Ex Parte Besaw et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 9, 2016

12404968 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 9, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/404,968 03/16/2009 Lawrence M. Besaw
56436 7590 03/11/2016
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
82249418 2715
EXAMINER
KIM,TAEK
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2492
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/11/2016 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):
hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com
mkraft@hpe.com
chris.mania@hpe.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte LA WREN CE M. BESAW, BOB BETHKE,
BRAD JONES, SRIKANTH NATARAJAN,
JACOB BASTIAAN VEN, and
ROBERT J. WERNSMAN1
Appeal2014-003140
Application 12/404,968
Technology Center 2400
Before MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, DANIEL N. FISHMAN, and
MICHAEL M. BARRY, Administrative Patent Judges.
BARRY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of claims 1, 3-12, and 14--20,
which constitute all the claims pending in this application. Claims 2 and 13
have been cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as Hewlett-Packard
Development Co., L.P. App. Br. 3.
Appeal2014-003140
Application 12/404,968
Introduction
Appellants describe prior art technology for network management as
employing "tightly coupled" or "loosely coupled" approaches and state
"[t]he present system and method includes a scalable, distributed network
management system that is generally loosely coupled while providing the
advantages of a tightly coupled approach." Spec. 2. Claim 1 is illustrative
and shown here with the disputed limitation emphasized:
1. An extendable distributed network management system
to manage a network environment, comprising:
a hardware management server having a processing
device thereon;
a management application residing on the management
server, and the management application to use the processing
device to enable a user to manage the network environment;
an extension application server;
a plurality of extension modules hosted on and operated
from the extension application server, the extension modules to
supply management functions to the management application
for identified network components separately from the
management application; and
a plurality of management engines located on the
extension application server, wherein the management engines
provide network probing and network event management while
integrating an extension modules' data object model with a
management application's data object model, wherein one of
the plurality of management engines comprises a discovery
engine to provide discovery of network nodes for an extension
module, and the discovery engine resides on the extension
application server.
App. Br. 14 (Claims App'x).
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Appeal2014-003140
Application 12/404,968
Rejection
Claims 1, 3-12, and 14--20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious over Mattheis (US 2004/0249919 Al; Dec. 9, 2004). Final Act. 3-
13.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection and Answer in light of
Appellants' Appeal and Reply Briefs, including the cited evidence. We
adopt the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner. See Final Act. 3-
13; Ans. 2-5. We provide the following discussion for emphasis.
The Examiner identifies Mattheis' s SMART (System Management
and Reporting Tool) software as teaching or suggesting claim l's disputed
"discovery engine" limitation. Final Act. 4--5. Appellants argue the
Examiner errs because the claim requires the discovery engine to "reside[]
on the extension application server" whereas, in Mattheis, the corresponding
SMART software is stored on a client device. App. Br. 9-10.
The Examiner responds by finding
the same software distribution and SMART functionality used
to manage end-user client devices can also be used to manage
remote SMART hosts. There is a strong inference, if not
explicit, that a SMART core engine similar to the one [that] is
used by the end-user client devices is implemented within the
remote SMART hosts (i.e.[,] remote SMART hosts are
"clients" within a distributed server infrastructure).
Ans. 4.
Appellants argue in reply that Mattheis does not support the
Examiner's position because "the 'client' and 'application server' of
Mattheis are separate and distinct entities having respective functionalities,
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Appeal2014-003140
Application 12/404,968
not the potentially the same entity as the Examiner's Answer asserts." See
Reply 6.
Appellants do not persuasively rebut the Examiner's finding that
"Mattheis supports the interpretation that each SMART host is also a 'client'
in that each remote SMART host can be updated and modified using the
SMART plug-in architecture." See Final Act. 5 (citing Mattheis i-f 652). In
the absence of sufficient evidence or reasoning in rebuttal, we agree with the
Examiner that "the implementation of the described SMART core system
illustrated in figure 6 and paragraph [0085] within the remote SMART hosts
would have been an obvious variation ... since the plug-in architecture is
already implemented on the distributed SMART hosts." Final Act. 5. We
note "[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is
likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results."
KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007); see also id. at 421
("[a] person of ordinary skill is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an
automaton").
Because Appellants do not persuasively rebut the Examiner's findings
and reasoning, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1. We also
sustain the rejection of claims 3-12 and 14-20, for which Appellants
provide no separate argument (see App. Br. 11-12). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv); accord In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2011)
2 "Using SMART's plug-in architecture, in a preferred exemplary
embodiment of the present invention SMART can be implemented to
manage a distributed server infrastructure as well (as opposed to only
managing end-user client devices). In such an exemplary embodiment,
SMART can keep server virus definitions updated and provide
configuration, service pack installation and update capabilities on servers as
well as workstations, desktops, and other client devices." Mattheis i-f 65.
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Appeal2014-003140
Application 12/404,968
(sustaining requirement for an appellant to make separate substantive
arguments for separate review on appeal of individual claims).
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 1, 3-12, and 14--20.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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