Ex Parte Murata

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 11, 2017

14275313 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 11, 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.
14/275,313 05/12/2014 John Murata 5607.0160002
(P2580USC2)
6623
63975 7590 10/13/2017
NTFRNF KFNNT FR FtOT DNTFTN Rr FOY PT T f EXAMINER
1100 NEW YORK AVENUE, N.W.
WASHINGTON, DC 20005
TRUONG, LECHI
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2194
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/13/2017 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):
e-office @ skgf.com
Apple-eOA @ skgf.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JOHN MURAT A1
Appeal 2016-003220
Application 14/275,313
Technology Center 2100
Before: CAROLYN D. THOMAS, JASON V. MORGAN, and
DAVID J. CUTITTAII, Administrative Patent Judges.
THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—20. We have jurisdiction over the
appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
1 The Appellant names Apple, Inc. as the real party in interest. App. Br. 1.
Appeal 2016-003220
Application 14/275,313
The present invention relates generally to a network based
administration protocol. See Spec. 2:3—4.
Claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A method for obtaining internal server data from a
server, comprising:
in the server, performing operations for:
determining whether a path name received in a
request from a client includes an identity of a container of the server,
the container comprising data that includes types, names, and values
representing an internal operating state of the server;
when the path name does not include the identity
of a container:
transmitting a corresponding hypertext markup
language (HTML) page to the client; and
when the path name includes the identity of a
container:
processing the path name to retrieve a snapshot of
the container, the snapshot representing a current state of the data in
the container;
generating, from the snapshot, a response; and
transmitting the response to the client.
Appellant appeals the following rejections:2
Rl. Claims 1—20 are rejected under the doctrine of obviousness-type
double patenting (see Final Act. 2—4);
R2. Claims 1, 5, 7—9, 13, and 15—17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Saito (US 6,557,024 Bl, Apr. 29, 2003),
Nori (US 5,999,943, Dec. 7, 1999), and Amstein (US 5,793,966, Aug. 11,
1998) (id. at 4—10);
R3. Claims 2, 3, 10, 11, 18, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
2 The Examiner withdraws the rejection of claims 6 and 14 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) (see Ans. 3).
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Application 14/275,313
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Saito, Nori, Amstein, and Szymanski
(US 5,574,903, Nov. 12, 1996) {id. at 10-11); and
R4. Claims 4, 12, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Saito, Nori, Amstein, and Brooks (US
7,209,953 B2, Apr. 24, 2007) {id. at 11-12).
We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues
identified by Appellant, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced
thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential).
ANALYSIS
Double patenting Rejection
At the outset, we observe that Appellant presents no arguments on
appeal regarding the Examiner’s obviousness-type double patenting
rejection of claims 1—20. We note that arguments not made are considered
waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)( iv) (2014). Therefore, we pro forma
affirm the Examiner’s obviousness-type double patenting rejection of claims
1-20.
Rejection under § 103(a)
Claims 1, 4, 5, 7—9, 12, 13, 15—17, and 20
Issue 1: Did the Examiner err in finding that Nori teaches or suggests
data representing an internal operating state of the server, as set forth in
claim 1?
Appellant contends that “Nori is limited to describing large objects
(LOBs) associated with a database” (App. Br. 10), but “Nori does not
describe or suggest ‘the container comprising data . . . representing an
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Application 14/275,313
internal operating state of the server’” (id. at 12). We disagree with
Appellant.
The Examiner finds in Nori “[e]ach LOB locator stores information
about a corresponding LOB . . . including] information about the specific
accesses that triggered the generation of the in-memory locators” (Ans. 14).
The Examiner further finds that “the in-memory locator for an internal LOB
includes the following fields: ‘snapshot-id’ [value]: The snapshot-id field
contains a value that indicates the consistent read version of the LOB
[internal state of server] that is associated with the LOB locator” (id. at 15).
In essence, the Examiner finds, and we agree, that Nori’s LOB locator
contains many fields, one of which is a snapshot-id that represents the
internal state of the server.
Lor example, Nori discloses that “[t]he first set of data includes a
locator for a LOB . . . The locator includes a LOB identifier . . . and snapshot
information that identifies a particular version of the LOB” (2:23—27). Nori
further discloses that “[a] snapshot of the database reflects all changes
committed to the database as of a particular point in time . . . The server
reads the snapshot-id value from the locator and determines which version of
the requested LOB data to supply to the client” (7:28-47). In other words,
the Examiner interprets at least Nori’s snapshot-id field as data representing
an internal operating state of the server.
Although Appellant contend that “Nori does not describe or suggest
‘the container comprising data . . . representing an internal operating
state of the server’” (App. Br. 12), Appellant’s contention fails to
specifically rebut the Examiner’s findings regarding Nori’s snapshot-id or
show how the claimed values representing an internal operating state of the
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Application 14/275,313
server are distinguishable. Given Appellant’s silence regarding Nori’s
snapshot-id, we find unavailing Appellant’s aforementioned contentions.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1.
Appellant’s arguments regarding the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claims 9 and 17 rely on the same arguments as for claim 1, and Appellant
does not argue separate patentability for the dependent claims, except as
noted below. See App. Br. 10-18. We, therefore, also sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 4, 5, 7—9, 12, 13, 15—17, and 20.
Claims 2, 3, 10, 11, 18, and 19
Issue 2: Did the Examiner err in finding that Szymanski teaches or
suggests modifying information included in the container based on the path
name, as set forth in claim 2?
Appellant contends that “Szymanski is limited to describing []
requests for actions on a file manager and does not mention path names,
containers, or information included in containers[, therefore,] Szymanski
does not describe or suggest ‘modifying information included in the
container based on the path name’” (App. Br. 15).
The Examiner finds “Szymanski teaches . . . miscellaneous actions . . .
[including] PathnameResolve takes a relative pathname and resolved it into
a canonical FSSpecification. ... In addition[], Nori teaches before
performing an operation on an external LOB, the client must provide the full
directory path to where the external LOB resides” (Ans. 16). In essence, the
Examiner relies upon the combined teachings of Szymanski and Nori to
teach/suggest the claimed “modifying information . . . based on the path
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Application 14/275,313
name,” however Appellant merely argues that Szymanski alone fails to
teach/suggest this feature.
Appellant’s argument against Szymanski separately from the other
cited references, specifically Nori, does not persuasively rebut the
combination made by the Examiner. One cannot show non-obviousness by
attacking references individually, where the rejections are based on
combinations of references. In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097
(Fed. Cir. 1986); see also In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425—26 (CCPA 1981).
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claim
2. Appellant’s arguments regarding the Examiner’s rejection of dependent
claims 10 and 18 rely on the same arguments as for claim 2, and Appellant
does not argue separate patentability for the dependent claims 3,11, and 19.
See App. Br. 13—15. We, therefore, also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
claims 3, 10, 11, 18, and 19.
DECISION
We pro forma affirm the Examiner’s Double Patenting rejection of
claims 1—20.
We affirm the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejections of claims 1—5, 7—13,
and 15—20.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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