Ex Parte Chou

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 28, 2014

11166526 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 28, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte JOEY CHOU
____________________

Appeal 2011-013394
Application 11/166,526
Technology Center 2400
____________________

Before: JOHN C. KERINS, STEFAN STAICOVICI, and JILL D. HILL,
Administrative Patent Judges.

HILL, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Joey Chou (Appellant) appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the
Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 4, 7–12, 16, 17, 21, 22, 27, 28, 30,
31, 33, 34, and 36–39 . We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

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Claimed Subject Matter
Independent claim 1, reproduced below, illustrates the claimed subject
matter.
1. An apparatus, comprising:
a managed node having a processor and memory to store
a managed object associated with an event in a management
information base (MIB) and to provide the managed object to a
network management system via simple network management
protocol (SNMP), the managed object comprising:
an event table to store an event table entry defining an
event at the managed node, the event table entry comprising an
event notification attribute that determines whether the
managed node should report the event to the network
management system via a trap, and an event severity attribute
that defines a severity of the event, the event notification
attribute and event severity attribute are configurable by the
network management system; and
an event log table to store an event log table entry when
the event severity attribute is greater than or equal to a severity
threshold, wherein the severity threshold is configurable to be
raised by the network management system to prevent an event
with lower severity from flooding the network management
system.
EVIDENCE
The Examiner relies on the following evidence in rejecting the claims
on appeal:
Schlener US 6,182,157 B1 Jan. 30, 2001
Dawson US 6,347,330 B1 Feb. 12, 2002
Salomon US 2003/0041125 A1 Feb. 27, 2003
McIntyre US 2003/0112452 A1 June 19, 2003
Aton US 2005/0138111 A1 June 23, 2005

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REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 2, 4, 16, 17, 21, 22, and 38 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Dawson and Schlener. Ans. 4.
Claims 7, 8, 27, 28, 33, 34, 36, 37, and 39 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Dawson, Schlener, and McIntyre.
Ans. 17.
Claims 9 and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Dawson, Schlener, and Aton. Ans. 25.
Claims 11 and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Dawson, Schlener, and Salomon. Ans. 26.
Claims 30 and 31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Dawson, Schlener, Salomon, and McIntyre. Ans. 30.

