Ex Parte O et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 9, 2014

11221138 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 9, 2014)

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.
11/221,138 09/06/2005 James Eric O'Hearn 2005P04280US (S06.072) 6004
28062 7590 01/09/2014
BUCKLEY, MASCHOFF & TALWALKAR LLC
50 LOCUST AVENUE
NEW CANAAN, CT 06840
EXAMINER
AHLUWALIA, NAVNEET K
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2166
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/09/2014 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 JAMES ERIC O’HEARN, MARIO BRENES,
IBRAHIM EL SAYED ABOUH, and DAVID A. HORN
____________

Appeal 2011-007133
Application 11/221,138
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, ROBERT E. NAPPI,
and JASON V. MORGAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2011-007133
Application 11/221,138

2
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 2-24 and 26-31, which are all the claims pending in this
application.
1
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Exemplary Claim
Independent claim 24 is exemplary of the claims under appeal and
reads as follows:
24. A method for retrieving data associated with an
object instantiation of a component of a class model
representing tag-based data and non-tag based data, the method
comprising the steps of:
receiving a request for the data, the request including a
user criteria to member mapping that specifies:
a particular member of the component, and
a user criteria mapped to the particular
member of the component;
after receiving the request, populating a field of a
predefined configuration of an interface,
wherein the field is associated with the particular
member of the component, and
wherein the populating the field comprises
populating the field with the user criteria mapped to the
particular member of the component;
utilizing the interface and the configuration, including the
field of the configuration that is associated with the particular
member of the component and populated with the user criteria
mapped to the particular member of the component, to query an
operational data source for data associated with data fields, at

1
Claims 1 and 25 have been cancelled.
Appeal 2011-007133
Application 11/221,138

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least one of the data fields being associated with the particular
member of the component;
receiving data associated with the data fields from the
operational data source; and
with a processing device, populating the member of the
object instantiation with data of the at least one of the data
fields associated with the particular member of the component.

The Examiner’s Rejection
Claims 2-25 and 26-31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as
anticipated by DeMesa (US 2005/0144154 A1). (See Ans. 4-14).
Appellants’ Contentions
With respect to independent claim 24, and dependent claims 2-20 and
26-28 grouped therewith, Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in
rejecting the claims as anticipated by DeMesa because the cited portions of
the reference do not teach all the recited features of the representative claim
(App. Br. 5-6). Pointing to the various paragraphs of DeMesa cited by the
Examiner (App. Br. 6-11), Appellants acknowlege that the disclosed
“distributing,” “collecting,” and “acquiring” of DeMesa may meet the
claimed request for data, but specifically argue that the recited limitations
related to such request are not disclosed (App. Br. 11-12). Appellants
further challenge various Examiner’s findings with respect to DeMesa and
conclude that the recited features of claim 24 are not even inherent in the
reference disclosure (App. Br. 13).
Appellants rely on similar arguments in support of the patentability of
independent claim 21 and dependent claims 22, 23, and 29-31 grouped
therewith (App. Br. 16-23).

Appeal 2011-007133
Application 11/221,138

4
ISSUE
Based on Appellants’ arguments in the briefs, the principal and
dispositive issue presented in this appeal is as follows:
Has the Examiner erred in rejecting the claims as being anticipated by
DeMesa because the reference does not teach all the recited features of claim
24?

ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants’
conclusion. We adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by
the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and (2) the
rebuttals to arguments expressed by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer
in response to Appellants’ Appeal Brief (see Ans. 14-17).
We specifically agree with the Examiner (Ans. 14-15) that DeMesa
teaches receiving a request for data as well as the recited features related to
the request, the field of a predefined configuration of an interface and the
step of utilizing the interface, as recited in claim 24. As found by the
Examiner, the component builder 226 and the solution builder 227 of
DeMesa provide for flexible organization and presentation of the query
where the user criteria included in the request may be mapped to members of
a predefined configuration and used to populate the field associated with the
user criteria components (Ans. 15 (citing DeMesa, paragraphs 16, 19, 39, 56,
60, 69, 70, 78, 79, and 81)).
We further observe that Appellants’ arguments, which are further
repeated in their Reply Brief, are based on an expectation that the exact
Appeal 2011-007133
Application 11/221,138

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claim language is to be found in the applied reference. Whereas,
anticipation “is not an ‘ipsissimis verbis’ test,” In re Bond, 910 F.2d 831,
832-33 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (citing Akzo N.V. v. U.S. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 808
F.2d 1471, 1479 & n.11 (Fed. Cir. 1986)). Similarly, “[a]n anticipatory
reference . . . need not duplicate word for word what is in the
claims.” Standard Havens Prods., Inc. v. Gencor Indus., Inc., 953 F.2d
1360, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 1991). Here, the Examiner has pointed to specific
portions of DeMesa and explained how the reference teachings correspond
to the recited features of claim 24.

CONCLUSION
On the record before us, we conclude that, because DeMesa teaches
all the claim limitations, the Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 21
and 24 as being anticipated by DeMesa. Therefore, we sustain the 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e) rejection of claims 21 and 24, and of claims 2-20, 22, 23, and 26-31
falling therewith.

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 2-24 and 26-31 is affirmed.
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

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