Ex Parte Chatterjee et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

May 29, 2012

11291350 (B.P.A.I. May. 29, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte RAMKRISHNA CHATTERJEE and GOPALAN ARUN
____________

Appeal 2010-003467
Application 11/291,350
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JEAN R. HOMERE, and
CARL W. WHITEHEAD, JR., Administrative Patent Judges.

DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims
1-32.
1
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
The claimed invention is directed to defining and using a collaborative
workspace (see Spec. 9:18-19). Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of
the claimed subject matter:
1. A method of defining a workspace operable by a
collaboration group comprising:

defining a workspace indicative of users and services in a
collaboration environment;

extracting, from the defined workspace, a metadata
definition corresponding to the workspace; and

instantiating, from the extracted metadata definition, an
instantiated workspace having properties corresponding to the
defined workspace, the instantiated workspace having similar
services operable for further modification in the collaboration
environment.

REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Robertson US 2002/0173984 A1 Nov. 21, 2002

1
Appellants do not include the rejection of claims 3, 8, 12, 14, 18, and 23 in
the “Grounds of Rejection to be Reviewed on Appeal” (see App. Br. 14).
However, in the “CONCLUSION,” Appellants assert that “[t]he rejection of
claims 1-32 should be reversed” (App. Br. 15-28). Further, the Notice of
Appeal does not limit the appeal to certain claims. Accordingly, we treat the
rejections of all claims 1-32 as being appealed.
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Spataro

Pham

US 2006/0053380 A1

US 2006/0242626 A1

Mar. 9, 2006
(filed Nov. 15, 2004)
Oct. 26, 2006
(filed Apr. 21, 2005)

REJECTIONS
Claims 1-5, 8-10, 25, 26, 31and 32 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e) as being anticipated by Spataro.
Claims 6, 7, 11-24, and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Spataro and Robertson.
Claims 28-30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Spataro, Robertson, and Pham.

ANALYSIS
The Anticipation Rejection
Appellants contend that the Examiner improperly relies on implicit
disclosure in Spataro to reject claims 1 and 2 as anticipated (App. Br. 15-
16). Appellants also contend that the Examiner failed to establish a prima
facie case by not responding to Appellants‟ request for more particular
citations to the references (App. Br. 16). Appellants further contend that the
Examiner incorrectly uses the phrase “reads on” to reject claims 1, 2, 10, 15,
and 31 (App. Br. 17-18). These arguments are not persuasive of error in the
Examiner‟s findings for the following reasons. First, the Examiner finds that
“Spataro teaches (§ 58 [¶ 58]; Fig. 1B) a method of defining a workspace
operable by a collaboration group comprising . . . extracting, from the
defined workspace, a metadata definition . . . [and] instantiating, from the
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extracted metadata definition, an instantiated workspace” (Ans. 3).
Although the Examiner also finds that “Spataro implicitly teaches extracting
a metadata definition and instantiating a workspace” (Ans. 4), Appellants
have not argued why the cited portion of Spataro fails to explicitly teach
these features, aside from Spataro‟s implicit teachings (see App. Br. 15-16).
Appellants‟ Reply Brief arguments regarding inherency (Reply Br. 3-4) are
unavailing because the Examiner‟s rejection of claims 1 and 2 is not based
on an inherency rationale (see Ans. 3-4). Second, whether the Examiner
responded to Appellants‟ request for more particular findings is not relevant
to our review. We review the appealed rejections based on the record before
us, including the Examiner‟s actual findings. Further, despite whether the
Examiner‟s use of the phrase “reads on” in the Final Office Action is
grammatically correct, the Examiner‟s intent clearly was to perform a
mapping between the claimed limitations and certain portions of Spataro‟s
disclosure (see Ans. 3-8).
Appellants additionally contend that Spataro fails to disclose each and
every element of claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 9, 10, 25, 26, 31, and 32 (App. Br. 18-22).
We are not persuaded by Appellants‟ arguments for the reasons discussed
below.

Claim 1
Appellants contend that Spataro fails to disclose “a metadata
definition corresponding to the workspace” (App. Br. 19). Appellants,
however, do not specifically explain why Spataro fails disclose this
limitation (see id.). We are thus not persuaded of error in the Examiner‟s
finding that Spataro‟s place data is a metadata definition of a workspace (see
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Ans. 3-4, 16-17; Spataro, ¶¶ 0058, 0079-82; Fig. 1B). Further, Appellants‟
argument that Spataro does not “teach how the templates are created [or] any
details of how the templates are used” (App. Br. 19) is unavailing because
claim 1 does not recite “templates,” let alone the details of creating and
using templates. To the extent that Appellants seek to define the claimed
“metadata definition” as a template, claim 1 does not specify how the
metadata definition is extracted or how the workspace is instantiated from
the extracted metadata definition. Additionally, Appellants‟ teaching away
argument (App. Br. 19) is not persuasive because it references another
application on appeal that includes different claims, and in any case,
teaching away is not relevant to anticipation.
We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
independent claim 1, as well as independent claims 25 and 26 not separately
argued with specificity, which we group with claim 1. The rejection of
dependent claim 8, which is not separately argued, is also sustained for the
above reasons.

Claim 2
Appellants contend that Spataro fails to disclose “parsing the metadata
definition” (App. Br. 19). However, Appellants do not specifically explain
why Spataro fails to disclose this feature (see id.). Thus, we are not
persuaded of error in the Examiner‟s finding that Spataro‟s use of payload
data, including a place identifier, to access a pre-existing collaboration place
meets the limitation “parsing the metadata definition” (see Ans. 4, 18;
Spataro, ¶ 0062). Additionally, Appellants‟ argument—that Spataro‟s
paragraph 0062 “describes the general functionality of a common network,
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which is well-known in the art” (Reply Br. 4-5)—is unavailing. This
argument fails to address Spataro‟s specific description of generating data
messages that include “payload data (e.g., data relevant to a request 138 to
establish a new place or access a pre-existing place, such as a place identifier
for the pre-existing place)” (Spataro, ¶ 0062).
We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claim 2, and claim 3 which depends therefrom and is not separately argued.

Claim 4
Appellants contend that Spataro does not disclose storing modified
data in a referenced application object (App. Br. 20). However, Appellants
do not specifically explain why Spataro fails to disclose this feature (see id.).
Thus, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner‟s finding that Spataro
discloses collaboration place interfaces, i.e., “applications,” and storing
modified data for the collaboration place in data files, i.e., “application
objects” (see Ans. 5-6; Spataro, ¶ 0083). Spataro specifically discloses that
the data files can be “object files” (Spataro, ¶ 0083). Therefore, we are not
persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 4.

Claim 5
Appellants contend that Spataro does not disclose storing attributes in
a relational table having references to the data in the corresponding
application (App. Br. 20). However, Appellants do not explain why Spataro
fails to disclose this feature (see id.). Rather, Appellants assert that “Spataro
does not appear to reference data in (corresponding) applications,” (see id.)
without specifically addressing the Examiner‟s finding that Spataro discloses
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“a database may be associated with the collaboration of the clients in the
collaboration place” and “objects related to a place can be stored and
accessed from the collaboration place” (Ans. 6; Spataro, ¶ 0016). Further,
Spataro discloses that the database “can include tables and/or other types of
data structures” (Spataro, ¶ 0073). Therefore, we are not persuaded that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claim 5.

Claim 9
Appellants contend that “the „socket‟ in Spataro Fig. 2D cited by the
Examiner is not the equivalent of Appellants‟ adaptor and does not allow the
workspace to control the application” (App. Br. 20-21). However, as the
Examiner responds, the after-final amendment to claim 9 was not entered
(Ans. 18). Thus, appealed claim 9 does not include the limitation “allow the
workspace to control the application.” Further, Appellants have not
specifically explained why the claimed “adaptor” is different than Spataro‟s
socket (see App. Br. 20-21), which the Examiner finds allows
communication between applications managers (Spataro‟s software
application programs 108 residing on the server) and respective applications
(see Ans. 6-7; Spataro, Figs. 1A, 2D). Additionally, Appellants‟ argument
that Spataro‟s software application programs 108 are not in communication
with respective applications via the sockets (Reply Br. 5-6) is not persuasive.
Spataro discloses that the software application programs 108 on the server
can communicate with software application programs 104 on various clients
(Spataro, ¶¶ 0015, 0062, Fig. 1A). This communication is enabled by
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sockets connecting the server to the various clients (Spataro, ¶ 0097, Fig.
2D). We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claim 9.

Claim 10
Appellants contend that Spataro does not disclose mapping references
in a workspace to respective services and that the workspace does not store
data (App. Br. 21). However, Appellants do not specifically explain why
Spataro fails to disclose mapping references in a workspace to respective
services (see id.). Thus, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in
finding that Spataro‟s place data, including place interface data files, meets
this limitation (see Ans. 7; Spataro, ¶¶ 0079-81; Fig. 1B). Further, the
Examiner finds that user data in Spataro can be stored in a database local to
a client running applications, that is, not stored with the workspace (see Ans.
7, 19-20; Spataro, ¶ 0073). Although Appellants argue that Spataro‟s Figure
1A shows User Data 142 and Place Data 144 stored in a single database 150,
Appellants do not specifically address the Examiner‟s finding that the user
data can be stored separately at the client (see App. Br. 21). Therefore, we
are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 10.

Claim 31
Regarding claim 31, “Appellants fail to see how Spataro paragraph
[0014] . . . teaches instantiating a new workspace and subsequently
modifying it to provide a second different workspace” (App. Br. 21-22).
However, “[a] statement which merely points out what a claim recites will
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not be considered an argument for separate patentability of the claim.” 37
C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2010). We are therefore not persuaded that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claim 31.

Claim 32
Appellants contend that Spataro does not anticipate the recited
limitations of claim 32 (App. Br. 22). However, Appellants do not
specifically explain why the cited portion of Spataro fails to disclose the
recited features (see id.). We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner
erred in rejecting claim 32.

The Obviousness Rejection over Spataro and Robertson
Claim 6
Appellants contend that neither Spataro nor Robertson disclose
writing a hierarchical script as recited in claims 6 (App. Br. 22-23).
However, Appellants do not specifically address the Examiner‟s finding that
Robertson‟s XML template is a hierarchical script (see Ans. 8-9, 20). We
therefore are not persuaded of error in the Examiner‟s rejection of claim 6.

Claim 7
Appellants contend, as with respect to claim 6, that the Examiner fails
to point to any teaching of a hierarchical script in the cited references (App.
Br. 23). Appellants also contend that the Examiner has not identified a
reason to combine the references (Id.). However, Appellants neither address
the Examiner‟s finding that Robertson‟s XML template is a hierarchical
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script, nor the Examiner‟s stated reason for combining Robertson with
Spataro (Ans. 8-9, 20-21). We therefore are not persuaded of error in the
Examiner‟s rejection of claim 7 which depends upon claim 6.

Claim 11
Regarding claim 11, “Appellants do not understand the Examiner‟s
rejection of claim 11 since claim 11 does not appear to include the same
limitations as in claim 6. Furthermore, none of claims 1-10 recites a
„template‟ as in claim 11” (App. Br. 24). However, Appellants do not
specifically explain why the Examiner‟s findings regarding claims 1 and 6
(Ans. 3-4, 8-9, 16-17, 20) do not show that claim 11 would have been
obvious. That is, Appellants‟ do not specifically explain why the cited
portions of Spataro relied on with respect to claims 1 and 6 do not also teach
the features of claim 11, despite the differences in claim language.
We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claim 11, and claim 12 which depends therefrom and is not separately
argued.

Claim 13
Appellants contend that Spataro‟s sockets do not teach the claimed
“adaptors,” and that the Examiner has not identified where either Spataro or
Robertson teaches “identifying a collaborative solution pattern” (App. Br.
24). However, Appellants do not specifically explain why the claimed
“adaptors” are different than Spataro‟s sockets (see id.). Further, regarding
“identifying a collaborative solution pattern,” the Examiner refers to the
rejection of claim 6, which recited a similar limitation (see Ans. 22).
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Appellants have not specifically explained why the cited portions of Spataro
and Robertson relied on for claim 6 does not also teach the argued limitation
of claim 13. Additionally, Appellants‟ Reply Brief arguments regarding
inherency (Reply Br. 7) are unavailing because the Examiner‟s rejection of
claim 13 is not based on an inherency rationale (see Ans. 3-10).
We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claim 13, and claim 14 which depends therefrom and is not separately
argued.

Claim 15
Appellants contend that Spataro does not disclose “evolving the
workspace in a template evolution workspace” (App. Br. 24-25). However,
Appellants do not specifically explain why Spataro‟s template escalation
sequence, which can involve cumulatively linking two saved templates to
provide a template combining the features of both templates (Spataro, ¶
0175), does not disclose the argued limitation. We therefore are not
persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 15.

Claim 16
Appellants contend that the Examiner‟s finding that Spataro and
Robertson disclose using an XML format document does not teach a “script
processor operable to extract, from the defined workspace, a metadata
definition corresponding to the workspace” (App. Br. 25). However,
Appellants do not specifically explain any error in the Examiner‟s finding
that “a system cannot use (process) XML formatted document without
having an XML parser” (Ans. 24).
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We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claim 16, and claims 17-24 which depend therefrom and are not separately
argued.

Claim 27
Appellants contend that Spataro does not disclose “instantiating using
values provided by the user at the time of template instantiation” because
Spataro‟s user supplied parameters are used for accessing an existing place,
“i.e., not at template instantiation time” (App. Br. 26). However, this
argument overlooks the Examiner‟s finding that accessing an existing
template involves instantiating the template (see Ans. 12; Spataro, ¶ 0111).
That is, Appellants do not specifically explain why accessing an existing
template does not involve instantiating the template. We are therefore not
persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 27.

The Obviousness Rejection over Spataro, Robertson, and Pham
Claim 28
Appellants contend that Pham‟s dynamic parameter does not
necessarily include temporal information (App. Br. 27). However, although
the Examiner cites Pham specifically, the rejection of claim 28 is based on
the collective teachings of Spataro, Robertson, and Pham (see Ans. 12-13).
Spataro discloses using time stamps to display a place as it existed at a
specified time (Spataro, ¶ 0296). Accordingly, we are not persuaded that the
Examiner erred in finding claim 28 obvious over this combination of
references.

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Claim 29
Appellants contend that the “Examiner failed to cite any reference that
teaches the limitation ʻ referencing out-of-line content in a nonsequential
manner for partitioning large memory allocationsʼ ” (App. Br. 27).
However, the Examiner finds that Spataro, Robertson, and Pham disclose the
limitations of claim 29 (Ans. 14, 25-26). Absent argument or evidence as to
why this combination fails to disclose the argued limitation (see App. Br.
27), we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 29.

Claim 30
Appellants contend that Pham‟s “overriding a single configuration
setting is not the same as overriding „template information at template
instantiation timeʼ ” (App. Br. 28). However, Appellants do not specifically
explain why the cited disclosure in Pham, in combination with Spataro and
Robertson, fails to disclose the argued limitation. We are therefore not
persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 30.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
Under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e), the Examiner did not err in rejecting claims
1-5, 8-10, 25, 26, 31, and 32. Under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), the Examiner did
not err in rejecting claims 6, 7, 11-24, and 27-30.

DECISION
For the above reasons, we affirm the rejections of claims 1-32.
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No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). See 37
C.F.R. § 41.50(f).

AFFIRMED

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