Ex Parte Daum et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 16, 2014

11848063 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 16, 2014)

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.”).
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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.

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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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.

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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
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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”).

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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.)
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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
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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).
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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
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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.

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Requests for extensions of time are governed by 37 C.F.R. § 41.52(b).

REHEARING GRANTED-IN-PART

cdc