Ex Parte O

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Nov 29, 2010

11300943 (B.P.A.I. Nov. 29, 2010)

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.
11/300,943 12/15/2005 Patrick Charles O'Sullivan WILY-01037US2 6148
28554 7590 11/30/2010
Vierra Magen Marcus & DeNiro LLP
575 Market Street, Suite 2500
San Francisco, CA 94105
EXAMINER
CLOUD, JOIYA M
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2444
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/30/2010 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte PATRICK CHARLES O’SULLIVAN
____________

Appeal 2009-011189
Application 11/300,943
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before JAMES D. THOMAS, JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO,
and MAHSHID D. SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judges.

SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING1

1 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, begins to run from the “MAIL
DATE” (paper delivery mode) or the “NOTIFICATION DATE” (electronic
delivery mode) shown on the PTOL-90A cover letter attached to this
decision.
Appeal 2009-011189
Application 11/300,943

2
Appellant requests rehearing of the June 29, 2010, Decision on
Appeal (“Decision”), wherein we affirmed the rejection of claims 1-11, 13,
14, 16, 19, 20, 23-25, 27, 28, 30-33, and 37-43 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Campbell and Mei. We have reconsidered the
Decision in light of Appellant’s arguments but, for the reasons given below,
are not persuaded of any error therein.
Appellant argues that our decision ignored Appellant’s Specification
in determining the meaning of the term “transaction” (Req. Reh’g 2).
Appellant further asserts that the portions of the Specification cited in the
Appeal Brief provided evidence of the meaning of transaction that is
different from Campbell’s group of events (id.). The Appeal Brief cited to
the Specification at pages 13 (¶ 0054), 22 (¶ 0076), and 26 (¶ 0085), which
merely define the term “transaction” in terms of its functions or user
activities for obtaining data such as retrieving a web page (App. Br. 22-23).
These arguments are unpersuasive because the relied on portions of the
Specification provide descriptions and examples that are consistent with how
Campbell describes the user activity as “a series of user actions within the
monitored computer network environment, as represented by a stream of
audit events” (col. 5, ll. 5-10). Campbell further explains that events may be
self-contained records or may include links to other events, where the
system captures information about each happening (col. 5, ll. 10-15).
Therefore, our conclusion that Campbell’s grouping the events into
different threads used for monitoring and analysis at different levels of
abstraction meets the recited term “transaction” was not based on
misapprehended claim limitations. Rather, we determined that the term
“transaction” as “a series of related network communications that perform a
Appeal 2009-011189
Application 11/300,943

3
function” includes functions similar to Campbell’s events and event audits
that represent users’ activities and the system activities on behalf of users
(Decision 8-9).
With respect to Appellant’s arguments regarding the assigned weights
in claims 2-5 (Req. Reh’g 2-3), we do not find that our Decision ignored any
of the claimed limitations. In that regard, we found (Decision 10) that
Campbell meets the recited limitations by teaching that weighted values are
assigned to the user’s activities (col. 15, ll. 34-45). Campbell uses the
assigned weights to simplify the many-to-many relationships of the users’
activities and their threads by assigning the same significance to different
combinations (col. 15, ll. 50-61). Therefore, different weights and their
combinations used for identifying the user’s activities, that cross the
threshold and indicate intrusion, relate to the same quality event.
Additionally, Appellant argues (Req. Reh’g 3) that our Decision did
not provide evidence that Mei or Campbell shows how multiple weights are
combined for the same quality event. We disagree because our affirmance
of the Examiner’s decision was based on the combination of Campbell and
Mei. In that regard, Campbell was relied on for teaching different weights
and their combination for the quality event where Mei was relied on for
suggesting commencement of a requested service based on a particular
weight or priority to user (Decision 9; Ans. 4-5).

CONCLUSION
Therefore, based on the foregoing, we have granted Appellant’s
request to the extent that we have reconsidered our decision, but we deny
Appellant’s request to make any change therein.
Appeal 2009-011189
Application 11/300,943

4

ORDER
The request for rehearing is denied.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(v) (2010).

REHEARING DENIED

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575 Market Street, Suite 2500
San Francisco, CA 94105