Ex Parte VLACHOGIANNIS et alDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 30, 201914528526 - (D) (P.T.A.B. May. 30, 2019) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 14/528,526 10/30/2014 IOANNIS VLACHOGIANNIS 128058 7590 06/03/2019 Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P. (Splunk Inc.) 2555 Grand Blvd. Kansas City, MO 64108 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. SP0075.01US/40175.216940 3848 EXAMINER TOKUTA, SHEAN S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2446 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/03/2019 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): IPDOCKET@SHB.COM IPRCDKT@SHB.COM Patentofficecorrespondence@splunk.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte IOANNIS VLACHOGIANNIS, NIKOLAOS MARGULIS, and P ANAGIOTIS PAP ADOMITSOS Appeal2018-008185 Application 14/528,526 1 Technology Center 2400 Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, LINZY T. MCCARTNEY, and MICHAEL T. CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judges. CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF CASE Introduction Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1 and 4--30. 2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 According to Appellants, Splunk, Inc. is the real party in interest. App. Br. 3. 2 Claims 31 and 32 are objected to, but are not rejected and are not on appeal. Appeal2018-008185 Application 14/528,526 Disclosed Invention and Exemplary Claim The disclosed invention relates to remotely managing settings of applications. Abstr. Application marketplaces provide features for managing applications, such as discovering, downloading, and updating the applications. Spec. ,r 2. However, these features can be limited and may vary between application marketplaces. Id. The disclosed invention is directed to facilitating management of applications installed on managed devices. Id. at ,r 3. Independent claim 1 below is exemplary of the disclosed invention, and reads as follows: A computer-implemented method for remotely managing settings of applications, the method comprising: receiving a network communication from an application on a managed device, the received network communication comprising an application identifier of the application and a client-side hash value of a first set of settings, wherein the first set of settings configures a behavior of the application to include a first operation; identifying a server-side hash value of a second set of settings that configures the behavior of the application to include a second operation, based on using the application identifier in response to the receiving of the network communication, wherein the second set of settings is specific to the application identifier and comprises configuration instructions for the application; and in response to the network communication and based on a comparison between the received client-side hash value and the server-side hash value, transmitting at least some of the second set of settings to the application on the managed device causing the application to apply the configuration instructions to modify a configuration of the application causing the behavior to include the second operation. 2 Appeal2018-008185 Application 14/528,526 Independent claims 22 and 28 recite limitations commensurate with the limitations recited in claim 1. Dependent claims 4--21, 23- 27, and 29-30 each incorporate the limitations of their respective independent claims. Appellants do not argue any claims separately from claim 1. App. Br. 11. Accordingly, we select claim 1 as representative per 37 C.F.R. § 4I.37(c)(iv). Examiner's Rejections The Examiner rejects claims 1 and 4--30 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over the combination ofNguyen (U.S. 9,158,526 Bl; issued Oct. 13, 2015), Etchegoyen (U.S. 2010/0333081 Al; published Dec. 30, 2010), and Patten et al. (U.S. 8,184,811 Bl; issued May 22, 2012) (hereinafter "Patten"). ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections (Non-Final Act. 2-31) in light of Appellants' contentions that the Examiner has erred (App. Br. 9-18). Further, we have reviewed the Examiner's response to Appellants' contentions. Ans. 26-49. Appellants contend that the certain features of the claims are not taught or suggested by the combination of Nguyen, Etchegoyen, and Patten references as applied in the Examiner's rejection. We are not persuaded by Appellants' contentions of error in the Examiner's rejection. A. Appellants' first contention is that the combination of Nguyen, Etchegoyen, and Patten references fail to teach or suggest the limitation in claim 1 of "receiving a network communication ... comprising ... a client- 3 Appeal2018-008185 Application 14/528,526 side hash value of a first set of settings [that] configures a behavior of the application to include a first operation." App. Br. 11. This limitation appears in the first clause of claim 1. The Examiner relies upon Nguyen to teach receipt of a network communication, including an application identifier, from an application on a device, and a value of a first set of settings of the application. Ans. 32-33. The Examiner relies upon Etchegoyen to teach those limitations not taught or suggested by Nguyen, i.e., that the electronic communication include a client side hash value of an application configuration or setting, wherein the configuration or setting provides a functionality or feature to the application. Id. Specifically, the Examiner relies upon paragraph 34 of Etchegoyen for teaching or suggesting a client-side hash that includes parameters including enabled or permitted application features and application context. Id. at 36- 38; Non-Final Act. 11. Appellants argue that Etchegoyen teaches a device identifier and machine settings, but neither is a setting that configures the behavior of the application to include a first operation. App. Br. 12-14. Appellants argue that paragraph 34 of Etchegoyen merely discusses features of an application that a user is entitled to use. Id. at 13. As argued by Appellants, "[i]ndicating which features of software that a user may employ is simply not equivalent to of settings of the application that configures the behavior of the application." Id. at 14. We agree with the Examiner that the Appellants have not persuasively distinguished "settings of the application that configure the behavior of the application" from Etchegoyan' s teaching of parameters of the application representing enabled or permitted application features. Ans. 36-37. 4 Appeal2018-008185 Application 14/528,526 Appellants allege, but do not provide any persuasive supporting explanation, that the parameters of Etchegoyan do not meet the claim limitation at issue. App. Br. 13-14. We look to the Specification in construing the claim limitation at issue. The Specification describes an example of Appellants' settings as "one or more values" that may "enable ... paid features in an application." Spec. ,r 33. This is consistent with the Examiner's construction, reading on Etchegoyan's parameters including enabled or permitted application features. Ans. 36-38; Non-Final Act. 11. Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner that Appellants have not persuasively distinguished the claimed "settings" from Etchegoyan's parameters. B. Appellants' second contention is that the combination of Nguyen, Etchegoyen, and Patten references fail to teach or disclose the limitation in claim 1 of "identifying a server-side hash value of a second set of settings that configures the behavior of the application to include a second operation, based on using the application identifier." App. Br. 14. This limitation appears in the second clause of claim 1. With respect to the second clause of claim 1, the Examiner relies upon Nguyen to teach or suggest identifying, at a server, information of a second set of application configuration or settings that configures the behavior of the application to exhibit or permit a second functionality based on the information, including an application identifier, received in the electronic communication. Ans. 39. For this clause, the Examiner determines that neither Nguyen nor Etchegoyen teaches or suggests a server-side hash, but 5 Appeal2018-008185 Application 14/528,526 that Patten teaches or suggests that a server-side hash may be the form taken by the information of the second set of application configuration or settings. Id. at 39--40. Appellants argue that the Examiner relies solely upon Patten for the entirety of the limitation at issue. Appellants characterize Patten as "directed towards managing digital content via the hashing of the managed content," but as failing to contemplate "configuring the behavior of an application." App. Br. 15. Appellants argue that Patten teaches or suggests at most a benchmark hash, but that is not of settings that configure the behavior of an application. Id. Appellants further fault Patten for failing to teach or suggest that the hash is based on using the application identifier. Id. at 16. Appellants argue only the features of Patten. However, the Examiner's rejection is based upon the combination of the teachings or suggestions of Nguyen, Etchegoyen, and Patten. It is well established that one cannot show obviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. In re Keller, 642 F .2d 413 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091 (Fed. Cir. 1986). The Examiner's obviousness rationale explains that the applied teaching of Patten is the hash representation of information, which is to be substituted for the plaintext representation of information as taught or suggested by the combination of Nguyen and Etchegoyen. Ans. 40. Appellants have not argued persuasively that Patten does not teach the hash representation of information. Nor have Appellants argued persuasively that the teachings of Patten, Nguyen, and Etchegoyen, combined in the manner set forth by the Examiner, fail to teach or suggest all of the elements of the disputed 6 Appeal2018-008185 Application 14/528,526 limitation. Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner that Appellants have not persuasively shown error in the Examiner's basis of rejection for the disputed limitation in the second clause of claim 1. C. Appellants' third contention is that the combination of Nguy en, Etchegoyen, and Patten references fail to teach or disclose the limitation in claim 1 of "based on a comparison between the received client-side hash value and the server-side hash value, transmitting ... the second set of settings to the application." App. Br. 16. This limitation appears in the third clause of claim 1. With respect to the third clause of claim 1, the Examiner relies upon Nguyen to teach or suggest comparison of a value received in an electronic communication and a value obtained or retrieved at the server resulting in transmission of a notification of a second set of settings to an application. Ans. 44. For this clause, the Examiner determines that Nguyen does not teach or suggest notification including the updated settings, but that Etchegoyen teaches or suggests response to a network communication containing a client derived hash, based on comparison of information contained in the network communication. Id. Furthermore, the Examiner finds Patten to teach or suggest that which neither Nguyen nor Etchegoyen explicitly teaches; i.e., where the received value is a client side hash and the server-obtained value is a server-side hash. Id. at 45. Appellants argue that the Examiner relies solely upon Patten for the entirety of the limitation at issue. App. Br. 17. Appellants argue that, at most, Patten discusses comparing a combined hash with a benchmark hash, 7 Appeal2018-008185 Application 14/528,526 which are not equivalent to the claimed client-side and server side hashes. Id. at 16-17. Appellants further argue that Patten does not suggest transmitting settings that configure the behavior of the application based on such comparison. Id. Appellants argue only the features of Patten. However, the Examiner's rejection is based upon the combination of the teachings or suggestions of Nguyen, Etchegoyen, and Patten. The Examiner's rationale explains that the applied teaching of Patten is the hash representation of information, which is to be substituted for the plaintext representation of information as taught or suggested by the combination of Nguyen and Etchegoyen. Ans. 45. Appellants have not persuasively argued that Patten does not teach the hash representation of information. Even assuming Appellants' position that the comparison of combined hash and benchmark hashes does not meet the claim limitation at issue, Appellants have not persuasively argued that the teachings of Patten, Nguyen, and Etchegoyen, combined in the manner set forth by the Examiner, fail to teach or suggest all of the elements of the disputed limitation. Appellants have not addressed the Examiner's reliance on elements of Nguyen ( comparison of a value received in an electronic communication and a value obtained or retrieved at the server) and Etchegoyen ( comparison of information contained in the network communication) to teach or suggest the limitations alleged to be lacking in Patten. Ans. 44. Specifically, Appellants have not addressed the Examiner's hash-for-plaintext substitution rationale, which relies upon Patten solely for the teaching of hashes for information that may be compared in a manner taught by the combination of the teachings or suggestions of Nguyen and Etchegoyen. Accordingly, we agree with the 8 Appeal2018-008185 Application 14/528,526 Examiner that Appellants have not persuasively shown error in the Examiner's basis of rejection for the disputed limitation in the second clause of claim 1. Accordingly, Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1. Since Appellants rely on the identical argument for claims 4--30, Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting those claims as well. See 37 C.F.R. § 4I.37(c)(l)(iv). CONCLUSIONS We conclude that Appellants have not shown that the Examiner has erred in rejecting claims 1 and 4--30 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over the combination of Nguyen, Etchegoyen, and Patten. DECISION We affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims 1 and 4--30 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. 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 9 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation