Appeal 2007-0789
Application 09/810,063
17. Odlyzko teaches that the “value of the Precedence field is advantageously
set before the packet is transmitted, thereby providing predictable pricing … .”
(Odlyzko, col. 6, ll. 60-62). Accordingly, Odlyzko teaches setting the Precedence
field in the header to a channel (e.g., high priority channel) corresponding to user’s
type of service (e.g., high priority service) before transmitting the packet.
18. Odlyzko also discloses an embodiment whereby “channel selection is made
by the user when the user establishes a connection with an Internet Service
Provider. The user is presented with a range of usage rates associated with the
logical channels and the user’s network communications are communicated across
the selected channel.” (Odlyzko, col. 6, l. 65 – col. 7, l. 3).
19. Appellants dispute that the disclosure in Odlyzko that the Precedence field is
advantageously set before the packet is transmitted (see FF 14 supra) suggests the
second step of the claimed method.
Odlyzko specifically states that “[t]he value of the Precedence field is
advantageously set before the packet is transmitted, thereby providing
predictable pricing and preventing ad-hoc arbitrage (i.e. selecting the
channel at the router based on congestion metrics)” (Odlyzko, col. 6, lines
60-64). In other words, the Precedence field is used to “hard code” the
channel on which a packet is transmitted. Regardless of network congestion,
the packet in Odlyzko will always be transmitted via the channel that is
coded into the Precedence field. This is in contrast to Appellants’ invention,
where a high priority header is written to a packet in order to ensure that the
packet receives high priority treatment. The packet is treated as a high
priority packet throughout its transmission and regardless of which channel
or channels is used for transmission. It may very well be that a packet will
get shifted from one channel to another, depending on network congestion,
which is very different from Odlyzko, where a packet will remain “hard
coded” to the same logical channel, regardless of network congestion.
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