OPINION
Rejection of Claims 1, 2, 4, 16, 17, 21, 22, and 38
Appellant argues claims 1, 2, 4, 16, 17, 21, and 22 as a group. App.
Br. 26–28. We select claim 1 as representative of the issues Appellant
presents on appeal. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2011). Claims 2, 4,
16, 17, 21, and 22 stand or fall therewith.
The Examiner finds that Dawson teaches a severity threshold being
configurable to be raised by the network management system to prevent an
event with lower severity from flooding the network management system.
Ans. 5. According to the Examiner, Dawson’s 2D event bit vector identifies
“each event that will be distributed to various receivers,” with Figs. 3 and 4
showing that the administrator can “configure the activity log to effectively
have any particular severity threshold according to whatever events the
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administrator selects for the activity log to record.” Ans. 6 (citing Dawson,
col. 6, l. 60 – col. 7, l. 3). The activity log could, therefore, be configured to
only record events that are severe errors. Id. Dawson’s administrator can
selectively enable or disable any event or class of events and the Examiner
finds that this teaches preventing “an event of lower severity from flooding
the network management system.” Id. (citing Dawson, col. 7, ll. 20–23).
Appellant argues that Dawson merely teaches “not all client events
[being] transmitted to the server,” rather than a severity threshold that is
configurable to be raised by a network management system to prevent an
event with lower severity from flooding the network management system.
App. Br. 27. According to Appellant, Dawson teaches an administrator
selectively enabling or disabling an event or class of events, which does not
“prevent flooding of the network management system” if the threshold is
incorrectly set, or if only certain events or classes of events (i.e., not enough
events or classes of events) are disabled. Id.
Appellant then argues that Dawson teaches “‘only a few [client
events] are transmitted to the server, so that the network 14 bandwidth is not
wasted on messages that are not of interest to the administrator,’” (underline
omitted) rather than raising a severity threshold “‘to prevent an event with
lower severity from flooding the network management system’” as recited in
claim 1. App. Br. 27–28.
The Examiner responds that Dawson’s administrator can “selectively
enable or disable any event or class of events,” which “would have the effect
of preventing an event of lower severity from flooding the network,” such
that Dawson teaches “a configurable severity threshold that would prevent
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any selected event from flooding the network.” Ans. 32 (citing Dawson, col.
7, ll. 20–23).
The Examiner states:
Flooding in this context is the idea that if the system were
to report very common events, the system would receive a very
large number of event reports for these common events. As
such, if the system selects to not report these common events
the system is less likely to receive a multitude of events. . . .
Accordingly it is seen that Dawson considers the problem of
flooding and it is then seen that the ability to control which
events are transmitted to the server is a way to prevent flooding.
Ans. 32-33.
We find no error in the Examiner’s statement that Dawson’s
administrator configuring the activity log to effectively have a particular
severity threshold (see Ans. 6 (citing Dawson, col. 6, l. 60 – col. 7, l. 3))
prevents flooding by events or classes of events that have been selectively
disabled by the administrator.
Appellant has not persuaded us that any of the Examiner’s findings
are in error, or that Dawson fails to teach a “severity threshold [that] is
configurable to be raised by the network management system to prevent an
event with lower severity from flooding the network management system,”
as recited in claim 1. We therefore sustain the rejection of claim 1 and
claims 2, 4, 16, 17, 21, and 22 fall with claim 1.
Claim 38
Regarding claim 38, which recites, among other things, an “event
table entry comprising an event notification attribute that determines
whether the managed node should report the event to the network
management system via a trap based on whether the event notification
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attribute is true,” the Examiner finds that Dawson teaches this limitation
except for “reporting events via a trap based on whether the event
notification attribute is true.” Ans. 15-16 (emphasis omitted). The
Examiner finds that Schlener teaches “traps being sent in response to alarms,
wherein the traps can indicate different severity levels.” Ans. 16, 36 (citing
Schlener, col. 7, ll. 25–50). The Examiner also finds that Schlener allows a
user of a management station to dynamically create and flexibly configure a
trap based on any Management Information Base (MIB) variable, and that
Schlener discloses a number of parameters used in alarms. Ans. 7 (citing
Schlener, col. 2, ll. 45–55 and col. 5, l. 30 – col. 6, l. 17). The Examiner
lastly finds that Schlener teaches “a svrThrInvokeLocalHandler which is a
flag if set to true invokes a local alarm handler and passes the trap structure.
These are all seen to indicate the Schlener has attributes to determine
whether or not events should be sent.” Ans. 36 (citing Schlener, col. 6, ll. 1–
5).
The Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to modify
Dawson’s event management system to use MIP, SNMP, and traps as
disclosed by Schlener “to improve similar devices in the same way” because
Schlener discloses that MIP, SNMP, and traps in an event reporting system
are well known in the art and as such would have been obvious to implement
in another event reporting system such as Dawson’s. Ans. 7.
Appellant argues that Schlener teaches “enabling a trap and upon
receipt of the trap, interpreting the severity level of the trap and responding
appropriate[ly],” rather than teaching “an event notification attribute that
determines whether the managed node should report the event via the trap
based on whether the event notification attribute is true.” App. Br. 29 (citing
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Schlener, col. 7, ll. 25-50). According to Appellant, Schlener is merely
using the severity level threshold to determine a response to the trap, rather
than determining “whether the managed node should report the event to the
network management system via a trap based on whether the event
notification attribute is true.” Id
Schlener teaches a network management system that detects
“exceptional” events and “monitors and accumulates” operational data.
Schlener, col. 1, ll. 6-12. Schlener’s network management system employs
SNMP for communications and MIB for information storage. Schlener, col.
1, ll. 19-29. The known relationship among, SNMP, MIBs, and traps, and
the inability of a user (or the system) to turn traps on and off after they have
been predefined in a MIB, is discussed from column 1, line 46 of Schlener to
column 2, line 3. The object of Schlener’s invention is to allow a
management station user to “dynamically create and flexibly configure a
trap” and use user-defined alarm thresholds that, when met, transmit the
threshold condition (an event) to the system management station. Schlener,
col. 2, l. 55 to col. 3, l. 4. As part of its dynamic and flexible trap
configuration, Schlener employs variable svrThrInvokeLocalHandler as a
flag that, when set to true, “invokes a local alarm handler and passes the trap
structure.” Schlener, col. 6, ll. 1-3.
Appellant has not explained why Schlener’s use of the variable
svrThrInvokeLocalHandler does not teach “determin[ing] whether the
managed node should report the event to the network management system
via a trap based on whether the event notification attribute is true,” as recited
in claim 38. We therefore are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments and
we sustain the rejection of claim 38.
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Rejection of Claims 7, 8, 27, 28, 33, 34, 36, 37, and 39
Appellant makes no arguments that claims 7, 8, 27, 28, 33, 34, 36, and
37 would be patentable over Dawson, Schlener, and McIntyre if claim 1 is
not patentable over Dawson and Schlener. We therefore likewise sustain the
rejection of claims 7, 8, 27, 28, 33, 34, 36, and 37.
Regarding claim 39, which recites a managed object comprising “a
Buffer wrap-around enabled attribute configurable by the network
management system and when the Buffer wrap-around is enabled, resetting
an index attribute of the event log to a beginning of the buffer,” the
Examiner finds that a combination a Dawson, Schlener, and McIntyre teach
this limitation. Ans. 23–25. According to the Examiner, McIntyre teaches a
Buffer wrap-around enabled attribute configurable by the network
management system and when the Buffer wrap-around is enabled, resetting
an index attribute of the event log to a beginning of the buffer, because
McIntyre’s Customizable Event Log (“CEL”) can be reset, cleared or
reconfigured by a user such as a network administrator, and can be
maintained as a wraparound file containing a preset number of messages.
Ans. 25 (citing McIntyre, ¶ 26).
Appellant argues that McIntyre teaches that a user can select that the
CEL be maintained as a wrap-around file containing a preset number of
messages, but does not teach a Buffer wrap-around enabled attribute
configurable by the network management system. App. Br. 30 (citing
McIntyre, ¶ 26). What Appellant appears to be arguing is that user selection
of a wrap-around attribute is not the same as the network management
system configuring a wrap-around enabled attribute.
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The Examiner responds that McIntyre’s user may be the network
administrator utilizing a device of the network management system, and
therefore user selection of a wrap-around file teaches attribute configuration
via a network management system. Ans. 37. The Examiner states that the
claim only requires the attribute being configurable by the network
management system, such that a user (e.g., the network administrator) using
the network management system to alter the attribute would read on the
requirement of being “configurable by the network management system.”
Id. We agree. We sustain the rejection of claim 39.
Rejections of Claims 9–12, 30 and 31
Appellant makes no argument that claims 9 and 10 would be
patentable over Dawson, Schlener, and Aton if claim 1 is not patentable over
Dawson and Schlener. We therefore likewise sustain the rejection of claims
9 and 10.
Appellant makes the same arguments regarding patentability of
independent claim 11 and dependent claim 12 that are made regarding claim
1. App. Br. 31-33. For the reasons set forth above with respect to claim 1,
we are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments. We sustain the rejection of
claims 11 and 12.
Appellant makes no argument that claims 30 and 31 would be
patentable over Dawson, Schlener, Salomon, and McIntyre if claim 11 is not
patentable over Dawson, Schlener, and Salomon. We therefore likewise
sustain the rejection of claims 30 and 31.
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DECISION
We AFFIRM the rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, 16, 17, 21, 22, and 38
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Dawson and Schlener.
We AFFIRM the rejection of claims 7, 8, 27, 28, 33, 34, 36, 37, and
39 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Dawson, Schlener, and
McIntyre.
We AFFIRM the rejection of claims 9 and 10 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Dawson, Schlener, and Aton.
We AFFIRM the rejection of claims 11 and 12 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Dawson, Schlener, and Salomon.
We AFFIRM the rejection of claims 30 and 31 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Dawson, Schlener, Salomon, and McIntyre.
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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