TERADATA US, INC.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Feb 24, 2020

14094190 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Feb. 24, 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.
14/094,190 12/02/2013 Jason S. Chen 11557.D01 1970
26890 7590 02/24/2020
JAMES M. STOVER
TERADATA US, INC.
P.O. Box 190
Englewood, OH 45322
EXAMINER
ALMANI, MOHSEN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2159
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/24/2020 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):
james.stover@teradata.com
michelle.boldman@teradata.com
td.uspto@outlook.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JASON S. CHEN and BHASHYAM RAMESH
Appeal 2019-000929
Application 14/094,190
Technology Center 2100
Before BARBARA A. BENOIT, MICHAEL M. BARRY and
RUSSELL E. CASS, Administrative Patent Judges.
BARRY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 3, 4, and 6, which constitute all
pending claims. Appeal Br. 3.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 We use “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42.
Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Teradata US, Incorporated.
Appeal Br. 2.
2 We refer to the Specification, filed Dec. 2, 2013 (“Spec.”); Final Office
Action, mailed Dec. 7, 2017 (“Final Act.”); Appeal Brief, filed June 11,
2018 (“Appeal Br.”), Answer, mailed Sept. 14, 2018 (“Ans.”), and the Reply
Brief, filed Nov. 14, 2018 (“Reply Br.”).
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Application 14/094,190
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Introduction
Appellant describes the claimed subject matter as “relat[ing] to
Enterprise Data Warehouses [(EDWs)] and Relational Database
Management Systems [(RDBMSs)] used to support real-time decision
management.” Spec. ¶ 2. The disclosed embodiments use “queue tables” to
“provide enhanced support for real-time decision making in an EDW
system.” Id. ¶ 18. Appellant explains that the queue tables provide various
advantages over traditional EDW RDBMS solutions, including “the ability
to suspend execution of a database query when no data is available and then
resume execution of the query and return the requested data when the data
becomes available.” Id. ¶ 23; see also id. ¶¶ 24–26 (discussing various
advantages of using queue tables over the use of a traditional RDBMS).
Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A computer-implemented method for use in returning
data from a database table in response to a query to a relational
database system containing one or more data storage facilities that
together store a database and one or more database tables, the method
comprising:
receiving by said relational database system, a query requesting
data from a database table;
initiating execution of said query;
assessing whether said database table has said requested data;
and
when the database table does not contain said requested data:
halting execution of the query until said requested data is
placed in the database table; and thereafter
resuming execution of said query; and
returning the requested data that was placed in the
database table to said query.
Appeal Br. 10 (Claims App’x).
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The Rejections
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 3, 4, and 6 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as
ineligibly directed to a judicial exception (i.e., an abstract idea). Final Act.
2–4.
The Examiner also rejected claims 1, 3, 4, and 6 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(a)(2) as anticipated by Chandra et al. (US 6,058,389; issued May 2,
2000) (“Chandra”). Final Act. 5–9.
ANALYSIS
A. The Patent Eligibility Rejection
1. Patent Eligibility Law and the USPTO Guidance
An invention is patent-eligible if it claims a “new and useful process,
machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.” 35 U.S.C. § 101. The
U.S. Supreme Court, however, has long interpreted 35 U.S.C. § 101 to
include implicit exceptions: “[l]aws of nature, natural phenomena, and
abstract ideas” are not patentable. Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S.
208, 216 (2014).
In determining whether a claim falls within an excluded category, we
are guided by the Court’s two-step framework, described in Mayo and Alice.
Id. at 217–18 (citing Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc.,
566 U.S. 66, 71–73 (2012)). In accordance with that framework, we first
determine what concept the claim is “directed to.” See Alice, 573 U.S. at
219 (“On their face, the claims before us are drawn to the concept of
intermediated settlement, i.e., the use of a third party to mitigate settlement
risk.”); see also Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 611 (2010) (“Claims 1 and 4
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in petitioners’ application explain the basic concept of hedging, or protecting
against risk.”).
Concepts determined to be abstract ideas, and, thus, patent ineligible,
include certain methods of organizing human activity, such as fundamental
economic practices (Alice, 573 U.S. at 219–20; Bilski, 561 U.S. at 611);
mathematical concepts (Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584, 594–95 (1978)); and
mental processes (Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 67 (1972)). In
Diamond v. Diehr, the claim at issue recited a judicial exception in the
category of mathematical concepts, but the Court held that “[a] claim drawn
to subject matter otherwise statutory does not become nonstatutory simply
because it uses a mathematical formula.” 450 U.S. 175, 176 (1981).
If the claim is “directed to” an abstract idea, we turn to the second
step of the Alice and Mayo framework, where “we must examine the
elements of the claim to determine whether it contains an ‘inventive
concept’ sufficient to ‘transform’ the claimed abstract idea into a patent-
eligible application.” Alice, 573 U.S. at 221 (internal quotation marks
omitted). “A claim that recites an abstract idea must include ‘additional
features’ to ensure ‘that the [claim] is more than a drafting effort designed to
monopolize the [abstract idea].’” Id. (alterations in original) (quoting Mayo,
566 U.S. at 77). “[M]erely requir[ing] generic computer implementation[]
fail[s] to transform that abstract idea into a patent-eligible invention.” Id.
In 2019, the Office published revised guidance on the application of
§ 101. See 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84
Fed. Reg. 50–57 (Jan. 7, 2019) (“2019 Guidance”); see also October 2019
Update: Subject Matter Eligibility, 84 Fed. Reg. 55942–53 (Oct. 17, 2019)
(providing “examples as well as a discussion of various issues raised by the
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5
public comments” to the guidance promulgated in January 2019). Under the
2019 Guidance, we first look to whether the claim recites:
(1) any judicial exceptions, including certain groupings of
abstract ideas (i.e., mathematical concepts, certain methods of
organizing human activity such as a fundamental economic practice,
or mental processes); and
(2) additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into
a practical application (see Manual of Patent Examining Procedure
(MPEP) § 2106.05(a)–(c), (e)–(h)).3
See 84 Fed. Reg. at 52–55. Only if a claim (1) recites a judicial exception
and (2) does not integrate that exception into a practical application, do we
then look to whether the claim:
(3) adds a specific limitation beyond the judicial exception that
are not “well-understood, routine, conventional” in the field (see
MPEP § 2106.05(d)); or
(4) simply appends well-understood, routine, conventional
activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of
generality, to the judicial exception.
See 2019 Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 56.
2. Patent Eligibility Analysis
For the § 101 rejection, Appellant argues all pending claims together
as a group, from which we select claim 1 as representative. Appeal Br. 5–7;
37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv). In following the 2019 Guidance, we first
consider under prong one of Step 2A whether claim 1 recites a judicial
exception. For this analysis, we remain mindful that we must not express
the idea of the claim in a way that is “untethered from the language of the
claim[]” and, accordingly, we assess what claim 1 recites at the same level

