Ex Parte Beam et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 28, 2017

13118158 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 28, 2017)

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.
13/118,158 05/27/2011 Tyler K. Beam 333124-US-NP 9035
69316 7590 05/02/2017
MICROSOFT CORPORATION
ONE MICROSOFT WAY
REDMOND, WA 98052
EXAMINER
GRACIA, GARY S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2491
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/02/2017 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):
u sdocket @ micro soft .com
chriochs @microsoft.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte TYLER K. BEAM, KAVITHA RADHAKRISHNAN,
BENJAMIN J. KARAS, KATRINA M. BLANCH, LYON WONG,
ALLEN T. KIM, STEVEN J. BALL, J. TRACY LAURICELLA,
SCOTT B. GRAHAM, and MANAV MISHRA
Appeal 2016-0082721
Application 13/118,158
Technology Center 2400
Before STEPHEN C. SIU, JUSTIN BUSCH, and ALEX S. YAP,
Administrative Patent Judges.
YAP, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1—7, 9-13, and 15—22,2 which are all the claims pending
in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Microsoft Corporation.
(App. Br. 3.)
2 Claims 8 and 14 were cancelled. (App. Br. 5.)
Appeal 2016-008272
Application 13/118,158
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants’ invention generally relates to a broker module managing
requests to access one or more items of an item source. (Specification (filed
May 27, 2011) (“Spec.”) Abstract.) Claims 1 and 13 are representative and
are reproduced below (with minor reformatting):
1. A method in a computing device, the method comprising:
exposing, at a broker module of the computing
device, application programming interfaces (APIs) to an
isolated application of the computing device, the APIs
supporting interfaces that can be invoked by the isolated
application for different types of access to items;
receiving, at the broker module via one of the APIs,
a request from the isolated application to access one or
more items of an item source;
checking, in the computing device, which of the one
or more items the isolated application is authorized to
access; and
if the isolated application is authorized to access
none of the one or more items, then denying the request,
and otherwise:
generating one or more storage item objects
that represent those of the one or more
items that the isolated application is
authorized to access, and
filtering the generated one or more storage
item objects that represent those of the
one or more items that the isolated
application is authorized to access, the
filtering comprising removing one or
more storage item objects that
correspond to a particular file type,
such that the one or more filtered
storage item objects do not include
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Application 13/118,158
storage item objects that correspond to
the particular file type; and
returning the one or more filtered storage
item objects to the isolated application.
13. One or more computer-readable storage devices comprising
multiple instructions of an application stored thereon that, when
executed by one or more processors of a computing device,
cause the one or more processors to perform operations
comprising:
invoking an application programming interface
(API) of a broker module to request access to one or more
items of an item source, the application comprising an
isolated application that is being executed by the one or
more processors and that is restricted from accessing the
item source other than through the broker module, the API
of the broker module supporting one or more interfaces
that can be invoked by the isolated application for different
types of access to items, the API of the broker module
associated with at least a storage name space, a query
name space, and a query creation namespace, the query
namespace configured to enable the isolated application to
submit queries or searches for items, the query creation
namespace configured to enable queries to be created by
the isolated application, the created queries maintained by
the broker module to enable subsequent access by the
isolated application to the created queries;
receiving, from the broker module, at least one
storage item object containing those of the one or more
items that the isolated application is authorized to access;
and persisting the at least one storage item across multiple
executions of the application.
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Prior Art and Rejections on Appeal
The following table lists the prior art relied upon by the Examiner in
rejecting the claims on appeal:
Schaefer et al.
(“Schaefer”) US 2006/0036570 Al Feb. 16, 2006
Bissett et al.
(“Bissett”) US 2007/0067321 Al Mar. 22, 2007
Pedersen et al.
(“Pedersen”) US 2007/0083501 Al Apr. 12, 2007
Low et al.
(“Low”) US 2007 /0180448 Al Aug. 2, 2007
Czajkowski et al.
(“Czajkowski”) US 7,840,967 B1 Nov. 23,2010
Claims 1—7,3 9-12, and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Pedersen, in view of Low, and further in view of
Bissett. (See Final Office Action (mailed May 18, 2015) (“Final Act.”) 4—
19.)
Claims 13 and 15—21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Pedersen, in view of Low, and further in view of Schaefer
and Czajkowski. (See Final Act. 19-47.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We are not persuaded that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1—7, 9-13, and 15—22.
3 The Examiner mistakenly included cancelled claim 8 in this rejection.
(Final Act. 18).
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“filtering the generated one or more storage item objects ...”
With regard to claim 1, the Examiner finds that while Pedersen in
view of Low does not disclose the filtering limitation, Bissett discloses this
limitation. (Final Act. 13—14.) Appellants contend that:
Intercepting a request to access a native resource and
consulting one or more rules to determine whether to: allow the
request to pass through to the native resource; redirect the request
to a different native resource; or map the request to a
corresponding native resource in a specific isolation scope as
described by Bissett, however, is not the same as “filtering the
generated one or more storage item objects . . .”, as recited in
independent claim 1.
(App. Br. 16.) The Examiner explains that Bissett performs “filtering”
similar to what was described in paragraphs 46 and 47 of Appellants’
specification. (Ans. 5—7.) We agree with the Examiner’s findings regarding
this limitation and we adopt, as our own, the findings and reasons set forth
by the Examiner, regarding this issue, in the action from which this appeal is
taken (Final Act. 13—14) and the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the
Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellants’ Appeal Brief. (Ans. 5—7.)
Appellants do not explain why the Examiner’s construction is unreasonable
or overly broad (Reply 5—7) but instead contend that Bissett does not teach
or suggest “removing one or more storage item . . .” as recited in
independent claim 1. {Id. at 7). However, for the reasons discussed below,
Appellants have not persuaded us the Examiner erred.
“generating one or more storage item objects ...”
Appellants also contend that “Bissett does not include any discussion
of generating ‘one or more storage item objects that represent those of the
one or more items that the isolated application is authorized to access’, and
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instead discusses mapping directly to native resources.” (App. Br. 16.)
Appellants, however, have not persuaded us of Examiner error because the
Examiner relies on Pedersen rather than Bissett for this limitation. (Final
Act. 5-9.)
“the filtering comprising removing one or more storage item objects that
correspond to a particular file type ...”
With regard to claim 1, the Examiner finds that while Pedersen in
view of Low does not disclose the filtering limitation, Bissett discloses this
limitation. (Final Act. 13—14.) Appellants contend that Bissett does not
teach or suggest “removing one or more storage item objects. . .” because
“[tjhere is no discussion in Bissett of removing one or more native
resources, much less removing one or more native resources that correspond
to a particular file type.” (App. Br. 16—17.) We agree with the Examiner
that the “[rjemoval process as described in claim 1 does not [require]
removing] or deleting] the original resource but merely redirects the
filtered item[,] which does not contain the original resource.” (Ans. 8—9
(citing Spec. 1 8).) Appellants again do not challenge the Examiner’s
construction as being unreasonable or overly broad (Reply 7—8) but instead
contend that “because Bissett does not include any discussion of returning a
native resource to an isolation environment, there is nothing to support the
examiner’s conclusion that an isolated application is allowed to access a
native resource.” (Reply 8, emphasis omitted.) This argument (regarding
the “returning the one or more filtered storage item objects to the isolated
application” limitation) is a new argument that is raised in reply and is
deemed waived. See In re Hyatt, 211 F.3d 1367, 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2000)
(noting that an argument not first raised in the brief to the Board is waived
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on appeal); Ex parte Nakashima, 93 USPQ2d 1834, 1837 (BPAI 2010)
(informative) (explaining that arguments and evidence not timely presented
in the principal Brief, will not be considered when filed in a Reply Brief,
absent a showing of good cause explaining why the argument could not have
been presented in the Principal Brief); Ex parte Borden, 93 USPQ2d 1473,
1477 (BPAI 2010) (informative) (“[pjroperly interpreted, the Rules do not
require the Board to take up a belated argument that has not been addressed
by the Examiner, absent a showing of good cause.”); see also 37 C.F.R.
41.41(b)(2). Appellants also contend that the “intended purpose of Bissett’s
isolated environment” is not same as the claimed invention’s. (Reply 7—8.)
This argument, however, is not persuasive because claim 1 does not include
such a limitation.
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded of Examiner error in
the rejection of claim 1 and we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of
claim 1, as well as the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claims 2—7, 9—12, and
22, which are not argued separately. (App. Br. 17.)4
“persisting the at least one storage item across multiple executions of the
application ”
With regard to claim 13, the Examiner finds that while Pedersen in
view of Low does not disclose the persisting limitation, Czajkowski teaches
4 In the event of further prosecution, the Examiner should also review the
claims under A lice Corp. Pty Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014).
(See also Spec. H 16 (“Computing device 102 can also include an entity
(e.g., software) that causes hardware of computing device 102 to perform
operations”), 17 (“One such configuration of a computer-readable medium is
signal bearing medium and thus is configured to transmit the instructions
(e.g., as a carrier wave) to the hardware of computing device 102, such as
via network 104. . . .”).)
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or suggests this limitation. (Final Act. 29—30.) The Examiner finds that this
limitation is met because Czajkowski teaches that an application can be
executed multiple times with “the at least one storage item” persisting across
the multiple executions. (Id.; Ans. 9-12.) Appellants contend that because
“the at least one storage item” is reallocated when the application is
terminated, this limitation is not met. (App. Br. 19—20; Reply 9—10.)
Appellants point to paragraph 44 of the Specification for support:
Persisted storage item objects can be identified in a variety of
different manners, such as by device identifier, operating system
(e.g., NTFS) object identifier, name/timestamp matches,
combinations thereof, and so forth. Thus, persisted storage item
objects can be identified even if the item has been renamed or
moved. Additionally, storage item objects can be persisted
across multiple executions of application 202, allowing
application 202 to retrieve and use the persisted storage item
object when application is again executed after having been
terminated (e.g., having been shut down or deactivated).
(Spec. 144, emphasis added.) Appellants’ contention requires reading “after
having been terminated” into the limitation. We decline to do so. See In re
Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (holding that, although the claims
are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification
are not read into the claims). We agree with the Examiner’s finding that the
isolated application can be re-executed multiple times and use the same “at
least one storage item” without the application being terminated. (Ans. 10.)
Therefore, we are not persuaded of Examiner error.
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded of Examiner error in
the rejection of claim 13 and we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of
claim 13, as well as the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claims 15—19, which
are not argued separately. (App. Br. 20.) Independent claim 20 contains a
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similar limitation and Appellants present similar arguments. (App. Br. 20—
23.) Therefore, for the same reasons discussed above, we are not persuaded
of Examiner error in the rejection of claim 20 and we sustain the 35 U.S.C.
§103 rejection of claim 20, as well as the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claim
21, which is not argued separately. (App. Br. 23.)
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1—7, 9—13, and 15—22 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)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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