Ex Parte Rajaram

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 18, 2016

11246421 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 18, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
111246,421 10/07/2005 Yashwanth Kumar Rajaram
51067 7590 03/22/2016
PVF -- ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
c/o PARK, VAUGHAN, FLEMING & DOWLER LLP
2820 FIFTH STREET
DAVIS, CA 95618-7759
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.
OR01-02701CON 4942
EXAMINER
WINTER, JOHN M
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3685
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/22/2016 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):
j eannie@parklegal.com
syadmin@parklegal.com
trisha@parklegal.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte Y ASHW ANTH KUMAR RAJARAM
Appeal2013-010144
Application 11/246,421
Technology Center 3600
Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, and
MICHAEL W. KIM, Administrative Patent Judges.
CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the
Examiner's non-final rejection of claims 25, 27-32, 34--39, and 41--45. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm.
Appeal2013-010144
Application 11/246,421
Appellant's invention is directed to facilitating secure electronic
commerce. (Spec. para. 1 ).
Claim 25 is illustrative:
25. A method for facilitating an electronic transaction
between a consumer-machine and a merchant-machine, the
method comprising:
sending a receipt for the transaction in electronic form
from the merchant-machine to the consumer-machine to allow a
consumer to verify the receipt at the consumer-machine;
receiving a secure digital envelope formed by the
consumer-machine using a public key of a financial institution,
the receipt, a first hash of transaction data on the receipt, and an
encrypted account number which is produced by the financial
institution and is exclusively decryptable by the financial
institution;
creating at the merchant-machine a second hash of
transaction data based on merchant-verified transaction data on
the receipt; and
sending the secure digital envelope and the second hash
from the merchant-machine to the financial institution, thereby
allowing the financial institution to compare consumer-verified
transaction data with the merchant-verified transaction data
before authorizing the transaction.
Appellant appeals the following rejections:
Claims 25, 27-31, 39, and 41--45 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101
as reciting unpatentable subject matter.
Claims 25, 29-32, 36-39, and 43--45 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Franklin (US 6,000,832, iss. Dec. 14, 1999),
Teper (US 5,815,665, iss. Sept. 29, 1998), and Linehan (US 6,327,578 Bl,
iss. Dec. 4, 2001 ).
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Appeal2013-010144
Application 11/246,421
Claims 27, 28, 34, 35, 41, and 42 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Franklin, Teper, Linehan, and Sixtus
(US 5,903,721, iss. May 11, 1999).
ANALYSIS
Patentable subject matter
Appellant does not advance any argument relative to the pending
rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101, so we affirm the rejection proforma.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
Appellant argues independent claims 25, 32, and 39 together as a
group (Appeal Br. 15, 19, 21), so we select claim 25 as representative. See
37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(vii).
We are not persuaded by Appellant's argument that the limitations
concerning creating and sending a second hash to a financial institution are
not disclosed by the combination, because Linehan "merely disclose[ s ]"
sending information "to a customer's computer or to a merchant's
computer." (Br. 16-19). Linehan discloses that after a merchant receives
authentication information from a financial institution, "the merchant sends
a message, including the reference value representing the consumer's card
number, over the internet to an acquirer gateway operating on behalf of an
acquirer bank, to capture the transaction and get paid." (Col. 4, 11. 45-51).
This was cited by the Examiner (Final Act. 6, Answer 8-9), who
additionally points out the use of a cryptographic hash function for
transmitting secure data is also disclosed in the prior art (Ans. 12).
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Appeal2013-010144
Application 11/246,421
We are not persuaded by Appellant's argument that it would change
the principle of operation of Linehan to operate as claimed, because Linehan
would "at most" use a financial institution token to complete a transaction,
and the merchant computer is "not configured to send" a hash to a financial
institution. (Br. 20-21 ). As we observed above, Linehan meets the claim
language by having a merchant receive transaction data that is verified and
then sent to the financial institution in a second hash. (Col. 4, 11. 45-51).
For these reasons, we affirm the rejection of independent claims 25,
32, and 39. We also affirm the rejections of dependent claims 29-31, 36-38,
and 43--45 that were not separately argued.
DECISION
We affirm proforma the rejection of claims 25, 27-31, 39, and 41--45
under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
We affirm the rejections of claims 25, 27-32, 34--39, and 41--45 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
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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