Ex Parte Kreuder

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 8, 2017

11748971 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 8, 2017)

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.
11/748,971 05/15/2007 Heinz Kreuder 6449-01200/P0703-US 7374
35690 7590 09/12/2017
MEYERTONS, HOOD, KIVLIN, KOWERT & GOETZEL, P.C.
P.O. BOX 398
AUSTIN, TX 78767-0398
EXAMINER
VO, CECILE H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2153
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/12/2017 ELECTRONIC
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.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
patent_docketing@intprop.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte HEINZ KREUDER
Appeal 2017-003699
Application 11/748,971
Technology Center 2100
Before JEFFREY S. SMITH, NABEEL U. KHAN, and
MICHAEL M. BARRY, Administrative Patent Judges.
BARRY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1—20, which are all pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellant identifies Software AG as the real party in interest. Br. 2.
Appeal 2017-003699
Application 11/748,971
Introduction
Appellant’s claimed invention “relates to a method and a server for
synchronizing a plurality of clients accessing a database, wherein each client
executes a plurality of tasks on the database.” Spec. 13. Appellant explains
that before performing database administration tasks such as a backup,
synchronization is necessary to ensure consistency of the database, which
entails ensuring no client processes have an open task that may affect the
database contents. Id. ]Hf 4—8. Appellant identifies a problematic issue with
synchronization, viz:
in some situations a client may lose the connection to the
database, when the synchronization request is issued. As a
result, any other client trying to open a task during the timeout
period will have to wait until this time limit is exceeded, even if
the tasks of one or more of the other clients could be performed
and finished before the timeout period has fully elapsed. The
prior art approach for the processing of a synchronization
request may therefore easily cause substantial waiting times for
a large number of clients only for the reason that one client has
lost the connection to the database. Reducing the timeout period
would be the obvious way of reducing the waiting time for the
other clients. However, a reduced timeout period will increase
the number of cancelled tasks, which have to be restarted after
the synchronization is achieved and the respective
administrative task is performed.
Id. 19. Claim 1 is exemplary of Appellant’s claimed invention to address
this problem:
1. A method of synchronizing a plurality of client
processes accessing a database, each client process executing a
plurality of tasks on the database, the method comprising:
a server performing:
for each of the client processes:
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Application 11/748,971
accumulating time spent performing tasks on the
database by the client process since issuance of a
synchronization request, thereby determining an
accumulated task time for the client process; and
rejecting a request for opening of a new task on the
database for the client process, in response to the
accumulated task time exceeding a threshold, wherein the
threshold specifies a maximum accumulated task time.
Br. 15 (Claims App’x).
Rejections
Claims 1—3, 9—11, and 15—17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Rajagopal (US 7,194,556 B2, issued Mar. 20, 2007)
and Fischer (US 2008/0071947 Al, published Mar. 20, 2008). Final Act. 2—
5,7.
Claims 4—8, 12—14, and 18—20 stand rejected under § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Rajagopal, Fischer, and Sharma (US 6,182,109 Bl, issued
Jan. 30, 2001). Id. at 5—6.
ANALYSIS
In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner finds Rajagopal’s determination of
round trip time (RTT) it takes to send a request message and receive back a
response, which is performed repeatedly and then used for timing
synchronization between computers, teaches the recited requirement for
“accumulating time spent performing tasks on the database by the client
process since issuance of a synchronization request, thereby determining an
accumulated task time for the client process.” Final Act. 3 (citing Rajagopal
3:39-40, 4:45—54). The Examiner then finds Rajagopal’s rejection of some
RTT measurements that exceed a threshold (because they are inconsistent
and not useful, since “the messages can be affected by an interrupt which
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Application 11/748,971
will significantly affect the round trip time” (Rajagopal 5:49—51)), teaches
the disputed, dispositive requirement for “rejecting a request for opening of
a new task on the database for the client process, in response to the
accumulated task time exceeding a threshold,” as recited. Final Act. 4
(citing Rajagopal 5:55—58).
Appellant argues the Examiner errs because “the rejection of the
measured RTT has nothing to do with rejection of ‘a request for opening a
new task on the database for the client processes’ as claimed.” Br. 8. We
agree.
The Examiner responds that “according to Rajagopal, any
measurement of RTT of the process that exceeds the threshold can be
rejected.” Ans. 5 (citing Rajagopal 3:39-4:54). The Examiner finds that
because RTT corresponds to the recited “accumulated task time” and there is
an RTT threshold for rejecting RTT measurements, “[tjhus, Rajagopal
clearly teaches the [disputed, dispositive requirement] of the invention.” Id.
The Examiner’s conclusion is unsupported. Rajagopal analyzes
multiple RTT measurements to identify a minimum RTT value to use for
time synchronization processing between computers. See Rajagopal 4:59—
6:40. Rajagopal’s discarding of RTT values that exceed a threshold because
statistically they are deemed not useful for the purpose of timing
synchronization in no way teaches or suggests “rejecting a request for
opening of a new task,” as recited. Rather, the task of determining the round
trip time is opened, processed, and completed; and only the result of the
completed task is rejected.
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Application 11/748,971
Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s § 103 rejection of
independent claims 1, 9, and 15.2 For the same reasons, we do not sustain
the rejection of dependent claims 2—3, 9—11, and 15—17. Because the
Examiner does not find Sharma cures the above-discussed deficiency, we
also do not sustain the rejection of dependent claims 4—8, 12—14, and 18—20.
DECISION
For the above reasons, we reverse the rejection of claims 1—20 under
35U.S.C. § 103(a).
REVERSED
2 We note, in an ex parte appeal, the Board “is basically a board of review—
we review . . . rejections made by patent examiners.” Ex parte Gambogi, 62
USPQ2d 1209, 1211 (BPAI 2001). Review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 “is not a
process whereby the examiner . . . invite[s] the [Bjoard to examine the
application and resolve patentability in the first instance.” Ex parte Braeken,
54 USPQ2d 1110, 1112 (BPAI 1999). The Board’s primary role is to decide
based on the findings and conclusions presented by the Examiner. See 37
C.F.R. § 41.50(a)(1).
We express no opinion as to the validity of the pending claims in view
of additional explanation and/or references. Although we have authority to
reject claims under 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b), no inference should be drawn
when we elect not to do so. See Manual of Patent Examining Procedure
(MPEP) § 1213.02. We note the file wrapper for this application includes a
translation of a rejection of corresponding claims by the Patent Office of the
People’s Republic of China, with an issue date of January 29, 2010. We find
nothing in the record that discusses the merits of that rejection.
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