Ex Parte Burckart et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Nov 10, 2010

10723924 (B.P.A.I. Nov. 10, 2010)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte ERIK J. BURCKART, DAVID B. GILGEN,
and CRAIG A. LANZEN
____________

Appeal 2009-007708
Application 10/723,924
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before JOHN A. JEFFERY, THU A. DANG, and DEBRA K. STEPHENS,
Administrative Patent Judges.

JEFFERY, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1-24. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We
affirm.

1 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, or for filing a request for rehearing,
as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 41.52, begins to run from the “MAIL DATE”
(paper delivery mode) or the “NOTIFICATION DATE” (electronic delivery
mode) shown on the PTOL-90A cover letter attached to this decision.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants’ invention validates individual idle connections by issuing
a non-blocking I/O operation to each idle connection in a connection pool.
See generally Spec. ¶¶ 0006-08. Claim 1 is illustrative with a key disputed
limitation emphasized:
1. A connection pool management system comprising:
a connection pool configured to store a plurality of idle connections;
and,
a connection manager programmed for coupling to said connection
pool and further programmed to validate individual ones of said idle
connections by issuing a non-blocking input/output (I/O) operation to each
of said individual ones of said idle connections.

The Examiner relies on the following as evidence of unpatentability:
Batra US 6,105,067 Aug. 15, 2000
Chintalapati US 2002/0156897 A1 Oct. 24, 2002
Brock US 7,076,556 B1 July 11, 2006
(filed July 31, 2000)

THE REJECTIONS
1. The Examiner rejected claims 1 and 3-24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Batra and Chintalapati. Ans. 3-10.2
2. The Examiner rejected claim 2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Batra, Chintalapati, and Brock. Ans. 10-11.

2 Throughout this opinion, we refer to (1) the Appeal Brief filed February 7,
2008; (2) the Examiner’s Answer mailed April 29, 2008; and (3) the Reply
Brief filed June 29, 2008.
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THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OVER BATRA AND CHINTALAPATI
Regarding representative claim 1, the Examiner finds that Batra
discloses a connection management system with every recited feature except
for issuing a non-blocking input/output (I/O) operation to each idle
connection. Ans. 3. The Examiner, however, cites Chintalapati for
determining whether a connection is idle—a determination that is said to
correspond to the recited validation since an idle connection is “useable on
demand.” Ans. 3-4, 13-14. Based on these collective teachings, the
Examiner concludes that claim 1 would have been obvious. Ans. 3-4, 11-20.
Appellants argue that the cited prior art does not teach or suggest a
connection manager programmed to validate individual idle connections by
issuing a non-blocking I/O operation to each idle connection as claimed.
App. Br. 4-6; Reply Br. 3-5. Although Appellants acknowledge that the
recited validation technique determines whether a connection is useable,
Appellants emphasize that there is nonetheless a distinction between (1) idle
connections, and (2) validated idle connections (i.e., useable idle
connections) in the connection pool. App. Br. 5-6; Reply Br. 3-5 (emphases
added). Appellants add that there would be no reason to modify Batra based
on Chintalapati’s idle connection determination as the Examiner proposes
since, among other things, Batra already knows that connections are idle.
App. Br. 6-8; Reply Br. 6-7.
Regarding representative claim 3, Appellants argue that while last-in
first-out (LIFO) ordering is known for data structures, the Examiner does not
establish a rational basis why skilled artisans would use any type of ordering
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for idle connections, let alone modify the cited prior art to use LIFO
ordering of idle connections as claimed. App. Br. 8-9; Reply Br. 8-9. The
issues before us, then, are as follows:

ISSUES
1. Under § 103, has the Examiner erred by finding that Batra and
Chintalapati collectively would have taught or suggested:
(a) a connection manager programmed to validate individual idle
connections by issuing a non-blocking I/O operation to each idle connection
in a connection pool as recited in claim 1?
(b) the connection pool is configured for LIFO ordering the idle
connections as recited in claim 3?
2. Is the Examiner’s reason to combine the teachings of these
references supported by articulated reasoning with some rational
underpinning to justify the Examiner’s obviousness conclusion?

FINDINGS OF FACT (FF)
1. Batra’s system includes a connection manager 110 that manages a
connection pool 120 between a Web server 80 and data server 90. By using
existing connections from the connection pool when processing client
requests, Batra’s system avoids the significant overhead required to establish
new connections. Batra, col. 7, l. 41 – col. 8, l. 40; Fig. 4.
2. Batra’s system can disconnect connections that remain idle too
long (i.e., exceeding a predetermined maximum idle time). Batra, col. 11, ll.
41-59.
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3. Chintalapati’s server process 210 includes processing resources
that can service a connection. The server process includes a poll manager
250 that (1) receives idle connections from “worker threads” 240, 242, 244,
and (2) includes poll subsets 260, 262 that hold idle connections passed from
the worker threads. Chintalapati, ¶¶ 0035-40, 0076-84; Fig. 2.
4. A connection is “idle” if (1) no requests are pending while the
connection is still open, and (2) no requests from the connection are
processed by a processing resource. Chintalapati, ¶¶ 0039, 0064.
5. The poll manager includes poll threads 252, 254 associated with
poll subsets that determine if connections held in the poll subsets have
become “active” (i.e., if (1) events occur on the connection; (2) a processing
resource processes events from the connection; or (3) events are pending for
the connection). If so, the poll thread passes the active connection to work
queue 220 to await servicing by a processing resource. But if the connection
is still idle, the connection remains in the poll subset. Chintalapati, ¶¶ 0023;
0042-45, 0076-80; Fig. 2.
6. Poll thread 252 can close connections that have been idle for
longer than a predetermined time. Chintalapati, ¶¶ 0023, 0047; Fig. 2.
7. Appellants’ Specification notes that “[i]n managing a pool of idle
connections, an efficient process consuming little computing overhead can
be required to validate that the connections which not [sic] been provisioned
recently remain valid and useable on demand.” Spec. ¶ 0005.

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ANALYSIS
Claims 1, 4-11, 14-21, and 24
We begin by construing the key disputed limitation of claim 1 which
calls for, in pertinent part, a connection manager programmed to validate
individual idle connections by issuing a non-blocking I/O operation to each
idle connection. We emphasize the term “validate” here, for the
construction of that term is key in resolving the dispute before us.
The Examiner cites Chintalapati determining whether a connection is
idle—a determination that is said to correspond to the recited validation
since such an idle connection is “useable on demand.” Ans. 3-4, 13-14.
Appellants, however, challenge that position since Appellants emphasize
that there is a distinction between (1) idle connections, and (2) validated idle
connections (i.e., useable idle connections) in the connection pool. App. Br.
5-6; Reply Br. 3-5 (emphases added).
Although the term “validate” is not defined in the Specification as the
Examiner indicates (Ans. 14), the Specification does note that managing a
pool of idle connections typically involves validating that those connections
“remain valid and useable on demand.” FF 7 (emphases added). Based on
this description, we see no error in the Examiner’s construction of “validate”
as “determining whether a connection is useable” giving the term its
broadest reasonable interpretation. Ans. 14.
And as the Examiner indicates (id.), an idle connection is, by its very
nature, an open connection that is at least considered to be useable since it is
not used by other processes and therefore available to be used on demand.
See FF 4. As such, nothing in the claim precludes Chintalapati’s confirming
the status of individual idle connections via polling as “validating” those idle
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connections. See FF 3, 5. By determining that particular connections
remain idle (i.e., are not active), Chintalapati at least suggests confirming the
idle status of those connections (i.e., “validating” those connections) such
that they would at least be considered to be useable on demand by other
processes. See FF 5. And nothing in the claim precludes such a validation
to occur for limited time periods as the Examiner indicates (Ans. 14). See
FF 2, 6 (noting both Batra and Chintalapati teach closing idle connections
after a predetermined time period).
Nor are we persuaded of error in the Examiner’s combining
Chintalapati’s teachings with Batra to arrive at the claimed invention. Even
assuming, without deciding, that Batra presumes that a pooled connection is
idle as Appellants argue (Reply Br. 7), we still see no reason why skilled
artisans could not have provided functionality such as that disclosed by
Chintalapati in connection with Batra’s system to at least confirm the status
of the individual pooled connections (i.e., to verify that they remain idle) and
therefore “validate” those connections. In this regard, we are unpersuaded
of error in the Examiner’s technical basis for at least suggesting
Chintalapati’s issuance of non-blocking I/O operations to idle connections.
Ans. 11-12. Enhancing Batra’s connection pool management system in this
manner is tantamount to the predictable use of prior art elements according
to their established functions—an obvious improvement. See KSR Int’l Co.
v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007).
Lastly, despite Appellants’ arguments to the contrary (Reply Br. 2-3),
we are unpersuaded of error in the Examiner’s thorough and cogent reasons
why the references would have been combinable to arrive at the claimed
invention. Ans. 16-20. Given the evidentiary basis for the Examiner’s
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position regarding the advantages of asynchronous (non-blocking) I/O
operations suggested by Chintalapati and the cited literature (Ans. 11-12, 16)
as well as the reasons noted above, the Examiner’s position is amply
supported by articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning to
justify the Examiner’s obviousness conclusion.
We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
representative claim 1, and claims 4-11, 14-21, and 24 not separately argued.

Claims 3, 12, 13, 22, and 23
We will also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of representative claim
3 calling for configuring the connection pool for LIFO ordering the idle
connections essentially for the reasons indicated by the Examiner (Ans. 4-5,
21-22). The Examiner reasons that since Appellants’ connection pool is
based on a data structure, namely an array-type data structure such as that
disclosed in Paragraph 0018 of the Specification, that well-known LIFO
ordering techniques3 are applicable to such data structures regardless of what
data is contained within the structure, whether the data represents idle
connections or otherwise. Ans. 21-22.
We see no error in this position. First, we see no reason why Batra’s
connection pool would not comprise some form of data structure to maintain
and identify particular connections that are managed by the associated
connection manager. See FF 1. While Batra is short on specifics regarding
an ordering scheme for this data, we nonetheless see no reason why an
array-type data structure could not used in conjunction with the data

3 The Examiner cites four documents evidencing LIFO ordering techniques.
Ans. 4-5. The applicability of these documents is undisputed.
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associated with the connection pool to logically arrange and manage data
associated with the particular connections. In short, using arrays to logically
arrange and manage such data (e.g., in a stack) as the Examiner indicates
(Ans. 4-5) is tantamount to the predictable use of prior art elements
according to their established functions—an obvious improvement. KSR,
550 U.S. at 417. We reach this conclusion noting the extensive evidence
cited by the Examiner establishing that such array-based data management
techniques are well known in the art. Ans. 4-5. Nor do we see any reason
why employing a well-known stack-based LIFO ordering scheme associated
with such an array-type data structure as the Examiner indicates (Ans. 4-5,
22) would have been beyond the level of ordinarily skilled artisans based on
the record before us.
We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
representative claim 3, and claims 12, 13, 22, and 23 not separately argued.

THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OVER BATRA, CHINTALAPATI, AND BROCK
Since Appellants did not separately argue the rejection of claim 2,4 we
sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 2 for the reasons noted previously.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1-24 under § 103.

ORDER
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-24 is affirmed.

4 See App. Br. 4 (noting that claim 2 stands or falls with claim 1).
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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

pgc

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