Ex Parte Lee et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 31, 2018

14090137 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 31, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
14/090,137 11/26/2013 YongSikLee
52025 7590 01/03/2019
SAP SE c/o BUCKLEY, MASCHOFF & TALWALKAR LLC
50 LOCUST A VENUE
NEW CANAAN, CT 06840
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.
131233US01 6887
EXAMINER
AHMED,SABA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2154
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/03/2019 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):
martin@BMTPATENT.COM
szpara@bmtpatent.com
colabella@bmtpatent.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte YONG SIK LEE, Y AEYOUNG CHOI,
JIN YOUNG KOOK, JOCHEN BECKER, and
ALEXANDER BOEHM
Appeal2018-003245
Application 14/090, 13 71
Technology Center 2100
Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, SHARON PENICK, and
PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges.
BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's final
rejection of claims 1-3, 8-10, 15, 16, and 21, which are all of the pending
claims. Claims 4--7, 11-14, and 17-20 have been cancelled. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellants' Brief ("App. Br.") identifies SAP SE as the real party in
interest. App. Br. 2.
Appeal2018-003245
Application 14/090, 13 7
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to the use of a database table as query
language parameter. Spec., Title. Claim 1, reproduced below (with
indentations added to match the originally filed version), is illustrative of the
claimed subject matter:
1. A system comprising:
a first device comprising:
a first volatile memory; and
a first processor to execute processor-executable
program code in order to cause the first computing device
to:
generate a query to retrieve, from a first database
table, a result set conforming to query parameters for all
entries of a second table stored in the volatile memory; and
serialize the second table into the volatile memory;
and
a second device comprising:
a second volatile memory; and
a second processor to execute processor-executable
program code in order to cause the second computing
device to:
receive the serialized second table in the second
volatile memory;
de-serialize the serialized second table into the
second volatile memory;
determine a plurality of entries of the first database
table which are associated with the second table; and
determine the result set from the plurality of entries
based on the query parameters.
App. Br. 10 (Claims Appendix).
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Appeal2018-003245
Application 14/090, 13 7
REJECTION
Claims 1-3, 8-10, 15, 16, and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ I02(a)(2) as being anticipated by Mukherjee (US 2015/0089134 Al,
published Mar. 26, 2015). 2 Final Act. 5-23.
ISSUE
Has the Examiner erred in finding Mukherjee discloses "de-
serializ[ing] the serialized second table into the second volatile memory," as
recited in claim 1?
CONTENTIONS
The Examiner rejects claim 1 as anticipated by Mukherjee. Relevant
here, the Examiner finds Mukherjee discloses the limitation "receive the
serialized second table in the second volatile memory [and] de-serialize the
serialized second table into the second volatile memory." Final Act. 7 (citing
Mukherjee ,r 309). The Examiner finds Mukherjee's description of "a latch
and latch recovery area to serialize allocation and de-allocation of in-
memory extents from the stripe control block" discloses this limitation. Id.;
see also Ans. 5.
Appellants contend the Examiner's finding of anticipation is
unsupported because "it is the allocation and de-allocation of 'in-memory
2 Mukherjee was filed July 21, 2014, which is later than Appellants' filing
date of November 26, 2013. The Examiner finds it qualifies as prior art by
virtue of its claim to the benefit of a provisional application, which
provisional application was filed Sept. 21, 2013. Appellants do not
challenge Mukherjee's status as prior art.
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Appeal2018-003245
Application 14/090, 13 7
extents' that Mukherjee describes as being serialized." Reply Br. 2.
Appellants further argue "[a]lthough Mukherjee describes serializing the
allocation/de-allocation of in-memory extents, Mukherjee is completely
silent on deserialization." Reply Br. 3. According to Appellants,
"Mukherjee merely describes preventing simultaneous access to memory by
serializing the allocation ... and serializing the de-allocation of the
memory." Id. We agree.
ANALYSIS
Anticipation is a test of strict identity. Trintec Indus., Inc. v. Top-
US.A. Corp., 295 F.3d 1292, 1296 (Fed. Cir. 2002). That is, to meet the
strict identity test for anticipation, all elements must be disclosed in exactly
the same way as they are arranged or combined in the claim. Therasense,
Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson & Co., 593 F.3d 1325, 1332 (Fed. Cir. 2010).
Here, Mukherjee's disclosure diverges from the claim limitations in at
least two respects. First, the cited portion of Mukherjee does not describe
any "serialized second table." Rather, Mukherjee describes a serialized in-
memory extent, which is a contiguous storage area in a file system. Second,
even if Mukherjee's in-memory extent could fairly be considered a "table,"
we agree with Appellants that Mukherjee does not describe de-serializing.
Rather, it describes serializing the queue for allocating and de-allocating
contiguous chunks of memory. E.g. Mukherjee ,r,r 276, 309, cited in Reply
Br. 3. As such, the Examiner has not sufficiently demonstrated that
Mukherjee meets the strict identity test required to establish anticipation, and
we, therefore, do not sustain the rejection of claim 1. For the same reason,
we likewise do not sustain the rejection of independent claims 9 and 16,
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Appeal2018-003245
Application 14/090, 13 7
which recite substantially similar limitations, or the rejection of the
remaining claims which depend from these independent claims.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-3, 8-10, 15, 16,
and 21.
REVERSED
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