Ex Parte Braun et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 9, 2018

14490257 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 9, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
14/490,257 09/18/2014
50400 7590 07/11/2018
SCHWEGMAN LUNDBERG & WOESSNER/SAP
P.O. BOX 2938
MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55402
Matthias Braun
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.
2058.979US 1 2110
EXAMINER
PATEL, JIGAR P
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2114
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/11/2018 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):
uspto@slwip.com
SLW@blackhillsip.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MATTHIAS BRAUN, DIETRICH MOSTOWOJ,
RALF SCHMELTER, JOHANNES SCHEERER,
STEFFEN SCHREIBER, THOMAS KLINK, and
MICHAEL WINTERGERST
Appeal 2017-011034
Application 14/490,257
Technology Center 2100
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, CATHERINE SHIANG, and
JASON M. REPKO, Administrative Patent Judges.
DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2017-011034
Application 14/490,257
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § I34(a) from a rejection of
claims 1, 4--11, and 14--20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
The claims are directed to a thread dump viewer. Claim 1, reproduced
below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method comprising:
accessing information for a plurality of threads in a thread
dump generated during an execution of an application;
causing presentation of information for each thread of the
plurality of threads in a table on a display device;
detecting a user interaction with information for a thread
of the plurality of threads;
responsive to the user interaction, causing presentation, for
the thread, of a stack trace that includes an indication that the
thread is blocked on a lock object locked by a blocking thread;
and
responsive to a user interaction with the indication,
causing, by a processor of a machine, presentation of information
for the blocking thread.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Hwang
Dice
Rochette et al.
US 2007/0220513 Al
US 7,594,234 B 1
US 2011/0252407 Al
Sept. 20, 2007
Sept. 22, 2009
Oct. 13, 2011
1 According to Appellants the real party in interest is SAP SE.
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Application 14/490,257
REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1, 4, 5, 8-11, 14, 15, and 18-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Hwang in view of Dice.
Claims 6, 7, 16, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Hwang in view of Dice and further in view of Rochette.
ANALYSIS
The Examiner maintains, in the grounds of the rejection, that the
Hwang reference discloses a stack trace is for threads that are monitored and
presentation of information on a display for each of the threads and
presentation of information for a blocking thread. (Final Act. 3--4). The
Examiner further maintains that Hwang discloses stack traces that are hung
through a graphical user interface, but the Hwang reference fails to explicitly
disclose an indication that the thread is blocked on a lock object, and the
Examiner relies upon the Dice reference for this limitation. (Final Act. 4 ).
Appellants contend that none of the prior art references teach or
suggest the claimed limitation "detecting a user interaction with information
for a thread of the plurality of threads." (App. Br. 10). Appellants further
contend that none of the prior art references teach or suggest the claimed
limitation "responsive to a user interaction with the indication, causing ...
presentation of information for the blocking thread." (App. Br. 10).
Appellants argue that none of the prior art references teach or suggest the
claimed limitation of "responsive to the user interaction, causing
presentation, for the thread, of a stack trace that includes an indication that
the thread is blocked on a lock object locked by a blocked thread." (App.
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Application 14/490,257
Br. 11 ). Additionally, Appellants argue that none of the prior art references
teach or suggest the claimed limitation of "responsive to a user interaction
with the indication, causing . . . presentation of information for the blocking
thread." (App. Br. 12).
The Examiner generally attempts to show that the Hwang reference
teaches and suggests the claimed limitations with new citations to
paragraphs 31 and 51-53 in addition to reliance upon paragraphs 8 and 9
Hwang from the Final Action. (Ans. 3-5).
The Reply Brief restates the arguments and addresses the Examiner's
new citations to show that each of the limitations are taught or suggested by
the combination of the Hwang and Dice references.
We agree with Appellants that the Hwang reference does not teach or
suggest interaction with the claimed "information" and the claimed
"indication." While the Examiner attempts to reconstruct the claimed
sequence of steps and the general functions performed to ultimately interact
with the displayed information, the Examiner's prior art references do not
teach or suggest interacting with the information presented on the screen in
the graphical user interface, but do suggest interaction with the graphical
user interface command line, which is different than interacting with the
information and indication presented in the graphical user interface and
would not teach or suggest the claimed sequence of steps as recited in the
language of independent claim 1 without additional prior art teachings
evidencing direct interaction with the information in the GUI, which
provides a link to further data rather than a command line type interface.
For example, the Hwang reference discloses:
Generally, shell 140 is a program that provides an interpreter and
an interface between the user and the operating system. More
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Appeal2017-011034
Application 14/490,257
specifically, shell 140 executes commands that are entered into a
command line user interface or from a file .... The shell provides
a system prompt, interprets commands entered by keyboard,
mouse, or other user input media, and sends the interpreted
command(s) to the appropriate lower levels of the operating
system ( e.g., a kernel 142) for processing. Note that while shell
140 is a text-based, line-oriented user interface, the present
invention will equally well support other user interface modes,
such as graphical, voice, gestural, etc.
(Hwang ,r 31 ). While mentioning a command entered by a mouse or other
user input media, the Hwang reference does not specifically teach or suggest
direct interaction with the displayed information/indication and specifically
identifies that the shell 140 is a text-based line oriented user interface, rather
than a more flexible graphical user interface where the information provides
additional linkages to further details. As a result, we cannot sustain the
rejection of obviousness rejection of independent claim 1 based upon the
applied combination of prior art references.
Independent claims 11 and 20 contain similar limitations, which the
Examiner has not shown to be taught or suggested by the combination of
Hwang and Dice, and we cannot sustain the obviousness rejection based
upon the applied combination of prior art references.
With respect to dependent claims 4, 5, 8-10, 14, 15, 18, and 19, we
cannot sustain the rejection for the reasons discussed above with respect to
the parent independent claims 1, 11, and 20.
With respect to dependent claims 6, 7, 16, and 1 7, the Examiner has
not identified how the additional teachings of the Rochette reference remedy
the noted deficiency above. Therefore, we cannot sustain the rejection of
claims 6, 7, 16, and 17 based upon the above noted deficiency.
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Application 14/490,257
CONCLUSION
The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 4--11, and 14--20 based
upon obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
DECISION
For the above reasons, we reverse the Examiner's obviousness
rejection of claims 1, 4--11, and 14--20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
REVERSED
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