Ex Parte Luo et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 9, 2016

12061162 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 9, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/061, 162 04/02/2008
49267 7590 03/11/2016
TUTUNJIAN & BITETTO, P,C
425 Broadhollow Road, Suite 302
Melville, NY 11747
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Gang Luo
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
YOR920060004US2163-l l 7CON 8005
EXAMINER
SHANMUGASUNDARAM, KANNAN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2158
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/11/2016 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):
patents@tb-iplaw.com
sandy@tb-iplaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte GANG LUO and PHILIP SHI-LUNG YU
Appeal2014-002737
Application 12/061, 162
Technology Center 2100
Before MICHAEL J. STRAUSS., HUNG H. BUI, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
BUI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner's final rejection of claims 1-21, 25, and 27-29, which are all the
claims pending in this appeal. Claims 22-24 and 26 have been cancelled.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.2
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is International Business
Machines Corporation.
2 Our Decision refers to Appellants' Appeal Brief filed July 23, 2013 ("App.
Br."); Reply Brief filed December 10, 2013 ("Reply Br."); Examiner's
Answer mailed October 11, 2013 ("Ans."); Final Office Action mailed
Appeal2014-002737
Application 12/061, 162
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants' Invention
Appellants' invention relates to real-time materialized view
maintenance in relational databases. Spec. 4:8. Claims 1, 8, and 14 are
independent. Claim 1 is illustrative of Appellants' invention, as reproduced
below:
1. A method for maintaining a materialized view defined on a base
relation of a relational database, the method comprising:
providing a materialized view maintenance system
implemented in a computing device having at least a processor and a
memory device;
storing at least the base relation in the memory device; and
performing content-based filtering on the base relation using
the materialized view maintenance system to identifY an update to the
base relation as being irrelevant with respect to the materialized view
by determining that no join result tuple is produced in a join result set
such that the join result set includes no members from a join
operation applied to the updated base relation and at least one
filtering relation associated with another base relation of the
materialized view; and
displaying the maintained materialized view so as to exclude
the identified irrelevant update.
App. Br. 8-11 (Claims Appx.) (disputed limitations in italics).
Cheng
Witkowski
Bedouet
Trauring
Evidence Considered
us 5,551,031
us 6, 134,543
US 6,472,774 Bl
US 6,513,033 Bl
Aug. 27, 1996
Oct. 17, 2000
Oct. 29, 2002
Jan. 28,2003
March 14, 2013 ("Final Act."); and original Specification filed April 02,
2008 ("Spec.").
2
Appeal2014-002737
Application 12/061, 162
G. Luo et al., A Comparison of Three Methods for Join View
Maintenance in Parallel RDBMS, Proceedings of the 19th ICDE, IEEE 177-
188 (2003).
D. Quass et al., Making Views Self-Maintainable for Data
Warehousing, Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on
Parallel and Distributed Information Systems, IEEE 158-169 (1996).
Examiner's Rejections
(1) Claims 1-3, 6, 8, 9, 12, 14--16, 19, and 28 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Luo. Final Act. 2-9.
(2) Claims 4, 5, 10, 11, 17, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Luo and Bedouet. Final Act. 9-13.
(3) Claim 21 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Luo and Tauring. Final Act. 13-14.
(4) Claims 25 and 29 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Luo and Cheng. Final Act. 14--16.
(5) Claims 7, 13, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Luo and Witkowski. Final Act. 16-18.
(6) Claim 27 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Luo and Quass. Final Act. 18-19.
Issue on Appeal
Based on Appellants' arguments, the dispositive issue on appeal is
whether the cited prior art discloses the disputed limitation:
performing content-based filtering on the base relation using
the materialized view maintenance system to identify an update
to the base relation as being irrelevant with respect to the
materialized view by determining that no join result tuple is
3
Appeal2014-002737
Application 12/061, 162
produced in a join result set such that the join result set includes
no members from a join operation applied to the updated base
relation and at least one filtering relation associated with
another base relation of the materialized view
recited in Appellants' independent claims 1, 8, and 14. App. Br. 12-29;
Reply Br. 5---6.
ANALYSIS
§ 102(b) Rejection of Claims 1-3, 6, 8, 9, 12, 14-16, 19, and 28
based on Luo
In support of the anticipation rejection of independent claims 1, 8, and
14, the Examiner finds Luo discloses a method for maintaining a
materialized view defined on a base relation of a relational database,
including the disputed limitation:
performing content-based filtering on the base relation using
the materialized view maintenance system to identify an update
to the base relation as being irrelevant \'l1ith respect to the
materialized view by determining that no join result tuple is
produced in a join result set such that the join result set includes
no members from a join operation applied to the updated base
relation and at least one filtering relation associated with
another base relation of the materialized view
Final Act. 3 (citing Luo p. 179 § 2.1.2) (emphasis added).
A relevant portion of Luo's cited section 2.1.2 is reproduced below
with highlighting to show added emphasis.
4
Appeal2014-002737
Application 12/061,162
·Tuple J~.~ is insert(~d into the tmxiliary relation /ll?.,~ at node
I Then 'f,1 is joined vdth the approprlati;:: niples in dK~
atP;ilh\ry re.lntkm AR.8 iinsti:ud of bns-c n .. \bltl<)U H) at node j
utmzing th(.': index h, If J\l is partitiou(;d on HU ~Htrilnnc of
lL the join result tupk.~s (if aiiy} an:.~ st~nt tci :s:orrn:.~ node /<.'.
fn(Kk k rnillht hi::~ thi..:~ imme as nofk /}tu he insertt~d into JV'
•, ·M·· , •. ·
bnscd on dk~ attribute value nf ~J\ .. lf Jl,/ is not partitioned
on an attribute of A, dK~n the join result tuplt~s lK<..~d to bt~
i::fr,;tribut\~d to .mukipk~ nod.~~s to b\~ ins;;_~rtt~d into JV',
Figuxes. 4a and 4h sfo.nv this pr(K:t~dmx~.
(~*)JV .. is panith:.11wd (b) f~.i is not panhkmed
on an