Ex Parte Petri

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 28, 2018

13789258 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 28, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
13/789,258 03/07/2013 John E. Petri
46296 7590 07/02/2018
MARTIN & ASSOCIATES, LLC
P.O. BOX548
CARTHAGE, MO 64836-0548
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.
ROC920060477US3 1464
EXAMINER
TAPP, AMELIA L
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2144
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/02/2018 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):
derekm@ideaprotect.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JOHN E. PETRI
Appeal2017-002553
Application 13/789,258
Technology Center 2100
Before JOHN A. EV ANS, CARL L. SILVERMAN, and
JASON M. REPKO, Administrative Patent Judges.
REPKO, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
rejection of claims 1--4. App. Br. 1. 2 Claim 5 was canceled. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We reverse.
1 Appellant identifies the real party in interest as International Business
Machines Corporation. App. Br. 1.
2 Throughout this opinion, we refer to the Final Rejection ("Final Act.")
mailed January 8, 2016; the Appeal Brief("App. Br.") filed June 8, 2016;
the Examiner's Answer ("Ans.") mailed September 30, 2016; and the Reply
Brief ("Reply Br.") filed November 3 0, 2016.
Appeal2017-002553
Application 13/789,258
THE INVENTION
Appellant's invention is directed to a content-management
system that autonomically generates a document's structure during
synchronization-rule processing. Spec. ,r 2. A content-management
system (CMS) controls access to a repository's content. Id. ,r 5.
Synchronization rules govern synchronization between this content
and the content's related metadata. Id. According to the
Specification, known content-management systems incorrectly
process synchronization rules when the rule identifies structures that
do not exist in a document. Id. ,r 6. To correctly process these rules, a
CMS administrator, or user, must manually add new structures. Id.
To avoid this manual task, Appellant's system autonomically
generates structure for the document when the synchronization rule
references non-existent structures. Id. ,r 7. The new structure may
then be auto-populated with default data from the autonomic-structure
policy. Id.
Claim 1 is reproduced below with our emphasis:
1. A computer-implemented method for autonomically
generating structure in a document in a content management
system, the method comprising the steps of:
reading a synchronization rule for the document that
specifies structure that does not exist in the document, the
synchronization rule governing synchronization between content
in the document and metadata related to the content in the
document;
specifying in an autonomic structure policy at least one
criterion that determines how the portion of the specified
structure that does not exist is autonomically generated in the
document;
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Application 13/789,258
autonomically generating in the document at least a
portion of the specified structure that does not exist according to
the at least one criterion in the autonomic structure policy; and
autonomically populating with data at least one
autonomically-generated structure in the document.
THE EVIDENCE
The Examiner relies on the following as evidence:
Grigoriadis et al. US 2006/0242569 Al Oct. 26, 2006
Eric Kirchstein, Policy Management for Autonomic Computing:
Write a complete XML policy using Policy Management for
Autonomic Computing, (Sept. 6, 2005),
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/trivoli/tutorials/ac-xmlpolicy/.
THE REJECTIONS
Claims 1--4 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I02(e) as anticipated by
Grigoriadis, or in the alternative, under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as unpatentable
over Grigoriadis and Kirchstein. Final Act. 2---6.
THE ANTICIPATION REJECTION
The Examiner's Findings
In the anticipation rejection, the Examiner finds that Grigoriadis
discloses every limitation recited in claim 1, including "reading a
synchronization rule for the document that specifies structure that does not
exist in the document." Final Act. 3---6. In particular, the Examiner finds
Grigoriadis' s business rules correspond to the recited synchronization rule.
Id. at 3. According to the Examiner, Grigoriadis's business rules
synchronize document content and XML metadata. Id. ( citing
Grigoriadis ,r,r 43--45). In the Examiner's view, Grigoriadis generates new
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Application 13/789,258
or updated documents using rules that specify structure that does not exist in
the document. Ans. 10.
Appellant's Contentions
Appellant argues that the Examiner mistakes a document's content for
its structure. App. Br. 5---6. According to Appellant, Grigoriadis's business
rules populate the document's existing structure with the correct content, but
these rules do not specify structure that does not exist in the document.
Id. at 6.
Analysis
We agree with Appellant that the Examiner has not shown that
Grigoriadis discloses "reading a synchronization rule for the document that
specifies structure that does not exist in the document." Id. at 5---6.
"During examination, 'claims ... are to be given their broadest
reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification, and ... claim
language should be read in light of the specification as it would be
interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art."' In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech
Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (alteration in original) (quoting
In re Bond, 910 F.2d 831, 833 (Fed. Cir. 1990)).
Regarding the limitation at issue, the Specification discusses how the
system generates a document's missing structure when processing a
synchronization rule. Spec. ,r 32. In particular, an autonomic-structure
policy tells the system whether to autonomically generate the required
attributes or child elements. Id. If this structure is to be generated, the
system generates the attributes and child elements according to the
document's schema. Id. The system can then populate the newly added
attributes with data values-i.e., the content. Id. In accord with this
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Application 13/789,258
example, the Specification consistently uses the term "structure" to refer to
attributes or elements to be populated with data values. See, e.g., id. ,r,r 5,
30-35.
By contrast, Grigoriadis discloses business rules to ensure the correct
content is included in a document. Grigoriadis ,r,r 43--45, cited in
Final Act. 3. Specifically, Grigoriadis provides an example related to
including the references to the correct aircraft parts in a manual.
Grigoriadis ,r 43. For example, if an audio system is the same across aircraft
models manufactured for an airline, a user would create a business rule for
that audio system. Id. ,r 45. To ensure the audio system's inclusion, the
business rule is applied to the documents for that specific airline. Id.
Grigoriadis then uses the automatic text generator 108 to generate assembly
instructions and other documents. Id. ,r 44. Therefore, in the cited example,
Grigoriadis's business rules specify the document's content-i.e.,
information about the correct audio system that populates the structure-not
the structure itself. See id ,r,r 43--45, cited in Final Act. 3.
The Examiner also finds Grigoriadis' s Figure 10 shows that the
business rules specify structure. Ans. 14 ( citing Grigoriadis ,r 54, Fig. 10).
We, however, agree with Appellant that Figure 10 relates to populating the
document's existing structure with new content. Reply Br. 7. In particular,
Grigoriadis explains how business rules are used in the Figure 10
embodiment:
Business rules 1007 selected by the user or defined in the
document template are then applied. For example, if the user
selects a business rule for an upgraded audio-visual system to be
installed in an aircraft, the corresponding parts, technical
specifications, technical manuals, maintenance manuals, etc.,
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Application 13/789,258
are incorporated into the document in place of the standard
audio-visual system.
Grigoriadis ,r 54 ( emphasis added). The italicized features are the content-
i.e., the data that populates the document's structure. See id. The
corresponding business rule specifies this content for the upgraded audio-
visual system. Id. That is, like the above-discussed example, Figure lO's
embodiment also replaces the content for the standard audio-visual system
with new content for the upgraded audio-visual system. See id. The
Examiner has not shown how this business rule specifies the document's
structure, as recited. See Final Act. 3.
On this record, we do not sustain the Examiner's anticipation rejection
of claim 1, and dependent claims 2--4 for the same reasons.
THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION
In the alternative, the Examiner rejects claims 1--4 as being obvious
over Grigoriadis and Kirchstein. See Final Act. 2---6. For the reasons
discussed above, we agree with Appellant that Grigoriadis does not teach or
suggest reading "a synchronization rule for the document that specifies
structure that does not exist in the document." App. Br. 5---6. Because
Kirchstein is not relied upon to teach the limitation missing from Grigoriadis
(see Final Act. 2---6), we agree that Kirchstein does not cure the deficiency
discussed above (App. Br. 16). Accordingly, we do not sustain the
Examiner's rejections of claims 1--4.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner's rejection of claims 1--4.
REVERSED
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