10496264 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 23, 2014)

Ex Parte Straub et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 23, 2014

10496264 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 23, 2014)

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. 10/496,264 11/18/2004 Gilles Straub PF010147 9705 7590 04/23/2014 Joseph S Tripoli Patent Operations Thomson Licensing Inc CN 5312 Princeton, NJ 08543-0028 EXAMINER SCIACCA, SCOTT M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2478 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/23/2014 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 GILLES STRAUB, JEAN-BAPTIST HENRY, SEBASTIEN PERROT, and NATHALIE THOMAS ____________________ Appeal 2011-011759 Application 10/496,264 Technology Center 2400 ____________________ Before: MICHAEL L. HOELTER, JAMES P. CALVE, and JILL D. HILL, Administrative Patent Judges. CALVE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the final rejection of claims 1, 2, and 4-11. App. Br. 3. Claim 3 is cancelled. Id. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. Appeal 2011-011759 Application 10/496,264 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Claims 1 and 11 are independent. Claim 1 is reproduced below. 1. A method for managing a connection in a communication network comprising a bridge interfacing at least two device clusters, wherein the connection is established between a first device and a second device respectively connected to different clusters, the method, at the level of an application adapted to establish said connection, comprising: - requesting reservation of bridge resources for the connection over the bridge; and - registering, within the same request, with a portal of said bridge for reception of notification of at least one event type related to the status of the bridge resources allocated to the connection; and wherein the request for reserving resources comprises an address of the application, in addition to a destination address offset of the request and a source address of the request, for sending notifications to the application. REJECTIONS Claims 1, 2, 4, and 9-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Matsuda (US 7,007,078 B2; iss. Feb. 28, 2006) and Clifton (US 5,469,556; Nov. 21, 1995). Claims 5-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (a) as unpatentable over Matsuda, Clifton, and Wallace (US 6,822,946 B1; Nov. 23, 2004). ANALYSIS Claims 1, 2, 4, and 9-11 unpatentable over Matsuda and Clifton Appellants argue claims 1, 2, 4, and 9-11 as a group. App. Br. 7-13. We select claim 1 as representative. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2011). Claims 2, 4, and 9-11 stand or fall with claim 1. The Examiner found that Matsuda discloses the claimed method except for teaching that the request for reserving resources includes an Appeal 2011-011759 Application 10/496,264 3 address of the application and a destination address offset of the request. Ans. 4-7. The Examiner found that Clifton teaches a resource access security system where a request for reserving resources includes an address of the application, a destination address offset of the request, and a source address of the request. Ans. 7. In particular, the Examiner found that Clifton discloses descriptors that are used as virtual addresses assigned to the resource to which access is requested and a resource request that includes a destination address offset. Ans. 16-17. In response to Appellants’ argument that the descriptor offsets of Clifton are not used to send notifications to an application as recited in claim 1, the Examiner interpreted the limitation “for sending notifications to the application” as an intended use that does not distinguish the claimed invention from Matsuda and Clifton. Ans. 17-18. Appellants argue that Matsuda and Clifton fail to disclose or suggest “the request for reserving resources including an address of the application and a destination address offset of the request.” App. Br. 8. In particular, Appellants assert that the Examiner acknowledges that Matsuda does not disclose this feature while Clifton is concerned with controlling access to resources and discloses offsets that are used to determine the real address of the resource rather than to send notifications to the application as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 9, 11-12. These arguments are not persuasive of error in the Examiner’s findings that Clifton discloses the claimed addresses and is capable of sending notifications to an application as recited in claim 1. We agree with the Examiner that the limitation “for sending notifications to the application” is an intended use and that Clifton is capable of performing this intended use because Clifton discloses the use of an address offset 66 that is assigned to a resource to which access was requested and such resources can Appeal 2011-011759 Application 10/496,264 4 include software and other applications. Ans. 7, 17. For example, Clifton discloses that the user or job offset information 60, which includes the address offset information 66 is used to request access to a resource such as data, software, and hardware. Clifton, col. 8, ll. 62-67. Such requests correspond to a notification sent to the application under a broadest reasonable interpretation. In this regard, we note that claim 1 recites a step of “registering . . . with a portal of said bridge for reception of notification of at least one event type related to the status of the bridge resources allocated to the connection.” The wherein clause that follows this limitation recites that the request for reserving resources comprises various addresses “for sending notifications to the application” and does not specify that the notifications are of an event type related to the status of the bridge or otherwise related to the event type notification recited in the preceding limitation. Nor does claim 1 recite the step of sending notifications of at least one event type related to the status of the bridge resources allocated to the connection to the application. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, and 9-11. Claims 5-8 unpatentable over Matsuda, Clifton, and Wallace The Examiner relied on Wallace to disclose an isochronous resource manager as recited in dependent claim 5 and its dependent claims 6-8. Ans. 13-14. Appellants argue that Matsuda does not cure the deficiencies of Matsuda and Clifton as to claim 1. App. Br. 13-14. This argument is not persuasive because there are no deficiencies for Wallace to cure as to claim 1 for the reasons discussed supra. We sustain the rejection of claims 5-8. Appeal 2011-011759 Application 10/496,264 5 DECISION We AFFIRM the rejections of claims 1, 2, and 4-11. 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 Klh