Ex Parte Westra et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 5, 2016

12788797 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 5, 2016)

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.
12/788,797 05/27/2010 Michael Raymond Westra 83147028 7395
28395 7590 12/07/2016
RROOKS KTTSHMAN P C /FfTET EXAMINER
1000 TOWN CENTER HILGENDORF, DALE W
22ND FLOOR
SOUTHFIELD, MI 48075-1238 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3662
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/07/2016 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):
docketing @brookskushman.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MICHAEL RAYMOND WESTRA,
SANDEEP SINGH WARAICH, SUKHWINDER WADHWA,
MICHAEL J. SCHANERBERGER,
JASON BERNARD JOHNSON, and JULIUS MARCHWICKI
Appeal 2015-001965
Application 12/788,797
Technology Center 3600
Before: CHARLES N. GREENHUT, BRETT C. MARTIN, and
BRENT M. DOUGAL, Administrative Patent Judges.
DOUGAL, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a final rejection of
claims 30-49. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
Appeal 2015-001965
Application 12/788,797
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to methods and systems for implementing and
enforcing security and resource policies for a vehicle. Claim 30, reproduced
below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
30. A system comprising:
a vehicle-based processor, having access to stored security
policies relating to vehicle resource usage, and configured to:
receive a resource access request from a remote
application stored on a wirelessly connected device,
including a list of all resources utilized by the application;
examine security requirements for each of the
resources; and
set access rights for the application to use resources
for which the security policy coincides with security rights
of the application.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Blight US 6,785,542 B1 Aug. 31,2004
Remboski US 7,173,903 B2 Feb. 6,2007
Gelvin US 7,484,008 B1 Jan. 27,2009
REJECTIONS
Claims 30-35, 39-44, 48, and 49 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Gelvin and Blight.
Claims 36—38 and 45^47 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Gelvin, Blight, and Remboski.
2
Appeal 2015-001965
Application 12/788,797
OPINION
Claims 30, 39, and 48 are independent. Claims 31—38 depend from
claim 30 and claims 40-47 depend from claim 39.
Fundamental to the disagreement between Appellants and the
Examiner is the meaning of the claimed “list of all resources utilized by the
application” which is part of the “resource access request from a remote
application” received by the “vehicle-based processor.” The Examiner finds
that Gelvin teaches that “the application or device has access to vehicle
resources and the security protocols [of the vehicle-based processor] would
know which resources are allowed to be accessed (equivalent to the claimed
list of resources),” which, in other words, he explains “the library of
authorized devices is equivalent to the claimed list of all resources.” Final
Act. 6 and 2.
Appellants argue that the Examiner’s position “is not what is claimed”
as “the identification [of the list] comes from the application.” Br. 6 and 5.
They argue further “[t]he mere fact that the security protocol has
preprogrammed definitions of what resources a particular application can or
cannot access, does not mean that the access request includes a list of all
resources utilized by the application. The list of resources could easily be
defined in advance and associated with a security profile for an application.”
Id.
Appellants’ convincingly argue that the Examiner’s position is
inconsistent with the claim language. Based on the plain meaning of the
claim language, the library of authorized devices of the vehicle-based
processor is not equivalent to the claimed list of all resources as the claim
3
Appeal 2015-001965
Application 12/788,797
language requires the “list of all resources utilized by the application” to be
part of the “resource access request from a remote application.”
The Examiner takes a similar position with Bright, finding that a
resource proxy filters a “list of available resources to the application” and it
“presents the appropriate resources to the applications.” Final Act. 7. This
is inconsistent with the claim language for the same reasons as discussed
above with Gelvin as the list of resources is not coming “from a remote
application” as claimed.
The Examiner also takes the position that “a list of all resources may
be a list that includes only one item.” Final Act. 2. The Examiner further
explains “when the system of Gelvin et al receives a single request from a
single device to access the vehicle network . . . and the authorization is
provided for that device to access only sub-system (such as the radio, air
conditioning, power window, etc.), the system would know of the access to
the sub-system, grant the access and have a list of the approved access (one
item of the list).” Id. But here again, the Examiner makes no findings that a
“list of all resources utilized by the application” is coming “from a remote
application.” Rather, the Examiner finds that the system may have a list of
approved resources.
For these reasons we cannot sustain the rejection of independent claim
30. As all other claims include similar limitations as that discussed above,
we do not sustain the rejections of claims 31—49 for similar reasons.
4
Appeal 2015-001965
Application 12/788,797
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 30-49 is reversed.
REVERSED
5