Ex Parte Abraham et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

May 15, 2012

11153861 (B.P.A.I. May. 15, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte MAURICE HAMAN ABRAHAM, PAUL WILLIAM TURNER,
and MICHAEL CARTER
____________

Appeal 2010-000917
Application 11/153,861
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JASON V. MORGAN,
and BRUCE R. WINSOR, Administrative Patent Judges.

SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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Application 11/153,861

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Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1-15, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants‟ invention relates to a method and an apparatus for
monitoring a computer-controlled process to evaluate the impact of
computer resource failures and degraded service performance on the process
(see Spec. 1:25 – 2:14).
Exemplary Claim
Exemplary independent claim 1 reads as follows:
1. A method for monitoring a plurality of process
instances, the method comprising:
providing a model object reflecting a workflow common
to the process instances, the model object comprising a plurality
of nodes with at least some of the nodes being capable of
assuming at least active and blocked states;
receiving events and changing the states of the nodes in
corresponding model object instances in accordance with the
events received so as to reflect the status of the process
instances; and
repeatedly determining an “at risk” state indicator for the
model instances, the “at risk” state indicator when set for a said
model instance indicating that the corresponding workflow
instance is in a state in which it cannot progress to a normal
completion without encountering a node in the blocked state.
Rejections
The Examiner rejected claims 1-6, 8-13, and 15 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Davis (US
Appeal 2010-000917
Application 11/153,861

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6,014,673) and Kanaya (US 6,493,675 B1), and further added Ouyang (US
7,017,129 B2) to reject claims 7 and 14.
The Examiner found that Davis discloses all the recited steps of claim
1 except for “repeatedly determining an „at risk‟ state indicator for the model
instances,” for which the Examiner relied on Kanaya (Ans. 4). The
Examiner cited various portion in column 20 of Kanaya for disclosing the
“at risk” state indicator and concluded that modifying Davis with Kanaya
would have been obvious “in order to indicate whether the operation of the
workflow is normal or abnormal and make sure the workflow progress[sic]
to a normal completion at most situation[sic]” (id.).
Appellants’ Contentions
Appellants contend that the Examiner‟s rejection of claim 1 was in
error because “there is nothing in Kanaya that can be interpreted as
discussing a blocked node” (App. Br. 4). Citing column 20, lines 47-63 of
Kanaya, Appellants explain that the work flow assigned to a work flow
engine in an abnormal state is transferred for execution to another work flow
engine, which indicates that no “blocked node” determination is taught in
Kanaya because a work flow engine is not a node and cannot become
“blocked” (App. Br. 5).
In response to the Examiner‟s assertion that it is Davis that discloses
the “blocked” and “active” states in node 45 (Ans. 12-14), Appellants point
out that node 45 of Davis is a part of the workflow that performs the
function “RE-SUBMIT CLAIM” and is not comparable to a node in a
“blocked state” (Reply Br. 2). Appellants further contend that Kanaya‟s
detection process is applied to a workflow engine, rather than a workflow
Appeal 2010-000917
Application 11/153,861

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instance, and does not amount to determining an abnormal state due to a
blocked node or an “at risk” state (id.).
Issue on Appeal
Did the Examiner err in rejecting the claims as being obvious because
the combination of Davis and Kanaya fails to teach or suggest “repeatedly
determining an „at risk‟ state indicator for the model instances,” as recited in
claim 1?

ANALYSIS
We agree with Appellants‟ contentions above. As asserted by
Appellants (App. Br. 5, Reply Br. 2), the cited portions of Kanaya in
columns 20 and 21 do not describe that the abnormal conditions of the
workflow engine are based on encountering a node in the blocked state.
Therefore, we find that the Examiner‟s characterization of the “abnormal”
state indicator in Kanaya as the claimed “at risk” state indicator (see Ans.
13-14) to be based on speculation rather than factual findings supported by
the evidence of record. Further, we agree with Appellants (Reply Br. 2) that
the repeated function of resubmitting a claim in node 45 is a part of the
workflow process shown in Figure 2 of Davis, which merely indicates
repeating a part of the process, rather than encountering a node in a blocked
state (see e.g., Davis, Fig. 2, col. 4, ll. 44-53). Therefore, Appellants have
shown error in the Examiner‟s position with respect to the rejection of claim
1, of claims 7, 8, 11, and 15 which recite similar limitations, and of claims 2-
6, 9, 10, and 12-14 dependent thereon.

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DECISION
The Examiner‟s decision to reject claims 1-15 is reversed.

REVERSED

ELD