Haiqin Wang et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 27, 2019

13176236 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Dec. 27, 2019)

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.
13/176,236 07/05/2011 Haiqin Wang B11-0218/M15-748 4218
121171 7590 12/27/2019
McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP/BOEING
300 South Wacker Drive,
Suite 3100
Chicago, IL 60606
EXAMINER
MOLL, NITHYA JANAKIRAMAN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2129
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/27/2019 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 PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD

Ex parte HAIQIN WANG, GUIJUN WANG, SHARON F. ARROYO,
ROBERT J. RENCHER, and JAMES P. TJELLE

Appeal 2019-000550
Application 13/176,236
Technology Center 2100

Before ERIC S. FRAHM, JAMES W. DEJMEK, and
MICHAEL T. CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 4–10, 13–17, 21–26, and 28. Appeal
Br. 8–9. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42 (2017). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as The
Boeing Company. Appeal Br. 1.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claimed invention is directed to modeling and analyzing quality
of service characteristics of federated cloud services. Abstr.; Spec. ¶ 1.
Web portals are generally federated ecosystems of content providers,
vendors, advertisers, supporting services, and consumers. Spec. ¶ 2. In the
field of travel management, federated cloud services may involve airline
reservation systems, hotel and rental car reservation systems, advertisers,
maps, weather, and local information. Id. ¶ 3. Appellant’s claimed
invention derives and evaluates quality of service characteristics of the
federated cloud services using a composite model. Id. ¶ 4. Entities of a
federated service system are identified and classified. Id. The inter-entity
relationships are identified, and each are classified as a primitive model. Id.
A composite model of the federated service system is formed from the
entities, entity classifications, relationships, and relationship classifications.
Id. According to the Specification, this permits a network service provider
to select a host service that can operate with desired quality of service
characteristics. Id. ¶ 5.
Independent claim 1 is representative, with the limitations at issue
italicized for emphasis:
1. A method, comprising:
determining, by a modeling system, a plurality of entity
classifications of a plurality of entities of a federated service
system using entity classifications that comprise a service
classification, a host computer classification, and a network
segment classification, wherein the modeling system comprises
a processor module and a memory module, and wherein the
federated service system provides at least one commercial
aviation service that includes one or more flight, hotel, and/or
car rental reservation services;
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identifying, by the modeling system, a plurality of inter-entity
relationships between the entities of the federated service
system based on plurality of primitive models comprising:
a first primitive model for a functional relationship
between a first service of the federated service system
using one or more second services of the federated
service system, wherein the functional relationship
includes one or more of:
a one-to-one functional relationship where the first
service uses one second service of the one or more
second services, a one-to-all functional
relationship where the first service uses all of the
one or more second services, and a one-to-many
functional relationship where the first service uses
a subset of the one or more second services;
a second primitive model for a temporal relationship
between the first service and the one or more second
services, wherein the temporal relationship includes an
alternative temporal relationship where the first service
uses the one or more second services in a non-persistent
sequential order;
a third primitive model for a connection relationship
between the first service and the one or more second
services via one or more network communication
segments of the federated service system; and
a fourth primitive model for a hosting relationship
between the first service and one or more host computers
of the federated service system;
generating, using the modeling system, a composite model of
the federated service system using a set of building blocks
representing the plurality of primitive models, wherein each
building block is configured for analyzing quality of service
(QoS) characteristics for a represented primitive model, and
wherein the composite model is based on the plurality of entity
classifications and the plurality of inter-entity relationships; and
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generating an output of the modeling system that is based upon
the composite model, wherein the output comprises a report of
one or more QoS characteristics of the federated service system
based on the composite model, and wherein the one or more
QoS characteristics comprise a performance characteristic; and
providing the at least one commercial aviation service.
Claims Appx.
Independent claims 10 and 25 recite, respectively, a system and
storage medium having limitations commensurate in scope with claim 1. Id.
Dependent claims 4–9, 13–17, 21–24, and 26–28 each incorporate the
limitations of their respective independent claims. Id.
REFERENCES
Name Reference Date
Buyya et al. (Buyya) Buyya, R., Ranjan, R.,
and Calheiros, R.,
Modeling and
Simulation of Scalable
Cloud Computing
Environments and
the CloudSim Toolkit:
Challenges and
Opportunities,
International
Conference on High
Performance
Computing and
Simulation (HPCS)
(2009).2
2009
Dettinger et al.
(Dettinger)
US 2006/0122993 A1 Jun. 8, 2006
Filed Dec. 6, 2004
Novak et al. (Novak) US 2009/0022098 A1 Jan. 22, 2009
Ceri et al. (Ceri) Stefano Ceri, Barbara May 1987

2 Information Disclosure Statement by Applicant 2 (July 5, 2011).
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Application 13/176,236

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Pernici, and Gio
Wiederhold,
Distributed Database
Design
Methodologies, 75
Proceed. IEEE 533
(May 1987)
Deng et al. (Deng) US 2012/0005236 A1 Jan. 5, 2012
Filed Jul. 1, 2010
Yemini et al.
(Yemini)
US 2005/0021742 A1 Jan. 27, 2005
Filed Mar. 31, 2004

REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 15, 23–25, and 28 are rejected under pre-
AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over the combined teachings and
suggestions of Buyya, Dettinger, Novak, and Ceri.
Claims 6, 16, 17, and 26 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being obvious over the combined teachings and suggestions of
Buyya, Dettinger, Novak, Ceri, and Deng.
Claims 9, 14, 21, and 22 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being obvious over the combined teachings and suggestions of
Buyya, Dettinger, Novak, Ceri, and Yemini.
Claim 27 has been indicated as being rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101,
but containing allowable subject matter because the applied reference fails to
teach certain specified claim limitations. Final Act. 17. However, the Final
Office Action also indicated that all rejections under 35 U.S.C. 101 have
been withdrawn in view of the limitation to “providing the commercial
aviation service, out of the at least one of flight, hotel, and car reservation
services.” Id. at 2. The Examiner has clarified that claim 27 is not rejected
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under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and that wording to the contrary in the Final Action
was a typographical error. Ans. 5. Accordingly, we treat the rejection of
claim 27 under § 101 as being withdrawn.3
OPINION
Appellant focuses their arguments on the recitation in claim 1 of “an
alternative temporal relationship where the first service uses the one or
more second services in a non-persistent sequential order.” Appeal
Br. 9–14; Reply Br. 1–5. With respect to that recitation, Appellant asserts
that the Examiner has not shown this to be taught any of the applied
references, and in particular, that the Novak reference cited for such a
teaching lacks such a teaching.
To teach or suggest the aforementioned limitation, the Examiner has
relied upon teachings of Buyya and Novak. The Examiner relies upon
Buyya for a temporal relationship between services wherein the first service
uses one or more second services. Final Act. 4 (citing Buyya 2 (“time-
shared allocation of processing cores to virtualized services”), 3 (“Clouds
and their federated network mediated by a Cloud exchange,” Fig. 2)). The
Examiner further relies upon Novak’s “non-persistent resource
assignments.” Id. 8. The Examiner finds the resource assignment of Novak
to be analogous to one service using another service. Id. Both the Examiner
and Appellant agree that in Novak, first, second, and further sequential
resources are allocated in a predetermined manner to users. Final Act. 8;
Appeal Br. 11 (citing Novak ¶ 353).

3 Should further prosecution occur, we invite the Examiner to reconsider the
withdrawal of the rejection, based on the specified claim language, in view
of the current § 101 guidance.
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Appellant argues that the claim term “non-persistent sequential order”
is not met by Novak because that term is defined in the Specification as one
in which the order “does not matter.” Appeal Br. 11. As characterized by
Appellant, Novak “discloses [a] ‘sequential reading of bitmap’ (Novak
¶ 426) which imposes a sequential ordering on Novak’s non-persistent
assignments,” and, “resources are allocated in a predetermined manner.” Id.
at 12 (citing Novak ¶ 353) (emphasis omitted). Appellant argues that a
predetermined manner of ordering is not a “non-persistent sequential order,”
because “going in order differs from the [Specification’s] example of ‘a sub-
service used first at one time can be used second at another time.” Id. (citing
Spec. ¶ 52). Appellant contends that Novak’s “imposition of a sequential
order on non-persistent assignments” does not teach a “non-persistent
sequential order” in view of the aforementioned definition and example set
forth in the Specification. Id. at 13.
We discern no pertinent distinction between the claimed “non-
persistent sequential order” and Appellant’s characterization of Novak’s
teaching of “non-persistent assignments” that are made in a “sequential
order.” Appeal Br. 13. Although the claim is interpreted in light of the
written description, “it is important not to import into a claim limitations that
are not part of the claim.” Superguide Corp. v. DirecTV Enterprises,
Inc., 358 F.3d 870, 875 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Appellant’s argument is grounded
in the “does not matter” language in the Specification. See Appeal Br. 11–
13 (citing Spec. ¶ 52). The cited portion of the Specification states, “a
service can use the sub-level supporting services in sequence, but an order of
using the sub-level supporting services does not matter. For example, but
without limitation, a sub-service used first at one time can be used second at
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another time.” Spec. ¶ 52. As viewed in light of the Specification, the claim
requires that the order be sequential, which Appellant acknowledges to be
taught by Novak. Appeal Br. 12. The claim further requires that the order
be non-persistent, such that the services need not always be used in the same
order, which is also admittedly taught by Novak. Id.; see also Novak ¶¶ 412
(“[a]ssignment may be . . . non-persistent assignment”), 414 (“[f]or non-
persistent allocation . . . allocation or placement of any resource can be
changed”). Although the Appellant interprets the Specification as further
requiring that the order not be “predetermined,” we are not persuaded that
such is necessary to teach or suggest the claimed “non-persistent sequential
order.” The Specification does not clearly set forth a definition of “non-
persistent sequential order” that precludes an ordering that is in a
predetermined sequential order that is also non-persistent, as Appellant
acknowledges to be taught by Novak. Accordingly, we are not persuaded
that the Examiner erred in determining that Novak teaches or suggests the
disputed limitation because Novak provides that “resources may be allocated
in a predetermined manner.”
Appellant also argues that Novak’s “resource assignments” differ
from “use” of “one or more services in a non-persistent sequential order.”
Appeal Br. 13. Appellant provides definitions of “allocate” and “use,” taken
from the 1981 version of Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (hereinafter
“Webster’s”), in support of this argument. Id. Under those definitions,
“allocate” is defined as “to apportion for a specific purpose or to particular
persons or things; DISTRIBUTE,” and “use” is defined as “to put into action
or service.” Id. (citing Webster’s at 30 (definition 1), 1279 (definition 2)).
Appellant contends that these definitions show that, contrary to the
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Examiner’s assertions, “‘allocate’ differs from and is not a subset of ‘use.”
Id. Appellant argues that a resource may be allocated to an entity, but the
entity may or may not actually deploy (or use) the resource. Reply Br. 5.
We do not find Appellant’s argument persuasive. Novak equates the
terms “use” and “allocate” in the context of allocation of resources,
describing certain resources as “unused (not allocated) resources.” Novak
¶ 401. Although both Appellant and the Examiner (Ans. 13) have provided
dictionary evidence as to the possible meaning of the term “allocate” as used
in Novak, we determine that Novak’s statement equating “allocate” and
“use” illuminates the specific issue as to whether Novak teaches or suggests
“use” of a resource.
Furthermore, the Examiner has relied not solely on Novak, but on the
combination of teachings and suggestions of Novak and Buyya. The
Examiner finds, and Appellant has not contested, that Buyya teaches that the
first service uses the second service(s) with respect to the first model. Final
Act. 4 (finding the first service uses the second service(s) of the federated
system). Further, relating to the second model, the Examiner has found, and
Appellant has not contested, that Buyya teaches “time-shared allocation of
processing cores to virtualized services.” Id. (quoting Buyya 2).
In view of the teachings of Novak and Buyya as cited by the
Examiner, the definitions provided by the Appellant and Examiner, and
Novak’s statement that “unused” is “not allocated,” we are not persuaded by
Appellant that the Examiner’s combination of Novak and Buyya does not
teach or suggest the claimed “first service uses the one or more second
services in a non-persistent sequential order.”
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Appellant further argues that the rejections of claims 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13,
15, 23–25, and 28 are erroneous for the same reasons as argued against the
rejection of claim 1. Appeal Br. 15. For the same reasons as discussed with
respect to claim 1, we sustain the obviousness rejection of claims 4, 5, 7, 8,
10, 13, 15, 23–25, and 28. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.67(c)(iv).
Appellant further argues that the rejections of claims 6, 9, 14, 16, 17,
21, 22, and 26 are erroneous for the same reasons as argued against the
rejection of claim 1, and further, that the addition of the teachings of either
Deng, or Yemini do not cure the error. Appeal Br. 15–16. For the same
reasons as discussed with respect to claim 1, we sustain the obviousness
rejection of claims 6, 9, 14, 16, 17, 21, 22, and 26.

CONCLUSION
For the above-described reasons, we affirm the Examiner’s rejection
of claims 1, 4–10, 13–17, 21–26, and 28 as being obvious under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a).

DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § References/Grounds Affirmed Reversed
1, 4, 5, 7,
8, 10, 13,
15, 23–
25, 28
103(a) Buyya, Dettinger,
Novak, Ceri
1, 4, 5, 7,
8, 10, 13,
15, 23–25,
28

6, 16, 17,
26
103(a) Buyya, Dettinger,
Novak, Ceri, Deng
6, 16, 17,
26

9, 14, 21,
22
103(a) Buyya, Dettinger,
Novak, Ceri, Yemini
9, 14, 21,
22

Appeal 2019-000550
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Overall
Outcome
1, 4–10,
13–17, 21–
26, 28

TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED