Ex Parte Dittmar et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 12, 2016

12327840 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 12, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/327,840 12/04/2008
62730 7590 08/16/2016
SAP SE
3410 HILL VIEW A VENUE
PALO ALTO, CA 94304
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
KERSTIN DITTMAR
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
2008P00122US 5911
EXAMINER
KIM,TAEK
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2492
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/16/2016 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):
APRIL.MENG@SAP.COM
GIPinhouse@sap.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte KERSTIN DITTMAR, INGO DECK,
DIETRICH MAYER-ULLMANN, MARTIN SCHREPP, and
SUSANN STIELER
Appeal2015-001817
Application 12/327 ,840
Technology Center 2400
Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, JON M. JURGOV AN, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2015-001817
Application 12/327,840
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1-12 and 21-28. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
THE INVENTION
The application is directed to "[a] method and a system for a mobile
data upload to an enterprise computer system." (Abstract.) Claim 1,
reproduced below, is illustrative:
1. A computerized method for uploading mobile data to
specified instances of software application objects representing
business entities in computer systems, the method comprising:
receiving at a mobile device a list of references to a plurality
of instances of a plurality of application objects of a computer
system;
storing the received list of references to the plurality of
application objects of the computer system in a register at the
mobile device;
at the mobile device, capturing data pertinent to at least one
business entity represented by at least one application object of
the plurality of application objects of the computer system,
wherein the captured data is supplementary to the at least one
business entity data stored in the computer system;
at the mobile device, specifying based on a context at least
one reference from the stored list of references to at least one
instance of the at least one application object of the plurality of
application objects of the computer system, wherein the context
includes an activity component, an environment component and
a status of the mobile device; and
1 Appellants identify SAP AG as the real party in interest. (See App. Br. 3.)
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sending the captured data and the specified at least one
reference to the computer system, wherein the captured data to
be stored to the at least one instance of the at least one application
object of the plurality of application objects based on the
specified at least one reference.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Moren et al.
Jayanthi
US 2009/0157521 Al
US 2009/0233629 Al
THE REJECTIONS
June 18, 2009
Sept. 17, 2009
1. Claims 1-7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Moren and Jayanthi. (See Final Act. 2---6.)
2. Claims 8-12 and 21-28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Moren. (See Final Act. 6-10.)
ANALYSIS
Claims 1-7
With respect to claims 1-7, Appellants argue ( 1) that "the office
action's interpretation of an asset similar to a fire hydrant as an application
object of a computer system as referred in claim l" is improper; (2) "Moren
does not disclose 'a list of references to a plurality of instances of a plurality
of application objects of a computer system' as claim 1 recites"; (3) "Moren
does not disclose 'capturing data pertinent to at least one business entity
represented by at least one application object of the plurality of application
objects of the computer system, wherein the captured data is supplementary
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to the at least one business entity data stored in the computer system"'; and
( 4) Moren does not disclose "at the mobile device, specifying based on a
context at least one reference from the stored list of references to at least one
instance of the at least one application object of the plurality of application
objects of the computer system." (App. Br. 6-9, emphasis omitted.)
We find Appellants' first argument unpersuasive because Moran's fire
hydrants are reasonably viewed as "business entities" and the "specified
instances of software application objects representing business entities" are
the instances of data objects corresponding to each hydrant. (See Final Act.
2-3; Ans. 3.) This is essentially the same as described in Appellants'
Specification, where the "business entity" could be, for example, a customer,
and the application object "represents [a] program entity or business entity,
according to the programming model and application architecture." (Spec.
i-f 33; see Spec. i-f 18 ("[B]usiness objects resemble the structure of existing
business entities. For example, the 'customer' business object could
resemble the structure of a business card in a customer relationship
management (CRM) enterprise application.").
We are unpersuaded by Appellants' second argument-that Moren
does not disclose "a list of references to a plurality of instances of a plurality
of application objects of a computer system"-because the reference teaches
"display[ing] the assets in proximity to the user." (Moren i-f 46.) This
teaches a "list of references" (the displayed list) to "a plurality of instances
of a plurality of application objects of a computer system" (the plural
records corresponding to each of the hydrants). We interpret the "plurality
of instances of a plurality of application objects" as broad enough to refer to,
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for example, five instances, where each instance corresponds to one of five
application objects.
Appellants' third argument is also unpersuasive of Examiner error
because, as explained above, Moren's hydrants are fairly viewed as the
claimed "business entity." (See Ans. 5 ("[F]ire hydrants are an example of
one of many assets that could be tracked with the Moren system; even
businesses can be considered an owned asset").) Appellants do not explain
why the broadest reasonable interpretation of "business entity" would not
include a hydrant.
Finally, we are not persuaded by Appellants' argument concerning the
"specifying based on a context" language. The Specification describes the
contexts as follows:
The notion of a context or context awareness for a device may be
split in three general components: activity, environment, and
self. The [ 1] activity component describes a task a user is work-
ing on. This component focuses on the human using the devices
and on her/his habits. The [2] environment component describes
the physical and social surroundings of the device. This includes
a current location, the activities in the environment, and other
extem[al] properties like temperature or humidity. The [3] self
component contains the status of the device itself.
(Spec. i-f 11.) The claim requires that the "specifying" be "based on" a
context, where the context includes the activity, environment, and status.
We agree with the Examiner that the contexts in Moren are essentially the
same as those described in the Specification: [ 1] activity-"time card
started or stopped" indicating that the user is working on hydrant inspection;
[2] environment-the location provided by the "GPS coordinates"; and [3]
self-"user/device is displayed as online/logged." (See Final Act. 3.) We
also agree with the Examiner's observations that "[ n ]othing within the claim
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requires that all three different types of content information be
simultaneously used to specify a single reference" and that "nothing within
the claim specifies how the context is used to specify the at least one
reference from the [received] list of references." (Ans. 6.) We conclude that
it is sufficient for (a) Moren to have a context with the three components,
which it does, as explained above, and (b) a reference to be specified based
on the context (i.e., at least some part of the context), which happens, for
example, when a hydrant is specified based on its location, or when it would
be required that the time card be running or that device be logged in. (See
Ans. 6-9.) This appears to be essentially the same as the system described
in the Specification. (See Spec. i-f 30-34.)
For these reasons, we affirm the rejection of claim 1, as well as the
rejection of claims 2-7, for which no separate arguments are offered.
Claims 8-12 and 21-28
With respect to claims 8-12 and 21-28, Appellants argue that (a)
Moren teaches that the handheld device provides information about the GPS
location where "claim 8 recites identifying the context (e.g., including the
location) of the handheld or mo bile device 'at a computer system'"; (b)
"Moren does not disclose that 'based on the identified context of the mobile
device, identifying an instance of a plurality of instances of the at least one
application object of the computer system"'; and ( c) "neither the figures of
Moren, nor the paragraphs disclose 'identifying an instance of a plurality of
instances' based on the context, and 'storing the received supplementary
data to the identified instance."' (App. Br. 10-11.)
We find Appellants' first argument for these claims unpersuasive
because, while it is true that a context can be said to be identified at the
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mobile device, it is also identified at the computer system, which is how the
list is provided to the mobile device and how the update is subsequently
associated with the correct instance.
The second argument is not persuasive because, as explained above,
an instance is identified "based on" the context.
Finally, we are unpersuaded by the third argument, that "[i]n Moren,
the location of the device only helps to find 'the assets in proximity to the
user', e.g., not a particular assets or 'an instance of a plurality of instances of
an asset" (App. Br. 11 ), because the location is used to present the list of
nearby hydrants and the "instance" corresponds to the selected hydrant,
which is identified from the location-based list.
For these reasons, we affirm the rejection of claim 8, as well as the
rejection of claims 9-12 and 21-28, for which no separate arguments are
offered.
DECISION
The rejections of claims 1-12 and 21-28 are affirmed.
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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