watching the media item. Id. 149, Fig. 5. When someone uses a Phillips rendering device, that person’s user identifier becomes associated with that rendering device, and that rendering device sends that person’s user identifier to the media broker. But the cited portions of Phillips do not teach or suggest that the media broker sends that person’s user identifier to any rendering device. Nor do they teach or suggest rendering devices communicating user identifiers to one another. Further, Brown explains that an authority-enabled platform, e.g., a viewing platform like a television, transmits the universal communications identifier (UCID) for a particular user to a remote server. Brown 5:25—61, Fig. 2. Based on the UCID, the remote server determines authority- designated settings and user-designated preferences for the particular user, and the remote server sends the authority-designated settings and the user- designated preferences to the platform that transmitted the UCID. Id. at 1:64—2:15, 5:^U6:41, 7:47-50, 8:1-15, 15:30-53, Fig. 2, 8A-8C. The cited portions of Brown do not, however, disclose that the remote server sends the UCID received from one authority-enabled platform to another authority-enabled platform when a particular user switches platforms. Because the cited portions of Phillips and Brown do not teach or suggest the disputed “communicating the identifier” limitation in claim 1, we do not sustain the § 103(a) rejection of claim 1. Independent claims 11, 13, and 23 include limitations like the disputed “communicating the identifier” limitation in claim 1. App. Br. 21— 24 (Claims App.). Consequently, we do not sustain the § 103(a) rejection of claims 11, 13, and 23. 6 Appeal 2017-007691 Application 14/207,345 Claims 2, 3, and 9 depend from claim 1, and claims 14, 15, and 21 depend from claim 13. For the reasons discussed regarding the independent claims, we do not sustain the § 103(a) rejection of these dependent claims. The § 103(a) Rejections of Claims 3, 5, 10, 12, 15, 18, 26, and 28 Claims 3, 5, 10, and 26 depend from claim 1; claim 12 depends from claim 11; and claims 15, 18, and 28 depend from claim 13. On this record, the Examiner has not shown how the additionally cited secondary references—Das and Patterson—overcome the deficiency in Phillips and Brown discussed above for the independent claims. Hence, we do not sustain the § 103(a) rejections of these dependent claims. Because this determination resolves the appeal with respect to the claims at issue, we need not address Appellants’ other arguments regarding Examiner error. See, e.g., Beloit Corp. v. Valmet Oy, 742 F.2d 1421, 1423 (Fed. Cir. 1984) (explaining that an administrative agency may render a decision based on “a single dispositive issue”). DECISION We reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—3, 5, 9-15, 18, 21, 23, 26, and 28. REVERSED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation