Ex Parte Ould-Brahim

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 30, 2013

10658701 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 30, 2013)

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.
10/658,701 09/09/2003 Hamid Ould-Brahim 38898-0146 2312
23577 7590 08/30/2013
RIDOUT & MAYBEE LLP
250 UNIVERSITY AVENUE
5TH FLOOR
TORONTO, ON M5H 3E5
CANADA
EXAMINER
NAJJAR, SALEH
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2492
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/30/2013 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 HAMID OULD-BRAHIM
____________________

Appeal 2011-001655
Application 10/658,701
Technology Center 2400
____________________

Before JEAN R. HOMERE, CARLA M. KRIVAK, and HUNG H. BUI,
Administrative Patent Judges.

BUI, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-17. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.2

1 Real Party in Interest is Nortel Networks Limited.
2 Our decision refers to Appellant’s Appeal Brief filed March 5, 2010
(“App. Br.”); Examiner’s Answer mailed May 24, 2010 (“Ans.”); and the
original Specification filed September 9, 2003 (“Spec.”).
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant’s Invention
Appellant’s invention relates to a Layer-2 virtual private network
(VPN) arrangement and method for switched virtual circuits. The switched
virtual circuit Layer-2 VPN includes logical ports of two types, customer
and provider, and port information tables to relate both types. The port
information tables provide simplified provisioning and a degree of customer
autonomy regarding establishing virtual connections without the assistance
of the service provider across the service provider's network. Addressing
and routing used between the provider and customer includes IPv4, IPv6 or
NSAP (encoded in IPv6, as per RFC1888). See Appellant’s Spec. ¶¶[0011]-
[0012], [0098] and Abstract.
Representative Claim
Claim 8 is representative of the subject matter of the invention;
however, claim 8 depends upon independent claim 1. Therefore, for
purposes of completeness, both claim 8 and its independent claim 1 are
reproduced below with disputed limitations emphasized:

1. A network for providing switched virtual circuit
Layer-2 VPNs, said network comprising:
a set of elements interconnected by services;
at least one first subset of said elements defining a
private network;
at least one second subset of elements different from said
first subset defining a provider network wherein at least two
subgroups of said first subset of elements may be connected via
said provider network;
a provisioning mechanism used to define element
membership in said first subset of elements;
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a plurality of customer ports maintained on said elements
of said first subset of elements;
a plurality of provider ports maintained on said second
set of elements, each of said plurality of provider ports
connected by data and signalling services to a customer port;
a port information table at each element of said provider
network having a provider port, said port information table
containing mapping information relating addresses of customer
ports to addresses of provider ports for said first subset of
elements; and
a signalling mechanism used to create Layer-2
connectivity between elements within said first subset of
elements at the Layer-2 level across said second subset of
elements.

8. A network for providing switched virtual circuit
Layer-2 VPNs as claimed in claim 1, wherein said customer
port addresses and provider port addresses use an addressing
scheme chosen from the group of IPv4, IPv6, and NSAP.

Evidence Considered
Gonda US 6,662,221 B1 Dec. 9, 2003
Xu US 2002/0032766 A1 Mar. 14, 2002

Examiner’s Rejections

(1) Claims 1-17 [sic, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13-15, and 17] stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being unpatentable over Gonda. Ans.
3-4.3
(2) Claims 2 and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as
being unpatentable over Gonda and Rosen. Ans. 5.

3 It should be noted although the Examiner rejected claims 1-17 under
§ 102, the Examiner did not provide an argument for claims 2, 4, 8, 10, 12,
and 16 under this rejection (see Ans. 4).
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(3) Claims 4 and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as
being unpatentable over Gonda and Gibson. Ans. 5-6.
(4) Claims 8 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as
being unpatentable over Gonda and Xu. Ans. 6.

ISSUE
Based on Appellant’s arguments, the dispositive issue on appeal is
whether the combination of Gonda and Xu discloses or suggests the use of
IPv4 and IPv6 address schemes for IP address and service ports, as recited in
claims 8 and 16. App. Br. 11-12, 14.

