12350138 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 22, 2014)

Ex Parte Chen et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 22, 2014

12350138 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 22, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte LIANG CHEN, JOSHUA NEIL NOVAK, ROD D. WALTERMANN, and YI ZHOU ____________ Appeal 2012-003285 Application 12/350,138 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before HUBERT C. LORIN, ANTON W. FETTING, and BIBHU R. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judges. MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final rejection of claims 1–8, 10–15, and 17–22, which are all the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). SUMMARY OF THE DECISION We AFFIRM. Appeal 2012-003285 Application 12/350,138 2 THE INVENTION The Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to configuring an operating system on a target computer (Spec. para. 1). Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing a computer readable program for configuring an operating system on a target computer, wherein the computer readable program when executed on at least one computer causes the at least one computer to: configure a target computer as a diskless client; boot the target computer to a setup state; establish communications between the target computer, a donor storage device of a donor computer, and a virtual disk; copy a configuration image from the donor storage device to the virtual disk, the configuration image comprising an operating system and a software configuration installed on the donor computer; and modify the configuration image on the virtual disk to conform to a hardware configuration of the target computer by creating an injection scheme comprising device drivers and changes to an operating system registry to conform to the target computer and copying the injection scheme to the virtual disk. THE REJECTIONS The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Fassold US 2003/0088650 A1 May 8, 2003 Thomsen US 6,675,234 B1 Jan. 6, 2004 Oshima US 2004/0111641 A1 June 10, 2004 Burkhardt US 2005/0050539 A1 Mar. 3, 2005 McMillan US 2005/0076326 A1 Apr. 7, 2005 Springfield US 2008/0244096 A1 Oct. 2, 2008 Appeal 2012-003285 Application 12/350,138 3 The following rejections are before us for review: 1. Claims 1–8, 10, 13–15, 17, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Fassod, Oshima, Burkhardt, and McMillan. 2. Claims 20–22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Fassold, Oshima, Burkhardt, McMillan, and Thomsen. 3. Claims 11, 12, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Fassod, Oshima, Burkhardt, McMillan, and Springfield. FINDINGS OF FACT We have determined that the findings of fact in the Analysis section below are supported at least by a preponderance of the evidence1. ANALYSIS The Appellants argue that the rejection of claim 1 is improper because the prior art fails to disclose the claim limitation requiring “creating an injection scheme comprising device drivers and changes to an operating system registry to conform to the target computer” (App. Br. 10–14, Reply Br. 4–5). In contrast, the Examiner has determined that the cited claim limitation drawn to “device drivers” is shown by Burkhardt at paragraphs 26–29, 39, 40, 45, 46, and 66 (Ans. 7, 23). The Examiner has determined that the argued claim limitations drawn to “changes to an operating system registry” are shown by Burkhardt at paragraphs 26, 39, and 46 as well as by McMillan at paragraphs 18 and 24 (id. at 8, 28–33). 1See Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the Patent Office). Appeal 2012-003285 Application 12/350,138 4 We agree with the Examiner. In claim 1 the cited claim limitation for “creating an injection scheme comprising device drivers and changes to an operating system registry to conform to the target computer” first requires that injection scheme include device drivers. Burkhardt at paragraph 39 discloses that the bill of materials (BOM) can include customization information and hardware information. Burkhardt at paragraph 40 discloses that the hardware information can include features such as a default printer and what specific hardware to install at boot time. Here, one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that installing hardware at a particular boot time would have included installing device drivers, otherwise the system could not use the installed hardware. Regardless, such a modification to install the device drivers for the hardware would have been readily obvious and within the skill of ordinary skill in the art to have the hardware be able to be used. In KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) the Court stated that when considering obviousness that “the analysis need not seek out precise teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ.” KSR at 418. Further, in Burkhardt the use of installing such a device driver would necessarily also result in changes to the operating system registry of preferences, and the rejection of claim 1 is therefore sustained. The Appellants have also argued that the rejection of claim 21 is improper (App. Br. 15–18, Reply Br. 5). Claim 21 is drawn to the changes in the operating system registry comprising settings of the control panel, file associations, and system policies. The Examiner has cited to this as being disclosed by Thomsen at column 5, lines 16–30, which does disclose the Appeal 2012-003285 Application 12/350,138 5 registry storing these specific claimed setting features. Here, the cited combination would have been obvious to have the target computer have those features installed as well resulting in changing the registry as claimed. For this reason the rejection of claim 21 is sustained. The Appellants have provided the same arguments for the remaining claims and the rejection of these claims is sustained for the same reasons given above. CONCLUSIONS OF LAW We conclude that Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting the claims as listed in the Rejections section above. DECISION The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1–8, 10–15, and 17–22 are 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). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED hh