SAP Portals Israel Ltd.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 2, 2022

2021000349 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 2, 2022)

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. 15/398,129 01/04/2017 Barak Kinarti 2058.B19US1 8000 50400 7590 03/02/2022 SCHWEGMAN LUNDBERG & WOESSNER/SAP P.O. BOX 2938 MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55402 EXAMINER MESA, JOEL ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2447 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/02/2022 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): SLW@blackhillsip.com uspto@slwip.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte BARAK KINARTI, IDO FISHLER, EYAL NATHAN, AMIR BLICH, and MARCUS CONRAD BEHRENS Appeal 2021-000349 Application 15/398,129 Technology Center 2400 Before JAMES R. HUGHES, JOYCE CRAIG and MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges. HUGHES, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Claims 1-11 and 15-23 are pending, stand rejected, are appealed by Appellant, and are the subject of our decision under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a).1 See Non-Final Act. 1.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42 (2019). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as SAP Portals Israel Ltd. Appeal Br. 3. 2 We refer to Appellant’s Specification (“Spec.”), filed Jan. 4, 2017; Appeal Brief (“Appeal Br.”), filed May 12, 2020; and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”), filed Oct. 16, 2020. We also refer to the Examiner’s Non-Final Office Appeal 2021-000349 Application 15/398,129 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claimed subject matter, according to Appellant, “relates generally to data routing in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.” Spec. ¶ 1. Appellant observes that “[d]ata sharing can be facilitated via P2P networks, and may be subject to SLAs, that is, to contractual arrangements defining minimum levels of data availability and currency, or related metrics,” but that “[m]eans for enforcing such SLAs have, however, been lacking to date.” Id. ¶ 2. Accordingly, Appellant’s claimed subject matter is directed to “methods, system, devices, and computer-program products embodied in machine-readable storage media for enforcing SLAs in P2P networks.” Id. ¶ 10. In an embodiment that includes Internet of Things (IOT) platforms in a P2P data-sharing network, a data-brokerage server compares data-traffic information for a data producer and data consumer against an SLA between them, and issues an alert if the SLA is violated. Id. ¶ 30. The server then identifies IoT platforms with free capacity to relay a data stream between the data producer and data consumer. Id. But, if no such platforms have sufficient capacity, “one or more computing platforms not previously part of the P2P network may be newly deployed as ‘virtual nodes,’” and “the network configuration is updated accordingly.” Id. For IoT platforms acting as pure relays-i.e., platforms that have not subscribed to the data stream- “they may agree to serve as relays in exchange for being able to participate in the data-sharing service, or may be compensated in other ways.” Id. ¶ 12. Claim 1 (directed to a system), claim 10 (directed to a method), and claim 18 Action (“Non-Final Act.”), mailed Dec. 31, 2019; and Answer (“Ans.”), mailed Sept. 28, 2020. Appeal 2021-000349 Application 15/398,129 3 (directed to computer-readable media) are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A system comprising: a server comprising one or more processors and communicatively coupled to a plurality of computing platforms engaged in data exchange via one or more peer-to-peer connections, the server being configured to perform operations comprising: receiving, from the plurality of computing platforms, data-traffic information about data traffic over the one or more peer-to-peer connections; comparing the data-traffic information against one or more service level agreements to determine whether the one or more service level agreements are met; and upon detection of a violation of a term of a service level agreement that is among the one or more service level agreements and associated with a data-producer computing platform and with a data stream available from the data- producer computing platform, reconfiguring at least one of the one or more peer-to-peer connections to cure the violation by causing a first data-consumer computing platform with free capacity to relay the data stream, to which the first data- consumer computing platform is not subscribed, from the data- producer computing platform to a second data-consumer computing platform in exchange for a provision of a price discount to the first data-consumer computing platform for relaying the data stream to which the first data-consumer computing platform is not subscribed. Appeal Br. 17 (Claims App.). Appeal 2021-000349 Application 15/398,129 4 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Name Reference Date Klein et al. (“Klein”) US 2007/0130283 A1 June 7, 2007 Barkett et al. (“Barkett”) US 2013/0346587 A1 Dec. 26, 2013 Hunn et al. (“Hunn”) US 2017/0287090 A1 Oct. 5, 20173 REJECTION 4 The Examiner rejects claims 1-11 and 15-23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being as being unpatentable over Barkett, Hunn, and Klein. See Non- Final Act. 3-10. ANALYSIS With respect to claim 1, the Examiner finds the combination of Barkett, Hunn, and Klein teaches all the claimed limitations. Specifically, the Examiner finds Barkett fails to teach or suggest relaying a data stream “in exchange for a provision of a price discount to the first data-consumer computing platform for relaying the data stream to which the first data- consumer computing platform is not subscribed.” Non-Final Act. 4-5. The Examiner relies on Hunn and Klein for teaching different respective first and second portions of this limitation, namely, “in exchange for a provision of a 3 Hunn (US 2017/0287090 A1) (published Oct. 5, 2017) claims benefit of two provisional applications-US 62/316,442 (filed Mar. 31, 2016) and US 62/400,599 (filed Sept. 27, 2016)-filed prior to Appellant’s filing date of Jan. 4, 2017. See Hunn at p. 1 (60). 4 The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (“AIA”), Pub. L. No. 112-29, 125 Stat. 284 (2011), amended 35 U.S.C. § 103. Because the present application has an effective filing after the AIA’s effective date (March 16, 2013), this decision refers to 35 U.S.C. § 103. Appeal 2021-000349 Application 15/398,129 5 price discount to the first data-consumer computing platform for relaying the data stream,” and “to which the first data-consumer computing platform is not subscribed.” See id. Appellant contends that “[i]n Hunn, the price discount is provided to an entity whose network performance requirement was breached by the SLA violation, not to an entity that relays a data stream.” Appeal Br. 14. Appellant further contends that “[n]othing in the entirety of Klein discusses relaying an unsubscribed data stream specifically ‘in exchange for’ a price discount.” Id. at 13. Accordingly, Appellant asserts the following: Combining the cited portions of Barkett, Hunn, and Klein would merely result in a system that re-routes data streams based on free capacity, provides discounts to entities whose performance requirements are breached, and has devices that request and perform inter-device exchanges of content. Nothing in the resultant system would relay an unsubscribed data stream specifically ‘in exchange for’ a price discount.” Id. at 14. We agree with Appellant that the Examiner has not persuasively shown that the proposed combination teaches or suggests the disputed “in exchange for” limitation set forth in claim 1. Barkett relates to managing service requests in a multi-server system, and describes an embodiment where “[b]ased on the operating parameters of the servers and the rules and preferences from the SLA engine 766, the proxy 750 may route the service requests 760 to the servers that have capacity to execute the requested services so that they can be timely completed.” Barkett, Abstract, ¶ 87. Hunn relates to a contract management platform, for example, for “a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for a[n] IT infrastructure.” Hunn, Abstract, ¶ 125. In the SLA example, “[w]here a breach of a performance requirement Appeal 2021-000349 Application 15/398,129 6 occurs, this may update a second, ‘service credits’, clause to issue a discount/credit.” Id. ¶ 125. Klein relates to exchanging content between communication devices, and describes a method where “subscribed content can be encrypted with keys only known to subscribers” and “only subscribers will have the appropriate decryption keys to experience the content.” Klein, Abstract, ¶ 26. “Non-subscribers can acquire the encryption key(s) by paying a subscription and/or becoming members of the service.” Id. ¶ 26. As shown above, none of the cited reference teach or suggest a computing platform relaying a data stream “in exchange for a provision of a price discount,” as recited in claim 1. The Examiner concedes Barkett does not teach or suggest this feature. See Non-Final Act. 4-5. And Hunn’s “discount/credit” is for a “breach of a performance requirement” in an SLA, not as consideration for relaying a data stream, as required by the “in exchange for” language in claim 1. See Hunn ¶ 125. Even if Klein suggests an unsubscribed computing platform can access subscriber-only content (by paying a subscription) (see Klein ¶ 26), nothing in Klein suggests such originally unsubscribed entity relays a data stream “in exchange for a provision of a price discount.” The “in exchange for” element of claim 1 is simply missing from the collective teachings of the cited references. Moreover, the Examiner has not shown that one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to pull from Hunn the general idea of offering a discount and apply it to Barkett such that routing service requests via servers with available capacity would involve offering a discount. The Examiner states that Hunn “clearly teaches giving a price discount when there is a violation to the agreed upon terms,” and that “[t]his in combination Appeal 2021-000349 Application 15/398,129 7 with Barkett which teaches rerouting data that violates SLA teaches the broadly claimed limitation.” Ans. 7. But the Examiner has not shown any recognized need to offer a discount in Barkett for routing service requests via servers with available capacity. Nor has the Examiner specifically explained why one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so. The Examiner’s stated motivation for combining Hunn with Barkett-“to provide a contract management platform” (Non-Final Act. 5)- does not specifically relate to providing a price discount “in exchange for” relaying a data stream. Consequently, we are constrained by the record before us to find the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Barkett, Hunn, and Klein renders obvious Appellant’s claim 1, as well as independent claims 10 and 18, which include limitations of commensurate scope. Claims 2-9, 11, 15- 17, and 19-23 depend from and stand with their respective base claims. Thus, we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 2-9, 11, 15-17, and 19-23. CONCLUSION Appellant has shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-11 and 15-23 as being obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-11 and 15-23. Appeal 2021-000349 Application 15/398,129 8 DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § References/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1-11, 15-23 103 Barkett, Hunn, Klein 1-11, 15-23 REVERSED