Ex Parte Cai et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 14, 2017

13531545 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 14, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
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Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
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APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/531,545 06/24/2012 Jun Jie Cai CN920110065US1 3970
02/16/201784986 7590
GRAS SO PLLC
1818 LIBRARY STREET, SUITE 500
RESTON, VA 20190
EXAMINER
AGUILERA, TODD
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2196
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/16/2017 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):
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PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JUN JIE CAI, GUO LIANG HUANG, RUI LIANG, JING LV,
QING HAI MENG, JUN JIE NAN, and RUI ZHI XU
Appeal 2016-004505
Application 13/531,545
Technology Center 2100
Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, CATHERINE SHIANG, and
ALEX S. YAP, Administrative Patent Judges.
SHIANG, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1—12, 15, and 17—28, which are all the claims pending
and rejected in the application. Claims 13, 14, and 16 are cancelled. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm.
Appeal 2016-004505
Application 13/531,545
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
According to the Specification, the present invention relates to
program debugging. See generally Spec. 1—3. Claim 1 is exemplary:
1. A method for program debugging in a virtual machine environment,
the program running on the virtual machine, the method comprising:
receiving a request for debugging a program;
in a first virtual machine, after receiving the request, instrumenting
debug logic code before or after code to be debugged of the program; and
in the first virtual machine, running the program code with the instrumented
debug logic code to debug the program,
wherein instrumenting the debug logic code for the program to be
debugged is realized by adding a debug agent to the first virtual machine
after the first virtual machine is running, the debug agent configured to
perform instrumentation operations on logic code, and
class-transforming the program to be debugged through the added
debug agent or
class-redefining the program to be debugged through the added
debug agent.
References and Rejections1
Claims 1—12, 15, 17—22, 24, and 26—28 are rejected under pre-AIA 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Sundararajan (US 2007/0180439
Al; Aug. 2, 2007) and Shirazi (Hotpatching A Java 6 Application, available
at http://www.fasterj.com/articles/hltpatchl.shtml, last visited April 10, 2015
(2005)).
1 The Examiner withdrew the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 112. Ans. 2.
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Application 13/531,545
Claim 23 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Sundararajan, Shirazi, and Aniszczyk (US 2011/0023019
Al; Jan. 27,2011).
Claim 25 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Sundararajan, Shirazi, and Koduru (US 2006/0218533
Al; Sept. 28, 2006).
ANALYSIS
We disagree with Appellants’ arguments, and agree with and adopt
the Examiner’s findings and conclusions in (i) the action from which this
appeal is taken and (ii) the Answer to the extent they are consistent with our
analysis below.2
On this record, the Examiner did not err in rejecting claim 1.
I
Appellants contend:
Claim 1 of the pending Application recites, among other
things, “class-transforming the program to be debugged through
the added debug agent or class-redefining the program to be
debugged through the added debug agent.”3
2 To the extent Appellants advance new arguments in the Reply Brief
without showing good cause, Appellants have waived such arguments. See
37 C.F.R. §41.41 (b)(2).
3 This sentence follows a paragraph starting with “FIG. 1 of Sundararajan”
and describes the operation of Sundararajan based on Sundararajan excerpts
See App. Br. 9. That paragraph does not specify any claim limitation, does
not argue any of the Examiner’s findings is incorrect, and does not explain
how that paragraph is connected to the “class-transforming” claim
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Application 13/531,545
Sundararajan fails to disclose that the debug logic code may be
instrumented before or after code to be debugged or that the
program to be debugged through the added debug agent may be
cl ass-transformed or class-redefined. (Emphasis added.) The
cited elements of claims 1, 9, and 21, as understood in context,
are not disclosed or suggested by Sundararajan. For example,
in Sundararajan the instrumentation agent 110 is resident and
running in Java Virtual Machine Process 102A. Nor does
Shirazi disclose the claimed elements.
App. Br. 9-10.
