Ex Parte Venkatesh et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 21, 201613166385 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 21, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 13/166,385 06/22/2011 Raman Ramteke Venkatesh 56436 7590 03/23/2016 Hewlett Packard Enterprise 3404 E. Harmony Road Mail Stop 79 Fort Collins, CO 80528 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. 82663259 5784 EXAMINER MAI,KEVINS ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2456 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/23/2016 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): hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com mkraft@hpe.com chris.mania@hpe.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte RAMAN RAMTEKE VENKA TESH, SM PRAKASH SHIV A, and LEE EN Appeal2014-004793 Application 13/166,385 Technology Center 2400 Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, ERIC S. FRAHM, and JEFFREY A. STEPHENS, Administrative Patent Judges. DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal2014-004793 Application 13/166,385 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1- 15. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. The claims are directed to constraint definition for capacity management. Abstract. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for constraint definition for capacity management, comprising: utilizing a non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions executable by a processor to: discover a topology of a set of resources; define a number of policy rules for the set of resources; construct a Dependency-Group (D-G) tree that comprises a number of constraint nodes according to the number of policy rules; and convert information obtained from the D-G tree into a set of resource placement constraint definitions understandable by a consolidation engine, wherein the resource placement constraint definitions are different than the number of policy rules. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Noy Murphy et al. Hopmann et al. US 2002/0166089 Al US 2004/0177244 Al US 2012/0102199 Al 2 Nov. 7, 2002 Sept. 9, 2004 Apr. 26, 2012 Appeal2014-004793 Application 13/166,385 REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1--4 and 7-15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Murphy and further in view of Noy. Claims 5 and 6 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Murphy and Noy further in view ofHopmann. ANALYSIS With respect to claims 1--4 and 7-15, Appellants argue the claims together. (App. Br. 8). We select independent claim 1 as the representative claim for the group and will address Appellants' arguments thereto. With respect to representative claim 1, Appellants contend that: For instance, the present disclosure states that the policy rules can include "security, input/output bandwidth (I/O bandwidth), reducing an overall memory footprint, reducing network communication across hosts, licenses, etc." (Page 3, paragraph 0010, lines 4-7). Further, the constraint nodes in the Noy reference are related to mathematical calculations of constraints whereas independent claims 1, 8, and 13 can be related to non-numerical, qualitative relationships. In addition, numerical values, as in the Noy reference, would teach away from using constraint nodes according to a number of policy rules and creating resource placement definitions, as in independent claims 1, 8, and 13. The constraint nodes recited in independent claim 1 can be used to create a D- G tree that in tum is converted into "a set of resource placement constraint definitions," as recited in independent claim. The constraints in the Noy reference that create an order would not make sense to be based on policy rules that do not relate to an 3 Appeal2014-004793 Application 13/166,385 order of the constraint nodes but rather a qualitative relationship of the nodes based on policy rules. (App. Br. 9-10). The Examiner maintains that: Appellant's arguments are directed to unclaimed subject matter. The policy rules in the claims are not limited to any particular types of policy rules. Paragraph [0015] ofN oy discloses there is provided a method for dynamically solving a plurality of dynamic constraints for test generation for a DUT (device under test), each constraint featuring at least one parameter, the steps of the method being performed by a data processor, the method comprising the steps of: (a) creating at least one dynamic graph for describing the plurality of dynamic constraints, each node of the at least one dynamic graph representing a constraint or a parameter, and each edge representing a relationship between constraints. Thus, the graph containing constraint nodes is created according to the plurality of dynamic constraints (policy rules). Additionally, the rejection is made in view of Murphy and Noy. (Ans. 19). We agree with the Examiner that the combination of the Murphy and Noy references would have taught and fairly suggested the claimed invention. Moreover, the Murphy reference in paragraph 67 discloses a resource dependency graph subject to policies and/or constraints and the Noy reference additionally discloses numeric constraints. With respect to Appellants' teaching away argument (App. Br. 9), the Federal Circuit has held "[a] reference may be said to teach away when a person of ordinary skill, upon reading the reference, would be discouraged from following the path set out in the reference, or would be led in a direction divergent from the path that was taken by the applicant." In re Kahn, 441F.3d977, 990 (quoting In re Gurley, 27 F.3d 551, 553 (Fed. Cir.1994)). On this record, we find Appellants have not provided sufficient 4 Appeal2014-004793 Application 13/166,385 evidence or persuasive argument that modifying the Murphy reference with the constraint nodes of the Noy reference is either explicitly or implicitly discouraged in the Murphy reference. Consequently, Appellants' argument is unpersuasive of error in the Examiner's conclusion of obviousness of representative independent claim 1 and claims 2--4 and 7-15 not separately argued. Appellants further argue that the Murphy reference uses constraints, but the claimed invention requires constructing a Dependency-Group (D-G) graph. (Reply Br. 5-7). We disagree and find that the Murphy reference in paragraph 3 5 teaches and suggests constructing a dependency graph. Appellants contend that the Noy reference is not analogous to the claimed invention and Appellants identify paragraph 10 of the Specification as a proffered a distinction. (Reply Br. 6). We find Appellants' argument is not commensurate in scope with the express language of independent claim 1. As a result, Appellants' argument does not show error in the Examiner's conclusion of obviousness. With respect to claims 5 and 6, Appellants rely upon the arguments advanced with respect to independent claim 1. (App. Br. 10; Reply Br. 7). Therefore, Appellants' argument as to claims 5 and 6 is unpersuasive of error in the Examiner's conclusion of obviousness for the same reasons as claim 1 discussed supra. CONCLUSION The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1-15 based upon obviousness. 5 Appeal2014-004793 Application 13/166,385 DECISION For the above reasons, we sustain the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-15. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation