Cray Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Apr 21, 2020

14693534 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Apr. 21, 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.
14/693,534 04/22/2015 David Mizell 90836916 1085
56436 7590 04/21/2020
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
EXAMINER
NGUYEN, PHONG H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2162
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/21/2020 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):
chris.mania@hpe.com
hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte DAVID MIZELL

Appeal 2018-0063811
Application 14/693,534
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before ERIC B. CHEN, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and
JOYCE CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judges.

BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant2 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 9 and 14. Claims 1–6, 8, 10–13, and 15–21 are
cancelled, and claim 7 is allowed. We have jurisdiction over the pending
rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

1 The hearing in this appeal was waived.
2 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Cray Inc.
(Appeal Br. 1.)
Appeal 2018-006381
Application 14/693,534

2
THE INVENTION
Appellant’s disclosed and claimed invention is directed to updating an
index into a tuple table. (Abstract.)
Independent claim 9, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject
matter on appeal:
9. A computer-readable storage storing an index for a tuple
table, the tuple table having tuples with fields, each field having
a value, the index for mapping index values of an indexed field
to tuples that have the corresponding index values in the
indexed field, the index comprising:
for each index value, a value-tuple data structure that
identifies the tuples of the tuple table that have that index value
in the indexed field, each value-tuple data structure being
separately lockable so that a locked value-tuple data structure
can be updated while locked without locking any other value-
tuple data structure; and
a values data structure that, for each index value,
identifies the value-table data structure for that index value.

REJECTIONS3
The Examiner rejected claims 9 and 14 on the ground of obviousness-
type nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1–12
of Mizell (US 9,047,333 B2, issued June 2, 2015).4 (Final Act. 5–7.)
The Examiner rejected claim 9 as being anticipated by Matthews et al.
(US 8,560,511 B1, issued Oct. 15, 2013). (Final Act. 8–12.)

3 The Examiner’s rejections were variously directed to all of claims 1–21,
but only claims 9 and 14 remain on appeal. (1/8/18 Amendment; Ans. 6–7.)
4 Appellant states that it has filed a terminal disclaimer to overcome this
rejection. (Appeal Br. 2, n.1.) However, nothing in the record reflects entry
of a terminal disclaimer, and therefore this rejection is summarily affirmed.
Appeal 2018-006381
Application 14/693,534

3
The Examiner rejected claim 14 as being unpatentable over Matthews
and Das et al. (US 2010/0036862 A1, pub. Feb. 11, 2010). (Final Act. 13–
21.)
ISSUE ON APPEAL
Appellant’s arguments present the following dispositive issue:5
Whether the Examiner erred in finding Matthews disclosed the
independent claim 9 requirement, “for each index value, a value-tuple data
structure that identifies the tuples of the tuple table that have that index value
in the indexed field,” and the commensurate requirement of independent
claim 14. (Appeal Br. 8–9; Reply Br. 4.)
ANALYSIS
Appellant argues the Examiner errs in finding Matthews discloses the
claimed “value-tuple data structure.” (Appeal Br. 9; Reply Br. 2–4.) In the
Final Action, the Examiner relies on the disclosure in Matthews of the use of
the time stamp in the event tracking data to reference an entry in a “City by
Second Array,” which in turn references an “Aggregation Table”
corresponding to that time stamp. (Final Act. 3–4, 10–11; Matthews Figs. 8,
10, 16:19–36, 18:31–44.) As Appellant correctly argues in the Appeal Brief,
the portion of Matthews cited by the Examiner does not disclose anything
that “identifies the tuples of the tuple table that have that index value in the
indexed field,” as required by claim 9. (Appeal Br. 9.)
In response, in the Answer, the Examiner finds:

5 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the positions of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Jan. 8, 2018); the Reply Brief
(filed June 4, 2018); the Final Office Action (mailed Nov. 28, 2017); and the
Examiner’s Answer (mailed Apr. 4, 2018) for the respective details.
Appeal 2018-006381
Application 14/693,534

4
[T]he City by Second Array in Matthews (Fig. 10), is similar to
“a value-tuple data structure.” Examiner interprets that the
column “City” in the aggregation table is referenced from the
City by Second Array in Matthews, means for the column
“City” is a primary key or an index key between the
aggregation table and the array, which is similar to “a value-
tuple data structure that identifies the tuples of a tuple table.”
(Ans. 6–7.)
In response, Appellant argues that the City by Second Array in
Matthews does not satisfy the claimed value-tuple data structure because
each entry on the City by Second Array references a different Aggregation
Table (i.e., an Aggregation Table for a particular time stamp), rather than
referencing a particular City entry within an Aggregation Table, as the
Examiner erroneously finds. (Reply Br. 2–4.)
We agree with Appellant that the City by Second Array does not
disclose the claimed value-tuple data structure. Although the Aggregation
Tables of Matthews arguably correspond to a claimed “tuple table,” the City
by Second Array only identifies a particular Aggregation Table, rather than
any one or more entries with an Aggregation Table. In contrast, the value-
tuple data structure must identify particular “tuples” (i.e., rows) of the tuple
table that have a particular index value.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s § 102(e) rejection of
independent claim 9. For the same reason, we do not sustain the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of independent claim 14 over Matthews and Das,
because the Examiner does not rely on Das in connection with the
commensurate value-tuple data structure requirement of claim 14.
Appeal 2018-006381
Application 14/693,534

5
CONCLUSION
Because we affirm at least one ground of rejection with respect to
each claim on appeal, the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 9 and 14 is
affirmed. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(a)(1).
DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)
/Basis
Affirmed Reversed
9, 14

Nonstatutory
Double
Patenting
9, 14
9 102(e) Matthews 9
14 103(a) Matthews,
Das
14
Overall
Outcome
9, 14

TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
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