Appellants have not persuaded us of error. Appellants’ argument that
“in Sundararajan the instrumentation agent 110 is resident and running in
Java Virtual Machine Process 102A” (App. Br. 10) is not directed to the
Examiner’s specific mapping: the Examiner maps the claimed “debug logic
code” to Sundararajan’s instrumentation code—not instrumentation agent
110. See Final Act. 11.
Appellants’ remaining general assertion (above) is unpersuasive of
error. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (“A statement which merely points
out what a claim recites will not be considered an argument for separate
patentability of the claim.”); see also In reLovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed.
Cir. 2011) (holding that “the Board reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to
require more substantive arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation
of the claim elements and a naked assertion that the corresponding elements
were not found in the prior art”).
limitation. In short, Appellants do not explain that paragraph serves any
purpose beyond describing Sundararajan’s excerpts.
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Application 13/531,545
Appellants also cite paragraphs 31 and 33 of the Specification for
defining “class-transforming” and “class-redefining” (App. Br. 10), but do
not explain how the purported definitions render the Examiner’s finding
incorrect. Further, as pointed out by the Examiner, paragraph 31 does not
include any definition of the terms, and paragraph 32 defines “class­
retransforming,” not the claimed “class-transforming.” See Ans. 3.
II
Appellants contend:
The proposed modification to Sundararaian when
rejecting claims 1, 9, and 21 are not obvious modifications
because they are superfluous to the operations already in place
in Sundararaian. Likewise, the proposed modification to
Sundararaian when rejecting claims 1,9, and 21 are not obvious
modifications because they are contrary to the principle of
operation of Sundararaian. The cited sections of Shirazi in the
FOA would be superfluous and/ or contrary to the cited
portions of Sundararaian, e.g., 5, 20, 21, 27, 32, and 56, and for
this reason as well the proposed modification of Sundararajan
are not obvious.
App. Br. 10-11.
Appellants have not persuaded us of error. Appellants’ general
assertion is conclusory, as Appellants do not provide any explanation for
their assertion. Further, Appellants’ assertion is internally contradictory: if
the modification is “superfluous to the operations already in place in
Sundararajan,” then it cannot be “contrary to the principle of operation of
Sundararajan,” as Appellants argue. In any event, we have reviewed
Sundararajan’s paragraphs 5, 20, 21, 27, 32, and 56, and we do not see—and
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Appellants do not explain—how such paragraphs support Appellants’
assertion.
Ill
In the Reply Brief and for the first time, Appellants belatedly advance
a number of arguments (Reply Br. 4—7). Appellants have waived such
arguments because they are untimely, and Appellants have not demonstrated
any “good cause” for the belated presentation. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.41(b)(2)
(2012).
Because Appellants have not persuaded us the Examiner erred, we
sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, and claims 9 and 21 for similar
reasons.
We also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of corresponding dependent
claims 2—8, 10-12, 15, 17—20, 22, and 24—28, which Appellants do not argue
with separate substantive contentions.
Regarding dependent claim 23, Appellants argue Aniszczyk does not
teach “suspending the program code at a breakpoint” (emphasis added). See
App. Br. 11; Reply Br. 7—8. In particular, Appellants argue the claimed
“suspending” requires a temporary stop, but Aniszczyk’s paragraph 78
teaches “[wjhen a subsequent execution of the code reaches that line
[breakpoint], the program code will stop at that point.” App. Br. 11 (citing
Aniszczyk 178); see also Reply Br. 7—8.
We disagree. Aniszczyk teaches resuming the program after the
temporary stop at the breakpoint:
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Appeal 2016-004505
Application 13/531,545
Rather than using breakpoints in the execution of the process
code to determine the status of the process, the file access
timeline view 708 of the illustrative embodiments allows the
user to stop the program code from executing at a point in the
code that a particular file access event that the user has selected
on the timeline occurs. The debugging facility allows the user
to replay program execution and file access in a forward and
backward manner....
Aniszczyk ]f 78 (emphasis added).
Thus, we agree with the Examiner that Aniszczyk teaches
“suspending,” because the program stops temporarily at the
breakpoint, and the user resumes the program in a forward or
backward manner afterwards. See Ans. 7; Aniszczyk 178.
Therefore, and for similar reasons discussed above with respect
to claim 1, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 23.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—12, 15, and 17—
28.
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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