HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT LP

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 21, 2020

2019003107 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 21, 2020)

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.
15/095,230 04/11/2016 Shruthi Mittal 90035363 7039
146568 7590 09/21/2020
MICRO FOCUS LLC
500 Westover Drive
#12603
Sanford, NC 27330
EXAMINER
BOURZIK, BRAHIM
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2191
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/21/2020 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):
software.ip.mail@microfocus.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
________________

Ex parte SHRUTHI MITTAL and ARUN PAI
________________

Appeal 2019-003107
Application 15/095,230
Technology Center 2100
________________

Before JASON V. MORGAN, DEBORAH KATZ, and JOHN A. EVANS,
Administrative Patent Judges.

MORGAN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 3–10, and 12–14. Claims 2, 11, and
15 are canceled. Final Act. 2. 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. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as EntIT
Software LLC (Appeal Br. 3), which has since been renamed to MICRO
FOCUS LLC (Pat. Assign. Reel 050004, Frames 0001, 0028, 0041–42,
0106).
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Summary of the Disclosure
Appellant’s claimed subject matter relates to generating a service
design specifying operational requirements for deploying an application on
an application platform. Abstract.
Representative Claims
(Disputed Limitations Emphasized and Bracketing Added)
1. A method for deploying applications on application
platforms, the method comprising:
receiving an input application design of an application, wherein
the input application design defines dependencies for the
application for components of an application platform based on
capability attributes and characteristic attributes corresponding
to the application, the capability attributes providing
deployment requirements of the application and the
characteristic attributes providing specifications of the
capability attributes corresponding to the components of the
application platform;
identifying, based on the capability attributes and characteristic
attributes, at least one candidate design comprising at least one
of the components of the application platform, the at least one
candidate design being a configuration of the application
platform to deploy the application;
based on the at least one candidate design, generating a service
design specifying operational requirements for deploying the
application on the application platform,
wherein identifying the at least one candidate design comprises:
[1] examining components of each of a plurality of
designs of the application platform to identify eligible
designs having components which conform with the
deployment requirements of the application;
[2] ascertaining deployment requirements of the
components of the each of the eligible designs; and
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identifying an eligible design as a candidate design when
the deployment requirements of the components of the
eligible design are satisfied by one or more components
of the application platform.
6. The method as claimed in claim 1, [3] wherein identifying the
at least one candidate design is based on role-based access
rules associated with a user deploying the application.
7. The method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising:
[4] creating a checksum for the service design based on a
unique identifier associated with the service design;
[5] comparing the checksum of the service design with a
checksum of another application to be deployed, the checksum
of the another application being based on a unique identifier
associated with the another application and revision and
version of application components of the another application;
and
reusing the service design for deploying the another application
based on the comparison.
The Examiner’s rejections and cited references
The Examiner rejects claims 1, 8–10, and 14 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Agrawal et al. (US 2008/0021873 A1;
published Jan. 24, 2008) (“Agrawal”). Final Act. 5–15.
The Examiner rejects claims 3–6 and 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Agrawal and Narayanaswamy et al. (US 7,069,553
B2; issued June 27, 2006) (“Narayanaswamy”). Final Act. 15–21.
The Examiner rejects claims 7 and 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Agrawal, Maes et al. (US 2015/0100684 A1; published
Apr. 9, 2015) (“Maes”), and Spivak et al. (US 2012/0266156 A1; published
Oct. 18, 2012) (“Spivak”). Final Act. 21–25.
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ADOPTION OF EXAMINER’S FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
We agree with and adopt as our own the Examiner’s findings as set
forth in the Answer and in the Action from which this appeal was taken, and
we concur with the Examiner’s conclusions. We have considered
Appellant’s arguments, but do not find them persuasive of error. We provide
the following explanation for emphasis.
ANALYSIS
Claims 1, 3–5, 8–10, and 14
In rejecting claim 1 as anticipated, the Examiner finds that Agrawal’s
disclosed search for candidate infrastructure elements to satisfy at least one
requirement attribute and employment of criteria to determine the best
candidate infrastructure elements discloses [1] “examining components of
each of a plurality of designs” and [2] “ascertaining deployment
requirements of the components of the each of the eligible designs.” Final
Act. 8–9 (citing Agrawal ¶¶ 48, 49); Ans. 23–26 (further citing Agrawal
¶ 27, Fig. 6).
Appellant argues “Agrawal discusses a single design, not examining
components of a plurality of designs or candidate designs.” Id. at 11; Reply
Br. 1–2. Appellant’s argument is unpersuasive because Agrawal discloses
“determining a list of [the] best candidate infrastructure elements for each
node.” Agrawal ¶ 48 (emphasis added). Then “[t]he candidate infrastructure
elements are ranked to determine an infrastructure element that best satisfies
the at least one requirement attribute.” Id. ¶ 49 (emphasis added). Thus, the
list of candidate elements each represent at least one of a plurality of designs
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(i.e., each design either including or excluding a particular candidate
infrastructure element).
Appellant further contends the Examiner erred because “Agrawal
discusses determining the infrastructure elements for individual nodes, i.e.,
individual parts of the distributed application.” Appeal Br. 10. Claim 1 does
not, however, require examining all of the components of each of a plurality
of designs. Rather, claim 1—in merely reciting “examining components”—
encompasses examining a subset of such components. Agrawal’s list of
candidate infrastructure elements, even if considered only for an individual
node that is part of a distributed application, still represents components of a
plurality of designs for the distributed application as a whole. Thus,
Agrawal’s search for and analysis of candidate infrastructure elements
discloses disputed limitations [1] and [2].
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1)
rejection of claim 1, and the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. §§ 102(a)(1) and 103
rejections of claims 3–5, 8–10, and 14, which Appellant does not argue
separately. Appeal Br. 11.
Claims 6, 12
In rejecting claim 6 as obvious, the Examiner finds that
Narayanaswamy’s authentication of “a person acting in the role of an EJB
deployer” (Narayanaswamy 15:45–46) in providing access to a deployment
system teaches or suggests [3] “wherein identifying the at least one
candidate design is based on role-based access rules associated with a user
deploying the application.” Final Act. 20 (citing Narayanaswamy 15:47–55);
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Ans. 27–29 (further citing Narayanaswamy 16:2–7, 18:40–46, Figs. 4, 6,
10).
Appellant contends the Examiner erred because rather than disclosing
or rendering obvious disputed recitation [3], “Narayanaswamy merely
discusses a user in the role of deploying the application.” Appeal Br. 12–13;
Reply Br. 2. Appellant’s argument is unpersuasive because, as the Examiner
correctly finds, it is known to require credentials that allow access to a
deployment system. See Ans. 27. That is, it would have been obvious to an
artisan of ordinary skill that the best candidate infrastructure element of
Agrawal would be one that the user deploying the application can access.
Thus, using role-based access rules to identify candidate designs (i.e.,
designs that include infrastructure elements that can be accessed) would
have been obvious to an artisan of ordinary skill. Therefore, we agree with
the Examiner that the combination of Agrawal and Narayanaswamy teaches
or suggest disputed limitation [3].
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of
claim 6, and claim 12, which Appellant does not argue separately. Appeal
Br. 13.
Claims 7, 13
In rejecting claim 7 as obvious, the Examiner finds that Maes’
metadata descriptions for various components of an application combined
with Spivak’s use of checksums for integrity checking teaches or suggests
[4] “creating a checksum for the service design based on a unique identifier
associated with the service design” and [5] “comparing the checksum of the
service design with a checksum of another application to be deployed, the
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checksum of the another application being based on a unique identifier
associated with the another application and revision and version of
application components of the another application.” Final Act. 22 (citing
Maes ¶¶ 20, 24, 25), 23 (citing Spivak ¶¶ 59–60, 62).
Appellant contends the Examiner erred because “Spivak does not
mention or contemplate a checksum being used as an identifier, such as an
identifier for a service design for an application platform.” Appeal Br. 14;
Reply Br. 3. The Examiner, however, correctly finds that Spivak uses
checksums “to identify any change” to a package. Ans. 33. Thus, the
Examiner’s findings show that Spivak teaches or suggests that the checksum
for one application can be compared with the checksum for another
application to identify that the two applications are possibly the same or are
different. Therefore, we agree with the Examiner that the combination of
Agrawal, Maes, and Spivak teaches or suggests disputed recitations [4] and
[5].
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of
claims 7 and 13.
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CONCLUSION
Claims
Rejected 35 U.S.C. § References Affirmed Reversed
1, 8–10, 14 102(a)(1) Agrawal 1, 8–10, 14
3–6, 12 103 Agrawal,
Narayanaswamy
3–6, 12
7, 13 103 Agrawal, Maes,
Spivak
7, 13
Overall
Outcome
1, 3–10,
12–14

TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking 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