ATLASSIAN PTY LTD

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Apr 1, 2020

14712169 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Apr. 1, 2020)

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.
14/712,169 05/14/2015 MARTIN SUNTINGER 60378-0024 8157
29989 7590 04/01/2020
HICKMAN PALERMO BECKER BINGHAM LLP
1 ALMADEN BOULEVARD
FLOOR 12
SAN JOSE, CA 95113
EXAMINER
YOUNG, ASHLEY YA-SHEH
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3683
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/01/2020 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):
usdocket@h35g.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte MARTIN SUNTINGER, MARTIN STURM, and
HANNES OBWEGER
__________

Appeal 2019-001037
Application 14/712,169
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before JAMES A. WORTH, BRADLEY B. BAYAT, and
ROBERT J. SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

BAYAT, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
decision to reject claims 1–26, which are all the claims pending in the
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as “Atlassian Pty
Ltd.” Appeal Br. 1.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
Appellant’s invention “relates to systems and methods for scheduling
work items that form part of a project.” Spec. ¶ 2. For example, “available
human resources work in teams, and each team works in defined length
iterations (often referred to as sprints)” and “each iteration has a defined set
of work associated with it.” Spec. ¶ 29. Priority is placed on minimizing the
number of iterations required to complete the work item. Spec. ¶ 33. Teams
estimate how many complexity units (e.g. story points) can be achieved by
the team members in a given iteration (referred to as the team’s velocity).
Spec. ¶ 35. “An iteration violation occurs where an additional iteration
needs to be used to complete a work item.” Spec. ¶ 79. “For example, a
work item that can be completed in a single iteration does not have any
iteration violations. A work item that requires two iterations has a single
iteration violation. A work item that requires three iterations has two
iteration violations and so forth.” Spec. ¶ 79.
Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject
matter on appeal.
1. A computer implemented scheduling method comprising:
accessing project data from computer readable storage
media using a computer processor, the project data comprising:
work item data defining a plurality of work items to be
scheduled; resource data defining a plurality of resources; team
data defining a plurality of teams, each team being associated
with one or more resources and having a schedule of iterations;
performing, by the computer processor, preprocessing to
reduce processing time and memory usage of the computer
implemented method;
for each work item:
processing, using the computer processor, the project
data to determine one or more team-specific scheduling
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solutions for the work item, each team specific scheduling
solution for the work item defining a particular team, one or
more iterations of that particular team in which the work item
can be completed, and a number of iteration violations, wherein
an iteration violation occurs when an additional iteration needs
to be used to complete the work item;
wherein the processing takes into account a constraint
that limits each team of the plurality of teams to utilizing the
one or more resources associated with the team as defined
by the project data;
identifying from the one or more team-specific
scheduling solutions, using the computer processor, an optimal
scheduling solution for the work item, the optimal scheduling
solution being selected based at least in part on a least number
of iteration violations defined by each of the one or more team-
specific scheduling solutions; and
scheduling the work item using the computer processor
according to the optimal scheduling solution identified for the
work item.

REJECTIONS
I. Claims 1–7, 12–20, 25, and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(a)(1) as anticipated by Morris (US 8,332,251 B1, issued Dec. 11,
2012).
II. Claims 8–11 and 21–24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Morris and Metherall (US 2007/0168918 A1,
published July 19, 2007).
OPINION
Anticipation by Morris
Claims 1–7, 12–20, 25, and 26
Independent claim 1 requires, in part
each team specific scheduling solution for the work item
defining a particular team, one or more iterations of that
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particular team in which the work item can be completed, and a
number of iteration violations, wherein an iteration violation
occurs when an additional iteration needs to be used to
complete the work item.
See Claim 1 supra. Independent claim 14 recites a substantially similar
limitation. See Appeal Br. 17, Claims App.
Appellant’s Specification discloses:
An iteration violation occurs where an additional
iteration needs to be used to complete a work item. For
example, a work item that can be completed in a single iteration
does not have any iteration violations. A work item that
requires two iterations has a single iteration violation. A work
item that requires three iterations has two iteration violations
and so forth.
Spec. ¶ 79.
In contesting the rejection of claim 1 as anticipated by Morris,
Appellant argues “Morris does not mention iteration violations at all as an
element to consider during optimization. . . . [T]he cited portions only
disclose a certain number of optimization criteria that a user can select when
customizing objectives to be achieved through optimization. None of these
considers or suggests a number of iteration violations as an optimization
criterion.” Appeal Br. 8.
The Examiner responds:
Given the broadly [sic] nature of the language, Examiner
submits that the teachings of Morris would reasonably read
upon this language in first describing iteration information of
the invention including one or more iteration deadlines, as well
as the overarching goal to generate optimized allocation
scenarios for the stories over one or more iterations of a release,
where in an optimization step, one or more objective functions
are optimized, such as optimizing a scheduling criterion by
producing allocation scenarios with the least amount of time to
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complete (i.e. least number of iterations). Furthermore, Morris
was cited to teach of a penalty assigned to a story if not
implemented as planned, as well as the optimizing of the stories
implemented in each iteration, where some stories may be
deferred to a subsequent iteration (e.g. penalties assigned for
taking longer than the allotted time, i.e. additional iterations are
required). In this regard, Examiner submits that the cited art
again does in fact teach of the argued limitation drawn to using
the iteration violations as an element to consider during
optimization, and Morris is therefore reapplied as relevant art.
Ans. 5–6.
Appellant replies:
One of ordinary skill in the art would not reasonably
construe an “iteration” as a deadline, either in view of the plain
meaning of an “iteration” and/or in view of the present claims
and disclosure. The plain meaning of an iteration is “one
execution of a sequence of operations or instructions in an
iteration” pursuant to the Merriam-Webster online Dictionary
(as of November 11, 2018 at https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/iteration). Thus, the plain meaning of
“iteration” has no relationship to a “deadline.”
Reply Br. 3. According to Appellant, it is unreasonable to construe
“iteration” as a deadline because the Specification “provides that in an ‘agile
example, in a scrum methodology the available human resources work in
teams, and each team works in defined length iterations (often referred to as
sprints). Ideally, each iteration has a defined set of work associated with it.’”
Id. (quoting Spec. ¶ 29). As such, Appellant contends that “[n]one of the
cited optimization criteria of Morris disclose or suggest identifying a
solution with a least number of iteration violations, much less counting and
comparing the iteration violations across a set of solutions.” Id. at 4. We
are persuaded by Appellant’s arguments.
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The Examiner’s interpretation of iteration violation as corresponding
to a deadline penalty in Morris is inconsistent with the ordinary and
customary meaning of the term when read in light of the Specification. The
claim requires “defining a particular team, one or more iterations of that
particular team in which the work item can be completed.” See Claim 1
supra (emphasis added). The penalty function in Morris assigns a penalty to
a specific story, if the story is not implemented “on-time” as planned.
Morris 12:18–21. The Examiner’s assertion that penalties assigned for
taking longer than the allotted time represent additional iterations that are
required is inconsistent with the meaning of the term iteration, which is “one
execution of a sequence of operations” (see supra) “to complete a work
item.” Spec. ¶ 79. “For example, a work item that can be completed in a
single iteration does not have any iteration violations. A work item that
requires two iterations has a single iteration violation. A work item that
requires three iterations has two iteration violations and so forth.” Id.
Although each iteration or sprint defines a duration in which a team
can complete a work item, the duration for each iteration varies, such that a
team may complete a work item in multiple iterations, yet the total time or
duration to complete the work item may be less than another team
performing the work item in a single iteration. See Spec., Fig. 3. The
Specification provides “[i]f the number of iteration violations of the solution
returned at 506 is equal to the number of iteration violations of the current
optimal solution the solution returned at 506 will be preferable if the
solution returned at 506 has an earlier end date.” Spec. ¶ 134. In other
words, the claimed iteration violations are not based on the duration to
complete a work item, but, rather, on determining whether additional
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execution of a sequence of operations is required to complete the work item.
As such, “a particular solution of many could have numerous iteration
violations but still be completed within the given deadline or time
allotment.” Reply Br. 4. Because an iteration violation as claimed and
described in the Specification cannot reasonably be construed as
corresponding to Morris’s deadline penalty, the Examiner has not
established that independent claims 1 and 14 are anticipated by Morris.
“[A]bsence from the reference of any claimed element negates anticipation.”
Kloster Speedsteel AB v. Crucible Inc., 793 F.2d 1565, 1571 (Fed. Cir.
1986).
Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of independent claims 1
and 14 as anticipated by Morris, including claims 2–7, 12, 13, 15–20, 25,
and 26 which depend therefrom.
Obviousness Rejection over Morris & Metherall
Claims 8–11 and 21–24
The obviousness rejection of dependent claims 8–11 and 21–24 is
predicated on the Examiner’s erroneous finding in independent claims 1 and
14 discussed above. See Final Act. 25–35. Accordingly, we do not sustain
the rejections of claims 8–14 and 22–24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 because the
Examiner’s further reliance on Metherall fails to remedy that deficiency.

CONCLUSION
The rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) is reversed.
The rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.
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DECISION SUMMARY
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–7, 12–20,
25, 26
102(a)(1) Morris 1–7, 12–20,
25, 26
8–11, 21–24 103 Morris, Metherall 8–11, 21–24
Overall
Outcome
1–26

REVERSED