Ex Parte Kodialam et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 7, 2018

12503265 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 7, 2018)

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.
12/503,265 07/15/2009 Muralidharan Sampath Kodialam 29250-002450/US 7783
30594 7590 02/09/2018
HARNESS, DICKEY & PIERCE, P.L.C.
P.O. BOX 8910
RESTON, VA 20195
EXAMINER
BROMELL, ALEXANDRIA Y
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2167
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/09/2018 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):
dcmailroom@hdp.com
pshaddin@hdp.com
ipsnarocp @ nokia. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MURALIDHARAN SAMPATH KODIALAM,
TIRUNELL V. LAKSHMAN, SARIT MUKHERJEE, and
LIMIN WANG
Appeal 2017-000023
Application 12/503,265
Technology Center 2100
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, STEPHEN C. SIU, and SCOTT B. HOWARD,
Administrative Patent Judges.
DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2017-000023
Application 12/503,265
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of
claims 1—23 and 25—27. Claim 24 has been canceled. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
The claims are directed to systems and methods for creating user
interest profiles. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed
subject matter:
1. A method of generating a user interest profile with at least
one piece of customer premise equipment (CPE), the method
comprising:
monitoring, by the CPE, all user-requested internet traffic
of the CPE for a user, the monitoring of the user-requested
internet traffic not being limited to a particular website, and not
being limited to a particular service provider, the user requested
internet traffic being internet traffic that the user affirmatively
requested through explicit user action;
analyzing, by the CPE, user-requested content of the user-
requested internet traffic;
correlating, by the CPE, the analyzed user-requested
content with a simplified classifier set;
ranking, by the CPE, each correlated simplified classifier
in the simplified classifier set; and
storing, on the CPE, the ranked simplified classifiers in a
user interest profile for the user, the user interest profile not being
stored on a network level location,
1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as Alcatel Lucent. (App.
Br. 1).
2
Appeal 2017-000023
Application 12/503,265
wherein the CPE is a customer premise gateway capable
of allowing multiple user-devices to access a network of a service
provider.
App. Br. 17 (Claims Appendix).
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Casimere US 2010/0131989 A1 May 27,2010
Grigoroscuta et al. US 2010/0306023 A1 Dec. 2, 2010
REJECTION
The Examiner made the following rejection:
Claims 1—23 and 25—27 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Grigoroscuta et al. in view of Casimere.
ANALYSIS
With respect to independent claims 1, 9, and 11, Appellants present
arguments to the claims as a group. (App. Br. 15). We select independent
claim 1 as the illustrative claim, and we address Appellants’ arguments
thereto.
With respect to illustrative claim 1, Appellants contend that
Grigoroscuta in view of Casimere does not teach or suggest “storing, on the
CPE, the ranked simplified classifiers in a user interest profile for the user,
the user interest profile not being stored on a network level location” and
“wherein the CPE is a customer premise gateway capable of allowing
multiple user-devices to access a network of a service provider.” (App Br.
3
Appeal 2017-000023
Application 12/503,265
11—12). Additionally, Appellants contend that the Grigoroscuta reference
discloses:
monitoring user requested internet traffic on a user device, where
a user profile may be created to store the user’s internet traffic
interests. However, the user profile is stored on the user device,
rather than being stored on a “CPE” (as recited in claim 1), where
“the CPE is a customer premise gateway capable of allowing
multiple user-devices to access a network of a service provider.”
(App Br. 12).
The Examiner finds that the:
Instant specification paragraph [0004] discloses that “all
equipment located at a particular site, including user equipment
and networking hub, is referred to as customer premise
equipment (CPE.)” Therefore, examiner interprets the claimed
“CPE” as user equipment.
Therefore, the user’s local computing device of
Grigoroscuta is equivalent to the CPE in the instant claims.
Accordingly, Grigoroscuta discloses “monitoring, by the
CPE, all user-requested internet traffic of the CPE for a user, the
monitoring of the user—requested internet traffic not being
limited to a particular website, and not being limited to a
particular service provider, the user requested internet traffic
being internet traffic that the user affirmatively requested
through explicit user action” as recited in claim 1.
(Ans. 10-11).
Appellants contend that the Examiner’s reliance upon the statement in
Appellants’ Specification takes the claimed invention out of context wherein
the mobile devices of the Grigoroscuta reference are not located on a
“customer premises.” Specifically, Appellants contend:
Grigoroscuta does not teach or suggest that the PC is a gateway
capable of allowing multiple user-devices to access a network (as
recited in claim 1). Therefore, it cannot be said that Grigoroscuta
4
Appeal 2017-000023
Application 12/503,265
teaches the “CPE” (recited in claim 1), much less storing a “user
interest profile” (as defined by claim 1) on a “CPE.”
(Reply Br. 3). Appellants further argue:
both Grigoroscuta and Casimere disclose storing user profiles
onto a mobile user’s device, rather than storing the user profile
on a “CPE,” wherein the CPE is “a customer premise gateway
capable of allowing multiple user-devices to access a network of
a service provider” that is not a “network level location” (as
recited in claim 1). Therefore, while the Examiner asserts that
Casimere teaches a gateway that is a CPE, Appellant wishes to
emphasize that Casimere does not store the user profile on the
gateway.
(App. Br. 13).
The Examiner further maintains:
Examiner believes that Grigoroscuta stores data which is not on
a network level location because it is stored locally. The instant
claims are unclear about the requirement that the user interest
profile is not stored on a network level location, so examiner
interprets this aspect broadly.
(Ans. 11—12). The Examiner further finds:
Casimere, paragraph [0036], that the client gateway facilitates
user devices accessing information over a private network. As
previously discussed in part A, the CPE is merely customer
equipment. Therefore, the customer equipment may be
equivalent to the client gateway of Casimere.
Regarding Appellant’s argument that Casimere does not
store the user profile on the gateway, Examiner notes that the
claim language does not require that the user profile is stored on
the gateway. Examiner has found in Grigoroscuta as discussed
in part B above that a user profile is stored on the CPE locally.
Therefore, Casimere discloses that the CPE is a customer
premise gateway capable of allowing multiple user devices to
access a network of a service provider as claimed.
5
Appeal 2017-000023
Application 12/503,265
(Ans. 12).
Although Appellants’ claim language does not enumerate all
the facets of the CPE at the same place in the claim language, the
Examiner still must meet the totality of the limitations for the CPE.
We disagree with the Examiner’s claim interpretation and application
of the teachings of the Grigoroscuta and Casimere references.
We find the Examiner is not addressing the claimed invention
“as a whole” and is picking and choosing from the references. The
language of independent claim 1 clearly requires that the CPE is a
gateway device at the customer premises.
We find the Examiner refers to paragraphs 15, 26, 36, and 55 of
the Casimere reference, and we find those paragraphs disclose storing
the user profile locally, but the gateway is separate from these user
devices. We further find that even though the Casimere reference
discloses a client gateway 350 in the application tier 304 which is a
network device, the Examiner relies upon the CPE’s as 314 and 322
which are the local devices.
As a result, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner has not
made a requisite showing in the combination of the Grigoroscuta and
Casimere references of all the limitations as claimed. As a result, we
cannot sustain the rejection of illustrative independent claim 1 and its
respective dependent claims.
Independent claims 9 and 11 contain similar limitations as
independent claim 1. As a result, we cannot sustain the rejection of
independent claims 9 and 11 and their respective dependent claims.
6
Appeal 2017-000023
Application 12/503,265
CONCLUSIONS
The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1—23 and 25—27 based upon
obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
DECISION
For the above reasons, we reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims
1—23 and 25—27 based upon obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
REVERSED
7