SAP SE

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Oct 26, 2020

2019004152 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 26, 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.
15/167,746 05/27/2016 Erwin Burkhardt 22135-0924001/150501US01 7783
32864 7590 10/26/2020
FISH & RICHARDSON, P.C. (SAP)
PO BOX 1022
MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55440-1022
EXAMINER
LUU, BINH K
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2191
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/26/2020 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):
PATDOCTC@fr.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte ERWIN BURKHARDT, STEFFEN MEISSNER,
MARTIN MAYER, CHRISTOPH LUETTGE, JUERGEN SPECHT, and
VOLKER DRIESEN
____________

Appeal 2019-004152
Application 15/167,746
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before CATHERINE SHIANG, MATTHEW J. McNEILL, and
MICHAEL T. CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

SHIANG, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1–20, which are all the claims pending and rejected in the
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1 We use “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42.
Appellant identifies SAP SE as the real party in interest. Appeal. Br. 3.

Appeal 2019-004152
Application 15/167,746

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
The present invention relates to “zero downtime maintenance in
constrained systems.” Spec., Title (emphasis omitted).
With traditional maintenance (e.g., updates to an
application server), the duration of the deployment can be quite
considerable, and can spread over several days, if not weeks. If,
during this period, errors are found, corrections that are created
must be deployed as well.
In contrast, zero downtime maintenance enables the
current (production) software (e.g., VI) to continue running
during the deployment of the target release software (e.g., V2).
To accomplish this, the system is considerably altered, such that
the system state is no longer "standard." Consequently, the
deploy tools cannot deploy to the target system in a zero
downtime upgrade setup. In fact, the deploy tools set a
semaphore (e.g., lock) to ensure that no parallel deployment can
be started.

Spec. ¶¶ 27–28.
Claim 1 is exemplary:
1. A computer-implemented method for deploying
upgrade packages during a zero downtime upgrade of a
database system in production use, the method being executed
using one or more processors and comprising:
executing the zero downtime upgrade, during which the
database system is in production use and one or more tables of
a database are accessed through a bridge schema;
receiving, by the one or more processors, an upgrade
package, the upgrade package defining one or more changes to
be deployed to a target version of the database system that has
already undergone partial deployment during a zero downtime
upgrade, and comprising one or more objects having respective
object types, the partial deployment altering a state of the target
Appeal 2019-004152
Application 15/167,746

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database system and at least partially constraining subsequent
changes to the target version of the database system;
receiving, by the one or more processors, a deployment
configuration, the deployment configuration providing a
plurality of lists of object types for respective constraints, each
object type indicating a component of the target version of the
database system to be affected by the deployment
configuration, and, for each list of object types, specifying a
deployment option for the object types in the respective list of
object types, deployment options comprising a standard
deployment procedure, and an extended deployment procedure;
determining, by the one or more processors, a set of
object types included in the upgrade package, the set of object
types comprising one or more object types; and
selectively permitting, by the one or more processors,
deployment of the upgrade package using the extended
deployment procedure to execute at least one change
corresponding to a greylisted object type before switching the
target version of the database system to production.

References and Rejections2
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § References
1–20 103 Morley (US 2016/0162275 A1; published June 9,
2016), Lupu (US 2012/0233605 A1; published
Sept. 13, 2012), Walsh (US 6,810,429 B1; Oct. 26,
2004), George (US 2009/0300597 A1; published
Dec. 3, 2009)

2 Throughout this opinion, we refer to the (1) Final Office Action dated
September 19, 2018 (“Final Act.”); (2) Appeal Brief dated January 8, 2019
(“Appeal Br.”); (3) Examiner’s Answer dated March 7, 2019 (“Ans.”); and
(4) Reply Brief dated May 3, 21019 (“Reply Br.”).
Appeal 2019-004152
Application 15/167,746

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ANALYSIS3
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellant’s
contentions and the evidence of record. We concur with Appellant’s
contentions that the Examiner erred in finding the cited portions of Morley
teach
A computer-implemented method for deploying upgrade
packages during a zero downtime upgrade of a database system
in production use, the method being executed using one or
more processors and comprising:
executing the zero downtime upgrade, during which the
database system is in production use and one or more tables of
a database are accessed through a bridge schema;

as recited in independent claim 1 (emphases added). See Appeal Br. 8–9;
Reply Br. 3–6.
The Examiner initially cites Morley’s Figure 3 and paragraph 24 for
teaching the italicized claim limitation. See Final Act. 3. In response to
Appellant’s arguments, the Examiner further cites Morley’s Figure 1B and
paragraphs 26, 27, and 46. See Final Act. 14–16.
We have reviewed the cited Morley portions, and they do not discuss
“during a zero downtime upgrade of a database system in production use . . .
executing the zero downtime upgrade, during which the database system is
in production use,” as required by claim 1. Further, the Examiner’s finding
that
Morley discloses that ¶ [0026] “Quarantine or removal of
applications may be trigged by downloading of the target
platform version”. Therefore, if the user cancels the platform
upgrade because there is one or more incompatible

3 Appellant raises additional arguments. Because the identified issue is
dispositive of the appeal, we do not address the additional arguments.
Appeal 2019-004152
Application 15/167,746

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application(s) to the target platform, the downloading of the
target platform version is also canceled; thus, the quarantine or
removal of the one or more incompatible application(s) that are
currently running is not triggered; thereby, not interrupting any
application(s) that are running; hence, the upgrade process
provides zero downtime upgrade to the system.

(Ans. 14–15) is unpersuasive, as a canceled upgrade does not teach the
claimed “executing the zero downtime upgrade.” Similarly, the Examiner’s
finding that “mobile phone 15 is . . . inherently continuously running” while
applications on the phone are updated (Ans. 15) is unpersuasive, because
Morley does not teach upgrading the mobile phone itself during that time.
As pointed out by Appellant (Reply Br. 4–5), upgrading applications with no
downtime to the mobile phone does not teach or suggest a currently used
database system continues operation with no disruption while the database
system itself undergoes an upgrade. As a result, that Examiner’s finding
does not show Morley teaches “executing the zero downtime upgrade,
during which the database system is in production use,” as required by claim
1.
Because the Examiner fails to provide sufficient evidence or
explanation to support the rejection, we are constrained by the record to
reverse the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1, and independent
claims 8 and 15 for similar reasons.
We also reverse the Examiner’s rejection of corresponding dependent
claims 2–7, 9–14, and 16–20.

Appeal 2019-004152
Application 15/167,746

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CONCLUSION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–20 under 35
U.S.C. § 103.
In summary:

Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–20 103 Morley, Lupu,
Walsh, George
1–20

REVERSED