Ex Parte Hammerschmidt et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 17, 2016

12545737 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 17, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/545,737 08/21/2009 Beda Christoph Hammerschmidt
42425 7590 03/21/2016
HICKMAN PALERMO BECKER BINGHAM/ORACLE
1 Almaden Boulevard
Floor 12
SAN JOSE, CA 95113
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.
50277-3717 1966
EXAMINER
AL HASHEM!, SANA A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2156
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/21/2016 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):
usdocket@h35g.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte BEDA CHRISTOPH HAMMERSCHMIDT and
ZHENHUA LIU
Appeal2013-010697
Application 12/545,737
Technology Center 2100
Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., JOHN F. HORVATH, and
NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
HORVATH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner's Final Rejection rejections of claims 1-3, 5, 7-13, 15, 17-19, 23,
and 24. App. Br. 4. 1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
1 Claims 4, 6, 14, 16, 21, and 22 stand as objected to due to their dependence
on a rejected base claim, but as otherwise allowable. Final Act. 1.
Appeal2013-010697
Application 12/545,737
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention is directed to techniques for determining whether to
rewrite XML queries containing certain path expressions. Spec. i-f 1.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A method comprising:
identifying a set of one or more shared nodes, wherein
each node in the set of one or more shared nodes is specified
within both a first path and a second path that is different than
the first path;
wherein the first path and the second path are simple path
expressions and are associated with an XML query;
for each shared node in the set of one or more shared
nodes, using an XML schema to determine whether each child
node of said each shared node is guaranteed to appear in a
particular order, relative to one or more sibling nodes of said each
child node, in each XML document that conforms to the XML
schema; and
when it is determined, using the X~v1L schema, that each
child node of each shared node in the set of one or more shared
nodes is guaranteed to appear in a particular order, relative to one
or more sibling nodes of said each child node, in each XML
document that conforms to the XML schema, rewriting the XML
query to generate a rewritten XML query;
wherein the method is performed by one or more
computing devices.
Fernandez
Thusoo
Warner
REFERENCES
US 6,785,673 Bl
US 7 ,398,265 B2
US 2006/0179068 Al
2
Aug. 31, 2004
Jul. 8, 2008
Aug. 10, 2006
Appeal2013-010697
Application 12/545,737
REJECTIONS
Claims 1-3, 5, 7, 9-13, 15, 17, 19, 20, 23, and 24 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. §103(a) as unpatentable over Thusoo and Warner. Final Act. 2-
5_2
Claims 8 and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Thusoo, Warner, and Fernandez. Final Act. 6-7.
ISSUES AND ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection in light of Appellants'
arguments that the Examiner has erred. Because we agree with at least one
of Appellants' contentions pertaining to all of the independent claims, we
reverse the Examiner's rejections of all pending claims. We highlight the
following for emphasis.
Claims j-3, 5, 7-j 3, j 5, j 7-20, 23, and 24
Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claim 1
because both Thusoo and the combination of Thusoo and Warner fail to
teach or suggest "using an XML schema to determine whether each child
node of said each shared node is guaranteed to appear in a particular order,
relative to one or more sibling nodes of said each child node, in each XML
document that conforms to the XML schema." App. Br. 7-9.
The Examiner finds the limitation is met by the combination of
Thusoo and Warner. See Final Act. 3 (citing Thusoo 4:2---6); Ans. 10 (citing
Thusoo 2:9-11, 5:56---62; Warner i-fi-17, 25). In particular, the Examiner finds
2 Although not listed, the Examiner provides a basis for the rejection of
claim 20. See Final Act. 2, 5.
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Appeal2013-010697
Application 12/545,737
Thusoo "clearly shows the relationship between (parent) and (child) nodes in
the XML document and by adding [a] value it guarantee[s] the appearance
of the parent among children nodes." Ans. 10 (citing Thusoo 5:56-62).
We disagree with the Examiner, and are persuaded by Appellants
argument that neither Thusoo, nor the combination of Thusoo and Warner
teach or suggest using an XML schema to determine whether the children of
a particular node of a document conforming to the XML schema are
guaranteed to appear in a particular order in the document.
Warner teaches storing an XML document conforming to an XML
schema in a relational database, whereby data associated with the root node
are stored in a main table, and data associated with other nodes are stored in
one or more "out-of-line" tables. See Warner i-fi-17, 25. Significantly, Warner
does not teach using the schema to determine whether the children of a given
node in a conforming document must appear in the document, or must
appear in a particular order.
Thusoo teaches a method for translating XML path expressions into
SQL statements to be executed against an XML index. Thusoo, Abstract.
The XML index consists of a single path table containing a path index, an
order index, and a value index. Id. at 3:9-12, 3:62---65. The XML index can
be built for "XML documents having any particular types, structure or
content," and can be built "over both XML Schema-based as well as
schema-less XML Type columns." Id. at 3:49-51, 3:60---61. For a given
path in an indexed XML document, the XML index includes a path ID that
uniquely identifies the path, and an OrderKey that enumerates, for each node
on the path, the position of that node among its sibling nodes in related paths
in the document. Thusoo 4:55-5:20, 5:50-62, 6:42-7:2.
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Appeal2013-010697
Application 12/545,737
As noted above, the Examiner finds the value of the Order Key
"guarantee[s] the appearance of the parent among children nodes." Ans. 10.
But claim 1 does not require guaranteeing the appearance of a parent node
among its children nodes. Rather, claim 1 requires determining "whether
each child node of said each shared [parent] node is guaranteed to appear in
a particular order, relative to one or more sibling nodes of said each child
node."
The value of Thusoo's OrderKey for a given path in a given document
neither indicates nor guarantees that each child node of a given parent node
in the path will appear in a particular order in any XML document that is
indexed. First, the value of the Order Key can be calculated regardless of
whether the indexed document even conforms to an XML schema. Second,
assuming the document does conform to an XML schema, the value of the
path's OrderKey is not guaranteed to be the same in a different conforming
document in which the same path appears because the XivIL schema is not
guaranteed to require the children of the given parent node to appear in the
same order in the two documents. For example, the value of the Order Key
for the path /list/food/cereal in a first indexed document (e.g., "Monday's
grocery list") may be '1.1.1' because cereal is the first child of food in the
first document. However, the value of the Order Key for the same path in a
second indexed document (e.g., "Friday's grocery list") may be '1.1.2'
because cereal is the second child of food in the second document (e.g.,
because the path /list/food/apples appears before the path /list/food/cereal in
the second document).
Accordingly, for the reasons discussed above, we do not sustain the
Examiner's rejection of claim 1. Appellants argue claim 11 is patentable
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Appeal2013-010697
Application 12/545,737
over the combination of Thusoo and Wagner for the same reasons as claim 1.
We agree. We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim
11. Claims 2, 3, 5, and 7-10 depend from claim 1, and claims 12, 13, 15,
17-20, 23, and 24 depend from claim 11. Accordingly, we do not sustain the
Examiner's rejection of these claims for the same reasons we do not sustain
the Examiner's rejection of claims 1 and 11. See In re Fritch, 972 F.2d
1260, 1266 (Fed. Cir. 1992) ("[D]ependent claims are nonobvious ifthe
independent claims from which they depend are nonobvious.").
DECISION
The Examiner's rejections of claims 1-3, 5, 7-13, 15, 17-20, 23, and
24 are reversed.
REVERSED
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