Ex Parte Carlson et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 7, 2014

11282030 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 7, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte DAVID GLENN CARLSON, STEVEN VIRGIL HOESCHEN,
and KEVIN JAMES KATHMANN1
____________

Appeal 2011-010121
Application 11/282,030
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before ERIC GRIMES, JEFFREY N. FREDMAN, and TINA E. HULSE,
Administrative Patent Judges.

HULSE, Administrative Patent Judge

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 involving a claim relating to
monitoring and debugging query execution objects. The Examiner rejected
the sole claim at issue as obvious. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We reverse.

1 Appellants identify the Real Party in Interest as International Business
Machines Corporation. (App. Br. 1.)
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Database systems allow a computer to store a large amount of
information such that a user may search for and retrieve specific information
in the database. (Spec. 1.) Retrieving information from a database is
typically done using queries. (Id.) “The database is searched for records
that satisfy the query, and those records are returned as the query result.”
(Id.)
The prior art teaches “an object oriented data structure that includes a
plurality of node objects arranged in a tree relationship to define a query.”
(Id. at 2.) But, according to the Specification, one problem with such query
execution data structures is that the data structure becomes complex for
complicated queries, making it difficult to debug. (Id.) The Specification
states that “it is very difficult, if not impossible, to debug a complex query
execution data structure that includes many query execution objects using
known statement level debuggers.” (Id. at 2-3.) Thus, the Specification
discloses a “tool that allows efficiently monitoring and debugging a query
implemented in an object oriented query execution data structure.” (Id. at
3.)
Claim 11 is the sole claim on appeal (App. Br. 2) and is reproduced
below:
11. A computer-implemented method for displaying
information regarding a query to a user in a graphical user
interface, the method comprising the steps of:
executing the query, wherein the query comprises an object
oriented query execution data structure that comprises a
plurality of object oriented nodes, wherein each node
includes a monitor method that enables collection of
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monitored data from the node and a dump method that
outputs the monitored data;
invoking the monitor method on a first node to enable
collection of a minimal set of monitored data from the
first node;
invoking the monitor method on a second node to enable
collection of a larger set of monitored data from the
second node that includes a minimal set of monitored
data for the second node;
invoking the dump method on the first node to output the
minimal set of monitored data for the first node to a file;
invoking the dump method on the second node to output the
larger set of monitored data from the second node to the
file;
receiving the monitored data for the first and second nodes
from the object oriented query execution data structure
by reading the file;
displaying information corresponding to the monitored data
to the user in the graphical user interface, wherein the
graphical user interface is part of a monitor and debug
mechanism for debugging the query as the query
executes;
examining the monitored data as the query executes; and
performing query debug functions using the monitored data.

The claim stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over
Cooper2 and Ciolfi.3 (Ans. 3-6.)
DISCUSSION
The Examiner rejected the claim as obvious over Cooper and Ciolfi.
Cooper relates to network security and assessment, and teaches a method

2 Cooper et al., US 2004/0039942 A1, published Feb. 26, 2004.
3 Ciolfi et al., US 2005/0216248 A1, published Sept. 29, 2005.
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and apparatus for generating an initial policy specification file. (Cooper
¶ 2.) Cooper teaches a system that “translates traffic on the network into
protocol events that are themselves combined into network events.” (Id. at
¶ 88.) The protocol events are compared against a policy, which specifies a
disposition of the network event. (Id.) “Information about the protocol
events, the network event and its disposition is stored in a database. This
database of network traffic information can be mined for policy violations.”
(Id.)
The Examiner found that Cooper teaches, among other things,
“executing the query . . . , wherein the query comprises an object oriented
query execution data structure . . . that comprises a plurality of object
oriented nodes.” (Ans. 4.) Specifically, the Examiner cited paragraph 401
of Cooper as teaching “wherein the query comprises an object oriented
query execution data structure . . . that comprises a plurality of object
oriented nodes.” (Id.)
The Examiner found that Cooper “does not explicitly disclose
invoking the dump method on the first node to output the minimal set of
monitored data for the first node to a file; invoking the dump methods on the
second node to output the larger set of monitored data from the second node
to the file.” (Id. at 5.) The Examiner determined that Ciolfi teaches these
limitations, and that it would have been obvious to incorporate the teachings
of Ciolfi into Cooper “to have a localized indexing scheme to track the
pertinent variables of an object that is part of the context.” (Id. at 6.)
The issue presented on appeal is whether the preponderance of the
evidence supports the Examiner’s conclusion that Cooper and Ciolfi suggest
“executing the query, wherein the query comprises an object oriented query
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execution data structure that comprises a plurality of object oriented nodes,”
as required by claim 11.
We find that the preponderance of the evidence does not support the
Examiner’s conclusion. As Appellants note, the Examiner has not identified
any evidence in Cooper that teaches a query that is an object oriented data
structure that comprises a plurality of object oriented nodes. (App. Br. 5.)
As evidence of “executing the query,” the Examiner cites Figures 6-9
of Cooper (Ans. 4), which depict a query tool dialog box (Cooper, FIGS. 6-
9, ¶¶ 55-58), and paragraph 90, which states that “database 104 for storing
synthesized information of the packet dump’s 115 conformance to the
specified policy. . . can be mined with a query tool 135.” (Id. at ¶ 90.) The
Examiner also cites paragraph 401 of Cooper (Ans. 4), which states that
“[i]nput packet data 115 is read into a known object-oriented structure 6101,
such as, for example, a C structure here named pkt_t structure.” (Cooper ¶
401.) The Examiner concludes that these disclosures in Cooper teach
“executing the query, wherein the query comprises an object oriented query
execution data structure that comprises a plurality of object oriented nodes.”
(Ans. 4, 8-9.)
We do not find the Examiner’s reasoning persuasive. The Examiner
cites nothing in Cooper that suggests that the query executed by the query
tool depicted in Figures 6-9 constitutes an object oriented query execution
data structure. And, as noted by Appellants (App. Br. 5-6), Cooper teaches
that the object-oriented structure, the “pkt_t structure,” receives packet data
115, which is dumped into database 104. (Cooper ¶¶ 90, 401.) The query
tool then executes queries on data that has been stored in database 104. (Id.
at ¶¶ 90, 113.) The Examiner, however, cites nothing in Cooper that
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suggests that the object-oriented “pkt_t structure” constitutes a query, let
alone a “query [that] comprises an object oriented query execution data
structure that comprises a plurality of object oriented nodes,” as required by
claim 11.
The Examiner also finds that Ciolfi discloses “the query execution
data structure comprising of plurality [sic] object oriented nodes.” (Ans. 5-
6.) Ciolfi relates to block diagram execution and the restoration of
simulation context information from a previous simulation into a new
simulation of a block diagram. (Ciolfi ¶ 1.) The Examiner relies on
paragraphs 80, 111, and 169 of Ciolfi as disclosing the “query execution
data structure comprising [a] plurality [of] object oriented nodes.” (Ans. 5-
6.) But we find nothing in these cited paragraphs that teaches this limitation.
The Examiner has not explained how a “Finder that helps find various
objects such as blocks and lines within a block-diagram” (id. ¶ 80); a
reference to “polymorphism in object-oriented programming languages” (id.
at ¶ 111); or a “localized indexing scheme . . . [that] lends itself well to the
object oriented coding paradigm” (id. at ¶ 169) teach or suggest a “query
execution data structure comprising [a] plurality [of] object oriented nodes.”
(See Ans. 5-6.) Thus, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner has not
shown that Ciolfi teaches “an object oriented query execution data structure
that comprises a plurality of object oriented nodes,” as required by claim 11.
(App. Br. 12. )
We therefore conclude that the preponderance of the evidence does
not support the Examiner’s finding that Cooper teaches “executing a query,
wherein the query comprises an object oriented query execution data
structure that comprises a plurality of object oriented nodes.”
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SUMMARY
We reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claim 11 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) over Cooper and Ciolfi.

REVERSED

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