Ex Parte Biazetti et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 28, 201712347108 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 28, 2017) Copy Citation 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. 12/347,108 12/31/2008 Ana C. Biazetti RSW920080235US1 (412) 1523 46320 7590 CRGO LAW STEVEN M. GREENBERG 7900 Glades Road SUITE 520 BOCA RATON, EL 33434 EXAMINER KUDIRKA, JOSEPH R ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2114 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/02/2017 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): docketing@crgolaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ANA C. BIAZETTI, THOMAS LUMPP, and JUERGEN SCHNEIDER Appeal 2017-001056 Application 12/347,108 Technology Center 2100 Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JEFFREY S. SMITH, and JEFFREY A. STEPHENS, Administrative Patent Judges. STEPHENS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Office Action (“Final Act.”) rejecting claims 1—12. App. Br. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 The real party in interest is identified as International Business Machines Corp. App. Br. 2. In an earlier Decision (Appeal No. 2012-009768, mailed Jan. 14, 2015), we affirmed the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—12. Dec. 9. Appeal 2017-001056 Application 12/347,108 Claimed Subject Matter The claimed subject matter “broadly relates to the field of cluster configuration for high availability computing and more particularly the present invention relates to the field [of] high availability policy creation for cluster management.” Spec. para. 1. Claims 1, 6, and 8 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below, illustrates the claimed subject matter. 1. A method for dynamically creating a high availability policy based upon entries in a configuration management database (CMDB) and a best practices template, the method comprising: displaying in a computer, a user interface through which an application is selected for high availability configuration; directing resource discovery in a CMDB for the selected application to discover components and dependencies of the selected application, the resource discovery processing different configuration items (CIs) in the CMDB in order to identify the components and dependencies of the selected application; mapping the components and dependencies discovered for the selected application in the CMDB to a best practices template specifying a parameterized high availability topology for the selected application; and, storing the best practices template with mapped components and dependencies as a high availability policy for the selected application, the policy comprising parameterized entries of the template replaced with specific entries particular to the selected application, including a network address and file system mount point to be used when deploying the high availability policy. Rejection Claims 1—12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over O’Brien et al. (US 7,228,453 B2, issued June 5, 2007) and Poirot et al. (US 2004/0143654 Al, published July 22, 2004). Final Act. 2-16. 2 Appeal 2017-001056 Application 12/347,108 DISCUSSION We adopt the findings of fact made by the Examiner in the Final Action and Examiner’s Answer as our own. Final Act. 2—20; Ans. 3—21. We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner for the reasons given in the Examiner’s Answer. We highlight the following for emphasis. Regarding claim 1, Appellants argue “it is difficult to see where in O’Brien, a mapping exists to specific teachings of O’Brien to the claimed ‘storing the best practices template with mapped components and dependencies as a high availability policy for the selected application.” App. Br. 8. “At best, a mapping exists of storing a database with mapped components and dependences as an availability policy for a computing system.” Id. At the outset, the Examiner notes that the Specification is devoid of a definition for the terms “template” and “applications. Ans. 18. Accordingly, the Examiner finds that O’Brien’s “managed object instance” is “a ‘selected application’ in that a particular (selected) managed object instance is created via, e.g., a management web/user interface, for each resource under management.” Ans. 18—19 (citing O’Brien col. 5,11. 50—55, col. 13,11. 33—42, col. 16,11. 48—53, col. 23,11. 52—59). The Examiner also finds O’Brien’s “managed object class” reasonably teaches “a ‘template’ given that the managed object classes, via dependency information inherited from the root object class (O’Brien: col. 24, lines 28—34 and O’Brien: col. 3, lines 18—23), act as templates from which their managed objects are created (O’Brien: col. 14, lines 12 and 13).” Ans. 19. We agree with the Examiner for the reasons provided in the Answer. Ans. 18—19. 3 Appeal 2017-001056 Application 12/347,108 Appellants argue in the Reply Brief that O’Brien’s “managed object class is hardly related to any practices let alone the claimed ‘best practices,”’ and that “the managed object class is not stored as a high availability policy as claimed by Appellants.” Reply Br. 5. Appellants have not shown good cause for presenting arguments for the first time in the Reply Brief as to these other limitations in claim 1. 37 C.F.R. § 41.41(b)(2). Nonetheless, we disagree with Appellants’ arguments for the reasons given in our prior decision. Dec. 8. Appellants also argue the Examiner neglected in the Final Action to address their argument that the cited portion of Poirot pertained only to the updating of a dynamic table to account for different location information changes such as hardware changes and lacked any specific teaching to the inclusion in the stored high availability policy of a network address and file system mount point to be used when deploying the high availability policy. App. Br. 9. The Examiner finds Poirot teaches “how a node location server is started/initialized” using the Node Location Table (NLT), that startup/initialization is a reasonable interpretation of “deploying,” and that the NLT includes an internet protocol (IP) address and a path name of a root file system to mount. Ans. 20 (citing Poirot paras. 68—69, 100, 106, 110-11, Fig. 6). We agree with the Examiner for the reasons provided in the Answer. Ans. 20. To the extent Appellants’ arguments regarding Poirot are directed to deploying a “high availability policy,” the Examiner relies on O’Brien for teaching the high availability policy. See Final Act. 3^4. 4 Appeal 2017-001056 Application 12/347,108 Accordingly, for the reasons discussed above and by the Examiner, we are not informed of error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over O’Brien and Poirot. Thus, we sustain the rejection of claim 1. Appellants argue claims 1—12 as a group. App. Br. 4—10. Accordingly, claims 2—12 fall with claim 1. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—12. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation