Ex Parte Murthy et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 29, 2016

11932423 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 29, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
111932,423 10/31/2007 Ravi Murthy
42425 7590 08/31/2016
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.
50277-3182 2444
EXAMINER
BURKE, JEFF A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2159
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/31/2016 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 RAVI MURTHY, MURALIDHAR KRISHNAPRASAD,
SIVASANKARAN CHANDRASEKAR, and NIPUN AGARWAL
Appeal2015-005056
Application 11/932,423
Technology Center 2100
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JOHN A. EV ANS, and ALEX S. YAP,
Administrative Patent Judges.
YAP, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection
of claims 1-9, 11-19, and 21-28, which are all the claims pending in this
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b)
We reverse.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Oracle International
Corporation. (App. Br. 1.)
Appeal2015-005056
Application 11/932,423
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants' invention generally relates to "relational databases, and,
more specifically, to database data types and database query language
operators." (October 31, 2007 Specification ("Spec.") if 2.) According to
the Specification, the claimed invention provides "a way of obtaining, from
a database, hierarchical relationship information, such as all of the ancestors
or descendants of a specified entity, without incurring the high costs that are
associated with large numbers of index scans." (Id. at if 7.) Claim 1 is
illustrative, and is reproduced below:
1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, as input to a previously defined function within a
database, a plurality of values, of a particular data type, that
each indicate a particular position within a hierarchy;
the function returning a result value based on both:
(a) the plurality of values; and
(b) a hierarchical relationship of the particular
positions within the hierarchy.
Prior Art and Rejections on Appeal
The following table lists the prior art relied upon by the Examiner in
rejecting the claims on appeal:
Fleischman et al.
("Fleischman")
Uppala
Vincent et al.
us 5,388,259
US 6,279,007 Bl
US 2001/0049682 Al
2
Feb. 7, 1995
Aug. 21, 2001
Dec. 6, 2001
Appeal2015-005056
Application 11/932,423
("Vincent")
Thusoo et al.
("Thusoo")
Murthy et al.
("Murthy")
US 2005/0229158 Al Oct. 13, 2005
US 2005/0228786 Al Oct. 13, 2005
Claims 1and11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being
anticipated by Vincent. (See Final Office Action (mailed April 25, 2014)
("Final Act.") 2--4.)
Claims 21-24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Vincent in view of Thusoo. (See Final Act. 4--7.)
Claims 25 and 26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Vincent in view of Uppala. (See Final Act. 7-8.)
Claims 3-5, 7, 8, 13-15, 17, 18, 27, and 28 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Vincent in view of Thusoo, and
further in view of Murthy. (See Final Act 8-18.)
Claims 6, 9, 16, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Vincent in view of Thusoo, and further in view of
Fleischman. (See Final Act. 18-23.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We are persuaded that the Examiner
erred in rejecting the claims on appeal.
With respect to claim 1, the Examiner finds that paragraphs 52 to 58
of Vincent disclose a recursive procedure (i.e., "a previously defined
function"), which accepts object information (i.e., "a plurality of values")
3
Appeal2015-005056
Application 11/932,423
containing hierarchical information (i.e., "a particular data type, that each
indicates a particular position within a hierarchy"). (Emphasis omitted)
(Final Act. 2-3, emphasis omitted.) Appellants contend that "Vincent fails
to receive a 'plurality of values' as input in the first instance." (App. Br. 7.)
Moreover, according to Appellants, "what is provided as input in Vincent is
merely a database object; any hierarchical relationships of that database
object are unknown to Vincent until AFTER the procedure of Vincent
generates the associated dependency graph." (Id.) The Examiner disagrees.
According to the Examiner,
Vincent clearly discloses the ability to obtain object
information using a query function of the recursive procedure
([0052]-[0054]), and creating a complete dependency graph
based on the information gathered by the recursive procedure
([0058]). In essence, the information garnered from the
recursive procedure is used to build the graphical dependency
interface object of Fig. 8. It cannot be argued that the graphical
object depicted in fig. 8 contains both values, i.e. ID
information, and items with particular positions within the
hierarchy, i.e. id=l is the parent of 2, 3 and 4 .... Because this
information is gathered from the use of the procedure, and the
procedure is recursive in nature, it must be the case that the
position within the hierarchy is passed to the procedure as an
input in order to build the tree.
(Ans. 3--4, emphasis added.)
We agree with Appellants that the portions of Vincent cited by the
Examiner do not teach or suggest the limitation at issue. Specifically, the
claim limitation requires, "as input to a previously defined function ... a
plurality of values ... that each indicate a particular position within a
hierarchy." In Vincent, the position within the hierarchy information for a
node is not known until after the dependency graph (e.g., Figure 8) is
constructed. Therefore, there are no inputs consisting of "a plurality of
4
Appeal2015-005056
Application 11/932,423
values ... that each indicate a particular position within a hierarchy" as
required by the claim. We further note that paragraphs three to seven of the
Specification appears to describe the method that Vincent teaches but notes
that it is undesirable because "such a query can be very costly in terms of
both time and computing resources." (Spec. if 7.)
For the foregoing reasons, we are persuaded of Examiner error in the
rejection of claim 1 and do not sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 102 rejection of claim
1. 2 Independent claim 11 contains similar limitation at issue and the
Examiner cites to the same passages of Vincent for the limitation. (Final
Act. 3--4.) Thus, for the same reason, we do not sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 102
rejection of independent claim 1, and the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections of
claims 2-9, 12-19, and 21-28, which depend from independent claims 1 or
11.
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-9, 11-19, and 21-28
is reversed.
REVERSED
2 Because we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection for the reasons
discussed herein, we need not address Appellants' further arguments. See
Beloit Corp. v. Valmet Oy, 742 F.2d 1421, 1423 (Fed. Cir. 1984) (finding an
administrative agency is at liberty to reach a decision based on "a single
dispositive issue").
5