Ex Parte Santos et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 5, 2016

13061165 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 5, 2016)

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.
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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).
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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.
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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
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