Ex Parte Santos et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 27, 201613260261 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 27, 2016) Copy Citation 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. 13/260,261 09/24/2011 Cipriano A. Santos 82853898 1074 56436 7590 12/29/2016 Hewlett Packard Enterprise 3404 E. Harmony Road Mail Stop 79 Fort Collins, CO 80528 EXAMINER SWARTZ, STEPHEN S ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3623 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/29/2016 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): hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com chris. mania @ hpe. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte CIPRIANO A. SANTOS, JERRY Z. SHAN, MARIA T. GONZALEZ DIAZ, and SHAILENDRA K. JAIN Appeal 2014-006158 Application 13/260,2611 Technology Center 3600 Before BIBHU R. MOHANTY, SHEILA F. McSHANE, and AMEE A. SHAH, Administrative Patent Judges. McSHANE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL The Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s final decision to reject claims 1—15. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP. Appeal Brief filed December 17, 2013, hereafter “Appeal Br.,” 3. Appeal 2014-006158 Application 13/260,261 BACKGROUND The invention relates to a workforce plan associated with resource data that can be used for planning. Specification, hereafter “Spec.,” 1 8. The workforce plan can be used to assess demand fulfillment and resource utilization. Id. Representative method claim 1 is reproduced from page 14 of the Appeal Brief (Claims App’x) as follows, with emphasis added to the disputed limitations: 1. A method implemented on a computer, the method comprising: receiving a resource data that includes data relating to employee resources, and to a set of opportunities representing demand for employee resources; receiving, for a planning window, a worhforce plan associated with the resource data, the worhforce plan including a worhforce allocation plan to map employees to jobs associated with at least one of the set of opportunities, and a hiring plan to direct how many job offers and types of job offers to make', establishing, by a computer, a realization model configured to simulate and predict effects of supply and demand uncertainty on the resource data; executing, by a computer, the realization model over a given time period of the planning window; transforming the resource data according to predictions of the realization model, wherein the transforming includes replacing selected data with predicted data; and computing metrics configured to assess one or more of demand fulfillment and resource utilization achieved by the workforce plan under the realization model. 2 Appeal 2014-006158 Application 13/260,261 In a Final Rejection, the Examiner rejects claims 1—15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Kosiba,2 Johnson,3 Santos,4 and Al- Otaibi.5 Final Action, hereafter “Final Act.,” 5—17, mailed July 18, 2013,6 Answer, hereafter “Ans.,” 3, mailed February 27, 2014. DISCUSSION The Appellants present arguments using independent claim 1 as representative, and based on common issues with the other independent claims, that is, claims 14 and 15. See Appeal Br. 12. There are no additional arguments presented for dependent claims 2—13, and they therefore stand or fall with claim 1. Id. The Examiner finds that Al-Otaibi teaches claim 1 ’s limitation of “a workforce plan associated with the resource associated with at least one of the set of opportunities, and hiring plan to direct how many job offers and types of job offers to make,” stating that Al-Otaibi “teaches a workforce plan associated with current resources including development plans (i.e. map employees to future opportunities) and possible future job options, as well as taking into account additional hiring (i.e. knowing how many jobs need to be offered).” Final Act. 8 (citing Al-Otaibi 1:53—67, 2:1—24, 2:41—56, 14:50- 57). 2 US Patent 7,103,562 B2, issued September 5, 2006. 3 US Publication 2009/0119126 Al, published May 7, 2009. 4 US Publication 2008/0103868 Al, published May 1, 2008. 5 US Patent 7,672,861 B2, issued March 2, 2010. 6 In the Final Action, the Examiner rejected claims 1—13 under 35 U.S.C. §101, and that rejection was withdrawn in the Answer. See Final Act. 3—5; Ans. 4. 3 Appeal 2014-006158 Application 13/260,261 The Appellants argue that neither Kosiba, Johnson, nor Santos discloses the limitations of: 1) “a workforce allocation plan to map employees to jobs associated with at least one of the set of opportunities;” and 2) “a hiring plan to direct how many job offers and types of job offers to make.” See Appeal Br. 9—10; Reply Brief, hereafter “Reply Br.” 2. The Appellants contend that Al-Otaibi teaches “predicting a future number of employees desired within the organization for a preselected period of time responsive to the accessed human resource information to define a human resource manning plan, assigning a plurality of employment development activities to each of a plurality of participating employees,” but fails to teach the claimed limitations. Appeal Br. 10—11. The Appellants also contrast the claim limitations with Al-Otaibi’s disclosures “that only those recruits who have unequivocally accepted offers for employment within a particular department of the organization will be included in the year-end employee numbers utilized in the ten-year manning plan. The department supervisor for the employee group in which the recruits are positioned is responsible for finalizing the year-end employee numbers and entering them into the system.” Id. at 11 (citing Al-Otaibi 14:50—57). In response, the Examiner affirms that Al-Otaibi is relied upon for teaching the claim limitations at issue, and Kosiba, Johnson, or Santos are not relied upon for the teachings of the limitations at issue. Ans. 4. The Examiner finds that Al-Otaibi teaches human resource and planning that allows quick changes in employee hiring needs that can be used in a hiring plan to fill the needs of the organization (mapping needs to hiring individuals). Id. at 5 (citing Al-Otaibi 1:55—67). The Examiner also finds that Al-Otaibi’s teachings relating to the additional internal job (i.e. a new 4 Appeal 2014-006158 Application 13/260,261 set of opportunities), and the mapping of the employees to the jobs, represent a hiring plain directing “how many job offers and the types of job offers to make.” Id. at 5—6. Upon consideration of the evidence on this record in light of the arguments advanced by the Appellants, we find that the Appellants have not identified reversible error in the Examiner’s determination that representative claim 1 is obvious. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of this claim for the reasons set forth in the Final Action and the Answer. We add the following primarily for emphasis. Al-Otaibi discloses programs and methods of “human resource planning and development to allow an organization to tracking training and development of existing employees and to plan for future employees hiring needs within the organization.” Al-Otaibi 1:55—58 (emphasis added). It also discloses “an embodiment of a system to enhance human resource planning for an organization” with “a computer medium associated with the server and having program code means responsive to preselected manning assumptions and adapted to process human resource information from the human resource database for predicting a future number of employees desired within the organization for a preselected period of time to thereby define a human resource manning plan. ” Id. at 2:1—2, 7—13 (emphasis added). There is no ipsissimis verbis test for determining whether a reference discloses a claim element, i.e., identity of terminology is not required. See In re Bond, 910 F.2d 831, 832 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (“it is unlikely that independent specification writers will use identical language in describing even identical embodiments of an invention.”). The question of obviousness 5 Appeal 2014-006158 Application 13/260,261 is not whether the prior art recites the exact words of the claim, but what a person of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate from its teachings. See KSRInt’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 421 (2007)). In light of the broad nature of Al-Otaibi’s disclosures, we find there is sufficient support for the Examiner’s related findings on obviousness as to the workforce allocation plan that maps employees to jobs, and a hiring plans to direct job offers under representative claim 1. We therefore sustain the rejections of claims 1—15 under § 103. SUMMARY The rejection of claims 1—15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) 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). AFFIRMED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation