Ex Parte Cote et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

May 31, 2012

09790283 (B.P.A.I. May. 31, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE
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.
09/790,283 02/22/2001 Remi Cote 40101/00901 7867
30636 7590 06/01/2012
FAY KAPLUN & MARCIN, LLP
150 BROADWAY, SUITE 702
NEW YORK, NY 10038
EXAMINER
VO, TED T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2191
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/01/2012 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte REMI COTE, DAVID SELLARS, MAARTEN KONING,
and KEVIN McCOMBE
____________

Appeal 2010-003650
Application 09/790,283
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, BRUCE R. WINSOR, and
BRIAN J. McNAMARA, Administrative Patent Judges.

McNAMARA, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
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SUMMARY
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1, 3-11, and 13. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6.
We affirm.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The invention relates to a method for adding information to a software
object. The method includes the steps of preparing the object to receive an
extension object. The extension object includes the information to be added
to the object. The step of preparing the object requires the object to expose
an interface which facilitates attachment of the extension object. The
method also includes attaching the extension object to the object during
runtime. The extension object directly exposes an extension interface to an
application program. Claim 1 is illustrative.
1. A method for adding information to an object, comprising the steps
of:

preparing the object to receive an extension object, the preparation
including the object exposing an interface which facilitates an attachment of
the extension object; and

attaching, during run-time, the extension object to the object, wherein
the extension object includes the information to be added to the object, and
wherein the extension object directly exposes an extension interface to an
application program.

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THE REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 3-11, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over U.S. Patent No. 6,108,661 (Caron).

ISSUES
Did the Examiner err in finding that Caron discloses preparing an
object to receive an extension object by exposing an interface which
facilitates attachment of the extension object?
Did the Examiner err in finding that Caron discloses attaching the
extension object during runtime and directly exposing the extension
interface to an application program?

CONTENTIONS
The Examiner finds that Caron teaches a method that provides
customization to an object by aggregating an extension to an extensible
object. (Ans. 3 (citing Caron, Fig. 3)). The Examiner notes that at column
6, lines 53-67, Caron discloses accomplishing the customization by using the
extension to add behavior, new interfaces, or new members and events.
(Ans. 3).
The Examiner finds that Fig. 2 of Caron shows an extensible object
(EO 22) exposing an interface PRIVATE IUNKNOWN 24 to extension
object EXTENSION 23 and attaching extension object EXTENSION 23 to
extensible object EO22 through extension interface PRIVATE IUNKNOWN
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24. (Ans. 4, 7, 9). The Examiner notes that Caron does not specifically
refer to EXTENSION 23 as an object, but discloses an EXTENSION
INSTANCE in Figure 4. (Ans. 6). The Examiner cites Caron’s disclosure
of instance customization at column 6, lines 39-50, emphasizing that Caron
discloses that “instance customization” seeks to combine a customizable
object (the Extensible Object in Caron) with a language engine object to
form the customized instance. (Ans. 6, 7, 9). The Examiner finds that the
claimed object and extension object would have been obvious over Caron’s
integration of an extensible object and an extension to form a customized
instance, since both extend object interfaces. (Ans. 6).
The Examiner also finds that Caron discloses directly exposing the
extension interface to an application program through IDispatch. (Ans. 7).
The Examiner notes that Caron describes IDispatch at column 5, lines 40-67,
as a standard COM interface and discloses directing the base pointer at
runtime using interfaces resulting from the aggregation of the extensible
object and the extension. (Ans. 7-8). Noting that the models shown in Figs.
2 and 3 are only functional descriptions, the Examiner relies on Fig. 4 to
show the customization occurring in runtime. (Ans. 5). The Examiner cites
the disclosure in Figure 4 of the runtime instance of class #403, the base
pointer, and the runtime instance of class #407 to disclose attaching the
extension object during runtime. (Ans. 6).
Appellants contend that the Examiner cites column 5, lines 40-67 to
demonstrate the step of preparing the object to receive an extension object,
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which includes the object exposing an interface to facilitate the attachment
of the extension object to the object. (App. Br. 4). Appellants emphasize
that column 5, lines 40-67, of Caron discloses that application programs
allow access to their services through interfaces exposed by their COM
objects. Therefore, a COM object exposes the interfaces of an application.
(App. Br. 4-5). Appellants add that the Examiner contends the COM object
disclosed in Caron meets the "object" of claim 1 (App. Br. 5) and argue that
if Caron’s COM object is the "object" of claim 1, then to meet the preparing
step in claim 1, the COM object must expose its own interface. (App. Br. 5).
Appellants contend that this is not the case because in Caron the COM
object is used to expose the interface of an application, which is a separate
entity that is not the COM object itself. (App. Br. 4).
Appellants also contend that when the Examiner states Caron uses the
interface Private IUnknown to attach to a component name EXTENSION,
the Examiner is also mapping the COM object described in Caron at column
5, lines 40-67 to the extension object. (App Br. 6). Appellants argue that
the COM object cannot be both the claimed object and the extension object.
(App. Br. 7). Appellants also argue that there is no basis in the cited passage
of Caron for concluding that a COM object is an object to which some other
object can be attached. (App. Br. 7). Appellants conclude that Caron
discloses a COM object attached to an Extension component. (Ans. 7).

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ANALYSIS
Appellants do not argue patentability of the claims separately. Stating
that claim 1 relates to the addition of information and claim 7 relates to the
addition of an extension object, Appellants note that “it is the manner in
which the final product is arrived which claim 1 is being presented and
under review.” (App. Br. 8). Thus, our analysis of claim 1 applies to all the
pending claims. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).
Appellants further state that all arguments presented “relate to this
manner of providing the result to which the Examiner is purporting to be
identical between Caron and the present invention.” (App. Br. 8). It is
unclear from these remarks if Appellants are arguing that Caron does not
anticipate the subject claims. However, it is clear from the Final Rejection
and Appellants’ responses that all parties understand that the appealed claim
rejections are obviousness rejections made under § 103(a) and not
anticipation rejections under § 102.
Caron teaches a system for instance customization. A system for
instance customization functions to provide the capability for a user to
change an object's behavior within an instance of the object in an application
program without changing the object's identity and without impacting other
users who have their own instances of the object. (Col. 1, ll. 17-22).
Appellants base a portion of their argument on the contention that the
Examiner maps both the claimed “object” and “extension object” to the
same COM object. (App. Br. 6-7). However, in the Final Rejection and in
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response to Appellants’ Brief, the Examiner clearly maps Caron’s extensible
object, EO 22, to the “object” in claim 1 and Caron’s EXTENSION 23 to the
“extension object” in claim 1 (Ans. 4, 8, 10). Appellants do not specifically
address the Examiner’s mapping, instead citing column 5, lines 40-67 of
Caron, which discloses application programs interacting through interfaces
exposed by COM objects.
Turning to Appellants’ contention that Caron provides no basis for
concluding that a COM object is an object to which some other object can be
attached (Ans. 7), we note first, that Appellants have not pointed to anything
in Caron indicating that a COM object is not an object to which some other
object can be attached. Appellants have only pointed to language in Caron
indicating that interaction in a standard manner among application programs
is enabled by COM objects used by those application programs and
“Application programs allow access to their services through interfaces
exposed by their COM objects.” See Caron, col. 5, ll. 48-50. More
importantly, Appellants’ claim 1is not limited to any particular type of
object. Claim 1 contains no language limiting the “object” or the “extension
object” in a way that would include or exclude COM objects. In fact,
Appellants disclose that the invention can be applied in any system whether
or not the system uses COM objects. Spec. 2, ll. 20-25.
Appellants have not demonstrated that the Examiner erred by
mapping Caron’s extensible object EO 22 to the claimed “object” and
Caron’s EXTENSION 23 to the claimed “extension object.” We note
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Caron’s disclosure at column 6, lines 49-52, included in a portion of Caron
cited by the Examiner (Ans. 6, 9):
Instance customization therefore seeks to combine
a customizable object (termed “Extensible Object”
herein) and a language engine object to form the
customized instance.
(emphasis added.)
Since Fig. 2 of Caron illustrates the Extensible Object 22 combined
with EXTENSION 23, and column 6, lines 49-52 of Caron disclose
combining the Extensible Object with a language engine object, we conclude
that the Examiner did not err in mapping EXTENSION 23 to the claimed
“extension object.” As noted by the Examiner, in Caron, pointer PRIVATE
UNKNOWN 24 attaches object EO 22 to extension object EXTENSION 23.
(Fig. 3). Appellants have not demonstrated that the Examiner erred in
mapping the claimed feature of the object exposing an interface that
facilitates attachment of the extension object.
Figure 3 of Caron shows IDispatch is an interface to EXTENSION 23,
which the Examiner has mapped to the claimed “extension object.” The
portion of Caron cited by Appellants, broadly states “the IDispatch interface
is used to expose an application program’s internal functions to other
software. IDispatch is a standard COM interface.” (Col. 5, ll. 58-60.) As
Appellants note, column 5, lines 41-67 disclose that application programs
interact in a standard manner enabled by COM objects through interfaces
exposed by those COM objects. Thus, Appellants have not demonstrated
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that the Examiner erred in finding that Caron shows an extension object
directly exposing an extension interface to an application program, as recited
in claim 1. (Ans. 7).
As previously noted, the Examiner makes clear that Caron discloses
two elements EO 22 and EXTENSION 23 combined or attached to be a
Customized Instance. (Ans. 10). The Examiner further notes that Fig. 4
explains how the customization is done at runtime. The Examiner finds that
in Fig. 4, the elements of EO (MY DOCUMENT) and the elements of
EXTENSION (MY TEMPLATE) are combined via the runtime instance of
classes. (Ans. 10). Having presented no evidence to the contrary,
Appellants have not demonstrated that the Examiner erred in finding that the
extension object containing the information to be added to the object is
attached to the object during runtime.

CONCLUSION
Appellants have not demonstrated that the Examiner erred in finding
that Caron discloses the steps recited in claim 1. Since Appellants did not
argue that claims 3-11 and 13 are patentable for other reasons, we affirm the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 3-11, and 13.

ORDER
The rejection of claims 1, 3-11, and 13 is affirmed.

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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).

AFFIRMED

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