Ex Parte Yamamoto

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 25, 2013

10282421 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 25, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte HIROSHI YAMAMOTO
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Appeal 2010-008815
Application 10/282,421
Technology Center 2400
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Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JEREMY J. CURCURI,
and JUSTIN BUSCH, Administrative Patent Judges.

SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1, 2, 4-6, and 8-24, which constitute all the claims pending in this
application as claims 3 and 7 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellant’s invention relates to systems and methods for preventing
unexpected timeouts during http sessions by notifying the user of timeouts
and means for the user to change the timeout intervals (see Spec. 2:15-27).
Exemplary Claim
Claims 1 and 5, with the disputed features highlighted, are illustrative
of the invention and read as follows:
1. A network system, comprising: a server which
provides application services via a network; and client terminals
which receive said application services via said network,
wherein said server sends said client terminals a program for
generating a window which displays information about
timeouts on Web sessions in said application services, and said
client terminals display said window based on said program
received, wherein said server acquires, during a Web session,
the time remaining before a timeout on the Web session for any
given one of said client terminals in response to periodic
requests that are independent of any action by a user from the
given one of the client terminals and sends the time remaining
to the given one of said client terminals.
5. A server which provides Web applications to a
client via a network, comprising: session object creating means
for creating a session object which stores identification
information for identifying said client; window providing
means for providing a program of a window which displays
timeout information contained in said session object, to said
client via said network; and extension instruction receiving
means for receiving, via said network, extension instructions
given to said window; and time extension means for extending
the time remaining before said timeout contained in said
session object by an extended time period provided by the user
by specifying an amount of additional time by which the Web
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session is extended, based on said extension instructions
received by said extension instruction receiving means.
Rejection
Claims 1, 2, 4-6, and 8-24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as
being anticipated by Pinnell (US 6,812,938 B2). (See Ans. 3-12).

ANALYSIS
With respect to claim 1, the Examiner finds that Pinnell’s disclosure
of the displayed information on the user’s screen, as described in column 5
and depicted in Figure 2, teaches the claimed displaying the window
“wherein said server acquires, during a Web session, the time remaining
before a timeout on the Web session for any given one of said client
terminals in response to periodic requests that are independent of any action
by a user” (Ans. 4). The Examiner further finds that the count-down timer,
which is periodically updated to show the time left for a given session, meets
the disputed claim feature (Ans. 13). Regarding claim 5, the Examiner cites
the same portion in column 5 of Pinnell for teaching that the session is
extended by the user specifying an amount of extension time (Ans. 5).
Appellant contends that “Pinnell does not acquire the time remaining
for a session and/or periodically request this time remaining independent of
any action by the user” (Br. 8). Appellant asserts that Pinnell does not teach
that the server acquires “the time remaining before a timeout on the Web
session . . . in response to periodic requests from the given one of the client
terminals that are independent of any action by a user,” as recited in claim 1
(id.). Additionally, Appellant contends that the portions of Pinnell relied on
by the Examiner indicate that “the time by which the life of the session in
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Pinnell may be extended is pre-determined” rather than specified by the
user, as required by claim 5 (Br. 9).
We agree with Appellant’s contention above that Pinnell does not
disclose a server acquiring “the time remaining before a timeout on the Web
session . . . in response to periodic requests from the given one of the client
terminals that are independent of any action by a user” recited in claim 1.
However, we disagree with Appellant’s contention above that “time
extension means for extending the time remaining . . . by an extended time
period provided by the user by specifying an amount of additional time,”
recited in claim 5, is not disclosed in Pinnell.
In responding to Appellant’s discussion of claim 1, the Examiner
assumes (Ans. 13) that because the claim does not require displaying the
results of periodic requests, the automated, periodic updates to the count-
down timer 30 meet the disputed claim feature. In fact, while the timer
counts down the remaining time in the session (see Pinnell, col. 5, ll. 3-6), it
does so automatically and the remaining time is not acquired in response to
periodic requests from the client terminal.
With respect to claim 5, which does not recite acquiring the remaining
time in response to periodic requests, we agree with the Examiner that the
user in Pinnell specifies the amount of additional time to extend the session
by clicking on the icon 28 displayed in a graphical user interface (GUI)
showing the control panel 24 (Ans. 14 (citing Pinnell, col. 6, ll. 1-19)). We
specifically agree with the Examiner’s position (id.) that each time a user
clicks on the icon 28 the remaining time is extended which may be repeated
to extend the session indefinitely. In other words, each click extends the
remaining time by a set amount of additional time which meets the claimed
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feature because no particular manner of “specifying an amount of additional
time by which the Web session is extended” is recited in the claim.

CONCLUSION
On the record before us, because Pinnell does not disclose the
disputed limitation of claim 1, we conclude that the Examiner erred in
rejecting claim 1 and independent claims 9, 11, 15, 16, 20, 22, and 24, which
recite a similar limitation, and their dependent claims as anticipated by
Pinnell. However we reach the opposite conclusion with respect to claim 5.

DECISION
The decision of the Examiner is affirmed with respect to rejecting
claim 5, but reversed with respect to rejecting claims 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8-24.
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).

AFFIRMED-IN-PART

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