Ex Parte Low et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jun 10, 2010

09977497 (B.P.A.I. Jun. 10, 2010)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
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Ex parte COLIN ANDREW LOW,
RYCHARDE JEFFERY HAWKES, and
LAWRENCE WILCOCK
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Appeal 2009-006261
Application 09/977,4971
Technology Center 2400
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Decided: June 10, 2010
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Before JOHN A. JEFFERY, JEAN R. HOMERE, and JAMES R. HUGHES,
Administrative Patent Judges.

HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 Filed on October 16, 2001. This application claims foreign priority to
0025458.1, filed October 17, 2000. The real party in interest is Siemens
Buildings Technologies, Inc. (App. Br. 4.)
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I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) (2002) from the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1 through 20. (Supp. App. Br. 4.)2
Claim 21 has been cancelled. (Id.) We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b) (2008).
We affirm.
Appellants’ Invention
Appellants invented a method and system for enabling a customer
service representative to join a communication session established over the
Internet between parties that are co-browsing a particular website. (Spec. 1,
ll. 7-9.)
Illustrative Claim
Independent claim 1 further illustrates the invention as follows:
1. A method of inviting an assistant entity into an existing
communication session established by a service system with an
associated transport mechanism for the exchange of data across a
network between endpoint entities joined to the session comprising
the steps of:
(a) selecting, by the service system, an appropriate assistant
entity from a group of assistant entities taking account of context data
concerning an existing session responsive to receipt of a request from
a first endpoint entity, where the first endpoint entity is already joined
to the session, and constituted by a party having an endpoint system
connected to the network, to the service system requesting the
presence of an assistant entity in the session, the request directly or
indirectly indicating the identity of the existing session; and
(b) joining the selected assistant entity to the existing sessions.

2 See the Supplemental Appeal Brief filed on October 9, 2007.
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Prior Art Relied Upon
The Examiner relies on the following prior art as evidence of
unpatentability:
Brown 6,385,646 B1 May 7, 2002
Owen 6,611,501 B1 Aug. 26, 2003

Rejections on Appeal
The Examiner rejects the claims on appeal as follows:
Claims 1 through 3, 7 through 10, 12 through 15, and 17 through 19
stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Owen.3
Claims 4 through 6, 11, 16, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Owen and Brown.
Appellants’ Contentions
Appellants contend that the Examiner fails to identify how Owen
anticipates each element of independent claim 1. (App. Br. 11;4 Reply Br.
4.) Appellants argue that Owen’s disclosure of a User Agent Manager
(“UAM”) that performs user validation, including sending a message to a
user agent via a customer object, does not teach selecting an appropriate
assistant entity based on context data concerning an existing session. (App.
Br. 12.) Appellants also argue that Owen’s disclosure of a user agent does
not teach an “assistant entity,” as recited in independent claim 1. (App. Br.
12-13; Reply Br. 6-7.) Further, Appellants allege that Owen’s disclosure of

3 Although the Examiner omits claims 17 through 19 in the statement of the
35 U.SC. § 102(e) rejection (Ans. 4), the Examiner nonetheless includes
these claims in the corresponding text of the rejection (Ans. 4-5). We
therefore presume that the Examiner intended to reject claims 17 through 19
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e).
4 Hereinafter all references to the Appeal Brief are to the Appeal Brief filed
on February 22, 2007.
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establishing a communication session does no teach “an existing session,” as
recited in independent claim 1. (App. Br. 13; Reply Br. 6.) Additionally,
Appellants contend that since Owen fails to disclose an existing
communication session, it cannot teach “joining the selected assistant entity
to the existing session,” as recited in independent claim 1. (App. Br. 13.)
Examiner’s Findings and Conclusions
The Examiner finds that Owen’s disclosure of a UAM sending a
message to a relevant user agent via a customer object, thereby creating a
term session, teaches that the UAM takes into account the context data of an
existing session, as claimed. (Ans. 12.) The Examiner also finds that
Owen’s preceding disclosure teaches that the UAM selects the “appropriate
assistant entity,” as claimed. (Id. at 13.) Further, the Examiner finds that
Appellants’ Specification defines an “assistant entity” as a customer service
representative and associate endpoint system, or a software automaton. (Id.)
Consequently, the Examiner finds that Owen’s user agent performs the same
functions as the claimed “assistant entity.” (Id.) Additionally, the Examiner
finds that Owen’s disclosure of a user agent joining an existing service
session teaches an assistant entity joining an existing session. (Id. at 14.)

II. ISSUE
Have Appellants shown that the Examiner erred in finding that Owen
anticipates independent claim 1? In particular, the issue turns on whether
Owen teaches:
(a) “selecting, by the service system, an appropriate assistant
entity…taking account of context data concerning an existing session…,” as
recited in independent claim 1; and
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(b) “joining the selected assistant entity to the existing sessions,” as
recited in independent claim 1.

III. FINDINGS OF FACT
The following Findings of Fact (“FF”) are shown by a preponderance
of the evidence.
Owen
1. Owen generally relates to process management systems and, in
particular, to services over a communication network that references feature
interaction. (Col. 1, ll. 6-9.)
2. Owen’s Figure 3 depicts the hardware utilized to implement
Owen’s process management system. (Col. 7, ll. 18-19.) In particular,
Owen discloses a user agent (107) that represents and acts on behalf of a
user. (Col. 12, l. 4.) A user agent (107) “receives requests from users to
establish service sessions, or to join existing service sessions, and creates or
negotiates with existing service session as appropriate.” (Id. at ll. 5-7.)
Additionally, “[a] user agent (107) also receives and processes requests to
join a service session from the service sessions themselves.” (Id. at ll. 9-11.)
Further, Owen discloses that users must associate their user agents (107)
with Terminal Agents (102) in order to access a service. (Id. at ll. 21-22.)
3. Owen discloses the process of a user logging into the process
management system and attempting to make a call. (Col. 26, ll. 63-64; col.
27, ll. 1-2.) In particular, Owen discloses that when a user requests to log
into the system, the Terminal Agent passes the request to the UAM, and the
UAM sends the request message to the relevant user agent via its customer
object. (Col. 27, ll. 9-12.) Further, Owen discloses that the Terminal Agent
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that sent the request message identifies a Term-session object, and the
corresponding customer object creates the Term-session object. (Id. at ll.
13-15.)

IV. ANALYSIS
35 U.S.C. § 102(e) Rejection
Claim 1
Independent claim 1 recites, in relevant part, 1) “selecting, by the
service system, an appropriate assistant entity…taking account of context
data concerning an existing session…;” and 2) “joining the selected assistant
entity to the existing sessions.”
As detailed in the Findings of Fact section, Owen discloses a process
management system that provides interactive services over a communication
network. (FF 1.) Owen discloses that a user agent may act on behalf of a
user and, in particular, negotiates to join an existing service session based on
a user’s request. (FF 2.) Further, Owen discloses that users must associate a
user agent with a terminal agent in order to access a specific service. (Id.)
Additionally, Owen discloses that when a user logs into the process
management system, a terminal agent passes a user request to the relevant
user agent through the UAM utilizing a customer object. (FF 3.)
Subsequently, the terminal agent identifies a term-session and the
corresponding customer object creates the term-session. (Id.)
We find that Owen’s disclosure teaches that the UAM selects a
terminal agent based on a user’s initial service request, associates the
terminal agent with a user agent that provides the requested service, and
allows the user agent to join an existing communication session. In
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particular, we find that the UAM utilizes the information provided by the
user in the initial service request to both select a user agent that provides the
requested service, and to identify an existing communication session for the
user agent to join. Thus, we find that Owen teaches the disputed limitations
as set forth above.
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument that the Examiner fails
to identify how Owen anticipates each element of independent claim 1.
(App. Br. 11, Reply Br. 4.) In particular, we find the scope of independent
claim 17 to be narrower than the scope of independent claim 1. Further, we
note that the Examiner’s discussion of independent claim 17 seems to
encompass independent claim 1. (Fin. Rej. 3-4; see also Ans. 4-5.)
Additionally, as discussed above, Appellants fail to identify how Owen’s
disclosure does not anticipate each element of independent claim 1.
Therefore, we find that Appellants’ argument is unsubstantiated. It follows
that Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred in finding that Owen
anticipates independent claim 1.
Claims 2, 3, 7 through 10, 12 through 15, and 17 through 19
Appellants do not provide separate arguments for patentability with
respect to independent claim 17, and dependent claims 2, 3, 7 through 10, 12
through 15, 18, and 19. Therefore, we select independent claim 1 as
representative of the cited claims. Consequently, Appellants have not shown
error in the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 17, and dependent
claims 2, 3, 7 through 10, 12 through 15, 18, and 19, for the reasons set forth
in our discussion of independent claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii)
(2009).

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35 U.S.C. § 103(a) Rejection
Claims 4 through 6, 11, 16, and 20
Appellants offer the same arguments set forth in response to the
anticipation rejection of independent claims 1 and 17, respectively, to rebut
the obviousness rejection of dependent claims 4 through 6, 11, 16, and 20.
(App. Br. 19-20.) We have already addressed these arguments in our
discussion of independent claim 1, and we found them unpersuasive.
Consequently, Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred in
concluding that dependent claims 4 through 6, 11, 16, and 20 are
unpatentable over the combination of Owen and Brown.

V. CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
1. Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claims 1 through 3, 7 through 10, 12 through 15, and 17 through 19 as being
anticipated under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e).
2. Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claims 4 through 6, 11, 16, and 20 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a).

VII. DECISION
1. We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1 through 3,
7 through 10, 12 through 15, and 17 through 19 as being anticipated under
35 U.S.C. § 102(e).
2. We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 4 through 6,
11, 16, and 20 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
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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).

AFFIRMED

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