Ex Parte Witkowski et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 28, 201410423356 (P.T.A.B. May. 28, 2014) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte ANDREW WITKOWSKI, GREGORY DORMAN, AND DAVID GREENFIELD ____________ Appeal 2012-000778 Application 10/423,356 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, JOHN A. EVANS, and J. JOHN LEE, Administrative Patent Judges. EVANS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 seek our review2 under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s final rejection of Claims 68 and 75-873 as obvious, as non- 1 The Real Party in Interest is Oracle International Corporation. 2 We have considered in this decision only those arguments Appellants actually raised in the Briefs. Any other arguments which Appellants could have made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii)(2004). 3 App. Br. 2, 8-9. Appeal 2012-000778 Application 10/423,356 2 statutory subject matter, and as failing to comply with the written description requirement. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM-IN-PART.4 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The claims relate to “techniques for storing multidimensional data in relational database management systems.” Spec., ¶ [0002]. Claims 68, 81, and 87 are independent. The claims have not been argued separately and therefore stand or fall together. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii)(2004). An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of exemplary Claim 68, which is reproduced below with disputed limitations italicized: 68. A computer-implemented method comprising: storing multidimensional data in a relational database, wherein the multidimensional data that is stored in the relational database includes a plurality of dimensions, and wherein at least one dimension of the plurality of dimensions includes a hierarchy having two or more levels of granularity; receiving a particular query that requests to retrieve multi- dimensional data from the relational database via a certain view referred to by a reference within said particular query, said particular query conforming to a database language supported by a relational database system; wherein a partial materialized view includes a portion of said multidimensional data aggregated at one or more particular levels of granularity of said hierarchy; 4 Our decision refers to Appellants’ Appeal Brief filed March 21, 2011 (“App. Br.”); Reply Brief filed August 19, 2011 (“Reply Br.”); Examiner’s Answer mailed June 20, 2011 (“Ans.”); Final Office Action mailed July 21, 2010 (“Final Rej.”); and the original Specification filed April 25, 2003 (“Spec.”). Appeal 2012-000778 Application 10/423,356 3 wherein said particular query requests data aggregated at a number of levels of granularity of: said hierarchy, and another dimension different than the dimension of said hierarchy; and rewriting said particular query to translate said certain view into a view defined by an inner subquery that returns data aggregated at said number of levels of granularity, and rewriting said inner subquery; and wherein (1) said rewriting said particular query to translate said certain view into a view defined by an inner subquery that returns and (2) said rewriting said inner subquery both do not involve rewriting said particular query to access said partial materialized view; after rewriting said inner subquery, rewriting said particular query to access said partial materialized view; and wherein the method is performed by one or more computers. REFERENCES The Examiner relies upon the prior art as follows: Cheng U.S. 5,367,675 Nov. 22, 1994 Carey U.S. 2001/0049685 A1 Dec. 6, 2001 Cochrane U.S. 6,560,594 B2 May 6, 2003 Lin U.S. 6,615,203 B1 Sep. 2, 2003 Anjur U.S. 7,028,046 B2 Apr. 11, 2006 Chang-Sup Park, Myoung Ho Kim & Yoon-Joon Lee, Rewriting OLAP Queries using Materialized Views and Dimension Hierarchies in Data Warehouses, IEEE 17th Int’l Conference on Data Engineering, 515- 523 (2001) (hereinafter “Park”). Appeal 2012-000778 Application 10/423,356 4 The claims stand rejected as follows:5 1. Claims 81-86 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to non- statutory subject matter. Ans. 5. 2. Claims 68 and 87 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. Ans. 5-6. 3. Claims 68, 75-77, and 80 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Cochrane and Cheng. Ans. 6-9. 4. Claims 78 and 79 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Cochrane, Cheng, and Anjur. Ans. 9-12. 5. Claim 80 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Cochrane, Cheng, and Carey. Ans. 12. 6. Claims 81-84 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Cochrane, Park, and Carey. Ans. 13-16. 7. Claims 85 and 86 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Cochrane, Park, Carey, and Anjur. Ans. 16-18. 8. Claim 87 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Cochrane, Cheng, and Lin. Ans. 18-22. 5 Based on Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief, we will decide the appeal on the basis of claims as set forth below. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). Appeal 2012-000778 Application 10/423,356 5 ISSUES ON APPEAL Based on Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief and Reply Brief, the issues presented on appeal are: I. Whether the Examiner erred in rejecting Claims 81-86 as non- statutory subject matter under § 101. II. Whether the Examiner erred in rejecting Claims 68 and 87 under § 112, first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. III. Whether the Examiner erred in making the asserted combination of Cochrane and Cheng to reject Claims 68, 75-80, and 87. IV. Whether the Examiner erred in making the asserted combination of Cochrane, Park, and Carey to reject Claims 81-86. ANALYSIS I. NON-STATUTORY SUBJECT MATTER Appellants contend the limitation “computer-readable storage medium” of Claims 81-86 cannot reasonably be interpreted to include a transitory signal. App. Br. 9. Appellants argue that neither a signal nor a wave is a computer-readable storage medium, “because neither a signal nor a wave is a medium that is capable of storing instructions that may be read by a computer.” Id. However, the language “non-transitory” does not appear in Claims 81- 86, and the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims covers a transitory signal per se. A transitory, propagating signal is not a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, and as such, cannot be Appeal 2012-000778 Application 10/423,356 6 patentable subject matter. In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2007). We, therefore, affirm the non-statutory subject matter rejection of Claims 81-86.6 II. WRITTEN DESCRIPTION We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner has erred. We agree with Appellants’ conclusions. Appellants contend the limitation “(1) said rewriting said particular query to translate said certain view into a view defined by an inner subquery that returns and (2) said rewriting said inner subquery both do not involve rewriting said particular query to access said partial materialized view” of Claims 68 and 87 is supported by the written description. App. Br. 9-10. Appellants contend the Specification explicitly states that “one or more of several query transformations” to an inner query are performed before rewriting to access a materialized view. App. Br. 10. Appellants argue that performing query transformations “[b]efore the materialized view rewrite” is tantamount to performing a query transformation that does not involve a rewrite to access a materialized view. Id. Further, Appellants contend the Specification gives explicit examples of “(1) rewriting a particular query to 6 A claim drawn to such a computer-readable storage medium that covers both transitory and non-transitory embodiments may be amended to narrow the claim to cover only statutory embodiments and avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101. See David J. Kappos, Subject Matter Eligibility of Computer Readable Media, 1351 Off. Gaz. Pat. Office 212 (Feb. 23, 2012). Appeal 2012-000778 Application 10/423,356 7 translate said certain into a view defined by an inner subquery and (2) rewriting the inner subquery,” where these rewrite examples do not involve rewriting to access a materialized view. App. Br. 10-11. The Examiner contends that performing transformations “[b]efore the materialized view rewrite” does not necessarily exclude rewriting a particular access query to access said partially materialized view. Ans. 25. The Examiner argues that, “[w]hile the examples provided by Appellant[s] do not show this occurring,” Appellants have not “explicitly discounted rewriting either of those queries to access said partial materialized view before the materialized view rewrite.” Id. The Examiner also contends that rewriting the particular query and inner subquery “both ultimately do involve ‘rewriting said particular query to access said partial materialized view,’ albeit several steps in the future.” Id. at 26. Appellants reply that, by providing explicit examples of rewrites that do not involve rewriting to access a materialized view, they have shown to skilled artisans that Appellants had possession of the claimed invention as of the filing date. Reply Br. 2-3. We agree with the Appellants’ contentions. Claims 68 and 87 require, at the time of rewriting the particular query to translate and rewriting the inner subquery, the rewritings do not involve rewriting the particular query to access the partial materialized view. The claims do not exclude the partial materialized view being accessed at another time (e.g., later in the claimed method), just not at the time of rewriting the particular query to translate and rewriting the inner subquery. This limitation is supported by the language in the Specification, paragraph [0098], where the query transformations take place before the materialized view rewrite. The recitation in Claims 68 and Appeal 2012-000778 Application 10/423,356 8 87 of waiting until after the rewriting steps to access the partial materialized view is analogous to the language of Claim 81, where the rewriting steps are performed “before . . . access[ing] the partial materialized view,” which is also supported by the Specification, paragraph [0098]. Claim 81 was not (nor should it have been) rejected by the Examiner under § 112, first paragraph. Therefore, we decline to sustain the Examiner’s rejection of Claims 68 and 87 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph. III. OBVIOUSNESS: COCHRANE AND CHENG We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner has erred. We agree with Appellants’ conclusions. Appellants contend that Claims 68 and 87 require, “after performing the view translation rewrite and the inner subquery rewrite, performing a materialized view rewrite.” App. Br. 13. Appellants argue that Cheng teaches “perform[ing] a view merge transformation of view SB.V2,” which “involves eliminating the view to create the inner subquery Q3 in the interim SQL [Structured Query Language] statement,” and “the inner subquery Q3 is then eliminated to form optimized query 170.” Id. Appellants contend that, “[b]y teaching to rewrite a query to eliminate a view, the passage fails to teach rewriting a query to access a view, materialized or otherwise, much less doing so after rewriting an inner subquery.” Id. Appellant further contends that Cheng, or any cited reference, fails to teach “performing the view translation rewrite and the inner subquery rewrite before the materialized view rewrite.” Id. at 13-14. Appeal 2012-000778 Application 10/423,356 9 The Examiner finds Cheng to teach the rewriting to translate and rewriting the inner subquery (i.e., Interim SQL statement of Cheng and New SQL statement) and that both do not involve rewriting said particular query to access said partial materialized view. The Examiner also finds that after rewriting said inner subquery, Cheng teaches rewriting said particular query to access said partial materialized view, where the particular query of Cheng is merged to access the view. Ans. 8. The Examiner contends that the view SB.V2 of Cheng “is removed from the query, such that both transformations do not involve rewriting the query to access the materialized view”, and “[t]he view is merged with the query after the rewrite, such that the information in the materialized view may be accessed.” Id. at 29. Regarding the timing of rewriting the materialized view after rewriting to translate and rewriting the inner subquery, the Examiner contends that Cochrane “teaches an optimization technique which involves multiple steps,” and that “[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have inserted further steps into this optimization technique”; thus, adding the steps of Cheng provided Cochrane “the benefit of more optimal processing of a query and with less time to retrieve data.” Id. (citation omitted). Appellants reply that there is “no teaching of a materialized view in Cheng, including the passages relied upon by the Examiner for teaching to rewrite to a materialized view.” Reply Br. 4 (citation omitted). Appellants reiterate the argument that Cheng teaches rewriting queries to eliminate views, rather than rewriting queries to access either views or materialized views. Id. We agree the Examiner erred. The Examiner finds that Cochrane Appeal 2012-000778 Application 10/423,356 10 does not teach: rewriting to translate, rewriting the inner subquery and, after rewriting the inner subquery, rewriting the particular query to access the partial materialized view. Ans. 7. Rather, the Examiner relies upon Cheng for the rewriting steps as well as the timing of the steps. Id. at 7-8. The Examiner contends that merging the view and query of Cheng is analogous to the claimed “rewriting said particular query to access said partial materialized view,” but does not provide an explanation of how merging the view and query is the same as rewriting the query to access the partial materialized view itself. To establish prima facie obviousness of a claimed invention, all the claim limitations must be taught or suggested by the prior art. See In re Royka, 490 F.2d 981, 985 (CCPA 1974). Because the Examiner has not sufficiently explained how the view itself in Cheng is accessed, the Examiner has not established a factual basis that supports the legal conclusion of obviousness. Furthermore, the claim requires that rewriting to translate and rewriting the inner subquery do not involve rewriting the particular query to access the partial materialized view. However, Cheng shows the process of rewriting to translate and rewriting the inner subquery of Figure 4 does, in fact, access the view SB.V2 at step 150. Appeal 2012-000778 Application 10/423,356 11 Therefore, we decline to sustain the Examiner’s rejection of Claims 68, 75-80, and 87 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Cochrane and Cheng. IV. OBVIOUSNESS: COCHRANE, PARK, AND CAREY We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner has erred. We agree with Appellants’ conclusions. Appellants contend that Claim 81 requires rewriting the particular query to translate and rewriting the inner subquery before rewriting a particular query to access a partial materialized view. App. Br. 12. Appellants contend the claims do not simply require a view translation rewrite to produce an inner subquery, a subquery rewrite of the inner subquery, and a materialized view rewrite, but also specifically claim the timing with which the various rewriting steps are performed. Id. Appellants argue the Examiner has erroneously relied upon Cochrane to teach these limitations, particularly “before rewriting said particular query to access said partial materialized view,” which only cites half the limitation and leaves out the query transformation steps to which this partial limitation paragraph refers. Id. (citation omitted). Appellants contend “[t]here is no query transformation performed [in Cochrane] between query Q4 to query Q4’, and thus no transformation performed before rewriting query Q4 to access materialized view DBA.PG_SALESSUM.” Id. Thus, Appellants argue, “[i]f Cochrane fails to teach performing a query transformation before a materialized view rewrite, it must fail to teach performing a view translation rewrite and an inner subquery rewrite before a materialized view rewrite, as Appeal 2012-000778 Application 10/423,356 12 claimed.” Id. at 12-13. Further, Appellants contend that “Park and Chen also fail to teach performing some form of query transformation step before rewriting the query to access a materialized view.” Id. at 13. The Examiner finds Cochrane teaches “before rewriting said particular query to access said partial materialized view”; Park teaches “rewriting to translate”; and Carey teaches “rewriting the inner subquery, and rewriting said particular query to access said partial materialized view.” Thus, the Examiner finds the combination of references teaches each claimed limitation and the overall timing of the transformation sequences. Ans. 14-15, 27 (citations omitted). The Examiner further finds Cochrane teaches performing a query rewrite, specifically Q4 and Q4’, wherein the final rewrite involves “rewriting said particular query to access said partial materialized view.” Id. at 27. The Examiner finds this rewrite of Cochrane “occurs by following optimization logic,” which “involves a plurality of determinations and steps.” Id. at 28. The Examiner contends that “[o]ne of ordinary skill in the art would recognize optimization logic, such as that described in [Park and Carey,] would be capable of being used in addition to the optimization logic of [Cochrane] before a ‘final query’ could be created and submitted.” Id. Appellants reply the Examiner has not provided any proof that the logic and steps of optimization logic of Park and Carey is combinable with Cochrane. Reply Br. 3. In the context of rewriting queries to access materialized views, Appellants contend “the Examiner failed to show it is known to perform . . . a query rewrite before performing a rewrite to access a materialized view[, and] [t]herefore, . . . has failed to show that Cochrane can be combined with any form of query rewrites that are performed before Appeal 2012-000778 Application 10/423,356 13 a materialized rewrite, much less performing a view translation rewrite, then an inner subquery rewrite, before a materialized view rewrite, as claimed.” Id. We agree the Examiner erred. The Examiner relies upon Cochrane to teach “before rewriting said particular query to access said partial materialized view” (Ans. 14) (citation omitted), then states that Cochrane does not teach “rewriting said particular query to access said partial materialized view” (Ans. 15). Where a reference does not teach a particular step, it cannot be said that it teaches performing any other steps “before” that step. Further, the Examiner relies on Cochrane to teach the timing limitation of Claim 81: “before rewriting the particular query to access the…view,” then relies on other references to teach performing the subsequent steps of Claim 81: “rewriting…to translate” (Park) and “rewriting the inner subquery” (Carey), without sufficiently explaining where a person of ordinary skill would find such a teaching in the references of the required order of the steps. The motivation to combine the references provided by the Examiner of optimizing the query may be valid, however the references, alone or in combination, must first teach all limitations of the claims. Therefore, we decline to sustain the Examiner’s rejection of Claims 81-86 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Cochrane, Park, and Carey. ORDER The rejection of Claims 81-86 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 is AFFIRMED. The rejection of Claims 68 and 87 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, is REVERSED. The rejection of Claims 68 and 75-87 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is Appeal 2012-000778 Application 10/423,356 14 REVERSED. 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-IN-PART llw Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation