Ex Parte Santos et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 5, 201613061165 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 5, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/061, 165 05/17/2011 466 7590 YOUNG & THOMPSON 209 Madison Street Suite 500 Alexandria, VA 22314 02/09/2016 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Hugo Santos 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. 4040-1034 4249 EXAMINER MAJCHER, MICHAEL D ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3687 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/09/2016 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): DocketingDept@young-thompson.com yandtpair@firs ttofile. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte HUGO SANTOS and JOAO GIRAO Appeal2014-002134 Application 13/061,165 Technology Center 3600 Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, and BIBHU R. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judges. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final rejection of claims 1-20 which are all the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Oral arguments were presented on January 19, 2016. SUMMARY OF THE DECISION We REVERSE. Appeal2014-002134 Application 13/061,165 THE INVENTION The Appellants' claimed invention is directed to providing network access to a user via a Network Provider to a Service Provider (Spec. 1, lines 3--4). Claim 1, reproduced below with the numbering in brackets added, is representative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A process for providing network access for a user via a Network Provider to a Service Provider, said process comprising: [ 1] establishing a connection between an electronic device accessed by the user and a network of the Network Provider by user's request to access the Service Provider; [2] authenticating of the user by a user's Identity Provider on request of the Network Provider; [3] transmitting data from the Identity Provider to the Network Provider, so that the Network Provider (NP) has the information that the Service Provider or a third party is payee of access fees; [ 4] and providing the access for the user via the Network Provider to the Service Provider by the Network Provider. THE REJECTIONS The following rejections are before us for review: 1. Claims 1-3, 5-12, 14, 15, and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Grosse. (US Pat. Pub. 2005/0210288 Al). 2. Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Grosse and Gabriel Lopez et al., Use ofXACML Policies for Network Access Control Service, Applied Public Key Infrastructure, IOS Press, 2003. 3. Claims 16 and 17 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Grosse and Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) Project: Enabling smarter Privacy Tools for the Web, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), "last visited May 19, 2012", https://www.w3.org/P3P. 2 Appeal2014-002134 Application 13/061,165 4. Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Grosse and D. Durham et al., The COPS (Common Open Policy Service) Protocol, Internet Engineering Task Force, RFC 2748, Jan. 2000, http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2 7 48. FINDINGS OF FACT We have determined that the findings of fact in the Analysis section below are supported at least by a preponderance of the evidence1. ANALYSIS The Appellants argue that the rejection of claim 1 is improper because the cited prior art fails to disclose or suggest elements of claim limitations [2] and [3] (App. Br. 8-14). In contrast, the Examiner has determined that the cited claim limitations are shown by Grosse at Fig. 1 and paras. 7-9, 19-20, and 37-39 (Ans. 4, 10, 11). We agree with the Examiner. Claim limitations [2] and [3] require: [2] authenticating of the user by a user's Identity Provider on request of the Network Provider; [3] transmitting data from the Identity Provider to the Network Provider, so that the Network Provider (NP) has the information that the Service Provider or a third party is payee of access fees. (Claim 1, emphasis added). Here, claim limitation [2] requires authenticating of the user by a user's Identity Provider on request of the Network Provider. Claim 1 See Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the Patent Office). 3 Appeal2014-002134 Application 13/061,165 limitation [3] requires transmitting data from the Identity Provider so that the Network Provider (NP) has the information that the Service Provider or a third party is payee of access fees. The above citations to Grosse fail to disclose the above requirements of claim limitations [2] and [3]. For example, Grosse at paras. 7-9 provides a broad description of the invention, but fails to specifically disclose transmitting data from the Identity Provider so that the Network Provider has the information that the Service Provider or a third party is payee of access fees. Gross at paras. 19-20 references disclosed prior art shown in Figure 2. These cited paragraphs also fail to show any Identity Provider transmitting data about billing in the manner claimed so that the Network Provider has the information that the Service Provider or a third party is payee of access fees. Gross at paras. 37-39 describes an embodiment shown in Figure 4 but also fails to disclose together the requirements of claim limitations [2] and [3]. While Gross at para. 37 does discloses that a password may be used, the same paragraph also states that the user is not identified which would fail to show the authentication of a user by the Identity Provider. Gross at para. 39 does state that the service provider may be billed, but nothing at about that information being transmitted from the Identity provider as claim limitation [3] requires in the manner claimed so that the Network Provider has the information that the Service Provider or a third party is payee of access fees. As the above citations to Gross have failed to disclose the requirements of claim limitations [2] and [3], the rejection of claim 1 and its dependent claims is not sustained. 4 Appeal2014-002134 Application 13/061,165 CONCLUSIONS OF LAW We conclude that Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting the claims as listed in the Rejections section above. DECISION The Examiner's rejection of claims 1-20 is reversed. REVERSED tkl 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation