Ex Parte kaminsky et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

May 21, 2012

10635587 (B.P.A.I. May. 21, 2012)

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.
10/635,587 08/06/2003 David Louis kaminsky RSW920030115US1 (108) 1392
46320 7590 05/21/2012
CAREY, RODRIGUEZ, GREENBERG & O''KEEFE, LLP
STEVEN M. GREENBERG
950 PENINSULA CORPORATE CIRCLE
SUITE 2022
BOCA RATON, FL 33487
EXAMINER
NAJEE-ULLAH, TARIQ S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2453
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/21/2012 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 DAVID LOUIS KAMINSKY and DAVID M. OGLE
________________

Appeal 2010-002398
Application 10/635,587
Technology Center 2400
________________

Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, JOHN A. JEFFERY, and
GLENN J. PERRY, Administrative Patent Judges.

PERRY, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2010-002398
Application 10/635,587

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SUMMARY
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1-20. We affirm-in-part.

STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants’ invention enables autonomically assisting a computer
“system under study” in the creation of an administrative policy. Stimuli
and a system administrator’s response to stimuli are monitored. A policy
maker analyzes the stimuli and the administrator’s preferred response to
formulate policy for responding to the stimuli in the future. See generally
Abstract.

EVIDENCE CONSIDERED
Rogers 5,557,747 Sep. 17, 1996
Gai 6,167,445 Dec. 26, 2000

REJECTION
The Examiner rejected claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Gai and Rogers. Ans. 3-8.1

COMBINATION OF REFERENCES
Appellants have challenged (App. Br. 5) the Examiner’s combination
of Gai and Rogers. However, we find that the Examiner has provided a

1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to (1) the Appeal Brief filed April 28,
2009 (supplemented June 29, 2009); (2) the Examiner’s Answer mailed
October 16, 2009; and (3) the Reply Brief filed December 14, 2009.
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valid articulated line of reasoning with a rational underpinning to support the
proposed combination of the prior art references (See Ans. 4 (citing Rogers
2:6-9)). KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007) (quoting In
re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006)). At the time of the invention,
it would have been appropriate for a skilled artisan to look to both Gai and
Rogers when contemplating an invention related to a new computer policy
generating arrangement.

CLAIM 1
CONTENTIONS
Claim 1 reads as follows:
1. A system for autonomically assisting in the
creation of an administrative policy comprising:
a systems administration component coupled
to a system under study;
a workflow component configured for
communicative linkage to a plurality of policy
makers, said workflow component comprising a
further configuration for routing stimuli and
response data from said system under study to a
selected one of said policy makers; and,
a policy generation component coupled to
said workflow component and configured to
generate an administrative policy for administering
said system under study based upon data collected
from said selected one of said policy makers for
said stimuli and response data.

The Examiner finds that Gai discloses essentially all of the features of
claim 1 except for the “systems administration component.” The Examiner
relies on Rogers for its teaching of “a systems administration component
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coupled to a system under study” and “stimuli and response data from said
system under study.” Ans. 3-4.
Appellants argue that the references fall short of teaching or
suggesting the limitations of claim 1 in that neither of the references teaches
(a) a “workflow component” having a “communicative linkage,” (b) a
“plurality of policy makers,” and (c) a “policy generation component” as
described in claim 1 (emphasis added). Br. 8-15.
The issue before us, then, is:

ISSUE
Under § 103, has the Examiner erred by finding that Gai and Rogers
collectively would have taught or suggested, in combination as claimed: (a)
a “workflow component” having a “communicative linkage,” (b) a “plurality
of policy makers,” and (c) a “policy generation component”?

ANALYSIS
Appellants argue that Gai does not teach “a workflow component
configured for communicative linkage to a plurality of policy makers . . . .”
Br. 8 (emphases added). Appellants note that the Examiner has mapped the
claimed “policy maker” to Gai’s “policy translator” 410, shown in Figure 4,
which is a single element rather than a plurality of elements. Id. However,
as the Examiner points out, Gai's policy translator component 410 is part of
Gai’s “policy server” 322, shown in Figure 3, of which there may be “one or
more.” See Gai Abstract. Ans. 10.
Appellants take issue with the Examiner’s mapping of “workflow
component” on Gai’s router 318, shown in Figure 3. Br. 9-10. The relevant
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claim limitation in full requires: “a workflow component configured for
communicative linkage to a plurality of policy makers, said workflow
component comprising a further configuration for routing stimuli and
response data from said system under study to a selected one of said policy
makers.”
According to Appellants, the “workflow component” is not just “any
communicative linkage between one and more policy makers in a network”
(Br. 9), but rather a routing device that routes particular data to particular
entities, namely routing “stimuli and response data” to “a selected one of
said policy makers.” Br. 10-11.
However, as noted by the Examiner (Ans. 9), Gai teaches a router that
includes a communication engine that is configured to exchange messages
with policy servers. See Gai, col. 10, ll. 12-18, which states:
FIG. 5 is a partial block diagram of an intermediate
device, such as router 318, in accordance with the preferred
embodiment of the present invention. Router 318 preferably
includes a communication engine 510 that is coupled to a traffic
management controller 512. The communication engine 510 is
configured to exchange messages with the policy server 322.
The Examiner finds, and we agree, that the claim language of the
“workflow component” limitation is broad enough to embrace the Gai router
318. We adopt the Examiner’s findings on this point set forth at page 9 of
the Answer as our own.
Appellants argue that Gai fails to teach the claimed “a policy
generation component coupled to said workflow component and configured
to generate an administrative policy for administering said system under
study based upon data collected from said selected one of said policy makers
for said stimuli and response data.”
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In support, they note that Gai column 6, lines 12-17, does not teach
generating an administrative policy based upon collected data (as required
by the claim language). Rather, they argue, the passage teaches using high-
level policies, which are selected by a network administrator and translated
by one or more policy servers into a set of rules. Appellants point
specifically to Gai column 5, line 66, to column 6, line 2. Br. 12.
The claim language “data collected from said selected one of said
policy makers for said stimuli and response data” (emphasis added) does not
require any special querying of a policy maker for a “preferred response,” as
required by claims 3 and 12, discussed below. Rather, it only requires
generating a policy based upon data collected by a policy maker. Gai’s rule
generating engine 414 generates rules (policy) based on stimuli and response
data (template data routed by router 318 to policy translator 410 in policy
server 322). Given the language of claim 1, the Examiner’s interpretation
(and mapping onto Gai) is reasonable.
For the foregoing reasons, Appellants have not persuaded us of error
in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claim 1.
Likewise, we will sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejection of
dependent claim 2 over Gai and Rogers, which was not argued with
particularity.

CLAIM 3
Claim 3 is directed to a method for autonomically assisting in the
creation of an administrative policy. We find the final two limitations of
claim 3 to be dispositive and focus on them below.
Claim 3 is set forth below with the disputed limitations highlighted:
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3. A method for autonomically assisting in the
creation of an administrative policy comprising:
detecting a stimuli in a system under study
and monitoring a response by a systems
administrator to said stimuli;
forwarding said stimuli and said response to
a policy maker suited to analyze said stimuli and
said response;
querying said policy maker for a preferred
response to said stimuli; and,
formulating a policy for responding to said
stimuli based upon said preferred response.

ANALYSIS
Appellants argue that the highlighted disputed steps are neither taught
by Gai nor Rogers. Br. 16-17. We agree.
With regard to the “querying” step, the Examiner relies primarily on
Gai column 7, lines 10-19, and secondarily on Rogers column 2, lines 35-36.
Ans. 5-6. We quote Gai column 7, lines 11-19:
[P]olicy servers and intermediate devices utilize an extension to
the Common Open Policy Service (COPS) protocol to
exchange messages. . . . [A]n intermediate device sends a Query
Configuration message to the policy server that contains
specific information about itself, such as . . . whether its
interfaces are coupled to trusted or un-trusted devices.
Ans. 5.
We are persuaded to Appellants’ view that this portion of Gai refers to
an exchange of messages between an intermediate device and a policy
server. It is silent as to stimuli and querying a policymaker for a preferred
response to stimuli.
Rogers column 2, lines 35-38, does not bolster the Examiner’s
position. According to the cited portion of Rogers, an action engine supplies
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predefined responses to stimuli. Ans. 6. This does not amount to querying a
policy maker for a preferred response to stimuli.
The Examiner relies upon Gai column 7, lines 21-24 as teaching the
“formulating” step. Our review of this passage reveals that it is silent as to
the stimuli upon which policy is formulated. This passage reads: “In
response, the policy server selects a particular set of transactions or rules
responsive to the device-specific information and provides them to the
intermediate device.” This passage refers to translation of high-level policy
into a particular quote language suitable for instructing a device on the
network.
We have also reviewed Rogers column 2, lines 38-49 (Ans. 6),
describing policy interpreter interaction with an action engine. It does not
appear to rescue the shortcomings of Gai. In fact, we find no teaching in
Rogers at all related to formulating a policy based on preferred responses of
a policy maker.
We are therefore persuaded of Examiner error as to the rejection of
claim 3 under section 103. Since this issue is dispositive of our reversing
claim 3, we therefore need not determine whether any of the other
limitations argued are taught by Gai and Rogers.
Claims depending from claim 3
Based on our findings with respect to claim 3, we also do not sustain
the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 4-11.
Claim 12 and its dependent claims
Based upon the last two limitations of claim 12, which are identical to
their corresponding limitations of claim 3, we also do not sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 12-20.
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CONCLUSIONS
Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims
1 and 2 under § 103.
Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 3-
20 under § 103.

ORDER
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1 and 2 is affirmed.
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 3-20 is reversed.
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). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv) (2010).

AFFIRMED-IN-PART

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