Ex Parte Pham et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 28, 2014

11853738 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 28, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE
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.
11/853,738 09/11/2007 Hoang D. Pham PD-207087 3562
20991 7590 04/29/2014
THE DIRECTV GROUP, INC.
PATENT DOCKET ADMINISTRATION
CA / LA1 / A109
2230 E. IMPERIAL HIGHWAY
EL SEGUNDO, CA 90245
EXAMINER
KURIEN, CHRISTEN A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2427
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/29/2014 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 HOANG D. PHAM, JEANET C. MIKA, DANIEL M. MINER,
and DOUGLAS E. RIBORDY
_____________

Appeal 2011-008618
Application 11/853,738
Technology Center 2400
______________

Before STEPHEN C. SIU, DAVID M. KOHUT, and
IRVIN E. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judges.

KOHUT, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the final
rejection of claims 1-24. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part the Examiner’s rejection of these claims and enter
new grounds of rejection.

INVENTION
The invention is directed to a method and system for communicating
between a local collection facility and a remote facility. Spec. [0001].
Claims 1 and 8 are illustrative of the invention and are reproduced below:

1. A method comprising:
receiving over-the-air broadcast television channel
signals at a local collection facility;
encoding the over-the-air broadcast television channel
signals into respective IP signals; and
routing the respective IP signals through a terrestrial IP
network to a remote facility.

8. A method comprising:
receiving a first plurality of channel signals at a
respective one of a first plurality of over-the-air receivers at a
first local collection facility;
receiving a second plurality of channel signals at a
respective one of a second plurality of over-the-air receivers at
a second local collection facility spaced apart from the first
local collection facility;
encoding the first plurality of channel signals into a first
plurality of IP signals;
encoding the second plurality of channels into a second
plurality of IP signals;
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routing the first IP signals through an IP network to a
remote facility;
routing the second IP signals through the IP network to
the remote facility; and
uplinking the first IP signals and the second IP signals to
a satellite from the remote facility.

REFERENCES
Kaul US 5,933,123 Aug. 3, 1999

Rowe US 2001/0003846 A1 June 14, 2001

Mimura US 6,557,031 B1 Apr. 29, 2003

Summers US 2003/0217362 A1 Nov. 20, 2003

Wang US 2007/0079351 A1 Apr. 5, 2007

REJECTIONS AT ISSUE
Claims 1-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Mimura and Rowe. Ans. 3-6.
Claims 8-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Mimura, Rowe, and Summers. Ans.
6-12.
Claims 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Mimura, Rowe, and Kaul. Ans. 13-14.
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Claims 21 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Mimura, Rowe, Kaul, and Wang.1
Ans. 14-15.
Claim 23 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable
over the combination of Mimura, Rowe, Kaul, and Summers. Ans. 15-16.
Claim 24 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable
over the combination of Mimura, Rowe, Summers, and Kaul.2 Ans. 16-17.

ISSUES
Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Mimura and
Rowe teaches or suggests a local collection facility that receives over-the-air
broadcast signals and encodes the signals into IP signals, as required by
claim 1?
Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Mimura and
Rowe teaches or suggests uplinking the uplink signals from a diverse site
associated with the remote facility, as required by claim 5?
Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Mimura and
Rowe teaches or suggests monitoring and controlling the local collection
facility remotely through the terrestrial IP network at a network operations
center, as required by claims 6 and 7?

1 We note that the Examiner inadvertently left out Rowe in the statement of
the rejection, but addressed the combination of references in the body of the
rejection. See Ans. 14-15. We deem this to be harmless error and have
included Rowe in the ground of the rejection.
2 We note that the Examiner inadvertently left out Summers in the statement
of the rejection, but addressed Summers in the body of the rejection. See
Ans. 16-17. We deem this to be harmless error and have included Summers
in the ground of rejection.
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Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Mimura,
Rowe, and Summers teaches or suggests a first local collection facility and a
second local collection facility that route respective first and second IP
signals to a common remote facility, as required by claims 8, 13, and 23?
Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Mimura,
Rowe, and Kaul teaches or suggests a router comprising a primary and
secondary router, as required by claims 17 and 18?

ANALYSIS
Claims 1-4
Claim 1 recites “receiving over-the-air broadcast television channel
signals at a local collection facility; [and] encoding the over-the-air
broadcast television channel signals into respective IP signals.” Initially,
Appellants argue that video server 55 is not a local collection facility and
that interworking unit 62 is not a part of or associated with a local collection
facility because interworking unit 62 is a standalone unit and is disposed
between the Internet and a CATV network. App. Br. 7. The Examiner finds
that Mimura teaches interworking unit 62 that acts as a local collection
facility by collecting content from a video server via a CATV network. Ans.
3 and 17-18. We agree with the Examiner.
The Examiner interprets the term “local collection facility” as a site
that collects data that is different from the “remote facility.” Ans. 17-18.
Since Appellants have neither provided a specific definition nor sufficient
evidence to show that “local collection facility” is a term of art, we find the
Examiner’s interpretation to be reasonable and consistent with Appellants’
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Specification. Thus, we agree with the Examiner that interworking unit 62
satisfies the disputed local collection facility limitation.
Next, Appellants argue that the combination of Mimura and Rowe
fails to teach or suggest encoding the over-the-air broadcast signals into IP
signals. App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 2. Specifically, Appellants contend that
neither reference mentions “over-the-air broadcast signals” and the signals
mentioned in Rowe are IP encapsulated when transported to the local
collection facility and, therefore, cannot be encoded into IP signals. App.
Br. 8; Reply Br. 2. However, the Examiner finds that Mimura teaches where
the local collection facility receives video signal and then converts the
received video signal based on a “predetermined conversion system” (i.e.,
encodes the signal) into IP signals. Ans. 3-4 (citing Mimura col. 9, ll. 31-
37). Further, while the Examiner admits that Mimura does not teach over-
the-air broadcast signals, the Examiner refers to findings in Rowe that
describe wireless transmittance of television signals (i.e. “over-the-air
broadcast signals”). Ans. 18 (citing Rowe Fig. 6, [0130], and [0138]).
Thus, we agree with the Examiner (Ans. 19) that it is the combination of the
Mimura and Rowe references that teach the disputed limitations. We agree
with the Examiner that “[u]sing the known technique of sending signals to a
satellite network instead of CATV network would have been obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art.” Ans. 4. For the reasons stated supra, we sustain
the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claims 2-4, Appellants indicate that these claims stand or
fall with claim 1. App. Br. 9. Therefore, we sustain the Examiner’s
rejection of these claims for the same reasons indicated supra, with respect
to claim 1.
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Claim 5
Claim 5 recites “wherein uplinking comprises uplinking the uplink
signals from a diverse site associated with the remote facility.” The
Examiner finds that Rowe teaches this limitation by specifically referring to
the NOC headend origination as the diverse site and the remote location
monitors as the remote facility. Ans. 19 (citing Rowe, Fig. 15). Appellants
argue that the portion of the Rowe reference cited by the Examiner does not
include both a primary and diverse site. App. Br. 9. However, we note that
Appellants’ argument is not commensurate in scope with the claimed
invention because claim 5 does not recite a “primary site.” Additionally,
Appellants have not addressed the Examiner’s specific findings. As a result,
we agree with the Examiner and sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 5.

Claims 6, 7, and 24
Appellants further contend that the cited references fail to teach
“monitoring and controlling the local collection facility remotely through the
terrestrial IP network,” as required by claims 6 and 7. App. Br. 9-10; Reply
Br. 3. Specifically, Appellants argue that the monitoring system of Rowe is
within the network operations center (“NOC”) 300 and not remote from the
local collection facility through a terrestrial IP network. App. Br. 9-10;
Reply Br. 3. The Examiner finds that Rowe teaches a Network Distribution,
Monitor & Control 370 element within NOC 300 that remotely monitors and
controls a local collection facility. Ans. 20. The Examiner also finds that
Rowe teaches a plurality of transmission systems such as transmission over a
terrestrial IP network. Ans. 20 (citing Rowe [0138]).
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We agree with the Examiner because Rowe’s NOC 300 and
associated element 370 provide for remote monitoring (Rowe [0248]) and
controlling (Rowe [0138]) of a remote node. Ans. 20. A skilled artisan at
the time of the invention would have understood that Rowe’s NOC 300
would have provided the same functionality (i.e., monitoring and controlling
of a remote node) for the local collection facility described in Mimura as the
combination presents predictable results and an improved method and
system. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection with respect to
claim 6.
Claim 7 requires monitoring and controlling the local facility remotely
“at a network operations center.” While Appellants argue that the cited
references fail to teach this limitation (App. Br. 10; Reply Br. 3), Appellants
admit prior to this that “this monitoring system is within the network
operation center” (App. Br. 9). In addition, the Examiner finds (Ans. 6 and
20-21) and we agree that Rowe explicitly teaches that monitoring and
controlling element 370 is located within NOC 300. Ans. 6 (citing Rowe
Figs. 6 and 15). Therefore, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection with respect
to claim 7.
Appellants make the same arguments with respect to claim 24 as with
claim 6. Thus, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 24 for the same
reasons stated supra, with respect to claim 6.

Claims 8-16 and 23
Claim 8 recites a “first local collection facility” and “second local
collection facility” that route respective first and second IP signals to “the
remote facility.” Independent claim 13 and dependent claim 23 recite
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similar limitations. Claims 9-12 are dependent upon claim 8; claims 14-16
are dependent upon claim 13. The Examiner finds that the combination of
Mimura, Rowe, and Summers teaches this limitation, specifically referring
to Rowe’s NOC 300 as the claimed common remote facility and the regional
broadcast centers (“RBCs”) of Summers as the claimed local collection
facilities. Ans. 21-22. Appellants contend that Summers does not teach
where the RBCs route signals to a common remote facility, as required by
claims 8, 13, and 23. App. Br. 11; Reply Br. 4.
We agree with Appellants. The portions referred to by the Examiner
do not teach a first and second local collection facility that each route
respective first and second IP signals to a common remote facility.
Therefore, we reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 8-16 and 23.
However, we find that Summers teaches that it was known to route
the signals from the several RBCs shown in Fig. 16 to a common remote
facility such as the super regional broadcast centers (“SRBCs”) as shown in
Fig. 17. To be clear, Summers teaches at Fig. 17 where signals are
transmitted from several RBCs (i.e., local collection facilities) to a common
SRBC (i.e. remote facility). We designate our analysis to be a new ground
of rejection of independent claims 8 and 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over
Mimura, Rowe, and Summers and dependent claim 23 over Mimura, Rowe,
Kaul, and Summers.
Since the Patent Trial and Appeal Board is a review body rather than a
place of initial examination, we have not reviewed dependent claims 9-12
and 14-16 to the extent necessary to determine whether any combination of
the references renders any of these claims obvious. We leave it to the
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Examiner to determine the appropriateness of any further rejections of
dependent claims 9-12 and 14-16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

Claims 17-22
Appellants contend that Mimura fails to teach a router located in the
local collection facility, as required by claim 17. App. Br. 14. The
Examiner finds that Mimura teaches where networking unit 54 routes the
encoded packets through the use of a router network 51 to a remote facility.
Ans. 23-24 (citing Mimura col. 8, ll. 16-23). We agree with the Examiner’s
findings because Mimura explicitly teaches utilizing a router network 51
with routers (i.e. multiple “R[s]” in Fig. 9) to send the encoded data packets
from the local collection facility to the remote facility.
Regarding claim 18, Appellants argue that the cited references fail to
teach where the router comprises a primary router and a secondary router.
App. Br. 14-15. Specifically, Appellants contend that none of the references
teach a primary router and a secondary router that is utilized during a
malfunction of the primary router. App. Br. 14-15. First, we note that
Appellants’ arguments are not commensurate in scope with the claim. The
claim does not recite utilizing a secondary router during a malfunction of the
primary router. Additionally, Appellants do not provide a specific definition
for the term “primary” or “secondary” and, therefore, we agree with the
Examiner’s interpretation that the claim only requires multiple routers, as
taught by the Mimura reference and shown in Figure 9. Ans. 24.
Thus, for the reasons stated supra, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection
of claim 18.

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CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in finding that the combination of Mimura
and Rowe teaches or suggests a local collection facility that receives over-
the-air broadcast signals and encodes the signals into IP signals, as required
by claim 1.
The Examiner did not err in finding that the combination of Mimura
and Rowe teaches or suggests uplinking the uplink signals from a diverse
site associated with the remote facility, as required by claim 5.
The Examiner did not err in finding that the combination of Mimura
and Rowe teaches or suggests monitoring and controlling the local collection
facility remotely through the terrestrial IP network at a network operations
center, as required by claims 6 and 7.
The Examiner erred in finding that the combination of Mimura, Rowe,
and Summers teaches or suggests a first local collection facility and a second
local collection facility that route respective first and second IP signals to a
common remote facility, as required by claims 8, 13, and 23.
The Examiner did not err in finding that the combination of Mimura,
Rowe, and Kaul teaches or suggests a router comprising a primary router
and a secondary router, as required by claims 17 and 18.

SUMMARY
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1-7, 17-22, and 24 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is affirmed.
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 8-16 and 23 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) is reversed.
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We enter a new ground of rejection for claims 8 and 13 as being
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Mimura, Rowe, and Summers.
We enter a new ground of rejection for claim 23 as being unpatentable
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Mimura, Rowe, Kaul, and Summers.
TIME PERIOD
This decision contains new grounds of rejection pursuant to 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.50(b). 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b) provides "[a] new ground of rejection
pursuant to this paragraph shall not be considered final for judicial review."
37 CFR § 41.50(b) also provides that the appellant, WITHIN TWO
MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THE DECISION, must exercise one of
the following two options with respect to the new ground of rejection to
avoid termination of the appeal as to the rejected claims:
(1) Reopen prosecution. Submit an appropriate amendment
of the claims so rejected or new evidence relating to the claims
so rejected, or both, and have the matter reconsidered by the
examiner, in which event the proceeding will be remanded to
the examiner. . . .

(2) Request rehearing. Request that the proceeding be
reheard under § 41.52 by the Board upon the same record . . . .

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).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b)
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