Ex Parte Zhou et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 20, 201511739985 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 20, 2015) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte YU CHEN ZHOU, LI YI, and MAO XINSHENG ____________ Appeal 2012-007758 Application 11/739,985 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before DENISE M. POTHIER, BRETT C. MARTIN, and JEREMY J. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judges. POTHIER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–35.1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to the Appeal Brief (App. Br.) filed on October 31, 2011; (2) the Examiner’s Answer (Ans.) mailed on February 17, 2012; and (3) the Reply Brief (Reply Br.) filed on April 16, 2012. Appeal 2012-007758 Application 11/739,985 2 Invention Appellants’ invention relates to a method, system, and medium for creating and/or updating resource property-based indexes for Web Service (WS) Resources among multiple Web Services ServiceGroups (WS-Service Group). See generally Spec. ¶¶ 3, 14–15, Abstract. Claim 1 is reproduced below with the key disputed limitations emphasized: 1. A method comprising: publishing with a client computer, from a first Web Service ServiceGroup, at least one topic, said first Web Service ServiceGroup having a Web Service Resource being defined by one or more properties associated with the at least one topic; notifying, with the client computer, a second Web Service ServiceGroup of one or more values of said one or more properties, said second Web Service ServiceGroup having subscribed to said at least one topic published by said first Web Service ServiceGroup, said second Web Service ServiceGroup being connected to said first Web Service ServiceGroup; creating, with the client computer, one or more index entities for each of the one or more properties such that each of the one or more index entities stores a property value; and notifying, with the client computer, the second Web Service ServiceGroup of a change to the property value in at least one of the one or more index entities without notifying any Web Service ServiceGroup that does not subscribe to the at least one topic of the change. The Examiner relies on the following as evidence of unpatentability: Crowle US 5,857,072 Jan. 5, 1999 Wallach US 6,292,905 B1 Sept. 18, 2001 Tomisawa US 2006/0210051 A1 Sept. 21, 2006 (field Mar. 17, 2006) OASIS WEB SERVICES TOPICS 1.3 (WS-TOPICS), PUBLIC REVIEW DRAFT 01 1–39 (William Vambenepe et al. eds., 2005) (hereinafter “Vambenepe”). Appeal 2012-007758 Application 11/739,985 3 OASIS WEB SERVICES GROUP 1.2 (WS-SERVICEGROUP), OASIS STANDARD 1–41 (Tom Maguire et al., 2006) (hereinafter “Maguire”). JAVA.LANG CLASS STRING, JAVATM 2 PLATFORM STD. ED. V.1.4.2, Sun Microsystems, Inc., 15, 26, 33 (2003), available at http://web.archive.org/web/20030605035323/http://java.sun.com/j2se/l.4 . . . (last visited on November 3, 2009 6:55 PM) (hereinafter “Java String”). The Rejections Claims 1, 6–13, 18–23, and 29–35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Maguire, Vambenepe, and Wallach. Ans. 5–11. Claims 2, 14, and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Maguire, Vambenepe, Wallach, and Crowle. Ans. 12–13. Claims 3, 15, and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Maguire, Vambenepe, Wallach, Tomisawa, and Crowle. Ans. 13–15. Claims 4, 16, 25, and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Maguire, Vambenepe, Wallach, and Tomisawa. Ans. 15–17. Claims 5, 17, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Maguire, Vambenepe, Wallach, Tomisawa, and Java String. Ans. 17–19. OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OVER MAGUIRE, VAMBENEPE, AND WALLACH Regarding independent claim 1, the Examiner finds that Maguire teaches a WS-Service Group that includes a WS-BaseNotification standard defining how subscribers are informed of changes to the ServiceGroup and Appeal 2012-007758 Application 11/739,985 4 WS-ResourceProperties. Ans. 5, 19–20 (citing Maguire 1:21–24). Additionally, the Examiner finds Vambenepe teaches a WS-Topics standard that organizes items of interest (e.g., a WS-Resource Properties) for subscription and in combination with Maguire’s WS-BaseNotification notification mechanism teaches categorizing resource properties by assigning notification of resource property changes to one or more topics. Ans. 6, 19–20 (citing Vambenepe 1:31–22, 7:180–81). Appellants argue the Examiner misconstrues claim 1 to require a notification of the change in a topic. App. Br. 8. Additionally, Appellants contend that Maguire fails to teach the recited notification of change to the property value of the same topic. App. Br. 8–9, Reply Br. 4–5. Rather, Appellants assert that Maguire teaches the WS-Base Notification informs a subscriber of changes to the ServiceGroup only. Reply Br. 4–6. Lastly, Appellants argue that Vambenepe does not cure this missing limitation. Reply Br. 6. ISSUE Under § 103, has the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 by finding that Maguire, Vambenepe, and Wallach collectively would have taught or suggested notifying the second Web Service ServiceGroup of a change to the property value in at least one of the one or more index entities? ANALYSIS Based on the record before us, we find no error in the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1. We agree that Maguire fails to state explicitly a Web service standard of a ServiceGroup that includes Appeal 2012-007758 Application 11/739,985 5 WS-BaseNotification informs a subscriber of a change to WS-ResourceProperties. Reply Br. 4–6. However, upon reviewing the cited portion in Maguire’s Abstract (Ans. 20), Maguire discloses the Web service associated with a ServiceGroup entry can be composed from Web services standards including WS-BaseNotification, which defines how third parties may subscribe to be informed of changes to the ServiceGroup. Maguire 1:18–22. Additionally, Maguire teaches the WS-ResourceProperties defines how properties of a ServiceGroup and its entries are made accessible through a Web service interface. Maguire 1:22–24. Given that WS- ResourceProperties define how properties of a ServiceGroup and its entries are accessible through a web service interface, Maguire suggests that there is a relationship between the properties in the WS-ResourceProperties and a ServiceGroup in context of Web services. See Maguire 1:14–16, 21–24. Additionally, this discussion in Maguire further suggests to one skilled in the art that changes to the ServiceGroup provided by the WS-BaseNotification would include any changes in the properties of a ServiceGroup, given that the WS-ResourceProperties define how ServiceGroup properties and its entries are accessible. See Ans. 20 (citing Maguire 1:2124). As such, Maguire at least suggests to an ordinary artisan that notifying a subscriber of changes to a ServiceGroup using WS-BaseNotification as taught by Maguire also involves notifying a subscriber of any changes to the properties of a ServiceGroup and its entries made accessible through a Web service interface. The Examiner further relies upon Vambenepe to teach the disputed “notifying” step of claim 1. Ans. 6, 19–20 (citing Vambenepe 1:31–33, 7:177–78, 180–81). Vambenepe teaches a WS-Notification specification Appeal 2012-007758 Application 11/739,985 6 allows for organizing and categorizing notifications using Topics. See id. Thus, Vambenepe teaches topics are used in conjunction with the notification mechanism defined in WS-BaseNotification. Vambenepe 1:3133, 7:177–78, 180–81. When combining this teaching with Maguire, the references collectively suggest to an ordinary artisan that notifying a subscriber of changes to a ServiceGroup using WS-BaseNotification, organized and categorized by Topics, would have involved notifying a subscriber of any changes to the properties of a ServiceGroup and its entries. Accordingly, Maguire and Vambenepe suggest to an ordinarily skilled artisan notifying the second WS ServiceGroup of a change to a property value associated with a topic as recited in claim 1. Moreover, Maguire teaches that services implementing the ServiceGroupEntry interface, which implements message exchanges and resource properties from the NotificationProducer interface, WS-BaseNotification, supports resource property value change notification as defined in WS-ResourceProperties. Maguire 15:385–89, 16:43842. Although our decision to affirm the Examiner’s rejection is not based on this additional finding, this portion of Maguire further illustrates the relationship between changes in properties of ServiceGroup and its entries and the WS-BaseNotification, which defines how subscribers are informed of changes in a ServiceGroup. Thus, for the foregoing reasons and based on the record, Appellants have not persuaded us of error in the rejection of: (1) independent claim 1; (2) independent claims 13 and 23, for which Appellants rely on the same arguments as claim 1; and (2) claims 6–12, 18–22, and 29–35, which are not separately argued. App. Br. 10–11. Appeal 2012-007758 Application 11/739,985 7 THE REMAINING REJECTIONS As for each of the remaining rejections, Appellants refer to the previous arguments of claims 1, 13, or 23. App. Br. 11–14. The issues before us, then, are the same as those in connection with claim 1, and we refer Appellants to our previous discussion. Accordingly, we sustain the rejections of the remaining claims. Appellants have not persuaded us of error in the rejections of claims 2–5, 14–17, and 24–28. CONCLUSION The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1–35 under § 103. DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–35 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)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED llw Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation