Ex Parte Boskovic et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 4, 201512835055 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 4, 2015) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ________________ Ex parte SRDJAN BOSKOVIC and DIRK A. GIEBEL1 ________________ Appeal 2012-003727 Application 12/835,055 Technology Center 2100 ________________ Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, CAROLYN D. THOMAS, and JOHN G. NEW, Administrative Patent Judges. NEW, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL 1 The Real Party-in-Interest is SAP AG. App. Br. 2. Appeal 2012-003727 Application 12/835,055 2 SUMMARY Appellants file this appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1, 2, 4–15, and 17–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over the combination of Venkat Prasad, Exchanging XML with SQL Server 2000 and Reporting Services through the Web and Web Services, Microsoft Developer Network (2005), available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa302286.aspx (last visited January 29, 2015 (“Exchanging”) and Christoph Schittko, Troubleshooting Common Problems with the XmlSerializer, Microsoft Developer Network (2004), available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa302290.aspx (last visited January 15, 2015) (“Troubleshooting”). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. NATURE OF THE CLAIMED INVENTION Appellants’ invention is directed to a method by which data is captured in a first processor-based system. The captured data is serialized into an XML format. The XML-formatted data is transmitted to a second processor-based system, and the XML-formatted data is deserialized into a non-XML format. The deserialized data is processed on the second processor-based system to determine a cause of an error on the first processor-based system, and the first processor-based system or the second processor-based system is altered as a function of the processing of the deserialized data on the second processor-based system. The processing of the deserialized data on the second processor-based system relates to a support of the first processor-based system, and the first processor-based Appeal 2012-003727 Application 12/835,055 3 system is a production system and the second processor-based system is a test or reference system. Abstract. REPRESENTATIVE CLAIM Because Appellants argue independent claims 1, 9, 12, and 15 together, we select claim 1 as representative of the claims on appeal. App. Br. 11. Claim 1 recites: 1. A method comprising: capturing data in a first processor-based system; serializing the captured data into an XML format; transmitting the XML-formatted data to a second processor-based system; deserializing the XML-formatted data into a non-XML format; processing the deserialized data on the second processor- based system to determine a cause of an error on the first processor-based system; and altering one or more of the first processor-based system and the second processor-based system via software fixes as a function of the processing of the deserialized data on the second processor-based system; wherein the processing of the deserialized data on the second processor-based system relates to a support of the first processor-based system; and wherein the first processor-based system comprises a production system and the second processor-based system comprises a test or reference system for the production system. Appeal 2012-003727 Application 12/835,055 4 App. Br. 16. ISSUE Appellants argue that the Examiner erred in finding that the combined cited prior art references teach or suggest the limitations of claim 1 reciting: Serializing ... data (from the production system) into an XML format; transmitting the XML-formatted data (to the test system); deserializing ... [and] processing the de-serialized data (on the test system); and altering (the production system or the test system) via software fixes as a function of the processing of the deserialized data on the (test system). App. Br. 11. ANALYSIS Appellants argue that the Troubleshooting reference teaches diagnosing common problems that occur when converting XML data to objects. App. Br. 11. Appellants contend that the Troubleshooting reference is therefore nothing more than a simple user’s guide that merely teaches the various errors that can occur when building XML-based solutions with the XMLSerializer and discusses tools and techniques to diagnose those errors. Id. According to Appellants, the only relevance the reference has to the claimed subject matter is in addressing problems that may occur in the serializing and deserializing steps of the claims. Id. at 12. Appellants also argue that the Exchanging reference teaches saving and uploading XML data between servers, such as an SQL Reporting Server and an SQL server. App. Br. 12. Appellants argue that the Exchanging reference does not disclose using the features of XML serialization and deserialization to capture data from a production system, transfer it to a test Appeal 2012-003727 Application 12/835,055 5 system, process the data on the test system, and alter the production system and/or the test system based on the processing of the production data on the test system. Id. Appellants contend that merely sending business data over the Internet, as taught by the Exchanging reference, and troubleshooting XMLSerializer statements, as taught by the Troubleshooting reference do not make the claimed invention obvious. Id. Appellants next argue that the Troubleshooting reference does not teach the limitation reciting “processing the deserialized data on the [test system] to determine a cause of an error on the [production] system,” but merely teaches dealing with problems with the actual deserialization command, not with errors on a production system. App. Br. 13. The Examiner responds that the claim terms “production system” and “test/reference system,” when given their broadest reasonable interpretation, are interpreted, respectively, as a system that produces data and a system which tests said data. Ans. 15. The Examiner finds that the Introduction of the Exchanging reference teaches business data moved across the internet as XML data. Id. The Examiner also finds that the .NET and XML web services subsection of the reference’s Introduction recites the streaming of XML data between two systems, with the system providing the data representing a production system and the system receiving the data representing the test system. Id. The Examiner supports this latter finding by noting that the test system performs operations on the XML data, as taught by the Introduction of the Troubleshooting reference. Id. The Examiner finds further that the Introduction of the Troubleshooting reference also teaches that the XML Serializer in the .NET Appeal 2012-003727 Application 12/835,055 6 Framework comes “with its own class of errors that developers need to learn how to diagnose” and further recites various errors that can occur when building XML-based solutions with an XML Serializer and the techniques and tools to diagnose them. Id. The Examiner finds that these teachings, as well as the explicit recitation of debugging in the Troubleshooting reference section titled “Debugging Serialization Code,” teach or suggest the limitations of claim 1 reciting “determin[ing] a cause of an error on the first processor-based system; and altering one or more of the first processor- based system and the second processor-based system via software fixes. Id. Finally, the Examiner finds that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to combine the Troubleshooting and Exchanging references because they are part of the same Microsoft “XML and the .Net Framework.” Further, the XML programming of the Troubleshooting reference would need to be transferred over a network, as taught by the Exchanging reference, because XML is primarily a web services language, as taught by the Introduction of the Exchanging reference. Ans. 5. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments. As an initial matter, although the claims are read in light of Appellants’ Specification, the claim terms are not explicitly defined in the Specification and are therefore given the broadest reasonable interpretation that is consistent with the Specification. See In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). We therefore adopt the Examiner’s interpretation of the claim term “first processor-based system comprises a production system” as meaning a processor based system that produces XML-formatted data, and the claim term “second processor-based system comprises a test or reference Appeal 2012-003727 Application 12/835,055 7 system” as meaning a processor-based system that receives and tests the XML-formatted data received from a production system. We agree with the Examiner that the Exchanging reference teaches transmitting XML-formatted data from a first system to a second system. The Exchanging reference teaches: Business data is increasingly exposed on the Internet and the Intranet, and moved across the wire as XML through traditional Web server calls (HTTP POST), .NET XML Web Services, or even Microsoft SQL Reporting Server. Unlike the data from traditional Web server calls (HTTP POST), data from XML Web Services and SQL Reporting Servers is also accessible from different platforms through SOAP protocols. Exchanging Ref. at 1. Indeed, we find that a person of ordinary skill in the art would realize that the entire purpose of XML Serializing is transforming converted objects (data) into a readily transportable form. See, e.g., Microsoft Developer Network, Introducing XML Serialization, available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/182eeyhh(v=vs.100).aspx (last visited January 29, 2015) (“Serialization is the process of converting an object into a form that can be readily transported. For example, you can serialize an object and transport it over the Internet using HTTP between a client and a server. On the other end, deserialization reconstructs the object from the stream”). Moreover, we find that a processor-based production system is one that produces XML-formatted data for transmission to a second system. Appellants contend that the Exchanging reference does not teach or suggest the serialization or deserialization of data in the processing of that data, and the altering of the production/test system based on the results of Appeal 2012-003727 Application 12/835,055 8 that processing. App. Br. 12–13. However, the Examiner has cited the Troubleshooting reference as teaching these limitations. Ans. 4. “[O]ne cannot show non-obviousness by attacking references individually where … the rejections are based on combinations of references.” In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981) (citing Application of Young, 403 F.2d 754, 757 (1968). We agree with the Examiner’s finding that the Troubleshooting reference teaches receiving XML-formatted data from a production system and analyzing that data for errors encountered in deserializing the data. We therefore find that any such processor-based system that so analyzes data for error constitutes a test or reference system. The Troubleshooting reference teaches that different types of errors are detected by the deserializer, which provides exceptions to the user that give information about the nature of the error. See, e.g., Troubleshooting reference 7–9, “Problems Deserializing XML.” We also agree with the Examiner that a person of ordinary skill in the art would realize, upon receiving such an exception, that an error was made in serializing the object in the first production computer and would employ software fixes (such as the XML serializer) to alter the production and test processor-based systems to correct the errors detected in the deserializer. We therefore conclude that it would have been obvious to an artisan of ordinary skill that the combination of the cited prior art references teach or suggest the limitations of claim 1 reciting: [S]erializing ... data (from the production system) into an XML format; transmitting the XML-formatted data (to the test system); deserializing ... [and] processing the de-serialized data (on the test system); and altering (the production system or the Appeal 2012-003727 Application 12/835,055 9 test system) via software fixes as a function of the processing of the deserialized data on the (test system). App. Br. 11. We consequently affirm the Examiner’s rejection. DECISION The Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1, 2, 4–15, and 17–20 as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). AFFIRMED cdc Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation