Ex Parte Blaicher et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jun 1, 2009

10446276 (B.P.A.I. Jun. 1, 2009)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________________

Ex parte CHRISTOPHER Y. BLAICHER, DONALD W. BLACK, and
MARY D. BLACK
____________________

Appeal 2008-004463
Application 10/446,2761
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Decided:2 June 2, 2009
____________________

Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JEAN R. HOMERE,
and CAROLYN D. THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judges.

HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 Filed on May 23, 2003. The real party in interest is BMC Software Inc.
2 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, begins to run from the decided date
shown on this page of the decision. The time period does not run from the
Mail Date (paper delivery) or Notification Date (electronic delivery).
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I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1 through 44. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We affirm.
Appellants’ Invention
Appellants invented a method and system for reorganizing a database
object using coordinated read tasks, sort tasks, and write tasks. (Spec. 2,
para. 0005.) As depicted in Figure 2, upon determining a key range
associated with the database object, it is partitioned such that each partition
is assigned a different portion of the determined key range. (Spec. 4-5, para.
0011-0012.) Upon receiving a plurality of read tasks, each partition of the
object is assigned a separate read task and a sort task. After a read task
acquires the data associated with the key value portion from an assigned
database partition, the sort task associated therewith sorts the acquired data.
After all partitions of the data object are sorted, the sort tasks write the
sorted data back in the database. (Spec. 5-6, para. 0013-15.)

Illustrative Claim
Independent claim 1 further illustrates the invention as follows:

1, A database reorganization method, comprising:
determining a key range for a database object in a database;
identifying plurality of partitions for the database object, each
partition associated with a different portion of the determined key range;
initiating a plurality of read tasks, each read task associated with a
portion of the database object;
initiating a plurality of sort tasks, each sort task associated with at
least one of the partitions,
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wherein each read task acquires data having a key value from the
associated portion of the database object and provides the acquired data to
that sort task associated with a partition including the key value; and
writing the data sorted by the plurality of sort tasks to the database
object in the database.

Prior Art Relied Upon
The Examiner relies on the following prior art as evidence of
unpatentability:
Avadhanam US 6,778,977 B1 Aug. 17, 2004
(filed Apr. 19, 2001)
Take US 5,640,554 Jun. 17, 1997

Rejection on Appeal
The Examiner rejects the claims on appeal as follows:
Claims 1 through 44 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Avadhanam and Take.

Appellants’ Contentions
Appellants argue that the combination of Avadhanam and Take does
not teach or suggest a single sort task that receives data from a plurality of
read tasks. (App. Br. 6-7, Reply Br. 7.) According to Appellants,
Avadhanam instead discloses a strict one-to-one correspondence between
read and sort processes. (App. Br. 7.) Further, Appellants argue that
Avadhanam teaches each of a plurality of modules that acquire data from all
of a target data file, as opposed to each said modules acquiring data from a
single portion of the database, as recited in claim 1. (App. Br. 7-8, Reply Br.
6-7.) Additionally, Appellants argue that one of ordinary skill in the art
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would not have found sufficient rationale to combine the teachings of
Avadhanam and Take to teach the invention as recited in claim 1. (App. Br.
9.)

Examiner’s Findings/Conclusions
The Examiner finds that Avadhanam teaches a plurality of read tasks
and sort tasks assigned to corresponding partitions of a database such that a
single read task and a single sort task are assigned to a single database
partition. The Examiner thus finds that such one-to-one assignment of a
read task and sort task to a database partition teaches the limitation of
associating a read task in a database partition with a portion of a database
object, and associating a sort task to the partition, as recited in independent
claim 1.3 (Ans. 14-16.) Further, the Examiner finds that Avadhanam’s
disclosure of each module accessing and evaluating all data in the database
does not constitute acquiring data from the database since such access and
evaluation are preliminary steps that are temporarily performed in the
process of determining where to acquire data. (Ans. 17.) Rather, the
Examiner finds that storing a matching record and providing it to the sorting
module constitutes acquiring the record. (Ans. 4.) Additionally, the
Examiner finds that Avadhanam and Take are both concerned with indexing
and sorting data in a database in order to reorganize the database. Therefore,
the Examiner concludes that the ordinarily skilled artisan would have found
sufficient rationale for combining the references. (Ans. 19.)

3 The Examiner finds that claim 1 does not recite a single sort task that
receives data from multiple read tasks, as argued by Appellants. (Ans. 14.)
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II. ISSUE
Have Appellants shown that the Examiner erred in finding that the
ordinarily skilled artisan would have found sufficient rationale to properly
combine the disclosures of Avadhanam and Take to teach or suggest that
each of a plurality of read tasks assigned to a corresponding database
partition acquires therefrom a data object portion associated therewith, and
subsequently provides the acquired data object portion to one of a plurality
of sort tasks associated with the database partition, as recited in claim 1?

III. FINDINGS OF FACT
The following findings of fact (FF) are supported by a preponderance
of the evidence.

Avadhanam
1. Avadhanam discloses a system that uses multiple processors for
creating an index of database records. (Col. 4, ll. 16-20.)
2a. As shown in Figures 1-4, Avadhanam discloses a plurality of
index creation modules (416) that, upon receiving criteria from associated
processing units (22), create indexes in parallel. In particular, the module
samples data records (202-208) stored in a database table (200) to determine
the most efficient way to split the records among them. (Col. 7, l. 64- col. 8,
l. 9.)
2b. As depicted in Figure 5, each of the index creation modules
(504, 506, 508) has an access module (510, 512, 514) that accesses the data
records from the database (516) to evaluate them. (Col. 8, ll. 30-41.)
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2c. Each of the index creation modules has a filtering module (518,
520, 522) for evaluating all the accessed records, and for determining which
records to store. Although a creation module may access all the records in
the database to evaluate them, the module nonetheless only stores
information for its portion of the index. (Col. 8, ll. 50-61.)
2d. Each of the index creation modules has a sorting module (524,
526, 528) for sorting the portion of data stored therein to subsequently create
the sub-indexes based on the sorted information. (Col. 8, ll. 62-67.)

Take
3. Take discloses a system for merging and sorting in parallel a
plurality of data processes to thereby generate one sorted data sequence. In
particular, a sort objective list comprising multiple sorted merge objective
lists corresponding to sort keys of records. The sorted merge objective lists
are divided into blocks of records, each identifying a respective block and
having an identification value of a sort key of the record representing the
block. (Col. 6, ll. 35-55.)

IV. PRINCIPLES OF LAW
Obviousness
Appellants have the burden on appeal to the Board to demonstrate
error in the Examiner’s position. See In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 985-86
(Fed. Cir. 2006) (“On appeal to the Board, an applicant can overcome a
rejection [under § 103] by showing insufficient evidence of prima facie
obviousness or by rebutting the prima facie case with evidence of secondary
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indicia of nonobviousness.”) (quoting In re Rouffet, 149 F.3d 1350, 1355
(Fed. Cir. 1998)).
Section 103 forbids issuance of a patent when “the differences
between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior
art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been
obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having
ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains.”

KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 406 (2007).
In KSR, the Supreme Court emphasized "the need for caution in
granting a patent based on the combination of elements found in the prior
art" and discussed circumstances in which a patent might be determined to
be obvious. Id. at 401 (citing Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 13-14
(1966)) (citation omitted). The Court reaffirmed principles based on its
precedent that "[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known
methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable
results." Id. at 416. The operative question in this "functional approach" is
thus "whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art
elements according to their established functions." Id. at 415, 417.
The Federal Circuit recently recognized that "[a]n obviousness
determination is not the result of a rigid formula disassociated from the
consideration of the facts of a case. Indeed, the common sense of those
skilled in the art demonstrates why some combinations would have been
obvious where others would not." Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price,
Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1161 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 416).
The Federal Circuit relied in part on the fact that Leapfrog had presented no
evidence that the inclusion of a reader in the combined device was “uniquely
challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art” or “represented an
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unobvious step over the prior art." Id. at 1162 (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 417-
418).
One cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually
where the rejections are based on combinations of references. In re Merck
& Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings of the
references would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art. See
Kahn, 441 F.3d at 987-988; In re Young, 927 F.2d 588, 591 (Fed. Cir. 1991);
In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981). Moreover, in evaluating such
references it is proper to take into account “not only the specific teachings of
the references but also the inferences which one skilled in the art would
reasonably be expected to draw therefrom.” In re Preda, 401 F.2d 825, 826
(CCPA 1968) (citation omitted).

V. CLAIM GROUPING
Appellants argue the patentability of claim 1 as being representative
of claims 1 through 44. In accordance with 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii), we
will consider these claims as standing and falling respectively with claim 1.

VI. ANALYSIS
Independent claim 1 recites in relevant parts (1) associating each of a
plurality of identified database object partitions (object partitions) with a
different portion of a determined key range in the database, (2) associating
each of a plurality of initiated sort tasks with at least one object partition, (3)
associating each of a plurality of initiated read tasks with a database portion
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such that the read task acquires data having a key value from a database
object portion associated therewith, and (4) forwarding the acquired data to
the corresponding sort task to thereby sort the object.
As set forth in the Findings of Fact section, Avadhanam discloses a
plurality of processing units for indexing in parallel data records in a
database. (FF. 1.) Further, Avadhanam discloses that upon receiving
criteria from a processing unit, an index creation module therein accesses all
the database records via its access module, and subsequently evaluates each
of said records via its filtering module to subsequently store only a database
record that matches the received criteria. (FF. 2a-2c.) Additionally,
Avadhanam discloses that the index creation module ultimately sorts the
stored record to thereby create a sub-index therefor. (FF. 2d.) As admitted
by Appellants,4 we find that Avadhanam teaches a one-to one correlation
between each read task and each sort task for a particular record stored in the
index creation module. Further, we find that such disclosure fairly teaches or
suggests associating a read task with an object partition and associating a
sort task with a database portion, where the object partition is stored. We
find nothing in Appellants’ claim language that requires a single sort task to
be associated with a plurality of read tasks. Therefore, Appellants’ argument
is unpersuasive. Further, even if such interpretation could be derived from
the claim language, it would not be the broadest reasonable interpretation as
the case law allows. See also In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321 (Fed. Cir. 1989)
(stating that “claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably
allow”). We therefore agree with the Examiner that Appellants’ argument

4 App. Br. 7.
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that a single sort task is required for a plurality of read tasks is not
commensurate in scope with the claimed invention.
Next, we agree with the Examiner that data acquisition occurs not
upon the access module accessing and evaluating all the records in the
database. Rather, such acquisition occurs upon the module storing the
particular record that matches the processing unit’s criteria, and the record is
forwarded to the sorting module for sorting the data therein. Furthermore,
assuming, arguendo, that accessing and evaluating all the records in the
database does result in acquiring these records, as argued by Appellants, we
find that such access of these records would also include accessing every
single record in the database in order to store only a record that satisfies the
criteria of the processing unit. We find nothing in Appellants’ claim
language that precludes the module from acquiring all the records, and
subsequently sorting therefrom one of the records that matched the criteria
of the processing unit. Appellants’ argument that each read task is associated
with a single object portion is thus not commensurate in scope with the
claim language. We are satisfied that by storing and sorting a particular
record associated with a read task, Avadhanam fairly and reasonably teaches
acquiring a data portion associated with a read task.
Additionally, we agree with the Examiner that Avadhanam and Take
are properly combinable. In particular, we find that the ordinarily skilled
artisan would readily appreciate that Avadhanam and Take disclose prior art
elements that perform their ordinary functions to predictably result in a
database reorganization system that processes read and sort tasks in parallel
to effectively create a merge-sorted index for the database. It follows that
Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred in concluding that the
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combination of Avadhanam and Take renders independent claim 1
unpatentable.
VII. CONCLUSION OF LAW
Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims
1 through 44 as set forth above.

VIII. DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1 through 44.
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

erc

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