Ex Parte Burr et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 5, 2014

11340937 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 5, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte MICHAEL J. BURR, ERIK A. DAUGHTREY,
CHARLES P. FRICANO, DANIEL J. LABRECQUE,
GABRIEL G. MONTERO, SAJAN SANKARAN,
MICHAEL J. SPREITZER, and MALGORZATA STEINDER
____________________

Appeal 2011-0100761
Application 11/340,937
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before JEAN R. HOMERE, MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, and
DANIEL N. FISHMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 The real party in interest is IBM Corp. App. Br. 1.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) (2002) from the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-13. App. Br. 2. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) (2011).
We affirm.
Appellants’ Invention
Appellants invented a method and system for balancing workload
allocations to nodes in a resource pool. In particular, upon receiving
transactional workloads (150A) and long running workloads (150B) from a
plurality of clients (110), a balancer (200) allocates the workloads to nodes
in the resource pool (180) to balance their performance requirements in
accordance with the service policy thereof. Fig.1, Spec. [0016] - [0019].
Illustrative Claim
Independent claim 1 further illustrates the invention. It reads as
follows:
1. A method for balancing nodal allocations in a resource
pool common to both transactional workloads and long running
workloads, comprising:
parsing, by a computer hardware system, a service policy
for both transactional workloads and also long running
workloads;
determining an allocation of nodes for a common resource
pool for the transactional and long running workloads to balance
performance requirements for the transactional workloads and
long running workloads specified by the service policy; and
applying, by the computer hardware system, the
determined allocation to the common resource pool.

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Prior Art Relied Upon
The Examiner relies on the following prior art as evidence of
unpatentability:
Dias US 2005/0188075 A1 Aug. 25, 2005
Talwar, V. “Architecture for Resource Allocation Services supporting
Interactive Remote Desktop Sessions in Utility Grids,” ACM
International Conference Proceedings Series; Vol. 76: Proceedings of
the 2nd Workshop on Middleware for Grid Computing (2004) ,
(hereinafter “Talwar”)

Applicants Admitted Prior Art (AAPA).

Rejections on Appeal
The Examiner rejects the claims on appeal as follows:
Claims 1, 3-9, and 11-13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as
being anticipated by Dias.
Claim 1 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated
by Talwar.
Claims 2 and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Dias and AAPA.

ANALYSIS
We consider Appellants’ arguments seriatim as they are presented in
the Appeal Brief, pages 5-18.

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Dispositive Issue: Under 35 U.S.C. § 102, did the Examiner err in finding
Dias describes long running workloads as recited claim 1?

Appellants argue Dias does not describe disputed limitations
emphasized above. App. Br. 9-13. In particular, Appellants argue because
the Examiner failed to construe the phrase “long running workloads” in light
of the Specification, the Examiner erroneously maps the cited phrase to
Dias’s “parallel transactions.” Appellants argue, however, Dias’s parallel
transactions are directed to numerically and processing intensive
transactions that require large amounts of memory, whereas the long running
workloads are directed to batch processing transactions having performance
measured in terms of maximum time in a queue. App. Br. 10-11.
In response, the Examiner concludes because “long running
workloads” can be reasonably construed as transactions that are not
processed in real-time, Dias’s disclosure of parallel transactions that have
delayed processing (not processed in real time) describes the disputed
limitations. Ans. 11-13.
On the record before us, we do not find error in the Examiner’s
anticipation rejection. We note at the outset Appellants’ Specification does
not provide an explicit definition for “long running workloads.” Rather, the
Specification merely indicates that “[l]ong-running workloads are similar to
batch processed transactions in that real-time performance is not expected.”
Spec. [0005]. Thus, according to the cited portion of Appellants’
Specification, the similarity between batched processed transactions and
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long-running transactions lies in that they both require delayed processing
(as opposed to real-time processing). Therefore, we agree with the
Examiner that the broadest reasonable interpretation of “long running
workloads,” consistent with Appellants’ Specification, refers to transactions
with delayed processing. According to Dias, because parallel workloads
(e.g. stock portfolio optimization) are processing intensive and require large
amounts of memory [0008], [0025], they cannot be processed along with
transactional workloads. Therefore, parallel workloads have a lower
processing priority than transactional workloads. [0014]. Consequently, we
agree with the Examiner that because Dias’ parallel transactions have greater
processing requirements than transactional workloads, their processing is
delayed. Ans. 12-13. We thus agree with the Examiner that Dias’s parallel
transactions describe the “long running workloads.” It follows Appellants
have not shown error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1.
Regarding the rejection of claim 5, Appellants argue because the
Examiner failed to construe the phrase “utility values” as used in the
Specification to indicate how well an application is meeting its service goals,
the Examiner erred in finding Dias’s disclosure of using priority as a
measure to allocate the workloads describes the utility values. App. Br. 14-
16. In response, the Examiner finds because Dias’ disclosure of assigning
penalties proportionally to priorities, wherein the penalties indicate how well
the workloads are managed to achieve the service level agreement, comports
with Appellants’ definition for utility value, Dias describes the disputed
limitations. Ans.13-15. We find un-rebutted these findings made by the
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Examiner. Specifically, while Appellants dispute the Examiner’s finding
that Dias’ priority assignment to workload processing does not describe the
utility value, Appellants have not provided a response to, let alone
persuasively rebutted, the Examiner’s finding that the assignment of
penalties proportionally to the priorities indicates how well the workloads
are being allocated, and thereby describes the utility values. It therefore
follows Appellants have not shown error in the Examiner’s rejection of
claim 5.
Regarding the rejection of claims 1, 3, 6-9, 11-13, because Appellants
have not presented separate patentability arguments for those claims, they
fall with the rejection claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).
Regarding the rejection of claims 2 and 10, Appellants argue that
AAPA does not cure the noted deficiencies of Dias. App. Br. 16-17. As
discussed above, we find no such deficiencies in Dias for AAPA to remedy.
It follows Appellants have not shown error in the rejection of claims 2 and
10.
Regarding the rejection of claim 1 over Talwar, Appellants argue
because the Examiner failed to identify features corresponding to
“transactional workloads and long running workloads,” the Examiner erred
in rejecting claim 1 as being anticipated by Talwar. App. Br. 16. In
response, the Examiner finds that Talwar’s disclosure of “interactive remote
desktop sessions” describes the transactional workloads. (Talwar p. 27).
Likewise, the Examiner finds Talwar’s disclosure of batch workloads
describes the “long running workloads.” Ans. 15-16. Because Appellants
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have not disputed the cited findings (which were also set forth in the Final
Action from which this appeal is taken), Appellants have not shown error in
the Examiner’s rejection.

DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-13.
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

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