ANALYSIS
Initially, we note claims 1-17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §102(e)
and §103(a) as being unpatentable over cited prior art. However, Appellant
only presents arguments against the rejection of claims 8 and 16 and does
not address the rejections of claims 1-7, 9-15 and 17 (see App. Br. 7).
The Board has jurisdiction over all the claims because: (1) the Notice
of Appeal is silent as to specific claims being appealed, (2) there is no clear
statement that Appellant intends not to appeal some of the rejected claims,
(3) the Appeal Brief has no clear statement as to which claims are the
subject of the Appeal, and (4) the Appeal Brief omits rejections from the
Grounds of Rejection to be reviewed on appeal. Thus, as the Board has
jurisdiction over all the claims and these claims were not addressed in the
Appeal Brief, the final rejections of claims 1-7, 9-15 and 17 are pro forma
affirmed.
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Turning now to the Examiner’s rejection of claims 8 and 16, we have
thoroughly reviewed each of Appellant’s arguments asserting the Examiner
has erred. However, we agree with the Examiner that the claimed subject
matter is unpatentable over the cited prior art. As such, we adopt as our own
(1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from
which this appeal is taken and (2) the detailed findings and reasons set forth
by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s
Appeal Brief. We further highlight and address specific findings and
arguments for emphasis as follows.
Appellant contends the combination of Gonda and Xu does not
disclose or suggest all the claimed elements, i.e., the use of IPv4 and IPv6
address schemes for IP address and service ports, as recited in claims 8 and
16. App. Br. 11-16. In particular, Appellant argues:
(1) Claim 1, on which claim 8 depends, requires "a
port information table at each element of said provider network
having a provider port, said port information table containing
mapping information relating addresses of customer ports to
addresses of provider ports for said first subset of elements".
The Examiner has indicated that Gonda discloses such a port
information table in column 14, at lines 26-36

…a Graphical User Interface ("GUI") screen associated
with management of a service order is distinct from a port
information table "containing mapping information relating
addresses of customer ports to addresses of provider ports" as
required by claim 1.
(App. Br. 11) (emphasis added); and

(2) Xu does not disclose use of IPv4 and IPv6
addressing schemes for ports. Instead, Xu proposes, in
paragraph [0091], "assigning a service identifier associated with
the pseudo network address that corresponds to the subset or
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package of network applications". Put another way, Xu
proposes that a package of network applications be associated
with pseudo network address and a service identifier. From
paragraph [0092], "the service identifier comprises a
conventional TCP/UDP service port". See also FIG. 5J where a
packet is associated with a destination I P address and a service
port. Furthermore, paragraph [0106] of Xu includes the passage
"In these Figures, the packet routing is indicated in the form:
IP(X,Y,Z), where X is the source IP address, Y is the
destination IP address, and Z is the TCP port number."
(App. Br. 12) (emphasis added).

We are not persuaded. First, and contrary to Appellant’s contention,
Xu discloses “using an addressing scheme chosen from the group of IPv4,
IPv6 and NSAP because Xu supports the creation of customized service
infrastructure using conventional TCP/IP network protocols such as IP
version 4 and IP version 6,” as the Examiner correctly found. Ans. 7 (citing
Xu, ¶[0092]).
Second, Appellant’s argument based on a port information table
“containing mapping information relating addresses of customer ports to
addresses of provider ports” as recited in Appellant’s claim 1 is unavailing
as these limitations are found in claim 1 and not claim 8. However, as
correctly noted by the Examiner, Gonda teaches a port information table
containing mapping information relating addresses of customer ports and
provider ports. Ans. 7 (citing Gonda, Fig. 10C element 1026 and Fig. 10D,
element 1036).
In view of the combined teachings of Gonda and Xu, we agree with
the Examiner’s conclusion that:
“a person having ordinary skill in the art would have
readily recognized the desirability and advantages of modifying
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Gonda by employing IPv4 or IPv6 addressing scheme, such as
disclosed by Xu, in order to be compatible with conventional
TCP/IP networking protocols.”

Ans. 7.
Appellant has not contested the Examiner’s specific findings, as
evidenced from the absence of a Reply Brief. As such, we see no reason to
disturb the Examiner’s factual findings, which are supported by a
preponderance of evidence, and the Examiner’s legal conclusion of
obviousness, which is reasonable in view of the combined teachings of
Gonda and Xu.
For the reasons set forth above, we sustain the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of claims 8 and 16.

CONCLUSION
On the record before us, we find Appellant has not demonstrated the
Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 8 and 16 contains error under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a).
In addition, based on Appellant’s failure to address the Examiner’s
prima facie case of anticipation and obviousness, claims 1-7, 9-15, and 17
are pro forma affirmed.

DECISION
As such, we AFFIRM the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-17.
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).

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AFFIRMED

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