Ex Parte MCLEAN

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 10, 2016

11609770 (P.T.A.B. May. 10, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
11/609,770 12/12/2006
23696 7590 05/12/2016
QUALCOMM INCORPORATED
5775 MOREHOUSE DR.
SAN DIEGO, CA 92121
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Ivan Hugh MCLEAN
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
051320 1670
EXAMINER
AGWUMEZIE, CHINEDU CHARLES
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3685
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/12/2016 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):
us-docketing@qualcomm.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte IV AN HUGH MCLEAN
Appeal2013-008855 1
Application 11/609,7702
Technology Center 3600
Before PHILIP J. HOFFMAN, AMEE A. SHAH, and
MATTHEWS. MEYERS, Administrative Patent Judges.
MEYERS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's final
rejection of claims 1, 3, 5-18, 20, and 22-51. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
1. Our decision references Appellant's Appeal Brief ("Appeal Br.," filed
February 28, 2013) and Reply Brief ("Reply Br.," filed July 1, 2013), and
the Examiner's Answer ("Ans.," mailed May 1, 2013) and Final Office
Action ("Final Act.," mailed October 2, 2012).
2. Appellant identifies QUALCOMM Incorporated as the real party in
interest (Appeal Br. 3).
Appeal2013-008855
Application 11/609,770
CLAIMED fNVENTION
Appellant's claimed invention is directed generally to creating media
content licenses in a mobile Digital Rights Management Network
(Spec. if 1 ).
Claim 1, reproduced below with added bracketed notations, is
illustrative of the subject matter on appeal:
1. A method for generating a media content license,
compnsmg:
[a] generating, at a wireless client device, one or more
proposed licensing rights by which the wireless client device can
access selected media content, wherein the generating includes:
[b] determining a list of one or more available
licensing parameters associated with the selected media
content; and
[ c] selecting at least one available licensing
parameter from the list of one or more available licensing
parameters to define the one or more proposed licensing
rights based on at least one device-specific attribute of the
wireless client device, wherein the at least one device-
specific attribute includes a hardware performance level of
the wireless client device and/or a service status of the
wireless client device;
[ d] communicating the proposed licensing rights to a
network device to request that the network device approve the
one or more proposed licensing rights as an acceptable manner
by which the wireless client device can access the selected media
content;
[ e] receiving, at the wireless client device and in response
to the communication of the proposed licensing rights to the
network device, a licensing rights validation that defines
authenticated licensing rights; and
[ fJ accessing the selected media content at the wireless
client device in accordance with the authenticated licensing
rights.
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Appeal2013-008855
Application 11/609,770
REJECTION
Claims 1, 3, 5-18, 20, and 22-51 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Ginter (US 5,892,900, iss. Apr. 6, 1999), Sites
(US 7,149,721 Bl, iss. Dec. 12, 2006), and Prabhakar
(US 2007/0240161 Al, pub. Oct. 11, 2007).
ANALYSIS
Independent claims 1, 14, 16, 18, 30, 31, 35, 41-43, and 49, and dependent
claims 3, 5-13, 15, 17, 20, 22-29, 32-34, 36--40, 44-48, 50, and 51
We are not persuaded by Appellant's argument that the Examiner
erred in rejecting the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because the
combination of Ginter, Sites, and Prabhakar fails to disclose or suggest
"selecting at least one available licensing parameter ... to define the one or
more proposed licensing rights based on ... hardware performance level of
the wireless client device and/or a service status of the wireless client
device," as recited by limitation [ c J of independent claim 1, and similarly
recited by independent claims 14, 16, 18, 30, 31, 35, 41--43, and 49 (see
Appeal Br. 18-26; see also Reply Br. 2-7). Instead, we agree with the
Examiner that the combination of Ginter, Sites, and Prabhakar discloses the
argued limitation (see Final Act. 6-10 (citing Ginter, col. 270, 1. 65 - col.
271, 1. 35, col. 277, 11. 55---65, Fig. 75B; Sites, col. 2, 1. 39- col. 3, 1. 19;
Prabhakar i-fi-126, 27, 33, 38); see also Ans. 14--19).
In this regard, we note that Ginter is directed to various "systems and
methods for protecting rights of various participants in electronic commerce
and other electronic or electronically-facilitated transactions" (Ginter, col. 1,
11. 17-20). Ginter describes a "haggling" form of negotiation for electronic
content where "most of the terms and conditions are fixed, but one or more
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Appeal2013-008855
Application 11/609,770
terms (e.g., price or payment terms) are not" (id. at col. 270, 1. 66 -col. 270,
1. 2; see also e.g., id. at col. 270, 11. 8-11 ). More particularly, Ginter
discloses
the optional and permitted fields and control sets in a [permission
record structure] PERC may describe the options that may be
selected as part of the negotiation. To perform the negotiation,
one party may propose a control set containing specific fields,
control information, and limits as specified by a PERC; the other
party may pick and accept from the control sets proposed, reject
them, or propose alternate control sets that might be used. The
negotiation process may use the permitted, required, and optional
designations in the PERC to determine an acceptable range of
parameters for the final rule set. Once an agreement is reached,
the negotiation process may create a new PERC and/or URT that
describes the result of the negotiation. The resulting PERCs
and/or URTs may be "signed" (e.g., using digital signatures) by
all of the negotiation processes involved in the negotiation to
prevent repudiation of the agreement at a later date.
(Id. at col. 271, 11. 21-36).
Sites is directed to a system for "creating a license for electronic
content" which "allows a retail customer to select some or all of the habitat
types to which the license is bound" (Sites, col. 1, 11. 6-7; see also id. at
col. 2, 11. 6-11 ). Sites discloses that some electronic content providers "use
the same encrypted document for all users, but supply a separate decryption,
or rights license file, that is unique to each user and is in some way tied to
the user's computing environment" (id. at col. 1, 11. 23-26). Sites further
discloses
a license file 102 includes encrypted and encoded information
that: (a) identifies electronic content; (b) specifies the
permissions a user has for the electronic content; ( c) provides a
key that can be used to decrypt the electronic content; and ( d)
determines the environment in which the electronic content can
be accessed.
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Appeal2013-008855
Application 11/609,770
(Id. at col. 2, 11. 39-44). Sites still further discloses
[a] habitat type 110 is any type of user environment (or user
environment feature) to which the license can be bound. Suitable
habitat types 110 include (but are not limited to) a central
processing unit (CPU), hard disk, removable floppy disk,
CDROM, removable disk cartridge, flash memory card, network
drive, user login name, fingerprint, handwritten signature, other
user biometric data, user-possessed smart card, time and
geographic location. Each habitat value 112 is an identifier for a
particular habitat type 110.
(Id. at col. 2, 1. 64- col. 3, 1. 5). Sites additionally discloses that "[t]he key
of a habitat term is encoded binary data that can be extracted and decoded to
obtain a decryption key 108 and a set of access permissions 106 for the
electronic content" (id. at col. 3, 11. 20-23).
Prabhakar is directed to "[a] system for dynamically allocating
resources in a computing grid" which includes "a resource management
component, a service level agreement (SLA) management component and a
job scheduling component" (Prabhakar i1 5). iviore particularly, Prabhakar
discloses that its SLA management component is "configured to perform a
negotiation of resources for the one or more users submitting the one or
more job requests, in real-time, based on a resource steerability attribute
associated with the one or more job requests" (id.). Prabhakar further
discloses that "[ t ]he SLAs that are managed by the SLA management
component 28, are defined by a plurality of service attributes," which "refer
to a set of performance metrics that the service provider promises to meet
while delivering a particular service to the user" (id. i-f 26; see also id. i-f 3 8).
Appellant argues that "Sites discloses that the operating environment
(or habitat) where software is permitted to execute can be defined by a
license, but the habitat for the license is based on device identification, not
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Appeal2013-008855
Application 11/609,770
'hardware performance level' or 'service status"' (Appeal Br. 15-16; see
also Reply Br. 2-7) (emphasis omitted). However, we agree with the
Examiner that the proposed combination of Ginter, Sites, and Prabhakar,
rather than any one reference alone, discloses the argued limitation (see Ans.
14--20; see also Final Act. 9).
Initially, we note that the claim term "hardware performance level"
does not appear in Appellant's Specification. Rather, Appellant's
Specification describes generally that "device-specific attributes" are based
on "attributes 24" which
may include, but are not limited to, service or membership status
(e.g., premier/gold service, standard service, member of a club
associated with a content provider, etc.), geographic/physical
location and/ or network location associated with the wireless
device or the device user, device security capabilities, hardware
capabilities and the like. In this manner, the licensing parameters
22 which are available to the user of the wireless device 12 may
differ amongst wireless devices based on the unique attributes
associated \~1ith each respective \~\rireless device.
(Spec. i-f 35 (emphasis added)). In the absence of any special definition for
the term "hardware performance level," we find Sites' disclosure that "[a]
habitat type 110 is any type of user environment (or user environment
feature) to which the license can be bound" (Sites, col. 2, 11. 64--65)
addresses the argued limitation, inasmuch as a "user environment," e.g.,
CPU, hard disk, flash memory card, indicates "hardware capabilities and the
like" (id. at col. 2, 1. 66 - col. 3, 1. 4; cf e.g., Spec. i-f 35), under a broad,
reasonable interpretation. We acknowledge, as Appellant points out that "a
habitat value 112 can be a device-specific serial number ... " (Sites, col. 3,
11. 5-7), however, this does not otherwise preclude Sites' disclosure
regarding habitat type 110 and habitat value 112 from identifying a
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Application 11/609,770
particular CPU which indicates or characterizes a "hardware performance
level" that is within the scope of the broadly recited limitation recited by
exemplary claim 1.
Appellant also argues that
Prabhakar fails to disclose or suggest "selecting at least one
available licensing parameter ... to define the one or more
proposed licensing rights based on ... a hardware performance
level of the wireless client device and/or a service status of the
wireless client device" as recited in independent claim 1 and
similarly recited in independent claims 14, 16, 18, 30, 31, 35, 41,
42, 43, and 49.
(Appeal Br. 23; see also Reply Br. 2-7). However, Appellant's argument is
not persuasive at least because each of the independent claims is rejected as
unpatentable over the combination of Ginter, Sites, and Prabhakar, and not
over Prabhakar alone. See In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed.
Cir. 1986) ("Non-obviousness cannot be established by attacking the
references individually where the rejection is based upon the teachings of a
combination of references.") (citation omitted).
Here, the Examiner's rejection relies on Ginter to disclose every
limitation of exemplary claim 1 (see Final Act. 6-10), but finds "[ w ]hat
Ginter does not explicitly disclose is that the licensing rights [are] based on
at least one device-specific attribute of the wireless client device" (id. at 9).
To address this deficiency, the Examiner relies on Sites as disclosing that
"the licensing rights [are] based on at least one device-specific attribute of
the wireless client device" (Final Act. 9 (citing Sites, col. 2, 1. 39 - col. 3, 1.
19) ), and further relies on Prabhakar to the extent it discloses that "the at
least one device-specific attribute includes a hardware performance level of
the wireless client device and/or a service status of the wireless client
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Appeal2013-008855
Application 11/609,770
device" (Final Act. 9 (citing Prabhakar ilil 26, 27, 33, 38)). Thus,
Appellant's arguments (see Appeal Br. 17-25; see also Ans. 3-7) directed to
Prabhakar alone, are not persuasive to show error in the Examiner's
rejection.
In view of the foregoing, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of
independent claims 1, 14, 16, 18, 30, 31, 35, 41--43, and 49, under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a). We also sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 3, 5-13, 15,
17, 20, 22-29, 32-34, 36--40, 44--48, 50, and 51, which is not separately
argued.
DECISION
The Examiner's rejection of claims 1, 3, 5-18, 20, and 22-51 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is affirmed.
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).
AFFIRMED
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