Ex Parte Zhao

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 30, 2014

12059926 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 30, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte BIN ZHAO
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Appeal 2012-006301
Application 12/059,926
Technology Center 2400
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Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, ANDREW J. DILLON, and
IRVIN E. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judges.

BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2012-006301
Application 12/059,926

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STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims
27–47. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Claims 1–26 are
cancelled.
We affirm.
Illustrative Claim
Appellant’s claimed subject matter relates to peer-to-peer messaging.
Abstract.
Claim 27, reproduced below with the disputed limitations italicized, is
illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
27. A method comprising:
establishing a distributed environment for supporting on-
line collaborative meetings among a plurality of users, the
distributed environment including a plurality of applications
executing on different client machines;
transmitting a sequence of messages from a first
application of the distributed environment for supporting on-
line collaborative meetings to a second application of the
distributed environment for supporting on-line collaborative
meetings, using a connectionless multicast form of delivery
that exchanges messages without acknowledgement or
guaranteed delivery;
receiving a request for re-transmission from the second
application specifying at least one message of the sequence,
transmitted using the connectionless multicast form of delivery,
that was not received by the second application; and
in response to the request for re-transmission from the
second application specifying at least one message of the
sequence that was transmitted using the connectionless
multicast form of delivery and that was not received by the
second application, retransmitting the specified at least one
message of the sequence from the first application to the
second application using a reliable unicast form of delivery
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that provides an acknowledgment to ensure that the specified
at least one message is received by the second application.

Rejections1
Claims 27–31, 35–40, and 44–47 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Traversat (US 2002/0152299 A1;
Oct. 17, 2002), Stracke (US 5,892,761; Apr. 6, 1999), and Hayashi
(US 2003/0031175 A1; Feb. 13, 2003). Ans. 4–15.
Claims 32, 33, 41, and 42 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Traversat, Stracke, Hayashi, and Berg (US 6,674,713 B1;
Jan. 6, 2004). Ans. 15-17.
Claims 34 and 43 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Traversat, Stracke, Hayashi, and Maurille
(US 6,484,196 B1; Nov. 19, 2002). Ans. 17–18.

CONTENTIONS
Appellant contends the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 27 because
“Traversat, Stracke and Hayashi are silent concerning” the disputed
limitations. Br. 14. More specifically, Appellant argues “none of the
references suggest a responsive relationship between a request for
retransmission and switching from a connectionless to a reliable

1 Appellant appealed a rejection of claims 45 and 46 under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Br. 12–13. The Examiner’s Answer does not respond to Appellant’s
arguments, but also does not include a statement that the rejection is
withdrawn. Instead, the Answer states that “[t]he examiner has no comment
on the appellant’s statement of the grounds of rejection to be reviewed on
appeal.” Ans. 3. The Examiner’s Answer also does not list this rejection in
the Grounds of Rejection section. We therefore treat the rejection as if the
Examiner has not maintained it.
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(connection-oriented) form of delivery for messages of an on-line
collaborative meeting.” Br. 15.
Appellant’s contentions raise the issue of whether the Examiner erred
in finding that Traversat, Stracke, and Hayashi would have taught or
suggested the disputed limitations.

ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s
arguments in the Appeal Brief (“Br.” filed Sept. 19, 2011). We refer to the
Brief and the Answer (“Ans.” mailed Dec. 7, 2011) for the respective
positions of Appellant and the Examiner.
Claims 27–31, 34–40, and 44–47
The Examiner finds Traversat discloses transmitting messages (¶ 174)
using any of a variety of protocols, including a connectionless form of
delivery such as UDP/IP (¶ 163). Ans. 7. The Examiner also finds
Traversat discloses receiving and responding to a retransmission request
(¶ 186). Ans. 5. The Examiner finds Hayashi discloses receiving and
responding to a retransmission request by retransmitting by unicast (¶¶ 112–
113). Ans. 6. The Examiner reasons “[i]t would have been obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art to modify Traversat for retransmitting using
unicast for delivery after initial multicast form of delivery as taught by
Hayashi.” Id. On this record, we see no error in the Examiner’s rejection.
We are unpersuaded by Appellant’s argument that none of Traversat,
Strake, or Hayashi would have taught or suggested that the request for
retransmission triggers the change from a connectionless form of delivery to
a reliable form. The Examiner finds that Hayashi discloses a change in
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communication protocol from multicast to unicast when only one router
requests retransmission. Ans. 21 (citing Hayashi ¶ 112–113). The Examiner
finds that Hayashi discloses a responsive relationship because the
retransmission is responsive to the request for retransmission (Ans. 20) and
that Hayashi’s reason for changing protocols upon retransmission is
immaterial (id. at 20–21). The Examiner further finds that Traversat teaches
multicast protocols can be either reliable connection-based transports such as
TCP/IP or unreliable connectionless transports like UDP/IP. Ans. 6 (citing
Traversat ¶ 0163).
Accordingly, we understand the Examiner’s position to be that, given
the cited art’s general teaching of providing a multicast followed by as-
needed unicasts, one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention
would have further understood that the multicast protocol specifically could
have employed either a connectionless protocol or a reliable protocol. One
would have understood that either specific multicast protocol could have
been selected because Traversat teaches that at the time of the invention
these two protocols were art-recognized equivalents.
We therefore sustain the rejection of claim 27. We also sustain the
rejection of claims 28–31, 35–40, and 44–47, which Appellant does not
argue separately. We also sustain the rejection of claims 32, 33, 41, and 42,
which Appellant argues only on the basis of these claims depending from
claims 27 and 36.
Claims 34 and 43
Claim 34 recites receiving a request to subscribe to a subject.
Appellant argues the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 34 because
Maurille’s query “is not akin to subscribing to a subject” and because
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“[s]ending a message and indicating a subject of a message is quite different
than subscribing to a subject associated with a sequence of messages
transmitted from a first application to as second application.” Br. 18.
We are unpersuaded of error.
The Examiner finds Appellant’s Specification discloses that “the
members of a group may be deemed to ‘subscribe’ to the particular subject
which defines the group.” Ans. 23 (citing Spec ¶ 30). The Examiner also
finds “Maurille discloses a group of participants communicating within a
conversation thread that designates a particular subject for the participants
(group members) of the conversation thread[, which based] on the
specification definition, the participants in essence subscribe to the subject
of the conversation thread.” Id.
We agree with the Examiner that, in view of Appellant’s
Specification, Maurille at least would have suggested subscribing to a
subject. Appellant’s argument fails to give the claim its broadest reasonable
interpretation consistent with the specification. See In re Amer. Acad. of Sci.
Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004).

CONCLUSIONS
On the record before us, we conclude that, the Examiner has not erred
in rejecting claims 27–31, 35–40, and 44–47 as unpatentable over Traversat,
Stracke, and Hayashi; claims 32, 33, 41, and 42 as unpatentable over
Traversat, Stracke, Hayashi, and Berg; and claims 34 and 43 as unpatentable
over Traversat, Stracke, Hayashi, and Maurille.

Appeal 2012-006301
Application 12/059,926

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DECISION
For the above reasons, we affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject
claims 27–47.
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).

AFFIRMED

msc