Ex Parte Perlman

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 27, 2014

11724520 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 27, 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.
11/724,520 03/14/2007 Radia Joy Perlman SUNM 060551 PUS 2901
51344 7590 02/28/2014
BROOKS KUSHMAN P.C. /Oracle America/ SUN / STK
1000 TOWN CENTER, TWENTY-SECOND FLOOR
SOUTHFIELD, MI 48075-1238
EXAMINER
BROWN, ANTHONY D
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2433
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/28/2014 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
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Ex parte RADIA JOY PERLMAN
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Appeal 2011-010051
1

Application 11/724,520
Technology Center 2400
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Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JASON V. MORGAN, and LARRY J. HUME,
Administrative Patent Judges.

HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1
The real party in interest is Oracle America, Inc. (App. Br. 1.)
Appeal 2011-010051
Application 11/724,520

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) (2002) from the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-9, 11-15, 17-20. Claims 3, 10,
and 16 have been canceled. (App. Br. 2.) We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b) (2011).
We reverse.
Appellants’ Invention
Appellant invented a method and system for safely processing a delete
request. In particular, upon receiving from a user a request to delete an item
within a local storage device (117), a trusted secure device (110) makes an
audit log containing deletion requests available to an approval source to
determine whether the user is authorized issue the delete request. Upon
receiving an approval response from the approval source the trusted source
confirms the validity of the received approval response before deleting the
requested item from the storage device. (Spec. 6, ll. 20-28, Fig. 1.)

Illustrative Claim
Independent claim 1 further illustrates the invention. It reads as
follows:
1. A method of safely deleting an item from a storage
entity, wherein the storage entity is associated with a trusted
secure device, the method comprising:
receiving, at the trusted secure device, a delete request to
delete an item;
creating an audit log of the delete request, wherein the
audit log specifies the item to be deleted and includes
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Application 11/724,520

3
information about the delete request, and wherein the audit log
is available to an approval source for review and approval of
the delete request; and
if the trusted secure device receives an approval response
from the approval source, confirming the validity of the
approval response and deleting the item from the storage entity
of the trusted secure device if the approval response is valid.

Prior Art Relied Upon
The Examiner relies on the following prior art as evidence of
unpatentability:
Kalibjian US 2008/0098230 A1 Apr. 24, 2008

Rejection on Appeal
The Examiner rejects claims 1, 2, 4-9, 11-15, and 17-20 under 35
U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Kalibjian.

ANALYSIS
Dispositive Issue: Under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e), did the Examiner err in finding
Kalibjian describes after identifying in an audit log a requested item to be
deleted, a trusted secure device receives from an approval source an
approval response, which is confirmed before deleting the requested data
from a storage device, as recited in claim 1?

Appellant argues Kalibjian does not describe the disputed limitations
emphasized above. (App. Br. 6-7, Reply Br. 1-3.) In particular, Appellant
argues Kalibjian discloses a list of requested items already previously
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deleted by a trusted server after authenticating a deletion request, as opposed
to an audit log specifying items to be deleted. (Reply Br. 2.) Further,
Appellant argues Kalibjian’s performance of a single authentication of a
delete request by a trusted server cannot be characterized as both “an
approval source response approving a delete request” and a “confirmation of
the validity of the approval response before deleting an item.” (Reply Br. 2.)
In response, the Examiner finds Kalibjian’s disclosure of storing
deleted items in a database describes the audit log. (Ans. 8.) Further, the
Examiner finds Kalibjian’s disclosure of a trusted server authenticating a
request to delete an item, and notarizing the authentication sent to the
request handler can delete the requested data describes a response approving
the request as well as validating the response. (Ans. 8.)
On the record before us, we find error with the Examiner’s
anticipation rejection. As depicted in Figure 8, Kalibjian discloses, upon
receiving a delete request along with an associated envelope containing the
data to be deleted from a client, a request handler forwards the envelope to a
trusted server. The request handler server maintains a table that tracks data
envelopes assigned to specific memory partitions in the trusted server
([0070], [0071].) Then, upon verifying that the signed party to each
assigned envelope is authorized to delete the requested data associated
therewith, the trusted server provides a notarized envelope, deletes the
requested data, and returns the notarized envelope to the request handler
server to report deletion success to the client. ([0072].) Subsequently, the
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5
trusted server stores a file name associated with the deleted item in a
database. ([0072].)
Because Kalibjian’s database serves to store requested items that have
already been deleted, as opposed to storing items specified to be deleted, we
agree with Appellant that the cited portion of Kalibjian upon which the
Examiner relied in the rejection does not describe the audit log. At best,
Kalibjian’s disclosure of storing data envelopes associated with requested
deletions in a table teaches or suggests the claimed audit log. Nonetheless,
the Examiner did not rely upon Kalibjian’s table as characterizing the log
audit. Further, while Kalibjian’s disclosure of notarizing an envelope
subsequent to authenticating a user associated with a request suggests a
validation of the user authentication, the validation occurs before the request
handler receives the authentication as opposed to in response thereto as
required by the claim.
Because Appellant has shown at least one error in the Examiner’s
rejection, Appellant has shown error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1.
Regarding the rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-9, 11-15, and 17-20, because
those claims recite commensurate limitations as in those of claim 1
discussed above, Appellant has similarly shown error in the rejection of
those claims for the foregoing reasons.
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DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-9, 11-15, and
17-20.
REVERSED

ELD