Ex Parte Van Vlimmeren et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJul 27, 201612936915 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 27, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/936,915 02/02/2011 65913 7590 07/29/2016 Intellectual Property and Licensing NXPB.V. 411 East Plumeria Drive, MS41 SAN JOSE, CA 95134 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Bernardus Adrianus Cornelis Van Vlimmeren 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. 81051410 US04 7953 EXAMINER COX,BRIANP ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2474 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 07/29/2016 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): ip.department.us@nxp.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte BERNARDUS ADRIANUS CORNELIS VAN VLIMMEREN and JACK ALEXANDER GOOSSEN Appeal2015-002950 Application 12/93 6,915 Technology Center 2400 Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, MELISSA A. HAAPALA, and KAMRAN JIVANI, Administrative Patent Judges. JIV ANI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants 1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner's final decision rejecting claims 1 and 3-23, which are all the claims pending in the present patent application. Claim 2 is cancelled. App. Br. 24. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM-IN-PART. 1 Appellants identify NXP B.V. as the real party in interest. App. Br. 1. Appeal2015-002950 Application 12/93 6,915 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The present application relates to processing an application that uses at least one resource, wherein resources are located on different subsystems. Spec. 1 :3-5. Claim 1 is illustrative: 1. A method, comprising: processing an application which uses a plurality of resources; generating at least one proxy depending on the application; the proxy claiming substantially all available resources, wherein an actually used resource for processing the application is determined depending on at least one predefined criterion. The Rejections 1. Claims 1, 3-5, 8, 9, 14, 17, and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Jackson (US 8,321,871 Bl; Nov. 27, 2012) and Stackhouse (US 7,437,728 B2; Oct. 14, 2008). 2. Claims 16, 18-20, and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Jackson, Stackhouse, and Rattner (US 2009/0158292 Al; June 18, 2009). 3. Claim 21 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Jackson, Stackhouse, Rattner, and "OpenMAJ(fM Integration Layer Application Programming Interface Specification Version 1.0," (The Khronos Group Inc., December 16, 2005). 2 Appeal2015-002950 Application 12/93 6,915 4. Claims 6, 7, and 11-15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Jackson, Stackhouse, Rattner, and Biro (US 2008/0320490 Al; Dec. 25, 2008). 5. Claim 10 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Jackson, Stackhouse, and Biro. ANALYSIS Rejection 1: Obviousness over Jackson and Stackhouse Appellants argue independent claims 1 and 17 together. App. Br. 8. Based on Appellants' arguments, we select independent claim 1 as representative. Appellants contend, "Those skilled in the art would not regard [Jackson's] 'jobs' as equivalent to the claimed proxy." Id. at 5. Appellants further contend "Jackson teaches away from claiming substantially all available resources." Id. at 7. Appellants continue, "those skilled in the art would not regard [Stackhouse] management service as equivalent to the recited proxy." Id. Initially, as a matter of claim construction, we find Appellants have not defined explicitly the term proxy in the claim nor the Specification. We apply the broadest reasonable interpretation of claim terms, consistent with the specification, as would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (citations omitted). Where, as here, the Specification does not explicitly define a term, the term should be given its ordinary meaning. E-Pass Techs., Inc. v. 3Com Corp., 343 F.3d 1364, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2003). Appellants contend, "Those skilled in the art would not regard [Jackson's] 'jobs' as equivalent to the claimed proxy." App. Br. 5. Appellants fail, however, to explain persuasively why the broadest 3 Appeal2015-002950 Application 12/93 6,915 reasonable interpretation of the claimed proxy would not include Jackson's jobs. As the Examiner correctly finds: Jackson describes the creation of "jobs" as: "receiving a request for resource availability in a compute environment from a requestor (i.e., and application side system), means for associating transaction identification with the request and resources within the compute environment (Jackson col[.] 4, 11. 49-56); A job can be any venue or end of consumption of resource for any broad purpose, whether it be for a batch system, direct volume access or other service provisioning (Jackson col. 5, 11. 