Ex Parte Kikinis

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Sep 27, 2007

09738054 (B.P.A.I. Sep. 27, 2007)

The opinion in support of the decision being entered
today is not binding precedent of the Board

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________________

Ex parte DAN KIKINIS
____________________

Appeal 2007-2258
Application 09/738,054
Technology Center 2100
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Decided: September 27, 2007
____________________

Before JAMES D. THOMAS, MAHSHID D. SAADAT,
and JAY P. LUCAS, Administrative Patent Judges.

SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1 and 3, which are all of the claims pending in this
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
Appellant’s invention relates to a home networking system
comprising conventional telephone wirings connected to telephone jacks in a
customer’s premises (Specification 4). According to Appellant, a customer
Appeal 2007-2258
Application 09/738,054

demarcation unit at the customer’s premises receives signals on the outside
telephone wiring and drives the conventional telephone wiring in the inside
as a local-area network (LAN) by converting the received signals to the
protocol required by the LAN (id.).
Independent Claim 1 reads as follows:
1. A home networking system comprising:

conventional telephone wiring connected to telephone jacks in a
customer’s premises; and

a customer demarcation unit at the customer’s premises connected to
outside telephone wiring and to the conventional telephone wiring in the
customer’s premises;

wherein the customer demarcation unit receives Asynchronous
Transfer Mode (ATM) signals of multiple protocols from the outside
telephone wiring, translates the signals according to a single protocol
required by a local-area network (LAN) and retransmits the translated
signals over the conventional telephone wiring in the customer’s premises
according to the single LAN protocol.

The prior art references relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the
claims on appeal are:
Chau US 5,764,750 Jun. 9, 1998
Goodman US 5,844,596 Dec. 1, 1998

The Examiner rejected claims 1 and 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Goodman and Chau.
We affirm.

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Application 09/738,054

ISSUE
The issue is whether the Examiner erred in rejecting the appealed
claims under 35 U.S.C § 103(a). With respect to appealed claims 1 and 3,
would one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention have found
it obvious to combine Goodman and Chau to render the claimed invention
unpatentable?

FINDINGS OF FACT
The following findings of fact (FF) are believed to be supported by a
preponderance of the evidence.
1. Goodman relates to a system that provides video signal
communication between a source of the video signal and a plurality of units
that includes an interface coupled to the source and to telephone lines, each
of which serves at least one of the units and carries voice signals to and from
one or more telephones coupled to the telephone line at said unit. (Abstract).
2. Goodman discloses that in many office buildings, the telephone
wiring is not the only network of twisted pair wiring that extends to each
office and converges at a common point. Over the past several years,
common communication networks that connect personal computers, known
as Local Area Networks or LANs, have begun to use twisted pair wiring for
their conductive paths. In the typical configuration, a digital electronic
device serves as the “hub” for such a system, and a separate twisted pair
wire connects from this center to each of the computer nodes. In this
application, the technique for communication across a public network trunk
(PBX) is expanded to provide the same capabilities for wiring networks that
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Appeal 2007-2258
Application 09/738,054

provide the conductive paths of a computer local area network (LAN). (Col.
7, ll. 16-35).
3. As shown in Figure 1a of Goodman, transceiver/switch 400 is
installed interposing between the two ends of each pair 405. One segment of
each pair remains connected to trunk 476’ while the other end to individual
local networks 411a-411e, which are wirings confined to structures such as a
house, an apartment, or a room in an office (col. 11, ll. 1-11). Thus, twisted
pairs 476’ and their associated extended pairs 405 ordinarily constitute an
uninterrupted connection between local networks 411 and local telephone
exchange 475 (col. 11, ll. 34-39). Transceiver/switch 400 connects to line
402 to receive and transmit signals which are processed and switched onto
selected ones of extended wire pairs 405 leading to local networks 411,
together with (and without interfering with) the telephone signals (e.g., voice
signals) that also use those wires. The switched signals are received by the
RF communication devices connected to local networks 411 (col. 11. ll.
52-59).
4. Chau provides voice calls between multimedia workstations of
a LAN-based client-server multimedia communications system and
telephones of a telephone system by an interface that comprises a pair of
ISDN ports interconnected by an ISDN link and that transfers ISDN control
signals and user communications between the LAN and the telephone
switching fabric (Abstract).
5. The system of Chau, shown in Figure 1, is made up of two
communications subsystems 11 and 12 that are interconnected by a
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Application 09/738,054

communications link 10. Only two subsystems are shown for simplicity; a
plurality of subsystems 11 may be connected to subsystem 12 (col. 3, ll.
53-58).
6. Subsystem 11 illustratively comprises a switching node 33, for
example a local area network (LAN) server, a broadband multi-media
switching hub, or an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) packet switch, that
provides data or multi-media communications services to a plurality of
endpoints such as user workstations 37-39 (col. 4, ll. 9-14).
7. Chau further discloses that communication link 10
interconnects subsystems 11 and 12 as an ISDN link that terminates at
switching node 33 in an ISDN port circuit and protocol converter 40. ISDN
port circuit and protocol converter 40 not only terminate the ISDN
transmission protocol of PRI link 10, but convert between the ISDN
transmission protocol and the internal transmission protocol of node 33 (col.
4, ll. 32-40)

PRINCIPLES OF LAW
The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the
references would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re
Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 987-988, 78 USPQ2d 1329, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2006), In
re Young, 927 F.2d 588, 591, 18 USPQ2d 1089, 1091 (Fed. Cir. 1991) and
In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981).
“The combination of familiar elements according to known methods
is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.”
Leapfrog Enter., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1161,
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Application 09/738,054

82 USPQ2d 1687, 1691 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (quoting KSR Int’l v. Teleflex, Inc.,
127 S. Ct. 1727, 1739-40, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1395 (2007)). “One of the
ways in which a patent's subject matter can be proved obvious is by noting
that there existed at the time of invention a known problem for which there
was an obvious solution encompassed by the patent's claims.” KSR, 127
S. Ct. at 1742, 82 USPQ2d at 1397.

ANALYSIS
The Examiner relies on Goodman for teaching LAN protocol
communications over the twisted pair wiring that exists in homes and offices
(Answer 6). Chau was combined with Goodman for its teaching related to
conversion of incoming ATM signal to a LAN protocol inside the house or
office (id.). Appellant, in arguing against Chau (Br. 6), does not take into
account that the demarcation unit is taught in Goodman and Chau is
combined merely for conversion of the received ATM signals to a single
protocol required by the internal LAN (Answer 6-7).
Goodman teaches using twisted pair wiring, not only for telephone
signals, but also for LAN signals (FF 1-2). The transceiver switch 400 of
Goodman provides the conversion from the telephone wires outside a
customer’s premises to the protocol to be used on the wiring inside the
premises (FF 3). The Examiner relied on Chau for teaching the specific
protocol conversion among known formats such as ATM to TCP/IP protocol
(FF 4-7). In that regard, we agree with the Examiner (Answer 8-9) that
based on the teaching of Chau, the conversion is from ATM in switching
node 33 (FF 6) to ISDN protocol for telephone system connected to PBX 13
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(FF 7). Additionally, we note that Appellant’s Specification acknowledges
that protocols such as ATM and TCP/IP are known protocols and even
admits that their conversion using a PBX converter is known by the skilled
artisan (Specification ¶ linking pp. 8 & 9 and pp. 10 & 11).
We also remain unconvinced by Appellant’s argument that the
references cannot be properly combined since no teaching is cited to show
that existing telephone wires may accept and convert incoming
communications of different protocol (Br. 8). We disagree. Goodman does
teach that telephone wirings are used as the conductive path of a computer
LAN (FF 2) with the appropriate type of protocol conversion (FF 3). In
other words, one of ordinary skill in the art would have used the specific
protocol conversion of Chau in combination with the wiring system and the
conversion or demarcation unit taught by Goodman in order to benefit from
its flexibility (FF 1-2).

CONCLUSION OF LAW
On the record before us, it follows that in this case Appellant has not
shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103
over Goodman and Chau. Since Appellant’s arguments focus on the
patentability of claim 1 with no additional arguments for the rejection of
dependent claim 3 (Br. 5-8), claim 3 falls with claim 1.

DECISION
The decision of the Examiner rejecting claims 1 and 3 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 is affirmed.

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Appeal 2007-2258
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No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

pgc

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