3 All references to the MPEP are to the Ninth Edition, Revision 08.2017
(rev. Jan. 2018).
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of generality or abstraction expressed in the claim. Enfish, LLC v. Microsoft
Corp., 822 F.3d 1327, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
Here, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner errs in describing
claim 1 as “merely a method of ‘obtaining and comparing intangible data’ or
‘remotely accessing and retrieving user-specified information.’” See Appeal
Br. 5 (quoting Final Act. 2–3). Claim 1 recites six steps for a method of
relational database query processing. The first three steps recite receiving a
query that requests data from a database table, initiating execution of the
query, and assessing whether the table contains the requested data. When
the requested data is not in the queried table, in the next three steps the query
processing halts until the requested data is placed in the table, after which
the query processing resumes and the requested data is returned. Considered
collectively, these six steps recite suspending a relational database query that
requests data from a table when the query requests data not in the table, and
then resuming the query processing when the requested data is placed in the
table.
The steps recited in claim 1—suspending a relational database query
that requests data from a table when the query requests data not in the table,
and then resuming the query processing when the requested data is placed in
the table—are concrete actions performed by a computer and database, and
are not a mathematical concept, a mental process, or one of the certain
methods of organizing human activity categories that have been identified
by the courts as judicial exceptions. See 2019 Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. at 52,
52 nn. 12–15. Thus, at prong one of Step 2A of our analysis under the
Guidance, we determine that claim 1 is not directed to a judicial exception.
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We also find unpersuasive the Examiner’s analogy of claim 1 to
human activity involved in requesting an item from a library. See Ans. 4–5
(positing that the idea recited by claim 1 is no different from the non-
technological process of requesting a currently unavailable library item and
then, after that item becomes available, providing it to the requester).
Providing items from a library is not sufficiently analogous to providing data
from a database table, as claimed. For example, when an unavailable library
item becomes available and then is provided to a requester who has been
waiting for the item, that item again becomes unavailable. With relational
database technology, on the other hand, when requested data becomes
available in a table, that data remains available to other requesters.
From a patent eligibility perspective, claim 1 is akin to the claims at
issue in Enfish, which focused on and were directed to an improvement in
using relational database technology. See Enfish, 822 F.3d at 1330–37. In
determining the claims in Enfish were patent eligibly directed to a self-
referential database table required by the claims, the Federal Circuit noted
that “[t]he specification also teaches that the self-referential table functions
differently than conventional database structures.” Id. at 1337. Here,
similarly, Appellant’s Specification teaches that the query suspension and
resumption process of claim 1 functions differently than conventional
database query processing. See Spec. ¶¶ 43–44. In other words, similar to
the claims in Enfish, Appellant’s claim 1 recites an idea for “a specific
implementation of a solution to a problem in the software arts.” 822 F.3d at
1339.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the § 101 rejection of claims 1, 3, 4,
and 6.
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B. The Anticipation Rejection
For the § 102 rejection, Appellant argues independent claims 1 and 4
together as a group and proffers no substantively separate arguments for
dependent claims 3 and 6. Appeal Br. 7–9. We select claim 1 as
representative of all claims for this rejection. 37 C.F.R. 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
The Examiner finds Chandra’s disclosure of dequeuing messages
from a queue table within a relational database system anticipates claim 1.
Final Act. 5–7 (citing Chandra 3:1–30, 12:62–67, 14:17–31, 16:18–22,
16:56–60, 17:64–18:13); see also Ans. 6–9 (citing Chandra 6:45–63, 7:4–13,
13:13–24, 12:44–45, 14:17–46, 16:17–63, 17:64–18:25). Appellant
contends the Examiner errs because Chandra’s message dequeuing does not
disclose “assessing whether said database table has said requested data” and
“when the database table does not contain said requested data: halting
execution of the query until said requested data is placed in the database
table,” as recited in claim 1. Appeal Br. 7–8; see also Reply Br. 2–4. In
particular, Appellant argues “[i]t is not seen that Chandra includes any
discussion of messages not contained in the message queue – the
DEQUEUE operation determines the availability of messages contained in
the message queue based on delay parameters associated with the messages
contained in the queue.” Reply Br. 3–4 (further arguing “Chandra describes
a process whereby only messages contained within a message queue and
ready to be processed . . . will be provided by the system in response to a
DEQUEUE request”).
Appellant’s argument is unpersuasive. Contrary to Appellant’s
argument that Chandra has no discussion of querying for messages not
contained in the message queue, Chandra states that “[a] dequeue request
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Application 14/094,190
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can be issued against an empty queue. An application can specify whether,
and for how long, the request should wait for a message to arrive.” Chandra
12:44–47 (cited at Ans. 9). In other words, in response to a request made to
an empty queue, Chandra discloses waiting for the requested message data
to be placed in the message queue table before returning that requested data.
Chandra’s determination that the queue is empty meets the claimed
“assess[ing] whether said database table has said requested data” step, and
Chandra’s waiting for the requested message data to be placed in the
message queue before returning the requested data table meets the step of
“when the database table does not contain said requested data: halting
execution of the query until said requested data is placed in the database
table.” Thus, we find that the Examiner has sufficiently established that
Chandra meets these claim limitations, and Appellant has failed to
sufficiently explain why this is not the case. See Ans. 6–9; Appeal Br. 7–8;
Reply Br. 2–4.
Accordingly, we sustain the § 102 rejection of claims 1, 3, 4, and 6.

CONCLUSION
We reverse the patent eligibility rejection of claims 1, 3, 4, and 6
under 35 U.S.C. § 101. We affirm the anticipation rejection of claims 1, 3,
4, and 6 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1).
In summary:

Appeal 2019-000929
Application 14/094,190
10
Claims
Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 3, 4, 6 101 Eligibility 1, 3, 4, 6
1, 3, 4, 6 102 Chandra 1, 3, 4, 6
Overall
Outcome 1, 3, 4, 6

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