5-8)[.]" Here Jackson describes the receipt of a request from a requestor, which is analogous to an application and means of associating the request with resources that the application can utilize. Furthermore, Jackson contemplates a very broad interpretation of "Job," regardless, it is clear from the disclosure of Jackson that a request is received from an application side system and resources are reserved with the intermediary step of creating a job to facilitate the reservation of resources. Ans. 4--5 (emphasis added). Thus, we agree with the Examiner, that Jackson's description of jobs teaches or suggests the claimed proxy. We are also not persuaded by Appellants' arguments regarding the limitation "the proxy claiming substantially all available resources." The Examiner cites Stackhouse, not Jackson, as teaching this limitation. Final Act. 5. Where, as here, a rejection is based on a combination of references, one cannot show non-obviousness by attacking references individually. In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). Further, Appellants fail to identify in the record before us, disclosure in Jackson that would have discouraged a skilled 4 Appeal2015-002950 Application 12/93 6,915 artisan from attempting the cited combination, and cause the artisan to "be led in a direction divergent from the path that was taken by the applicant." In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 990 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (citations omitted). Thus, we are not persuaded Jackson teaches away from claiming substantially all available resources. Appellant also fails to explain persuasively why, given the cited Stackhouse teaching of managing 100% of all available resources (Ans. 5), the recited claiming resources would not encompass Stackhouse's managing resources. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 1 and 1 7. Appellants contend the Examiner errs in rejecting dependent claims 4 "because Jackson's policies are not equivalent to filter units because Jackson lacks proxies." App. Br. 9. Appellants further contend the Examiner errs in rejecting dependent claim 5 "[b ]ecause Jackson lacks proxies, Jackson all [sic] cannot disclose any proxy filter units." Id. at 10. We find these arguments unpersuasive for the reasons discussed above. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of dependent claims 4 and 5. Appellants advance no further arguments for dependent claims 3, 14, and 23. App. Br. 13. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of dependent claims 3, 14, and 23. In addition to the arguments addressed above, Appellants contend the Examiner errs in rejecting dependent claims 8 and 9 because "having something 'utilized by a central node' is not equivalent to connecting a first resource to a second resource." App. Br. 11-12. We agree with Appellants. The cited portion of Jackson teaches or suggests that the allocated resources are allocated within a single node. Jackson, 6:10-30. This recitation does not, absent more, teach or suggest connecting the resources as set forth in 5 Appeal2015-002950 Application 12/93 6,915 claims 8 and 9. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of dependent claims 8 and 9. Rejection 2: Obviousness over Jackson, Stackhouse, and Rattner Appellants advance no further arguments for dependent claims 16, 18-20, and 22 beyond those addressed above as unpersuasive in the context of Rejection 1. See App. Br. 14. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of dependent claims 16, 18-20, and 22. Rejection 3: Obviousness over Jackson, Stackhouse, Rattner, and OpenMax Appellants advance no further arguments for dependent claim 21 beyond those addressed above as unpersuasive in the context of Rejection 1. See App. Br. 15. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of dependent claim 21. Rejection 4: Obviousness over Jackson, Stackhouse, Rattner, and Brio Claims 6, 7, and 11-15 set forth connectable, connecting, or connected resources. As discussed above in the context of Rejection 1, we find the cited portion of Jackson teaches or suggests that the allocated resources are allocated within a single node. Jackson, 6: 10-30. This description does not, absent more, teach or suggest connecting the resources as set forth in claims 6, 7, and 11-15. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of dependent claims 6, 7, and 11-15. 6 Appeal2015-002950 Application 12/93 6,915 Rejection 5: Obviousness over Jackson, Stackhouse, and Brio Claim 10 sets forth connecting resources. As discussed above in the context of Rejection 1, we find the cited portion of Jackson teaches or suggests that the allocated resources are allocated within a single node. Jackson, 6: 10-3 0. This recitation does not, absent more, teach or suggest connecting the resources as set forth in claim 10. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of dependent claim 10. DECISION We affirm the Examiner's decisions rejecting claims 1, 3-5, and 16- 23. We reverse the Examiner's decisions rejecting claims 6-15. 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-IN-PART 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation