Ex Parte Walsh et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 3, 2016

12639287 (P.T.A.B. May. 3, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/639,287 12/16/2009 Richard J. Walsh
125598 7590 05/04/2016
Concert Technology Corporation
5400 Trinity Road, Suite 303
Raleigh, NC 27607
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.
CT-OT0-003/US (A202B) 6595
EXAMINER
BILGRAMI, ASGHAR H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2645
MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE
05/04/2016 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 RICHARD J. WALSH and ALFREDO C. ISSA
Appeal2014-003225
Application 12/639,287
Technology Center 2600
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., and
ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
Per Curiam.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final
rejection of claims 1-9 and 11-191. Claim 10 is canceled. App. Br. 7-10,
13-16. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We AFFIRM.
1 Appellants note that while the summary of the Final Office Action
indicates claim 16 is rejected, the text of the Final Office Action does not
clearly indicate what references are applied against claim 16. App. Br. 5. It
appears the Examiner intended to reject claims 4 and 16 together, but claim
15 was listed instead of claim 16. See Final Rejection 3. We treat this as a
harmless typographical error.
Appeal2014-003225
Application 12/639,287
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants' disclosure relates to "redirecting client-side storage
operations to a remote storage device" in which a "user agent module
executing on a client device receives a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP)
message that includes a client-side storage operation directed to a client
storage device." Abstract.
Representative Claim (Disputed limitations emphasized)
1. A method for redirecting client-side storage operations to
a remote storage device, comprising:
receiving, by a user agent module executing on a client
device, a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) message
comprising a client-side storage operation that directs the client
device to access a client storage device;
detecting, by the user agent module, the client-side
storage operation;
accessing, by the user agent module, defined criteria
located on the client device;
based on the defined criteria and an attribute of the
HTTP message, identifYing a remote storage device; and
accessing, by the user agent module, the remote storage
device in lieu of the client storage device in accordance with the
client-side storage operation.
Rejections on Appeal
Claims 1--4, 7, 9, 11-15, 16, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e) as being anticipated by Jakubowski (US 2011/0078333 Al; issued
March
2
Appeal2014-003225
Application 12/639,287
31, 2011; provisional 61/246,710 filed September 29, 2009). Final
Rejection 2.2
Claims 5, 6, 8, 17, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Jakubowski and Abu-Hakima (US 8,051,057 B2;
issued November 1, 2011). Final Rejection 5.
ANALYSIS
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner,
we refer to the Final Rejection (mailed April 3, 2013), the Appeal Brief
(filed September 9, 2013), and the Examiner's Answer (mailed November
13, 2013). We have considered in this decision only those arguments
Appellants actually raised in the Briefs.
Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claims
1, 14 and 15, because Jakubowski fails to disclose or suggest "accessing, by
the user agent module, defined criteria located on the client device" and
"based on the defined criteria and an attribute of a HTTP message,
identifying a remote storage device." Appeal Brief 8. In particular,
Appellants contend that even if Jakubowski' s synchronization agent 223
corresponded to the claimed "user agent" and Jakubowski's remote
computing machine 102 corresponded to the claimed "remote storage
device," Jakubowski would have to disclose that synchronization agent 223
performed the claimed "accessing" and "identifying" steps, but "Jakubowski
[']710 does not disclose this." Appeal Brief 9.
2 The listing of claims rejected as anticipated by Jakubowski appears to
incorrectly list claim 18 instead of claim 16. The corrected listing of claims
appears as above.
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Appeal2014-003225
Application 12/639,287
The Examiner finds the claimed "user agent module" is disclosed by
Jakubowski's synchronization agent "that is responsible for synchronizing
data from the client to the remote server and vice versa" (Answer 4 (citing
Jakubowski i-f 8)) and further finds that the claimed "identifying" step is
disclosed by Jakubowski's synchronization agent that is "[d]ownloading
data to a remote machine instead of the local machine." Final Rejection 3,
citing Jakubowski i-fi-195-97.
We are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments. The features of the
synchronization agent identified by the Examiner as performing the
downloading are explained in Jakubowski, paragraph i-f 94 (provisional i-f
80). This paragraph states:
When an application requires HTTP (hyper-text transport
protocol) content such as cookies, the application may try to
retrieve this content from local memory. In some
embodiments, the synchronization agent 223, 227 intercepts
this request or responds to an interception of this request by
accessing a remote memOf'f and retrieving the requested HTTP
content from that remote memory location. The remote
memory location, in some embodiments, may be cache or
memory on a remote computing machine. The HTTP content
can be cookies or cached data.
Jakubowski thus discloses the synchronization agent performs the claimed
"identifying" and "accessing" steps, in which the claimed "attribute of the
HTTP message" encompasses the type of data (cookies or cached data), and
the claimed "defined criteria" encompasses the remote memory location on
the remote computing machine.
Accordingly, Appellants have not persuaded us of Examiner error and
therefore, we sustain the Examiner's anticipation rejection of independent
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Appeal2014-003225
Application 12/639,287
claim 1 and independent claims 14 and 15 commensurate in scope, as well
as claims 2--4, 7, 9, 11-16, and 19 not argued separately. See Appeal Brief
10. We also sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejection of claims 5, 6, 8,
17, and 18 not argued separately. See Appeal Brief 11.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-9 and 11-19.
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). See
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f).
AFFIRMED
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