Ex Parte GeistDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 22, 201713564079 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 22, 2017) Copy Citation United States Patent and Trademark Office 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 APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 13/564,079 08/01/2012 Daniel GEIST 665-22 5751 24336 7590 02/24/2017 TUTUNJIAN & BITETTO, P.C. 401 Broadhollow Road, Suite 402 Melville, NY 11747 EXAMINER THATCHER, CLINT A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2191 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/24/2017 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): patents@tb-iplaw.com sandy@tb-iplaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte DANIEL GEIST Appeal 2016-002032 Application 13/564,079 Technology Center 2100 Before MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, JOHN F. HORVATH, and ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges. STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2016-002032 Application 13/564,079 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 1—14 and 16—21. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. THE INVENTION The claims are directed to debugging programs. Spec., Title. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1 A computer-implemented method performed by a computerized device, comprising: displaying a graphic waveform showing values of at least two state variables of a computer program being debugged in at least two points in time, wherein the graphic waveform displaying a timeline indicating for each of the at least two points in time, values of each of the at least two state variables; receiving a user selection from the graphic waveform, wherein the user selection is a selection of a selected point in time in execution which is graphically displayed in the graphic waveform; and resuming within a debugger an execution state of the computer program associated with the selected point in time. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Kovacs (Kovacs, Jozsef, et al.; “Integrating temporal assertions into a parallel debugger”; Euro-Par 2002) Lewis (Bill Lewis; “Debugging Backwards in Time”; Fifth Int. Workshop on Automated and Algorithmic Debugging (AADEBUG2003); Sept. 2003) 2 Appeal 2016-002032 Application 13/564,079 LabVIEW2 (“Waveform Graph Cursors”; Lab VIEW virtual instrumentation (VI) tutorial pages, National Instruments website (ni.com); 30 Apr. 2010) REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1—7, 9—14, and 16—21, stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lewis and Lab VIE W2. Claim 8 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lewis, LabVIEW2, and Kovacs. APPELLANT’S CONTENTION1 Lewis discloses display of all values of a single variable over a designated time period but fails to teach or suggest using a display to show values of two or more different variables over time as claimed. App. Br. 17. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s arguments the Examiner has erred in rejecting claims 1—14 and 16—21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). We agree with Appellant’s conclusions as to this rejection of the claims. Appellant argues Lewis’s display of values of a single variable over time fails to teach or suggest the display of two or more different variables over time as required by independent claims 1,9, and 12. See App. Br. 17. 1 We note Appellant raises additional contentions of error but we do not reach them as our resolution of this contention is dispositive of the appealed rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). 3 Appeal 2016-002032 Application 13/564,079 The Examiner responds by finding: according to Lewis, “[a]ll values of a variable over time may be selected for display.” Ans. 15. The Examiner’s response is insufficient because it neither finds the prior art teaches or suggests the display of two or more variables over time nor does it provide any citations to the prior art in support of such a finding. The portion of Lewis relied upon in the Final Rejection for teaching the disputed limitation discloses “it is possible to bring up a list of all the values a variable ever had and select one of them.” Lewis p. 229 (emphasis added). That is, as shown in Figure 2, Lewis displays the values of a single variable at multiple points in time (displaying values for array[16] at multiple points in time) or displays the values for more than one variable at a single point in time (displaying values for variables array[14]—array[19] at timestamp 69), but does not explicitly describe displaying values for more than one variable over time. The Examiner furthermore does not find it would have been obvious for Lewis to display the values for two or more variables at two or more points in time, and does not rely on LABVIEW2 for teaching the display of values of two state variables as claimed. See Final Act. 3^4. Absent some persuasive basis for the Examiner’s finding that the prior art teaches or suggests the disputed limitation of displaying values for at least two variables in at least two points in time, whether because explicitly disclosed by the prior art, suggested by the prior art, based on official notice, or otherwise2, we are constrained by the record before us. Accordingly, based on this record, we do not sustain the rejection of independent claims 1, 9, and 12 which include the disputed limitation, nor 2 See, e.g., In re Harza, 274 F.2d 669 (CCPA 1960) (“It is well settled that the mere duplication of parts has no patentable significance unless a new and unexpected result is produced.”). 4 Appeal 2016-002032 Application 13/564,079 do we sustain the rejections of dependent claims 2—8, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 16— 21 based on their dependency from independent claims 1, 9, and 12. DECISION We reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—14 and 16—21. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation