Ex Parte Cui et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 13, 2017

13572152 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 13, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
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APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/572,152 08/10/2012 Weiyi Cui 2058.729US1 5494
50400 7590 03/15/2017
SCHWEGMAN LUNDBERG & WOESSNER/SAP
P.O. BOX 2938
MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55402
EXAMINER
NICHOLAS, WENDY K
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2174
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/15/2017 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 WEIYI CUI and XIAO XU
Appeal 2016-005448
Application 13/572,152
Technology Center 2100
Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, and
AMBER L. HAGY, Administrative Patent Judges.
BAUMEISTER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1, 6—9, 11, 12, 17, and 20. App. Br. 7.1 We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Rather than repeat the Examiner’s positions and Appellants’ arguments in
their entirety, we refer to the following documents for their details: the Final
Action mailed May 7, 2015 (“Final Act.”); the Appeal Brief filed November
25, 2015 (“App. Br.”); the Examiner’s Answer mailed March 28, 2016
(“Ans.”); and the Reply Brief filed April 28, 2016 (“Reply Br.”).
Appeal 2016-005448
Application 13/572,152
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants describe the present invention as follows:
The present disclosure relates generally to data operations
and communications in networked settings. In an example
embodiment, the disclosure relates to bidirectional
communication techniques in user interface and web-enabled
scenarios to enable integration between various types and
formats of applications and services.
Spec. 11.
Independent claim 1, reproduced below with added emphasis, is
illustrative of the appealed claims:
1. A method for facilitating bidirectional communication of
business data between computing systems coupled to a network
and including at least one processor, the method comprising:
generating a compilation of mashup data for display by a
browser-renderable mashup user interface, the mashup data
including business object data from a business application and
third party data from a third party web service;
transmitting contextual information to the third party web
service, the contextual information associated with the business
object data being provided from the business application;
receiving modifications to the business object data at the
mashup user interface, via a cross-domain socket connection
established with the third party web service, the cross-domain
socket connection used to transmit the modifications to the
business object data from the third party web service to the
mashup user interface; and
persisting the modifications to the business object data,
received at the mashup user interface, to the business
application.
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Appeal 2016-005448
Application 13/572,152
Claims 1, 6—9, 11, 12, 17, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as obvious over von Kaenel et al. (US 2011/0270833 Al; published
Nov. 3, 2011)2 in view of Helgeson et al. (US 2002/0049749 Al; published
April 25, 2002). Final Act. 7—10.
Claims 3—5, 13, 15, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over von Kaenel and Helgeson in further view of
Vassilev et al.(US 2007/0150610 Al; published June 28, 2007).
Final Act. 10—14.
Claim 10 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over von Kaenel in view of Helgeson, Vassilev, and KSR
rationale D. Final Act. 14—15.
We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues
identified by Appellants, and in light of the arguments and evidence
produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010)
(precedential).
FINDINGS AND CONTENTIONS
The Examiner finds that von Kaenel discloses all of the limitations of
claim 1 except “persisting modifications to the business object data to the
business application,” as claimed. Final Act. 4; Ans. 2. The Examiner
further finds that Helgeson teaches this limitation. Final Act. 5.
2 The Examiner and Appellants refer to von Kaenel more simply as
“Kaenel.”
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Appeal 2016-005448
Application 13/572,152
Specifically, the Examiner relies upon Helgeson’s disclosure of
database management system 1713, depicted as a database in Figure 17.3
Ans. 3 (citing Helgeson 11156 (for “teach[ing] updates to data stored in
database management system 1713[,] which sources data to the business
management applications platform”). The Examiner notes Helgeson teaches
that “[d]ata from the [Human Resources] database is mirrored in the
persistent data store 1713,” and that the Business Development Kit (BDK)
server both saves and retrieves data to database 1713. Id.
The Examiner concludes that motivation existed to modify von
Kaenel “to include persisting modifications to business object data to the
business application originally sourcing the data.” Final Act. 5. Restated,
the Examiner concludes it would have been obvious to “substitute[e] the
BDK business server and data store 1713 taught by Helgeson for both the
aggregated data store 920 and Enterprise data store 904 taught by Kaenel.”
Ans. 4.
Appellants assert, inter alia,
the data store 1713 of Helgeson does not initially provide any
data which is then changed and also does not have any
changes to data that it does provide persisted back to it.
Therefore the combined teachings of Kaenel and Helgeson
could, at most, disclose a database (in a first system) that
provides data to a second system (Kaenel) and a data store (in a
second system) that stores data that is received from a first
system (Helgeson). However, the combination does not disclose
or suggest persisting modifications to the data from the first
3 Figure 17 of Helgeson incorrectly labels each element 50XX
(e.g., workstation 5001, laptop computer 5003, database 5013). However,
the written specification alternatively refers to the elements with the
designations 17XX, wherein the last two digits correspond to those of the
drawings.
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Appeal 2016-005448
Application 13/572,152
system to the business application in the first system that
provided the data as provided for in the context of the claims.
App. Br. 9.
ANALYSIS
The Examiner’s proposed modification explains why one would have
been motivated to combine von KaeneTs aggregated data store 920 and
enterprise data store 904 in such a manner that modifications to the business
object data are persisted to a customer- or business-enterprise database that
also serves as a source of pre-modified data for the business applications.
However, the independent claims do not recite persisting the modified
business object data to a storage device that serves as the data source for a
business application. Claim 1, instead, specifically requires “persisting the
modifications to the business object data, received at the mashup user
interface, to the business application” (emphasis added). Independent claim
12 similarly recites “a data persistence subsystem configured to persist
changes to the business application data to the back-end application server’'’
(emphasis added). Independent claim 17 similarly recites “persisting the
modifications to the business object data, received at the mashup user
interface, by communicating the modifications to the business application”
(emphasis added).
One of ordinary skill in the field of computer databases would
understand the claims’ “persisting” limitation to require more than merely
storing the modified mash-up data on the same storage device or database
store as the original business object data. In order for the modified data to
be persisted “to the business application,” as claimed, the application would
have to include some sort of pointer or address link to the stored modified
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Appeal 2016-005448
Application 13/572,152
data. However, the Examiner does not point to any disclosure of Helgeson
or von Kaenel indicating that a business application that reads pre-modified
business object data would likewise contain pointers to read modified object
data (as opposed to updated pre-modified data).
For the foregoing reasons, Appellants have persuaded us of error in
the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1, 12, and 17. Accordingly,
we do not sustain the obviousness rejection of those claim or of claims 6—9,
11, and 20, which depend from these claims.
With respect to the remaining rejections of dependent claims 3—5, 13,
15, and 19, the Examiner does not allege that either Vassilev or the
reasoning of KSR is being relied upon to cure the deficiency of the
obviousness rejection explained above. We, therefore, do not sustain the
obviousness rejections of these claims for the reasons set forth above.
DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 6—9, 11, 12, 17 and 20 is
reversed.
REVERSED
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