Ex Parte Petersson et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 28, 2016

13387296 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 28, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
13/387,296 01/26/2012 Justus Petersson
24112 7590 09/29/2016
COATS & BENNETT, PLLC
1400 Crescent Green, Suite 300
Cary, NC 27518
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.
4015-7919 I P28662-US1 1066
EXAMINER
FAYED,RASHAK
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2479
MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE
09/29/2016 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 JUSTUS PETERSSON and ROBERT SKOG1
Appeal2015-004587
Application 13/387,296
Technology Center 2400
Before ADAM J. PYONIN, MICHAEL M. BARRY, and
JOHN R. KENNY, Administrative Patent Judges.
BARRY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 17-32, which constitute all pending claims. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We AFFIRM.
1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as Telefonaktiebolaget L M
Ericsson (publ). (App. Br. 2.)
Appeal2015-004587
Application 13/387,296
Introduction
Appellants state "[t]he invention relates generally to a method and
arrangement for enabling multimedia services in an external network for a
device in a local network." (Spec. 1 (Technical Field).) Claim 17 is
representative, shown here with disputed limitations in bold italics (and with
formatting revised for convenience by modifying indentations):
17. A method, in a home gateway of a local network, for
providing registration in an external multimedia services
network for one or more local devices present in the local
network; the method comprising:
receiving, by the home gateway of the local network, a
local registration request from a first local device present in
the local network, while the home gateway is preconfigured
with a plurality of public identities that are valid in the
multimedia services network;
in response to receiving the local registration request,
the home gateway:
selecting a first public identity for the first local
device from the plurality of public identities;
storing a mapping or association between an
identification of the first local device and the first public
identity;
registering the first public identity together with
the identification of the first local device in the multimedia
services network for the first local device, thereby enabling any
incoming call or session request referring to the first public
identity to be directed, by the multimedia services network, to
the first local device.
(App. Br. 11 (Claims App'x).)
Rejections
Claims 17-32 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over
Arauz Rosado (US 2010/0281251 Al; Nov. 4, 2010) ("Rosado"), Allen et al.
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Application 13/387,296
(US 2011/0040836 Al; Feb. 17, 2011), and Herrero et al. (US 2005/0009520
Al; Jan. 13, 2005). (Final Act. 2-35.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
contentions and we disagree with Appellants' conclusions. Unless noted
otherwise below, we adopt as our own: (1) the findings and reasons set forth
by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 2-
35) and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer
in response to Appellants' Appeal Brief (Ans. 2-10). We concur with the
conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the following for
emphasis.
Appellants argue the Examiner errs in rejecting claim 17 because
"Rosado does not teach or suggest that any gateway of a local network
receives a local registration request from a first local device present in the
local network" (App. Br. 6 (emphasis omitted)) as claimed, because "Rosado
makes no mention of any home gateway" (App. Br. 7). Appellants further
contend the Examiner errs because Rosado' s "hosts" that are used for
network packet routing "need not, and do not, register in the IMS [internet
protocol multimedia subsystem] network." (Id. (citing Rosado, Fig. 7 A).)
The Examiner, in contrast, finds that
Rosado teaches the IMS device to be a home gateway device in
light of the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim
language. It[] also teaches the SIP register request to be the
local registration request as it is used here to register and
authenticates as necessary to the IMS network[,] to which its
respective ISIM 505, 510 belongs[,] before providing its
functionality to hosts in its respective private network.
(Ans. 8-9, citing Rosado i-fi-16-8, 58---60, and 124.)
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Application 13/387,296
We agree with the Examiner that device 505 ofRosado's Figure 5A
provides gateway functionality for Host A 501 to communicate with Host B
506 outside its own network that is commensurate with the claimed "home
gateway" (Id., see also Ans. 6.) We also agree with the Examiner that
Rosado teaches local registration, such as in paragraph 44, which explains
that device 504, of which device 505 is a portion, includes a "routing table
[that] stores IP addresses in association with respective IMS addresses, such
as IMS Public User Identities." (Id.; see also Rosado i-f 43 ("each IMS device
504, 509 registers and authenticates as necessary to the IMS network to
which its respective ISIM 505, 510 belongs before providing its
functionality to hosts in its respective private network").) Appellants do not
persuade us the Examiner errs in finding the claim 17 limitation "receiving,
by the home gateway of the local network, a local registration request from a
first local device present in the local network" encompasses Rosado' s
disclosure. (See Ans. 3-7, 8-9; see also Final Act. 2--4 (further citing
Rosado, Fig. 5B, i-fi-1 16, 3 6).)
Appellants further argue the Examiner errs in rejecting claim 17
because Allen fails to "teach or suggest a gateway of a local network that
receives a local registration request from a first local device present in the
local network and selects a first public identity for the first local device from
a plurality of public identities in response." (App. Br. 8 (emphasis
omitted).) The Examiner answers that in Allen,
the SIP request enables a UE [user equipment, e.g., a mobile
phone] to be configured such that it can be notified depending
on senders' identities for communication filtering and the
diversion of services based upon which UE a communication is
addressed to. When a UE registers with the network the UE
will transmit information to the network that identifies the UE,
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Application 13/387,296
[w]hich enables "selecting a first public identity for the first
local device from the plurality of public identities" in light of
the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim language.
Ans. 9.
Appellants in reply argue that, according to the Examiner's
interpretation of Allen,
[b ]ecause the UE provides its own public user identity, the SCC
AS [Service Consistency and Continuity Application Server] is
clearly not selecting any first public identity for the UE.
Accordingly, Allen does not teach or suggest "selecting a first
public identity for the first local device," as required by claims
17and25.
(Reply Br. 2.) Appellants point out that Allen's paragraph 124 teaches that
the UE, when requesting assignment of a controller function within the
network, can itself provide its IMS public user identity.
Appellants' arguments do not persuade us. While the UE can provide
its own public identity when requesting assignment of a controller function
within the network as described in Allen i-f 124, Allen further teaches a
registration process that checks a database maintained by the "network"
(rather than the UE), which specifically includes public-private identity
mapping for the UE:
In one implementation, to perform registration activities, the
network may check the IRS [Implicit Registration Set] for the
UE in the database to see that the UE requesting registration
has the same IRS set as that of an authorized UE . ...
Furthermore, the IRS set may indicate whether the UE can only
be controlled, and whether the UE can subscribe in and out of
the service.
(Allen i-f 97 (emphasis added); see Final Act. 4.)
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Appellants do not persuasively explain why Allen's registering a UE
with the network, which involves mapping a public identity to the UE, fails
to teach "selecting a first public identity for the first local device from the
plurality of public entities" as claimed. That a UE may have a public
identity mapped to a private identity prior to registration with a gateway
does not preclude the gateway's registration process from "selecting a first
public identity for the first local device" within the meaning of the claim.
We agree with the Examiner that Allen teaches the claimed selecting,
storing, and registering steps. (See Final Act. 4--5; Ans. 7-9 (collectively
citing Allen, Fig. 2, i-fi-16-8, 53-54, 58---60, 84, 97, 124).)
For the foregoing reasons we, therefore, sustain the Examiner's
rejection of claim 17, and along with it the rejection of claim 25, which
includes analogous requirements and which Appellants argue on the same
basis. (See App. Br. 6-10.) We also sustain the rejection of claims 18-24
and 26-32, for which Appellants provide no separate substantive arguments.
(See id. at 10.)
DECISION
For the above reasons, we affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims
17-32. 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) (2013).
AFFIRMED
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