Ex Parte GhirardiDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 18, 201510511188 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 18, 2015) 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. 10/511,188 10/12/2004 Maurizio Ghirardi 007516.00001 1843 11435 7590 02/18/2015 BANNER & WITCOFF, LTD. & attorneys for client 007511 1100 13th Street, N.W. Suite 1200 WASHINGTON, DC 20005-4051 EXAMINER OH, ANDREW CHUNG SUK ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2466 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/18/2015 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 MAURIZIO GHIRARDI Appeal 2012-0104181 Application 10/511,188 Technology Center 2400 ____________________ Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and CATHERINE SHIANG, Administrative Patent Judges. HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL 1 Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Telecom Italia S.P.A. App. Br. 2. Appeal 2012-010418 Application 10/511,188 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Non-Final Rejection of claims 1, 2, 5, 7–11, 13–22, and 25–32. Claims 23 and 24 have been objected as being dependent upon a rejected claim, but would otherwise be allowable if rewritten in independent form. Claims 3, 4, 6, and 12 have been canceled. App. Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Appellant’s Invention Appellant invented a method and system having a multilevel management architecture for allowing a plurality of intermediate/hierarchic agents (AG) to concurrently manage objects in a database on behalf of an object manager (A). Spec. 9:9–10:7, Figs. 5, 10. Representative Claim Independent claim 1 is representative. It reads as follows: 1. A method managing a management activity of at least one managed object by at least one manager object through a communication network, the method comprising the following steps: - providing a plurality of intermediate objects configured to manage said at least one managed object according to a data set, said management activity being transformed into a set of results, - receiving, at said plurality of intermediate objects, said data set from said at least one manager object, - concurrently managing said at least one managed object through said plurality of intermediate objects, to generate said set of results, and Appeal 2012-010418 Application 10/511,188 3 - transferring said set of results from said plurality of intermediate objects to said at least one manager object. Prior Art Relied Upon Rozman US 5,438,614 Aug. 1, 1995 Fujino US 5,651,006 Jul. 22, 1997 Birdwell US 6,032,197 Feb, 29, 2000 Osmond US 6,044,468 Mar. 28, 2000 Dorward US 6,236,341 B1 May 22, 2001 Yoshino US 2002/0052946 A1 May 2, 2002 Leon US 2002/0083205 A1 June 27, 2002 Champlin US 6,519,635 B1 Feb. 11, 2003 Noy US 6,539,540 B1 Mar. 25, 2003 Venkatesulu US 2003/0167319 A1 Sept. 4, 2003 Darcy US 6,748,445 B1 June 8, 2004 Le US 6,882,637 B1 Apr. 19, 2005 Rejections on Appeal The Examiner rejects the claims on appeal as follows: Claims 1, 5, 7, 8, 29, and 30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Fujino and Venkatesulu. Claim 2 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, and Rozman. Claims 9–11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, and Osmond. Claim 13 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, Osmond, and Champlin. Claim 14 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, Osmond, Champlin, and Le. Appeal 2012-010418 Application 10/511,188 4 Claim 31 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, Osmond, Champlin, Le, and Leon. Claim 15 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, Osmond, Champlin, Le, and Dorward. Claims 16–19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, Rozman, and Birdwell. Claim 20 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, Osmond, Champlin, and Noy. Claims 21, 22, and 25–28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, Osmond, Champlin, Yoshino, and Noy. Claim 32 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, and Darcy. ANALYSIS We consider Appellant’s arguments seriatim as they are presented in the Appeal Brief, pages 8–13 and the Reply Brief, pages 1–6.2 2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed February 17, 2012), the Reply Brief (filed June 27, 2012) and the Answer (mailed May 3, 2012) for the respective details. We have considered in this Decision only those arguments Footnote continued on the next page. Appeal 2012-010418 Application 10/511,188 5 Dispositive Issue: Under 35 U.S.C. § 103, did the Examiner err in finding the combination of Fujino and Venkatesulu teaches or suggests concurrently managing an object through a plurality of intermediate objects, as recited in claim 1? Appellant argues the proffered combination does not teach or suggest the disputed limitations emphasized above. App. Br. 8, Reply Br. 2–5. We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellant’s arguments. We are unpersuaded by Appellant’s contentions. We adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken, and as detailed in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellants’ Appeal Brief. See Ans. 25–31. However, we highlight and address specific arguments and findings for emphasis as follows. Appellant argues although Venkatesulu discloses an element management system (EMS) that obtains knowledge of a network element (NE) state information from a cable modem termination system (CMTS), Venkatesulu does not teach a plurality of CMTSs concurrently managing the NE. App. Br. 8, Reply Br. 2. Accordingly, Appellant argues Venkatesulu does not remedy the noted deficiencies of Fujino. Id. In response, the Examiner concludes because “concurrently managing” is not defined in Appellant’s Specification, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, the cited phrase can be construed as the Appellant actually raised in the Brief. Any other arguments Appellant could have made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). Appeal 2012-010418 Application 10/511,188 6 intermediate managers exercising authority upon the same network element at the same time. Ans. 30. Consequently, the Examiner finds Venkatesulu’s disclosure of a CMTS constantly ranging its network devices such that each CMTS can simultaneously manage a plurality of network elements (Ans. 31) teaches the disputed limitations. Therefore, the Examiner finds the cited teaching of Venkatesulu would have complemented Fujino’s disclosure of a sub-manager being able to carry out parallel processing of SNMP requests in a network management system thereby allowing Fujino’s sub-managers to concurrently manage at least an object for the integration manager. Id. On the record before us, we find no error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claim 1. In particular, we agree with the Examiner Appellant’s arguments attack of the references individually, as opposed to the combination thereof, is ineffective to show non-obviousness. Ans. 26– 27. Although the Examiner admitted initially that Fujino does not teach concurrently managing an object through a plurality of intermediate managers, and relied upon Venkatesulu to remedy Fujino’s deficiencies, Appellant cannot simply ignore the Examiner’s findings with respect to Fujino to exclusively discuss Venkatesulu. As correctly pointed out by the Examiner, Venkatesulu’s disclosure of a plurality of CMTSs constantly managing network elements must be taken in combination with Fujino’s disclosure of sub-managers managing the network elements in parallel. Ans. 29. We agree with the Examiner that because Venkatesulu discloses each of a plurality of CMTSs (Fig. 2, item 33) constantly acquiring status information about network elements (¶¶ 8–9, 26) such that each of the CTMSs can simultaneously manage a plurality of NEs ( ¶ 32), Venkatesulu fairly teaches or suggests concurrently managing the NEs through a plurality Appeal 2012-010418 Application 10/511,188 7 of CTMSs. Further, we agree with the additional finding made by the Examiner in the Answer that Fujino’s disclosure of the sub-managers performing parallel processing of SNMP requests (col. 10, ll. 1–3) teaches the concurrent management of a managed object. Ans. 31. We note Appellant has failed to address this new finding in the Reply Brief. Notwithstanding the merit with this additional teaching, we find the cumulative weight and the totality of the evidence on this record reasonably support the Examiner’s finding that the combined disclosures of Fujino and Venkatesulu would have taught or suggested the disputed limitations. For at least the aforementioned reasons, we find no error in the Examiner’s conclusion that the combination of Fujino and Venkatesulu renders claim 1 unpatentable. Regarding the rejection of claim 32, Appellant argues that the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, and Darcy does not teach or suggest concurrently managing objects based on resources free at the intermediate objects as a function of time. App. Br. 12. This argument is not persuasive. As discussed above, the combination of Fujino and Venkatesulu teaches concurrently managing objects through an intermediate manager. Further, we agree with the Examiner that Darcy’s disclosure of a manager exchanging data with a monitored object based on the amount CPU utilization available (free resources) at the two machines periodically (as a function of time) would complement the Fujino-Venkatesulu combination to predictably result in the concurrent management of NEs depending on amount of processing required in the sub-manager/CMTSs. Ans. 35. Accordingly, we find no error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection. Appeal 2012-010418 Application 10/511,188 8 Regarding the rejections of claims 2, 5, 7–11, 13–22, and 25–31 Appellant has either not presented separate patentability arguments or has reiterated substantially the same arguments as those previously discussed for patentability of claim 1 above. Therefore, claims 2, 5, 7–11, 13–22, and 25 fall with claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 2, 5, 7–11, 13–22, and 25–32 as set forth above. 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 gvw Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation