11318364 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 6, 2014)

Ex Parte Campbell et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 6, 2014

11318364 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 6, 2014)

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. 11/318,364 12/23/2005 Murray S. Campbell YOR920050285US1 4650 7590 03/06/2014 Ryan, Mason & Lewis, LLP 90 Forest Avenue Locust Valley, NY 11560 EXAMINER TRAN, ANHTAI V ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2168 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/06/2014 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte MURRAY S. CAMPBELL, CHUNG-SHENG LI, and JEANETTE M. ROSENTHAL ____________ Appeal 2011-009660 Application 11/318,364 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before DONALD E. ADAMS, MELANIE L. McCOLLUM, and JEFFREY N. FREDMAN, Administrative Patent Judges. ADAMS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL1 This appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 involves claims 1-20 (App. Br. 2). Examiner entered rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) and 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 The Real Party in Interest is International Business Machines Corporation (App. Br. 1). Appeal 2011-009660 Application11/318,364 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The claims are directed to a method of, apparatus for, and article of manufacture for, processing transactional data for use in accordance with a decision support operation. Independent claims 1, 9, and 17 are representative and are reproduced in the Claims Appendix of Appellants’ Brief. Claims 1-17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Raman.2 Claims 18-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Raman and Suresh.3 Anticipation: ISSUE Does the preponderance of evidence on this record support Examiner’s finding that Raman teaches Appellants’ claimed invention? FACTUAL FINDINGS (FF) FF 1. Raman teaches “a pipelining, dynamically user-controllable reorder operator, for use in data-intensive applications” (Raman 709: col. 1, ll. 2-4). FF 2. Raman’s “data processing system allows intra-query user control by accepting preferences for different items and using them to guide the processing” (id. at 710: col. 1, ll. 2-4; see also id. at 711: § 2.1, 714: §§ 3.3, 4, and 4.1; Ans. 4 and 13-15). 2 Vijayshankar Ramar et al., Online Dynamic Reordering for Interactive Data Processing, PROCEEDINGS OF THE 25TH VLDB CONFERENCE, EDINGURGH SCOTLAND (1999) 709-720. 3 Suresh et al., US 6,208,990 B1, Mar. 27, 2001. Appeal 2011-009660 Application11/318,364 3 FF 3. Examiner finds that Raman teaches a “decision support operation [that] is incrementally performed based on a transactional load (Section 2.1, reorder process incrementally perform data reordering and maintain an appropriate ratio of interest items in a buffer and feed rate) (Ans. 4; Cf. Raman 711: § 2.1 (“When Process issues a get operation, Reorder decides which item to give it based on the performance goal of the application; this is a function of the preferences”)). ANALYSIS Each of Appellants independent claims require that “the decision support operation is incrementally performed based on a transactional load” (see Appellants’ Claims 1, 9, and 17). Examiner asserts that Raman’s “decision support operation is incrementally performed based on a transactional load” (see FF 3; see also FF 2). Notwithstanding Examiner’s assertion to the contrary, Raman speaks in terms of preferences, not transactional load (see FF 2-3). Appellants contend that “[t]here is no teaching or suggestion [in Raman] that . . . user preferences have any relation to a transactional load” (App. Br. 8; see generally Reply Br. 2-3). In this regard, Appellants contend that the “portion of Raman [relied upon by Examiner] in no way indicates that data reordering or any other operation is incrementally performed based on a transactional load” (App. Br. 7; see also Reply Br. 2). In sum, Examiner failed to clearly articulate how Raman’s use of preferences can be interpreted as a teaching of a decision support operation that is incrementally performed based on a transactional load, as is required by Appellants’ claimed invention. Appeal 2011-009660 Application11/318,364 4 CONCLUSION OF LAW The preponderance of evidence on this record fails to support Examiner’s finding that Raman teaches Appellants’ claimed invention. The rejection of claims 1-17 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Raman is reversed. Obviousness: Does Suresh make up for the foregoing deficiencies in Raman? FACTUAL FINDINGS (FF) FF 4. Examiner relies on Suresh to make up for Raman’s failure to suggest that the transforming step comprises generating one or more items within the interim form representative of one or more items within the transactional data, at least one of the one or more items within the interim form having a value different from at least one of the one or more items within the transactional data as claimed (Ans. 10-11). ANALYSIS Based on the combination of Raman and Suresh, Examiner concludes that, at the time Appellants’ invention was made, it would have been prima facie obvious to “modify the teaching of Suresh with the teaching of Raman because they are in the same field of endeavor . . . [and] because the teaching of Suresh would allow Raman to facilitate the flexibility in modifying data extraction processes while improve[ing] the throughput of data ETL process [sic]” (Ans. 11). Appeal 2011-009660 Application11/318,364 5 CONCLUSION OF LAW Examiner failed to establish that Suresh makes up for the foregoing deficiencies in Raman. The rejection of claims 18-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Raman and Suresh is reversed. REVERSED lp