Ex Parte Stiegler et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 22, 201612364806 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 22, 2016) Copy Citation United States Patent and Trademark Office 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. 12/364,806 02/03/2009 Marc D. Stiegler 82250636 4756 56436 7590 12/27/2016 Hewlett Packard Enterprise 3404 E. Harmony Road Mail Stop 79 Fort Collins, CO 80528 EXAMINER WILLIS, AMANDA LYNN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2158 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/27/2016 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): hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com chris. mania @ hpe. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte MARC D. STIEGLER, ALAN H. KARP, MARK S. MILLER, and TYLER J. CLOSE Appeal 2016-000044 Application 12/3 64,8061 Technology Center 2100 Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JOHN D. HAMANN, and STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges. HAMANN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants file this appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. THE CLAIMED INVENTION Appellants’ claimed invention relates to a file sharing system, which provides authorization-based security to control access to shared files, monitors the shared files for changes, and propagates the changes according 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP. App. Br. 2. Appeal 2016-000044 Application 12/364,806 to sharing relationships. See Abstract. Claim 1 is illustrative of the subject matter of the appeal and is reproduced below. 1. A file sharing system on a computer memory comprising: authorization-based security for issuing a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) associated with a specific file residing on a first computer, wherein that file is to be shared with at least one user of a second computer, said URL authorizing requests to said first computer to take action on said shared file; a system for selectively transmitting said shared file and said associated URL to said second computer; and a synchronizer which uses said URL to receive and transmit local and remote changes made to said shared file. REJECTIONS ON APPEAL (1) The Examiner rejected claims 1—4, 6—16, and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Tewari et al. (US 2003/0097564 Al; published May 22, 2003) (hereinafter “Tewari”) and Ferrat et al. (US 2005/0055382 Al; published Mar. 10, 2005) (hereinafter “Ferrat”). (2) The Examiner rejected claim 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Tewari, Ferrat, and Begen (US 8,059,821 Bl; issued Nov. 15,2011). (3) The Examiner rejected claims 18 and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Tewari, Ferrat, and Steen, III et al. (US 6,510,350 Bl; issued Jan. 21, 2003) (hereinafter “Steen”). (4) The Examiner rejected claim 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Tewari, Ferrat, and Meffert et al. (US 2002/0059144 Al; published May 16, 2002) (hereinafter “Meffert”). 2 Appeal 2016-000044 Application 12/364,806 ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ contentions that the Examiner erred. In reaching our decision, we consider all evidence presented and all arguments made by Appellants. We disagree with Appellants’ arguments, and we incorporate herein and adopt as our own the findings, conclusions, and reasons set forth by the Examiner in (1) the October 10, 2014 Final Office Action (Final Act. 2—21) and (2) the July 6, 2015 Examiner’s Answer (Ans. 2—7). We highlight and address, however, specific findings and arguments below for emphasis. (1) Local and remote changes Appellants argue the combination of Tewari and Ferrat fails to teach or suggest “a synchronizer which uses [a] URL to receive and transmit local and remote changes made to [a] shared file,” as recited in claim 1, and similarly recited in claims 9 and 10. App. Br. 10—14; Reply Br. 3—9. Appellants argue that in accordance with this limitation, changes to a shared file can be local or remote (i.e., “if a user of [a] first computer makes changes to [a] shared file, those changes are local with respect to the copy of the shared file on the first computer and remote with respect to a copy of the shared file on the second computer”). App. Br. 10. Appellants also assert the claim language provides “[rjegardless of whether the changes originate, locally or remotely, the claimed ‘synchronizer’ synchronizes the various copies of the shared file by ‘use[ing the] URL.’” Id. As to Tewari, Appellants argue it teaches “only the originating user can make changes to the content and presumably would not want recipients to alter the provided content.” Id. at 11 (citing Tewari 196). Specifically, Appellants argue Tewari teaches (i) storing content at an origin site and additional cached sites for increased access, and (ii) periodically refreshing 3 Appeal 2016-000044 Application 12/364,806 the copy of the content at the cached sites if the content is modified at the origin site. Id. at 11—12 (citing Tewari || 94, 96). Appellants, thus, contend that the changes to the content are only local to the origin site and there is no teaching of reflecting at the origin site remote changes (e.g., changes made at cache sites) — in other words, the synchronization is unidirectional from the origin site to the cache sites. See id. As to Ferrat, Appellants argue it does not teach using a URL to receive and transmit local and remote changes to a shared file. App. Br. 13; see also Reply Br. 6 (arguing whether Tewari teaches using a URL to establish a synchronization transmission “is wholly irrelevant because the URL is only being used to stream content, that is not subject to change, in one direction”). Appellants also argue “the bi-directional synchronization described by Ferrat is simply not applicable to the subject matter of Tewari” because Tewari’s content provider would “not want its content being altered or changed by viewers.” App. Br. 13—14; Reply Br. 7. Appellants, thus, contend one of ordinary skill in the art would not have combined Tewari and Ferrat’s teachings. App. Br. 14; Reply Br. 8—9. The Examiner finds the combination of Tewari and Ferrat teaches or suggests the disputed limitation. See Ans. 2—3. As to Tewari, the Examiner finds it teaches hosting content (e.g., a file to share) on an origin site, replicating the content (i.e., the shared file) on networked cache servers, and synchronizing changes made to the content on the origin site with the content on the cache servers to make the content available to end users. Ans. 2 (citing Tewari 194). The Examiner also finds Tewari teaches using URLs to receive the changed shared file from the remote origin site. See Ans. 2 (citing Tewari || 95—96 (finding a cache server initiates a pull synchronization request to pull remote changes to the shared content from 4 Appeal 2016-000044 Application 12/364,806 the origin site to synchronize cache data using a URL)); Final Act. 2—3 (citing Tewari || 64, 605, 610-12; Fig. 3). As to Ferrat, the Examiner finds it teaches or suggests bidirectional synchronization. Ans. 3. Specifically, the Examiner finds Ferrat teaches performing both pull and push synchronization to allow for changes from both a hub server and its spokes to be synchronized (e.g., local changes can be pushed to the server and remote changes can be pulled to the local device). See id. (citing Ferrat Tflf 89 (teaching “do[ing] a ‘push’ for a spoke to move all the changes to the hub server and ... a ‘puli’ to synchronize the hub server and the spoke database”), 147, 151); Final Act. 3^4 (citing Ferrat Fig. 2; 122). The Examiner also notes Appellants attack the references individually, rather than persuasively addressing what is taught by the combination. Ans. 3. We agree with the Examiner’s findings and adopt them as our own. For example, we find Tewari teaches a synchronizer using URLs to receive the changes from the remote origin site. See Tewari H 64, 94—96, 605, 610— 12; Fig. 3. We also find Ferrat teaches or suggests bidirectional synchronization, including teaching pull and push synchronization of shared content to allow for changes from both a hub server and its spokes to be synchronized. See Ferrat Fig. 2; || 22, 89, 147, 151. We find Tewari and Ferrat’s combined teachings teach or suggest the disputed limitation. Additionally, we agree with the Examiner that Appellants incorrectly focus on the references individually rather than persuasively addressing their combined teachings. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981) (finding the relevant inquiry is whether the claimed subject matter would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in light of the art’s combined teachings). We also find Appellants’ arguments (e.g., App. Br. 11; Reply Br. 4—5) unpersuasive regarding Tewari being limited to unidirectional 5 Appeal 2016-000044 Application 12/364,806 synchronization (e.g., streaming copyrighted content providers wanting viewer immutable content). See In re Heck, 699 F.2d 1331, 1332—33 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (quoting In re Lemelson, 397 F.2d 1006, 1009 (CCPA 1968)) (“The use of patents as references is not limited to what the patentees describe as their own inventions or to the problems with which they are concerned. They are part of the literature of the art, relevant for all they contain.”). (2) Proactively broadcasts changes Appellants argue the combination of Tewari and Ferrat, and Tewari in particular, fails to teach or suggest “proactively broadcasting] changes to said shared file in association with said URL to said second computer,” as recited in claim 19. App. Br. 17—18 (emphasis added). Appellants argue Tewari instead teaches updates are not distributed until the file is accessed. Id. (citing Tewari || 97, 142). The Examiner finds, and we agree, the combination, and Tewari in particular, teaches or suggests the disputed limitation. Ans. 6. Specifically, the Examiner finds, and we agree, Tewari teaches how to “immediately reflect[] in all caches in the network” changes to a file at the origin site, if a user wants the changes to be immediately reflected. See Ans. 6 (citing Tewari || 97, 142-44). We find such teachings teach or suggest, inter alia, proactively broadcasting changes under the broadest reasonable interpretation of the phrase. (3) URL comprises a randomly generated bit string Appellants argue the combination of Tewari, Ferrat, and Begen fails to teach or suggest that the “URL comprises a randomly generated bit string,” as recited in claim 17. App. Br. 18; Reply Br. 11. According to Appellants, “[t]here is no showing on the record that a URL could include a 6 Appeal 2016-000044 Application 12/364,806 random bit string and have any application in the subject matter of Tewari and Ferrat.” App. Br. 18. Appellants also argue “Tewari does not teach or suggest that the secret key is or should be a randomly generated bit string.” Reply Br. 11. The Examiner finds, and we agree, the combination of Tewari, Ferrat, and Begen teaches or suggests the disputed limitation. See Final Act. 13; Ans. 7. As to Tewari, the Examiner finds, and we agree, it teaches the URL is created using a secret key. Final Act. 13 (citing Tewari 1610). The Examiner also finds, and we agree, Begen teaches or suggests encoding indicia into the URL, such as a randomly generated bit string which can be generated using a random key generator. See id. (citing Begen col. 7,11. 55— 57; col. 8,11. 66—67). We also agree with the Examiner and find “[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art. . . to generate [Tewari’s] secret key using the techniques taught by Begen as it yields the predictable results of generating a privately known key.” Final Act. 13; see also Ans. 7. We note Appellants again largely focus on the references individually rather than persuasively addressing their combined teachings. Keller, 642 F.2d at 425. We also find Appellants’ assertion of impermissible hindsight unsupported by record evidence. CONCLUSION Based on our findings above, we sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 9, 10, 17, and 19. We also sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims 2—8, 11—16, 18, and 20 for which Appellants did not provide separate arguments for patentability. 7 Appeal 2016-000044 Application 12/364,806 DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s § 103 rejections of claims 1—20. 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 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation