Ex Parte Daum et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 16, 201411848063 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 16, 2014) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE 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. 11/848,063 08/30/2007 Andreas Daum 6741P128 3162 8791 7590 09/16/2014 BLAKELY SOKOLOFF TAYLOR & ZAFMAN 1279 Oakmead Parkway Sunnyvale, CA 94085-4040 EXAMINER SAEED, USMAAN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2169 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/16/2014 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 PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte ANDREAS DAUM, WOLFGANG WALTER, MORITZ THOMAS, and JACEK ZUBER ____________________ Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 Technology Center 2100 ____________________ Before JEAN R. HOMERE, ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, and HUNG H. BUI, Administrative Patent Judges. BUI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING Appellants1 have filed a Request for Rehearing under 37 C.F.R. § 41.52 for reconsideration of our Decision on Appeal mailed April 25, 2014 (“Decision”). In that Decision,2 we affirmed, inter alia, the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1–3, 5–7, 9, 11–14, and 16–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Kaminsky et al. (US 2007/0143477 A1, published June 21, 2007). We have considered the arguments presented by Appellants 1 The Real Party in Interest is SAP AG. 2 Our Decision also refers to Appellants’ Appeal Brief filed March 7, 2011 (“App. Br.”); Reply Brief filed June 9, 2011 (“Reply Br.”); Examiner’s Answer mailed April 11, 2011 (“Ans.”); and original Specification filed August 30, 2007 (“Spec.”). Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 2 in the Request for Rehearing (“Req. Reh’g”), but we are not persuaded that any points were misapprehended or overlooked by the Board in issuing the Decision. We have provided herein additional clarification in further support of our decision, but decline to change our decision in view of Appellants’ arguments. BACKGROUND Appellants’ invention relates to a method and system to manage and control access to shared resources (e.g., document, application, module, business logic, a business object or similar resource) through a master lock in a service-oriented architecture environment (e.g., distributed network environment). Spec. ¶¶ [0013], [0031]. Independent claims 1, 12, and 19 are illustrative of Appellants’ invention, as reproduced below with disputed limitations emphasized: 1. A method comprising: receiving a request for a lock to a resource in a service-oriented architecture from a first system, the request including a universal unique identifier (UUID); and granting the lock statelessly to the first system with the UUID as a key to the lock. 12. A non-transitory machine readable medium having instructions stored therein, which when executed, cause a machine to perform a set of operations comprising: receiving a first request for a lock of a business object in service-oriented architecture; granting the lock statelessly to a requestor with a key based on an identifier in the first request; and sending the lock to the requestor. Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 3 19. A system comprising: a processor; a business object representing a business resource in a service- oriented architecture; and a master lock component to statelessly manage access to the business object in response to a request for access by a system, the master lock component to supply a lock having a key derived from a universal unique identifier (UUID) of the system, the UUID supplied as part of the request. App. Br. (Appendix.) The dispositive issue on appeal was whether the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1–3, 5–7, 9, 11–14, and 16–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Kaminsky. In particular, the principal dispute appeal turned on the meaning of the claim terms “service-oriented architecture” and “universally unique identifier” (UUID). App. Br. 8–9; Reply Br. 4–6. The claim terms “service-oriented architecture” and “universal unique identifier (UUID)” are not expressly defined in Appellants’ claims or Appellants’ Specification. However, Appellants’ Specification broadly describes “a service-oriented architecture” as a distributed network environment that provides modular business logic that is presented as a service to clients, including, for example, a messaging system that facilitates inter-application communication and utilizes universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) to identify the originating application or system for each message. See Spec. ¶ [0031]. According to Appellants’ Specification, the term “universal unique identifier (UUID)” refers to a component of such an enterprise service-oriented architecture messaging. Id. at ¶ [0019]. Nevertheless, Appellants’ Specification is not limited thereto and is inclusive of any type of identifier supplied by a requesting system, such as a Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 4 uniform resource locator (URL). Id. at ¶ [0020]. Appellants’ Specification further describes: The UUID can be a 128 bit identifier in compliance with RFC 4122 or similar standards. Many legacy systems include support for UUID or may be utilized or modified such that a UUID can be incorporated into them easily or added to them easily. In other embodiments, any type of identifier such as a uniform resource locator (URL) could be used to signify operational success. The unique identifier can be any value, string or similar data format. Spec. ¶ [0020] (emphasis added.) RFC 4122 is an abbreviation of Request for Comments: 4122 issued by the Network Working Group (NWG) of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that specifies an Internet protocol standardized by the Open Software Foundation (OSF) as part of the Distributed Computing Environment (DEC). The term “universal unique identifier (UUID)” is defined by Wikipedia as: “an identifier standard used in software construction, standardized by the Open Software Foundation (OSF) as part of the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE).” App. Br. 19, Evidence Appendix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier.). According to Wikipedia, a UUID is a 16-byte (128-bit) number. Wikipedia, p. 1. The term “service-oriented architecture (SOA)” is described by Wikipedia as: “a flexible set of design principles used during the phases of systems development and integration in computing.” App. Br. 19, Evidence Appendix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service-oriented_architecture.). However, Wikipedia also acknowledges that SOA also has multiple and Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 5 different definitions according to different groups. For example, according to OASIS, the term “service-oriented architecture (SOA)” is defined as: “A paradigm for organizing and utilizing distributed capabilities that may be under the control of different ownership domains. It provides a uniform means to offer, discover, interact with and use capabilities to produce desired effects consistent with measurable preconditions and expectations.” Wikipedia, p. 8. On appeal, Appellants argued: (1) the claim terms “service-oriented architecture” and “universal unique identifier (UUID)” have a particular meaning in the art as defined by Wikipedia and, based on those Wikipedia definitions, should be distinguishable over Kaminsky because Kaminsky only discloses the use of a unique identifier, and not Appellants’ claimed “universal unique identifier (UUID);” and (2) the unique identifier of Kaminsky is not supplied as part of the request and that the unique identifier is not of a universal unique identifier (UUID) type as recited in Appellants’ claim 1. Id. The Examiner did not address Appellants’ proffered definition of the disputed terms; instead, the Examiner broadly interpreted the claim term “service-oriented architecture” as encompassing Kaminsky’s request for a lock to a resource which is a service provided by a server to external client applications, via client devices. Ans. 4, 9 (citing Kaminsky ¶¶ [0022], [0027]–[0028] and [0038], FIG. 2 and FIG. 5 “where a server services requests from multiple clients”). Likewise, the Examiner has broadly interpreted the claim term “universally unique identifier (UUID)” as encompassing a unique identifier included in the request to identify the Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 6 client in order to lock a resource, as described by Kaminsky. Id. (citing Kaminsky ¶¶ [0031]–[0034].) The Examiner also found the unique identifier of Kaminsky is received as part of the request. Id. at 9 (citing Kaminsky ¶¶ [0031]–[0034].) Based on the record including Appellants’ written description of these disputed terms in Appellants’ own Specification, the Board concluded the Examiner’s interpretation of these disputed terms is reasonable and consistent with Appellants’ own Specification. Because the Examiner’s interpretation of the disputed claimed terms is reasonable and consistent with Appellants’ own Specification, the Board considered but declined to accept and import Appellants proffered Wikipedia definitions into the claims. Decision 7–8. Based on the Examiner’s interpretation of the disputed claimed terms, and the Examiner’s finding that the unique identifier of Kaminsky is part of the request, the Board affirmed the Examiner’s findings that Kaminsky discloses a “service-oriented architecture,” “UUID,” and “UUID as a key to the lock” in the manner recited in Appellants’ independent claim 1. Id. ANALYSIS 37 C.F.R. § 41.52 states in relevant part: The request for rehearing must state with particularity the points believed to have been misapprehended or overlooked by the Board. Arguments not raised, and Evidence not previously relied upon, pursuant to §§ 41.37, 41.41, or 41.47 are not permitted in the request for rehearing except as permitted by paragraphs (a)(2) [i.e., based upon a recent relevant decision of either the Board or a Federal Court] through (a)(4) [i.e., responding to a new ground of rejection made pursuant to § 41.50(b)] of this section. Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 7 37 C.F.R. § 41.52(a)(1). The standard for rehearing is whether the Board has misapprehended or overlooked any points or arguments raised by Appellants. In this case, Appellants request a rehearing not on the basis of any points believed to have been misapprehended or overlooked by the Board, but on the basis of their continuing disagreement regarding the meaning of the claim terms “service-oriented architecture” and “universal unique identifier (UUID)” as found in our Decision as applied to Kaminsky. Req. Reh’g 2–3. In particular, Appellants allege the Board committed a number of errors regarding claim construction that necessitate a reversal of the final rejection of claims 1–3, 5–7, 9, 11–14, and 16–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Kaminsky. For example, Appellants argue: (1) a unique identifier as disclosed by Kaminsky cannot be construed to anticipate Appellants’ claimed “universally unique identifier (UUID);” (2) the disputed terms such as “universally unique identifier” and “service-oriented architecture” have industry-understood definitions, at the time the application was filed, and, as such, Appellants were entitled to rely on those definitions without explicitly defining them within the Specification; and (3) the Board has neglected to follow the “broadest reasonable interpretation” standard in interpreting both the disputed terms “universally unique identifier” and “service-oriented architecture,” neither of which are disclosed (or even suggested) by Kaminsky. Id. At the outset, we note Appellants have failed to identify arguments previously raised in the Briefs that we may have misapprehended or overlooked in the Decision. We fully considered Appellants’ proffered Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 8 definitions of the disputed terms based on Wikipedia, but we nonetheless found the Examiner’s interpretation of these disputed terms was reasonable and consistent with Appellants’ own Specification and was sufficient regardless of Appellants’ proffered definitions based on Wikipedia. Decision 8. Nevertheless, in the interest of expedition and completeness, we address Appellants’ arguments raised in the Rehearing Request, and modify the original Decision as follows: First, we must iterate the fundamental rule of claim construction - that claim terms are given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2004). As correctly noted by Appellants, such claim terms are “given their ordinary and customary meaning” as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. See Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312–13 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc). However, it is the use of the words in the context of the written description and customarily by those skilled in the relevant art that accurately reflects both the “ordinary” and the “customary” meaning of the terms in the claims. Ferguson Beauregard/Logic Controls, Div. of Dover Res., Inc. v. Mega Sys., LLC, 350 F.3d 1327, 1338 (Fed. Cir. 2003). The claims, of course, do not stand alone. Rather, they are part of a fully integrated written instrument, consisting principally of a specification that concludes with the claims. For that reason, claims must be read in view of the specification . . . . [T]he specification is always highly relevant to the claim construction analysis. Usually, it is dispositive; it is the single best guide to the meaning of a disputed term. Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 9 Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1321 (citations omitted). In other words, Appellants’ own Specification is dispositive and is the best guide to the meaning of disputed terms. The broadest reasonable meaning of disputed terms is “their ordinary usage as they would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, taking into account whatever enlightenment by way of definitions or otherwise that may be afforded by the written description contained in the applicant’s specification.” In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (emphasis added). The Federal Circuit has also emphasized the use of intrinsic evidence, i.e., specification and prosecution history, as the primary source of identifying the “ordinary and customary meaning” of a claim term. Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1313–18. Only if ambiguities still exist, then extrinsic evidence, such as dictionary or Wikipedia definitions and technical references as well as expert witness testimony may be considered. The Federal Circuit has viewed “extrinsic evidence in general as less reliable than the patent and its prosecution history in determining how to read claim terms, for several reasons” including, for example, “there is a virtually unbounded universe of potential extrinsic evidence of some marginal relevance that could be brought to bear on any claim construction question.” Id. at 1318. In the instant appeal, and as previously noted, both the claim terms “service-oriented architecture” and “universal unique identifier (UUID)” were not expressly defined in Appellants’ own Specification. However, Appellants’ Specification provides sufficient written description to guide both the Examiner and the Board as to the meaning of these disputed terms. For example, Appellants’ own Specification describes “a service-oriented Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 10 architecture” as a distributed network environment that provides service to clients, shown in Fig. 5. See Spec. ¶ [0031] and Fig. 5. Fig. 5 of Appellants’ disclosure is reproduced below: Fig. 5 of Appellants’ disclosure shows an example of “a service-oriented architecture” in a distributed network environment including a remote server 505 providing services to client devices 503A-503B and 515A-515B. Consistent with Fig. 5 of Appellants’ disclosure, Kaminsky also discloses the same distributed network environment, shown in Fig. 1, including a remote server 16 and data center 18 providing services (i.e., resources) to a client device 12, as correctly found by the Examiner. Ans. 4, 9 (citing Kaminsky, ¶¶ [0021]–[0022], [0027]–[0028] and [0038], FIG. 2 and FIG. 5 “where a server services requests from multiple clients”). Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 11 Fig. 1 of Kaminsky is reproduced below for illustration. Fig. 1 of Kaminsky shows the same “service-oriented architecture” in a distributed network environment including a remote server 16 providing services to client devices 12. In view of Appellants’ own written description of the term “service- oriented architecture,” we reiterate our initial position that the Examiner’s interpretation of that term encompasses the distributed network environment disclosed by Kaminsky. Decision 7-8. With respect to the disputed term “universally unique identifier (UUID),” Appellants’ own Specification broadly describes that: [T]he UUID can be a 128 bit identifier in compliance with RFC 4122 or similar standards. Many legacy systems include support for UUID or may be utilized or modified such that a UUID can be incorporated into them easily or added to them easily. In other embodiments, any type of identifier such as a uniform resource locator (URL) could be used to signify operational success. The unique identifier can be any value, string or similar data format. Spec. ¶ [0020] (emphasis added.) Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 12 We recognize that the term “universally unique identifier (UUID)” may have an industry understood definition, whether at the time the application was filed or subsequently thereafter. However, by deliberately using optional, non-limiting language “can be” to describe the meaning of the disputed term “universally unique identifier (UUID)” in the Specification, Appellants clearly do not limit the meaning of the term “universally unique identifier (UUID)” to include only an industry- understood definition as a 16-byte (128-bit identifier) number. Rather, Appellants intend to cover any other type of identifier, as described in Appellants’ own Specification as well as those unique identifiers, as disclosed, for example, in Kaminsky. In view of Appellants’ own written description of the term “universally unique identifier (UUID),” we reiterate our initial position that the Examiner’s interpretation of that term encompasses a unique identifier as disclosed by Kaminsky. Decision 7-8. In our view, the Examiner’s interpretation of these disputed terms was reasonable and consistent with Appellants’ own Specification and was sufficient even in light of Appellants’ proffered definitions based on Wikipedia. Second, Wikipedia, as a website, can be an “unreliable source of information” for purposes of resolving legal disputes, because (1) it is not peer reviewed; (2) the authors are unknown; and (3) apparently anyone can contribute to its content. See, e.g., Ex parte Mandy, No. 2011-000015, Application No. 10/537,714, 2013 Pat. App. LEXIS 3163 (Pat. App. May 23, 2013) (“We give minimal weight to Appellant’s citation of a Wikipedia entry”); Ex parte Bailey, No. 2010-010310, Application No. 11/168,650, 2013 Pat. App. LEXIS 2470 (Pat. App. Apr. 25, 2013) (“Wikipedia has Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 13 limited probative value in view of its dubious reliability. Among other things, Wikipedia is not peer reviewed, the authors are unknown, and apparently anyone can contribute”); Techradium, Inc. v. Blackboard