Ex Parte Wang

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Mar 26, 2009

10084917 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 26, 2009)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte YANG WANG
____________

Appeal 2009-0574
Application 10/084,917
Technology Center 2400
____________

Decided:1 March 26, 2009
____________

Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, ROBERT E. NAPPI, and
MARC S. HOFF, Administrative Patent Judges.

RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, begins to run from the decided date
shown on this page of the decision. The time period does not run from the
Mail Date (paper delivery) or Notification Date (electronic delivery).
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Final Rejection of
claims 1-6, 8-14, 16, 17, and 19-27. Claims 7, 15, and 18 have been
canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner,
reference is made to the Brief (filed April 27, 2007) and Answer (mailed
August 8, 2007) for the respective details. Only those arguments actually
made by Appellant have been considered in this decision. Arguments which
Appellant could have made but chose not to make in the Brief have not been
considered and are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).

Appellant’s Invention
Appellant’s claimed invention relates to a router system which
implements a plurality of virtual routers which share various combinations
of routing resources. The plurality of virtual routers are configured to share
the routing resources according to a programmably modifiable resource
sharing configuration. (Spec. (¶¶ [0008]-[0011]).
Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows:
1. A routing system comprising:
a plurality of routing resources; and
a plurality of virtual routers configured to share the routing resources
in accordance with a programmably modifiable resource sharing
configuration.

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The Examiner’s Rejections

The Examiner’s Answer cites the following prior art references:
Ylonen US 2002/0062344 A1 May 23, 2002
(filed Sep. 11, 1998)
Alfieri US 2002/0099849 A1 Jul. 25, 2002
(filed Oct. 19, 2001)
Shafer US 2002/0198974 A1 Dec. 26, 2002
(filed May 31, 2001)
Ayres US 6,687,220 B1 Feb. 3, 2004
(filed Sep. 28, 1999)

Claims 1-5, 16, 17, 19-21, 23, and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Ayres in view of Shafer.
Claims 8-14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Alfieri in view of Shafer.
Claims 1 and 2 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Ylonen in view of Shafer.
Claims 6, 22, and 24-26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Ayres in view of Shafer and Alfieri.

ISSUE
Under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), with respect to appealed claims 1-6, 8-14,
16, 17, and 19-27, would one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the
invention have found it obvious to combine Shafer in separate combinations
with Ayres, Alfieri, and Ylonen to render the claimed invention
unpatentable?

The pivotal issue before us is whether Appellant has demonstrated
that the Examiner erred in determining the obviousness to the ordinarily
skilled artisan of applying the programmably modifiable network router
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system shared resource configuration teachings of Shafer to the shared
resource virtual router systems of each of Ayres, Alfieri, and Ylonen.

FINDINGS OF FACT
The record supports the following findings of fact (FF) by a
preponderance of the evidence:
1. Shafer discloses (¶¶ [0004] and [0029]) a network router
management interface which processes requests to change router
configuration to enable more efficient use of shared system resources.
2. Ayres discloses a routing system 20 (Figs. 1 and 2, col. 5, ll.
23-62) which includes virtual routers 50 and 52 which share system
resources such as communication interface 40, shared buffer memory 46,
and CPU 44.
3. Ayres further discloses (col. 2, ll. 18-33) that the virtual routers
50 and 52 each have their own independent router domain with independent
adjustment of the ingress data queues 48 associated with the virtual routers.
4. Further disclosed (col. 9, l. 31 to col. 10, l. 6) by Ayres is a
memory manager 53 which allocates shared system memory resources to the
ingress data queues 48 associated with the virtual routers 50 and 52.
5. Alfieri discloses (Fig. 2) a routing system 14 which includes a
virtual backbone router 22 and a plurality of virtual regional routers 20.
6. Alfieri further discloses (¶¶ [0033] - [0037]) that changes can
be made to the router system configuration to allocate shared router system
resources.
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7. Ylonen discloses (Fig. 1b and ¶ [0004]) a router system which
includes virtual routers 110-112 which share router system resources
including processor 116.

PRINCIPLES OF LAW
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, it is incumbent upon the
Examiner to establish a factual basis to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1073 (Fed. Cir. 1988). In so
doing, the Examiner must make the factual determinations set forth in
Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17 (1966) (stating that 35 U.S.C. §
103 leads to three basic factual inquiries: the scope and content of the prior
art, the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue, and the
level of ordinary skill in the art). “[T]he examiner bears the initial burden,
on review of the prior art or on any other ground, of presenting a prima facie
case of unpatentability.” In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir.
1992). Furthermore,
‘there must be some articulated reasoning with some
rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness’ . . . [H]owever, the analysis need not seek
out precise teachings directed to the specific subject
matter of the challenged claim, for a court can take
account of the inferences and creative steps that a person
of ordinary skill in the art would employ.

KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 127 S. Ct. 1727, 1741
(2007) (quoting In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006)).
Also, “‘[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known
methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable
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results.’” Leapfrog Enter., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1161
(Fed. Cir. 2007) (quoting KSR, 127 S. Ct. at 1739). “One of the ways in
which a patent's subject matter can be proved obvious is by noting that there
existed at the time of invention a known problem for which there was an
obvious solution encompassed by the patent’s claims.” KSR, 127 S. Ct. at
1742.

ANALYSIS
I. THE REJECTION OF CLAIMS 1-5, 16, 17, 19-21, 23, and 27
BASED ON THE COMBINATION OF AYRES AND
SHAFER.

Claims 1-4
With respect to the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent
claim 1 based on the combination of Ayres and Shafer, Appellant’s
arguments in response assert a failure by the Examiner to establish a prima
facie case of obviousness since all of the claimed limitations are not taught
or suggested by the applied prior art references. Appellant’s arguments
initially focus on the alleged deficiency of Ayres in disclosing a network
with virtual routers that share routing resources in accordance with a
“programmably modifiable resource sharing configuration” as claimed.
According to Appellant (Br. 5-6), Ayres is concerned with adjusting the flow
rate of data packets input to the virtual routers, but the various resources
shared by the virtual routers in Ayers are fixed and not programmably
modifiable. Appellant further contends (Br. 7) that, while Shafer, unlike
Ayres, discloses a network system with a router management interface used
to programmably configure shared router resources, Shafer does not disclose
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that the interface can be used to configure virtual routers that share system
resources.
We do not find Appellant’s arguments to be convincing of any error in
the Examiner’s stated position (Ans. 3, 11, and 12). While Appellant
contends that Ayres has no disclosure of programmably modifying a shared
resource configuration in a network router system, this teaching is provided
by Shafer (see FF 1). Similarly, while Appellant argues that Shafer does not
disclose a network system in which resources are shared among virtual
routers, such a disclosure is present in Ayres (see FF 2). It is apparent from
the Examiner’s line of reasoning in the Answer that the basis for the
obviousness rejection is the combination of Ayres and Shafer. One cannot
show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the
rejections are based on combinations of references. In re Merck & Co., Inc.,
800 F.2d 1091, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 1986); In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425
(CCPA 1981).
We also find, contrary to Appellant’s arguments (Br. 6-7), that the
Examiner (Ans. 3 and 12) has set forth an articulated line of reasoning which
establishes that the programmably modifiable shared router resource
configuration teachings of Shafer would have served as an obvious
enhancement to the shared resource virtual router network system of Ayres.
According to Leapfrog, when a combination of familiar elements according
to methods known to the skilled artisan achieves a predictable result, it is
likely to be obvious. Leapfrog, 485 F.3d at 1161.
We also find that, while Appellant contends (Br. 5) that Ayres is
primarily concerned with adjusting the flow rate of packets, i.e., through the
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operation of flow manager 54 (col. 6, ll. 7-15), that are input to the virtual
routers, Ayres also discloses a memory manager 53. As described by Ayres
(see FF 4), the memory manager 53 monitors the ingress data queues 48 of
the virtual routers 50 and 52 and increases or decreases the amount of
memory, i.e., a router system resource, allocated to the ingress data queues.
The further disclosure by Ayres (col. 9, l. 64 to col. 10, l. 6) of the memory
manager 53 operation suggests that the memory allocation adjustments are
based on programmably modifiable factors such as quality of service (QOS)
factors and user profiles maintained by the service provider 22.
With the above discussion of the Ayres reference in mind, we make
the observation that, although the Examiner has relied upon Shafer for a
teaching of programmably configuring shared network router resources,
such a teaching is cumulative to what is already disclosed by Ayres.
Accordingly, in view of the above analysis of the disclosure of the Ayres
reference, we find that all of the elements of independent claim 1 are in fact
present in the disclosure of Ayres. Further, we find that Shafer supplements
Ayres’s teachings to establish the Examiner’s prima facie case for the claims
being obvious over the combination of those references. Therefore, it is our
view that the Examiner did not err in concluding that the combination of
Ayres and Shafer renders the cited claims unpatentable.
For the above reasons, since it is our opinion that the Examiner has
established a prima facie case of obviousness which has not been overcome
by any convincing arguments from Appellant, the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. §
103(a) rejection of independent claim 1, as well as dependent claims 2-4 not
separately argued by Appellant, is sustained.
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Claims 5, 23, and 27
We also sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of dependent
claim 5 and independent claim 23 (and its dependent claim 27), which
particularly identify the routing resources recited in independent claim 1 as
including routing processes, forwarding processes, control resources, and
data resources. We find no error, and there are no arguments from Appellant
which persuade us of any error, in the Examiner’s detailed analysis (Ans.
13) which finds that the identified portions of the system illustrated in Figure
3 of Ayres (including the router 20, the communications interface 40, and
the CPU 44) correspond to the claimed processes and resources.

Claims 16, 17, 19, and 21
The Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claim 16, as
well as of dependent claims 17, 19, and 21, which are not separately argued,
is also sustained. Independent claim 16 is similar to previously discussed
independent claim 1 but includes a further limitation directed to the
allocation of a first set and a second set of resources as, respectively, shared
and non-shared resources.
We do not find Appellant’s arguments (Br. 10-11) to be persuasive in
convincing us of any error in the Examiner’s stated position (Ans. 5, 14, and
15). We agree with the Examiner’s initial finding (see FF 2) that the plural
virtual routers 50 and 52 in Ayres are allocated a first set of shared resources
including the CPU 44, the interface 40, and the buffer memory 46. We
similarly agree with the Examiner that Ayres also discloses the allocation of
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a second set of non-shared resources since, as described by Ayres (see FF 3),
each the virtual routers has its own routing domain and the flow rates of the
ingress data queues associated with each of the virtual routers are
independently adjusted.

Dependent claim 20
As previously discussed with respect to dependent claim 5, we find no
error in the Examiner’s finding of correspondence of the operation of the
communication interface 40 of Ayres and the router 20 with, respectively,
the claimed routing and forwarding logic resources. Accordingly, the
Examiner’s obviousness rejection of dependent claim 20 based on the
combination of Ayres and Shafer is sustained.

II. THE REJECTION OF CLAIMS 8-14 BASED ON THE
COMBINATION OF ALFIERI AND SHAFER.

Claims 8-11, 13, and 14
The Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claim 8, and
dependent claims 9-11, 13, and 14, which are not separately argued, is
sustained. Independent claim 8 is similar to previously discussed
independent claim 1 except that it includes limitations which specifically
identify the virtual routers as including a “backbone” router and a “regional”
router.
We find no error in the Examiner’s identification (Ans. 8) of the
routers VBR 22 and VAR 20 in Alfieri as corresponding to the claimed
backbone and regional routers (see FF 5). Further, as previously discussed
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with regard to the Ayres reference, while the Examiner has relied upon
Shafer as providing a teaching of configuring shared network router
resources, this teaching is cumulative to what is already disclosed by Alfieri.
For example, Alfieri discloses (¶ [0035]) the desirability of programmably
changing the configuration of shared router resources in a network router
system (see FF 6). In any case, we find no convincing arguments from
Appellant which convince us of any error in the Examiner’s finding (Ans. 8
and 16) that the programmably modifiable shared router resource
configuration teachings of Shafer would have served as an obvious
enhancement to the shared resource virtual router network system of Alfieri.

Dependent claim 12
The Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claim 12, based on the
combination of Alfieri and Shafer, is also sustained. We agree with the
Examiner, Appellant’s arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, that
Alfieri discloses (¶¶ [0032] and [0037]) the routing and forwarding
processes as claimed. As explained by the Examiner (Ans. 16-17), the
OSPF task 60 in Alfieri performs a routing process in the form of a routing
table update and the virtual access routers (VARs) 20 and virtual interfaces
(VIs) 30 share forwarding resources within router 14.

III. THE REJECTION OF CLAIMS 1 and 2 BASED ON THE
COMBINATION OF YLONEN AND SHAFER.

We find no error in the Examiner’s application (Ans. 10, 11, and 17)
of the programmably modifiable shared resource teachings of Shafer to the
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shared network virtual router system of Ylonen. Accordingly, the
Examiner’s obviousness rejection, based on the combination of Ylonen and
Shafer, of independent claim 1, and dependent claim 2, which is not
separately argued, is sustained. Appellant’s arguments (Br. 17-19) reiterate
the arguments, which we found to be unpersuasive supra, made against the
Examiner’s application of Shafer to Ayres and Alfieri.

IV. THE REJECTION OF DEPENDENT CLAIMS 6, 22, AND
24-26 BASED ON THE COMBINATION OF AYRES,
SHAFER, AND ALFIERI.

This rejection is also sustained. Appellant (Br. 19) has made no
separate arguments for patentability of these claims but, rather, relies on the
arguments, which we previously found to be unpersuasive, asserted with
respect to claim 1.

CONCLUSION OF LAW
Based on the findings of facts and analysis above, we conclude that
Appellant has not shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting appealed
claims 1-6, 8-14, 16, 17, and 19-27 for obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103.

DECISION
The Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claims 1-6, 8-14, 16, 17,
and 19-27, all of the appealed claims, is affirmed.
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).

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AFFIRMED

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