Ex Parte Shani et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 4, 2018

14374249 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 4, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/374,249 07/24/2014
146568 7590
ENTIT SOFTWARE LLC
500 Westover Drive
#12603
Sanford, NC 27330
12/06/2018
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Inbar Shani
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.
83991760 7922
EXAMINER
SOLTANZADEH, AMIR
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2197
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/06/2018 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):
software.ip.mail@microfocus.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte INBAR SHANI, AMICHAI NILSAN,
and ILAN SHUFER
Appeal2018-003832
Application 14/374,249 1
Technology Center 2100
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and
ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction over the pending
rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify EntIT Software LLC as the real party in interest. (App.
Br. 3.)
Appeal2018-003832
Application 14/374,249
THE INVENTION
Appellants' disclosed and claimed invention is directed to identifying
a failed code change in a deployment pipeline. (Abstract.)
Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject
matter on appeal:
1. A computer implemented method to identify a failed
code change in a deployment pipeline with a plurality of code
changes, the method comprising:
testing the plurality of code changes in the deployment
pipeline in an application under test environment, testing
includes:
running a set of tests on the plurality of code
changes until a subset of the plurality of code changes pass the
set of tests, and
removing at least one of the plurality of code
changes from the subset each time the subset fails the set of
tests; and
determining the failed code change based on the subset
that passes the set of tests.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1-3, 5, 6, 9-11, 15-18, and 20 under 35
U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Henderson et al (US
2005/0102653 Al, pub. May 12, 2005) (hereinafter "Henderson") and
Anderson et al (US 2014/0189641 Al, pub. July 3, 2014) (hereinafter
"Anderson"). (Final Act. 2.)
The Examiner rejected claim 4 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being
unpatentable over Henderson, Anderson, and Benson et al (US
2005/0160078 Al, pub. July 21, 2005) (hereinafter "Benson"). (Final Act.
14.)
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Application 14/374,249
The Examiner rejected claims 7, 8, 12, and 13 under 35 U.S.C.
§ I03(a) as being unpatentable over Henderson, Anderson, and Apuzzo et al
(US 2003/0037314 Al, pub. Feb. 20, 2003) (hereinafter "Apuzzo"). (Final
Act. 16.)
The Examiner rejected claim 14 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being
unpatentable over Henderson, Anderson, and Agarwal et al (US
2010/0005341 Al, pub. Jan. 7, 2010) (hereinafter "Agarwal"). (Final Act.
19.)
The Examiner rejected claim 19 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being
unpatentable over Henderson, Anderson, and Leung (US 2002/0066077 Al,
pub. May 30, 2002). (Final Act. 20.)
ISSUES ON APPEAL
Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following
issues2 :
Issue One: Whether the Examiner erred in finding one of ordinary
skill in the art at the time of Appellants' invention would have combined the
teachings of:
( 1) Henderson and Anderson, in order to teach or suggest independent
claims 1, 9, and 15 (App. Br. 7-9, Reply Br. 1-3); and
(2) Henderson, Anderson, and Benson, in order to teach or suggest
dependent claim 4. (App. Br. 10-11.)
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the positions of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Aug. 1, 2017); the Reply Brief
(filed Feb. 27, 2018); the Final Office Action (mailed Mar. 8, 2017); and the
Examiner's Answer (mailed Dec. 28, 2017) for the respective details.
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Issue Two: Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination
of Henderson, Anderson, and Agarwal teaches or suggests the dependent
claim 14 limitation, wherein "the decision engine automatically transmits a
message identifying the failed code change." (App. Br. 11-12.)
Issue Three: Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination
of Henderson, Anderson, and Agarwal teaches or suggests the dependent
claim 19 limitation,
a development engine to perform a test of the assembly
to evaluate release of the assembly into production, wherein a
failure of the test of the assembly initiates use of the test engine
and the decision engine to identify the failed code change.
(App. Br. 13-14.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection in light of Appellants'
arguments that the Examiner erred. We disagree with Appellants'
arguments, and we adopt as our own ( 1) the pertinent findings and reasons
set forth by the Examiner in the Action from which this appeal is taken
(Final Act. 2-24) and (2) the corresponding findings and reasons set forth by
the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in response to Appellants' Appeal
Brief. (Ans. 2-8.) We concur with the applicable findings and conclusions
reached by the Examiner, and emphasize the following.
First Issue
In finding one skilled in the art at the time of Appellants' invention
would have combined the teachings of Henderson and Anderson to teach or
suggest independent claims 1, 9, and 15, the Examiner relies on the
disclosure of Henderson of a "NewDLL" having modified sets, based on
known-good sets in "GoodDLL," and testing of "TestDLL" having one set
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Application 14/374,249
to be tested replaced with a known-good set. This testing procedure is
repeated in order to identify defective components. (Final Act. 3--4;
Henderson ,r,r 38, 29--30, 32.) The Examiner further relies on the disclosure
of Anderson of a continuous deployment system in which a test can be
written that checks that a particular bug has been fired, and the test can be
re-run on new code changes. (Final Act. 4--5; Anderson ,r,r 16, 15.)
Appellants argue that in Anderson,
software tests are performed for purposes of evaluating whether
to continue with the product deployment or abandon the
deployment. One of ordinary skill in the art would not glean
from Anderson's disclosure the concept of identifying a
particular part of code, or a code change, that leads to a testing
error or any advantage in Anderson's automated deployment
that would be gained from this identification.
(App. Br. 8, citing Anderson ,r,r 67---68.) Appellants further contend that
Anderson's reference to performing "multiple tests" leads to debugging that
"would not be performed as part of Anderson's continuous deployment
system," and the modification of Anderson in view of Henderson is
"impermissible hindsight." (Reply Br. 3, citing Anderson ,r 68.) Appellants
make similar arguments regarding the rejection of dependent claim 4. (App.
Br. 10-11.)
We are not persuaded of Examiner error. The Examiner finds, and we
agree, that the combination of Henderson and Anderson would "allow a
continuous deployment system to manage and track[] releases of software
code and testing the changes to the source code, during each release." (Final
Act. 5, citing Anderson ,r,r 15-16.) Anderson teaches a deployment system
in which errors are corrected, as Anderson "teaches rolling back to the
previously deployed software package due to a test fail" (Ans. 5, citing
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Anderson ,r 7 5), indicating the system would not merely halt a deployment
as Appellants contend. Appellants' arguments are further undercut by
Anderson's directive that "improvements can be added to the process to
allow best practices to be implemented, allowing the process to continually
evolve and improve" (Anderson ,r 15, see Final Act. 4--5), which invites one
of skilled in the art to consider the addition of debugging tools that further
best practices.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent
claims 1, 9, and 15, as well as dependent claims 2, 3, 5-8, 10-13, 16-18, and
20 not argued separately. See App. Br. 10, 14. For the same reasons, we
also sustain the Examiner's rejection of dependent claim 4.
Second Issue
Appellants argue "Agarwal fails to disclose or render obvious that the
notification identifies a failed code change" because,
no particular code is identified by the regression detection
routine of Agarwal, but rather, the notification merely informs
the operator 100 that regression has been detected. Thus, the
passage being relied on by the Final Office Action fails to
disclose or render obvious, "the decision engine automatically
transmits a message identifying the failed code change," as
recited in claim 14.
(App. Br. 12, citing Agarwal ,r 27.) Appellants further contend "there is no
reason why one of skill in the art would have modified Anderson's system
such that a message is automatically transmitted that identifies a failed code
change." (App. Br. 12.)
We are not persuaded of Examiner error. The Examiner finds that,
[ Agarwal] teaches profile data, which includes program
execution trace information and memory dumps that are used to
analyze the regression (see paragraph [0029]). The trace
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information in the profile data identifies the code that caused
the regression and the profile data location is included in the
notification sent to the operator (see paragraphs [0029] -
[0031 ]). Regression tests are performed on current application
build (i.e. new version) and compared to results of a previous
version (i.e. version that provided the baseline performance),
see paragraphs [0005]-[0006].
(Ans. 6.) The Examiner concludes that "[t]he regression is the result[] of
failed tests [,I 34] and the cause of the failed test and regression is a defect.
As a result, [ Agarwal] teaches that the notification identifies a failed code
change." (Ans. 6.) The Examiner further finds that.
Anderson teaches a scenario where continuous deployment
system 100 may end the deployment process due to failed test
(see paragraph [0065]). Anderson also teaches rolling back to
the previously deployed software package due to a test fail ( see
paragraph [0075])
and that,
[Agarwal] focuses on Regression testing by executing test cases
on a current build of a test application (see abstract). Further,
[Agarwal] teaches that the regression detection routine notifies
the control computer, which in tum, notifies the operator that a
regression is detected on the build (see paragraph [0027]).
(Ans. 7.) The Examiner concludes that "one of skill in the art would have
modified Anderson's system with [Agarwal] teaching of notifying the
operator about the detected regression, to teach that a message is
automatically transmitted that identifies a failed code change." (Ans. 7.)
We see no error in the Examiner's detailed findings, and Appellants
fail to challenge the Examiner's findings in the Reply. Accordingly, we
sustain the Examiner's rejection of dependent claim 14.
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Third Issue
Appellants argue that Leung
fails to disclose a development engine to perform a test of an
assembly to evaluate release of the assembly into production,
where a failure of the test of the assembly initiates use of a test
engine and a decision engine to identify a failed code
change ....
and that
[t]here is no discussion of a failure of the test by the assembly
initiating use of a test engine, failure of the test initiating use of
a test engine and a decision engine, or failure of the test
initiating use of a test engine and a decision engine to identify a
failed code change.
(App. Br. 13, citing Leung ,r 79.)
We are not persuaded of Examiner error. The Examiner finds that
Leung teaches the testing tool generating a driver and one or
more stubs for each subroutine ( or a selected set of subroutines)
under test. The driver, the stubs, and the subroutine are
compiled into an executable ....
(Ans. 8, citing Leung ,r 34) and finds that Leung also teaches the formation
of "incrementally integrated software" which "corresponds to the claimed
assembly." (Ans. 8, citing Leung ,r,r 79, 87). The Examiner further finds the
combination of Leung and Anderson teach software deployment "[a]fter the
integrated software passes [testing]" (Ans. 8, citing Anderson ,r 16), whereas
"[i]f the test fails a failed code change is identified." (Ans. 8, citing Leung
i183.)
We see no error in the Examiner's detailed findings, and Appellants
do not challenge the Examiner's findings in the Reply. Accordingly, we
sustain the Examiner's rejection of dependent claim 19.
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DECISION
The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-20 is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 3 7 C.F .R. § 1.13 6( a )(1 )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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