Ex Parte Gagliardi et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 8, 2016

12761148 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 8, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
121761,148 04/15/2010
105234 7590 03/10/2016
Vierra Magen I CA Inc
575 Market Street Suite 3750
San Francisco, CA 94105
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Marco Gagliardi
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.
WILY-01075USO 1499
EXAMINER
CHOI, YUK TING
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2164
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/10/2016 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):
patents@vierramagen.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MARCO GAGLIARDI and NEIL DESAI
Appeal2014-003003
Application 12/761,148
Technology Center 2100
Before JEFFREYS. SMITH, DANIEL N. FISHMAN, and
NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
KHAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1-13, 15-22 and 27. Claims 14 and 23-26 are cancelled. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We reverse.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is CA Inc. Br. 3.
Appeal2014-003003
Application 12/761,148
THE INVENTION
Appellants' invention relates to efficiently identifying transactions
processed by a software application running on a server. Abstract. These
transactions are typically performed in response to a client request and can
include a user login to a web site, a user request to purchase a product sold
by the web site, and a user request to use the website to sell an item. Spec.
,-r 2. Because the software may perform many different types of transactions,
the type of transaction that is being performed needs to be properly
identified. Spec. ,-r 3. However, determining the type of transaction being
executed is not necessarily a straight forward exercise, and can take up
considerable time and computing power. Spec. ,-r 3. Appellants' invention
provides an efficient way of identifying these transactions by applying a set
of rules to communications between a client and server to determine whether
certain patterns are in the communications. Abstract. For example, the rules
may look for some combination of parameters in the transactions. Id. As a
particular example, the rules may be used to look for parameters in HTTP
requests. Id. The rules are organized in a way that allows efficient
processing. Id. For example, the rules may be organized based on the
frequency with which the parameters are expected to occur in the
transactions and the frequency with which each transaction is expected to
occur. Id. The rules may be updated if the expected frequencies deviate
from actual frequencies, such that the rules can be organized for more
efficient processing. Id.
Exemplary independent claim 1 is reproduced below.
1. A method of updating rules for identifying transactions,
the method comprising:
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Appeal2014-003003
Application 12/761,148
monnormg, by a computing device, commumcauons
between clients and an application that processes transactions
comprising patterns;
applying, by a computing device, rules to identify which
transactions are processed by the application, the rules are
organized based on frequencies with which each of the patterns
are expected to appear in the transactions, applying the rules is
based on the organization;
analyzing the communications by a computing device,
comprising determining a frequency with which each of patterns
appear in the transactions; and
updating, by a computing device, the organization of the
rules based on the frequency with which each of the patterns
appear in the transactions.
REFERENCES and REJECTIONS
1. Claims 1--4, 8-13, 15-17, 21, 22, and 27 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Mani (US 2010/0088404 Al, April
8, 2010), and in view of Ruiz (US 2007/0266148 Al, November 15, 2007).
2. Claims 5-7 and 18-202 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as unpatentable over Mani, Ruiz, and Yoshida (US 2005/0257006 Al,
November 17, 2005).
ANALYSIS
Appellants dispute the cited references of Mani and Ruiz teach or
suggest that "the rules are organized based on frequencies with which each
2 The Final Action does not list claims 19 and 20 as rejected. However,
these claims were rejected in the Office Action mailed Nov. 14, 2012 and
have not been indicated as being allowed. Therefore, we have included
them as rejected claims here.
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Appeal2014-003003
Application 12/761,148
of the patterns are expected to appear in the transactions," as recited in
claim 1. Br. 15.3
Acknowledging that Mani "does not explicitly disclose 'the rules are
organized based on frequencies with which each of the patterns are expected
to appear in the transaction,'" the Examiner instead relies on Ruiz "to cure
the deficiencies of Mani." Final Act. 3. The Examiner finds:
Ruiz discloses a set of rules are generated or organized by a
traffic monitoring system and an application monitoring system
(See para. [0176]), the rules engine may describe the patterns or
parameters associated with a particular transaction, such as a
URL host name, URL parameter (See para. [O 177] and para.
[O 178]), and the rules engine is used by an application
monitoring system and a traffic monitoring system (See para.
[0179] and para. [0180]) to determine a traffic frequency or/and
application frequency is not met in the transactions (See para.
[0225] and para. [0228]). For example, target data for a
transaction associated with a URL host name or a URL parameter
called "login" is at least 80 requests per hour, and if the login
transaction was received 100 times in an hour, the target would
be met (See para. [0199]).
Final Act. 3--4; see also Ans. 4. Based on these findings, the Examiner
concludes "[t]hus, Ruiz discloses 'the rules are structured/organized based
on frequencies with which each of the patterns or parameters are expected
to appear in the transaction."' Final Act. 4; see also Ans .4.
Appellants argue that although "Ruiz identifies a transaction, such as a
login transaction, based on transaction definitions. There is no indication
that the transaction definitions are organized based on the frequency with
which transactions are expected to appear." Br. 14. Further, Appellants
3 Appellants present additional arguments in their Appeal Brief. However,
because the identified argument is dispositive of the appeal, we do not reach
the merits of these additional arguments.
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Application 12/761,148
argue "[i]f, for the sake of argument, the URL were to be considered to be a
'pattern,' Ruiz is not saying that there is a set of rules (to identify
transactions) organized based on frequencies with which each of the URLs
are expected to appear in the transactions. Instead, Ruiz is saying that the
list of URLs can be used to determine what synthetic transactions to
generate." Br. 15.
We are persuaded by Appellants' arguments. The cited portions of
Ruiz indicate that Ruiz determines the frequency of certain transaction types,
such as login transactions. Ruiz i-fi-f 199, 225, and 228. But we agree with
Appellants that Ruiz does not teach or suggest that the rules used to identify
these transactions and keep track of their frequency are "organized based on
frequencies with which each of the patterns are expected to appear in the
transactions" as claim 1 recites.
Thus, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent claim
1. Similarly, we also do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent
claims 13 and 1 7, which contain substantially the same limitation and which
were rejected based on substantially the same evidence and reasoning. See
Final Act. 8, 9, 17, 18. Finally, we do not sustain the rejections of claims 2-
12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 27, which depend from one of
independent claims 1, 13, or 1 7.
DECISION
The Examiner's rejections of claims 1-13, 15-22, and 27 are
reversed.
REVERSED
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