Connect Inc., 2009 WL 1152985, at *4 n.5 (E.D. Tex. 2009) (“The Court agrees with Blackboard that Wikipedia disclaims any validity of the content listed on its website, and is therefore not a reliable source of technical information.”); see also Bing Shun Li v. Holder, 2010 WL 4368469 (5th Cir. 2010) (unpublished), at *2 (noting Wikipedia’s unreliability and citing Badasa v. Mukasey, 540 F.3d 909, 910–11 (8th Cir. 2008)).3 For example, the Wikipedia definitions for the terms “service-oriented architecture” and “universal unique identifier (UUID)” have been updated and changed several times by different authors since Wikipedia definitions proffered by Appellants were printed by Appellants on March 3, 2011 and those pages were last modified on February 19, 2011. Nevertheless, Wikipedia is not automatically disqualified as reliable source of technical information or even prior art as a per se rule; rather, the use of Wikipedia must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, particularly in the context of Appellants’ claimed invention and prosecution history. On this appeal, both the Wikipedia website definitions proffered by Appellants were printed by Appellants on March 3, 2011 and these pages were last modified on February 19, 2011. Both the content and authenticity of the information included in Wikipedia have not been authenticated and, as such, can hardly be relied upon to show the ordinary and customary meaning 3 But see, U.S. v. Crooker, 608 F.3d 94, 95 n.1 (1st Cir. 2010) (using Wikipedia as source for definition); Lantz v. C.I.R., 607 F.3d 479, 482-83 (7th Cir. 2010) (Wikipedia as source for longest human lifespan). Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 14 of the disputed terms “service-oriented architecture” and “universal unique identifier (UUID)” as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art especially at the time of the invention, i.e., the filing date of Appellants’ application on August 30, 2007. Even assuming arguendo that Wikipedia website definitions can be authenticated in advance of Appellants’ filing date of August 30, 2007, there is no evidence, and Appellants have not provided any evidence or meaningful explanation such as declarations or affidavits from those skilled in the art to support Appellants’ proffered definitions of these disputed terms. While attorney arguments are helpful when directing us to evidence in the record, the arguments themselves do not constitute evidence. Here, Appellants’ arguments are speculative and unsupported by objective evidence. Argument of counsel cannot take the place of evidence lacking in the record. Meitzner v. Mindick, 549 F.2d 775, 782 (CCPA 1977); see also In re Pearson, 494 F.2d 1399, 1405 (CCPA 1974). Equally importantly, Appellants have not explained to us how the Wikipedia website definitions, if adopted, could help to distinguish over the distributed network environment using a unique identifier for granting a lock request from a client to lock a resource (i.e., a file or application) as disclosed by Kaminsky. In summary, Appellants have not presented sufficient evidence to support Appellants’ proffered definitions of these disputed terms and to persuade us of error in the Examiner’s findings. Absent such evidence or persuasive arguments, we do not find error in the Examiner’s findings and conclusions, and, therefore, reaffirm the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 15 claims 1–3, 5–7, 9, 11–14, and 16–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Kaminsky. With respect to Appellants’ arguments regarding dependent claims, we decline to revisit our affirmance of the Examiner’s rejections of these claims. CONCLUSION We have considered the arguments raised by Appellants in the Request, but find none of these arguments persuasive that our original Decision misapprehended or overlooked any points raised by Appellants resulting in error. It is our view that Appellants have not identified any points that the Board has misapprehended or overlooked. We have reconsidered our Decision but decline to grant the relief requested. This Decision on Appellants’ “Request for Rehearing” is deemed to incorporate our earlier Decision by reference. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.52(a)(1). DECISION We have granted Appellants’ request to the extent that we have reconsidered our Decision, and modified the Decision to further clarify our rationale for affirming the Examiner’s rejections. However, we deny the request with respect to making any changes to the outcome of the Decision. We thus reiterate that the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–3, 5–7, 9, 11–14, and 16–20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Kaminsky remains AFFIRMED. Appeal 2011-012714 Application 11/848,063 16 Requests for extensions of time are governed by 37 C.F.R. § 41.52(b). REHEARING GRANTED-IN-PART cdc Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation