Ex Parte VENKATA NAGA RAVI

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 23, 2018

14053287 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 23, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/053,287 10/14/2013
55498 7590 03/27/2018
Vista IP Law Group, LLP (Oracle)
2160 Lundy Avenue
Suite 230
San Jose, CA 95131
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Kiran Vedula VENKATANAGARAVI
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.
ORA130955-US-NP 6463
EXAMINER
BELANI, KISHIN G
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2443
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/27/2018 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):
docketing@viplawgroup.com
ev@viplawgroup.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte KIRAN VEDULA VENKA TA NAGA RA VI
Appeal2017-002960
Application 14/053,287
Technology Center 2400
Before JEAN R. HOMERE, DEBRA K. STEPHENS, and
JOHN A. EV ANS, Administrative Patent Judges.
HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1-20, which constitute all claims pending in this application. 1 App.
Br. 5. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We reverse.
1 Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Oracle International Corp.
App. Br. 2.
Appeal2017-002960
Application 14/053,287
Introduction
According to Appellant, the claimed subject matter relates to a cloud
service computing environment for periodically measuring and ranking the
performance of common applications (126) running on peer nodes (125).
Spec. i-f 8, Fig. IA. In particular, upon receiving from a monitor engine
(130) a first set of metrics associated with applications captured at a first
cloud service tenant and a second set of metrics associated with applications
captured at a second cloud service tenant, an analyzer engine (140)
compares the captured metrics pertaining to common applications as a way
to allow a correlation engine (150) to rank the first cloud tenant (125) with
respect to the second cloud tenant (125). Id.
Representative Claim
Independent claim 1 is representative, and reads as follows:
1. A computer implemented method comprising:
monitoring, using a computer, a plurality of applications running in a
cloud service computing environment a capture a first set of metrics of a
respective first cloud service tenant and a second set of metrics of a
respective second cloud service tenant;
comparing a first metric of the first set of metrics with respect
to a second metric of the second set of metrics to generate comparison
metrics; and
ranking a first cloud service tenant with respect to a second
cloud service tenant wherein the ranking is based at least in part on the
comparison metrics.
Manglik et al.
Deodhar et al.
Prior Art Relied Upon
US 2012/0239739 Al
US 2014/0058801 Al
2
Sept. 20, 2012
Feb.27,2014
Appeal2017-002960
Application 14/053,287
Rejections on Appeal
Claims 1, 3-9, 10, 12-18, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(a) as being anticipated by Manglik. Final Act. 4--16.
Claims 2, 11, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Manglik and Deodhar. Final Act. 18-20.
ANALYSIS
We consider Appellant's arguments as they are presented in the
Appeal Brief, pages 11-21, and the Reply Brief, pages 3-8. 2
Anticipation Rejection
Appellant argues that the Examiner erred in finding that Manglik
anticipates claim 1. App. Br. 12-18. In particular, Appellant argues that
Manglik fails to disclose "ranking a first cloud service tenant with respect to
a second cloud service tenant wherein the ranking is based at least in part
on the comparison metrics", as recited in independent claim 1. App. Br. 12.
According to Appellant, Manglik instead discloses ranking a list of the
metrics themselves to specify a relative importance of the metrics, as
opposed to ranking the tenants based on a comparison of the metrics. Id.
(citing i-f 73). Further, Appellant argues that Manglik is directed to
determining whether a particular computing application is optimal by
comparing metrics captured when the application is run on different cloud
configurations. Id. at 12-13.
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner, we
refer to the Appeal Brief (filed August 11, 2016), the Reply Brief (filed
December 19, 2017), and the Answer (mailed October 17, 2016) ("Ans.")
for the respective details.
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Appeal2017-002960
Application 14/053,287
These arguments are persuasive. Manglik discloses a Price
Performance Monitor and Recommendation Engine (136) for monitoring the
price and performance of applications distributed across a plurality of
customer nodes (172). Manglik i-fi-13, 63. The Price Performance Monitor
and Recommendation Engine may utilize a set of Base metrics provided by a
user as a baseline with which to compare performance metrics measured for
each application running at each of the nodes, as well as to rank the
applications performance in a prioritized ordered list based upon the
comparison. Manglik i-fi-173, 76. We do not agree with the Examiner that
Manglik' s' disclosure of ranking all the application performance metrics
across the different nodes to thereby generate the priority list is based upon
the comparison of the performance metrics between the different
nodes/tenants. Ans. 15-17 (citing Manglik i-fi-f 136-138). Instead, as noted
by Appellant, the ranking disclosed by Manglik is based upon the
comparison of the tenant metrics with the Base metrics, and not based on the
comparison among the tenant metrics. Because Appellant has shown at least
one reversible error in the Examiner's rejection, we need not reach
Appellant's remaining arguments.
Accordingly, we are persuaded or error in the Examiner's anticipation
rejection of claim 1.
Because claims 3-9, 10, 12-18, and 19, recite the disputed limitations
discussed above, we do not sustain the Examiner's anticipation of the cited
claims for the same reasons.
Obviousness Rejection
Regarding the rejection of claims 2, 11, and 20, Appellant argues that
Deodhar does not cure the noted deficiencies of Manglik, as discussed
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Appeal2017-002960
Application 14/053,287
above. App. Br. 19. Because the Examiner does not rely upon Deodhar to
cure such deficiencies in Manglik, we are similarly persuaded of Examiner
error in the obviousness rejection.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-20, as set forth
above.
REVERSED
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