Ex Parte Baldwin et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 9, 2018

13550713 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 9, 2018)

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.
13/550,713 07/17/2012 Tim J. Baldwin GB920120009US1 (769) 1013
46320 7590
CRGO LAW
STEVEN M. GREENBERG
7900 Glades Road
SUITE 520
BOCA RATON, EL 33434
EXAMINER
KIM, TAELOR
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2156
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/13/2018 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):
docketing@crgolaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte TIM J. BALDWIN, AMARDEEP BHATTAL, and
BERNARD KUFLUK
Appeal 2017-005934
Application 13/550,7131
Technology Center 2100
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, ERIC S. FRAHM, and SCOTT E. BAIN,
Administrative Patent Judges.
BAIN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1—18, which constitute all claims pending in the
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as International Business
Machines Corporation. App. Br. 2.
Appeal 2017-005934
Application 13/550,713
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Claimed Invention
The claimed invention relates to object database transaction
management, and more particularly, to concurrent transaction management
in a triplestore database. Spec. 12. A triplestore database is a way of
“representing and storing information entirely in the form of triples[,] which
also has been referred to in the past as ‘statements,’” with each triple
including three parts: “the subject, the predicate, and the object.” Id. 1 6.
According to the Specification, implementation of triplestore can cause
“consistency” problems in the mapping of “entity representation such as an
object” to “the persisted set of triples.” Id. Tflf 7-8. The claimed invention
“address [es] [such] deficiencies of the art in respect to triplestore usage in an
object database and provide[s] concurrent triplestore access management for
object database operations.” Id. 19.
Claims 1,7, and 13 are independent. Claim 1 is illustrative of the
invention and the subject matter of the appeal, and reads as follows:
1. A method for concurrent triplestore access management
for database operations, the method comprising:
receiving in memory of a host computing system a request
in a database management system (DBMS) to return an object
for a corresponding subject;
reading into the memory a statement table, the table
comprising a multiplicity of records, the multiplicity of records
comprising both different records with at least three fields—a
subject for an entity, a predicate for the subject, and an object for
the predicate—and also a single record for each common subject
indicating a number of rows as a predicate and a value as the
object of a number of rows of the statement table associated with
the common subject;
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Application 13/550,713
comparing the indicated number of rows to a record count
of records read in the statement table for the corresponding
subject; and,
returning an object populated with data from the records
responsive to a determination that the indicated number of rows
when compared to the record count indicates data consistency
for the corresponding subject in the statement table, but
otherwise returning an error indicating an inconsistency for the
corresponding subject in the statement table.
App. Br. 13 (Claims App.) (emphases added).
Prior Art
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art:
Das et al.
Ebrahimi et al.
Marquardt et al.
Noble
US 2012/0117081 Al May 10, 2012
US 2012/0124081 Al May 17, 2012
US 2013/0311438 Al Nov. 21, 2013
US 2011/0208700 Al Aug. 25, 2011
The Rejections on Appeal
Claims 1, 7, and 13 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 112,
second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and
distinctly claim the subject matter which the applicant regards as the
invention. Final Act. 4—6.2
2 Dependent claims 2—6, 8—12, and 14—18 are not expressly named in the
rejection, but these claims necessarily include the limitations found to be
indefinite, by virtue of their dependence from the base claims. Also, the
Final Action’s reference to claims 1, “11,” and 13 appears to be a typo (with
claim 11 in lieu of claim 7, i.e., the other independent claim, which recites
limitations commensurate in scope with claims 1 and 13), and in the
Answer, the Examiner treats the rejection as pertaining to independent
claims 1, 7, and 13. Ans. 10. Appellants’ Reply Brief does not dispute this
characterization of the rejection.
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Appeal 2017-005934
Application 13/550,713
Claims 1—3, 7—9, and 13—15 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Das et al. (“Das”), Ebrahimi et al.
(“Ebrahimi”) and Marquardt et al. (“Marquardt”). Final Act. 4—15.
Claims 4—6, 10-12, and 16—18 stand rejected under pre-AIA
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Das, Ebrahimi, Marquardt,
and Noble. Final Act. 15—21.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellants’
arguments presented in this appeal. Arguments which Appellant could have
made but did not make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv). With respect to the indefiniteness rejection, we agree with
the Examiner’s findings and conclusions and adopt them as our own. We do
not reach the merits regarding the obviousness rejections, because to do so
would require speculation as to the meaning of the claims. We provide the
following to highlight and address specific arguments.
Rejection Under Pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 112, Second Paragraph
The Examiner finds claim 1 is indefinite because the word “records”
or variations thereof is used in several different limitations throughout the
claim, and it is unclear whether these different limitations refer to the same
“records.”3 Final Act 3; Ans. 10—11. Specifically, claim 1 recites
3 Appellants and the Examiner group all of the appealed claims together for
purposes of the rejection under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph,
and we choose claim 1 as representative of the group. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
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Application 13/550,713
“multiplicity of records,” “different records,” “single record,” “record
count,” “records read in the statement table,” and finally, “the records.”
App. Br. 13 (Claims App.). The Examiner also finds “the record” lacks an
antecedent basis. Final Act 3. Appellants argue the terms are clear, and that
“the [Ejxaminer should suggest improved language to the applicant.” App.
Br. 7.
On the record before us, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred.
First, although Appellants assert that “the records” plainly refers to
“multiplicity of records,” Appellants do not explain why this is apparent
from the claim language and Specification. App. Br. 6—7. Specifically,
Appellants do not explain why “the records” could not be interpreted as
referring to “different records” or “records read in the statement table” (nor
do Appellants explain why “multiplicity” is absent from the claim’s final
recitation of “the records” if that was what was intended).
Second, as the Examiner finds, claim 1 includes so many instances of
the term “record(s)” with so many modifiers, see supra, that distinguishing
the meaning between them is fraught with uncertainty. Ans. 10. Thus, we
discern no error in the Examiner’s finding that “the Examiner cannot
reasonably determine the scope and bounds of the term[s] being used in the
claims.” Final Act. 3; see Halliburton Energy Servs., Inc. v. M-ILLC, 514
F.3d 1244, 1255 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (“it is highly desirable that patent
examiners demand that applicants” resolve any “ambiguity in the patent
claims . . . during prosecution”); Ex parte Miyazaki, 89 USPQ2d 1207,
1211—12 (BPAI 2008) (precedential) (“If a claim is amenable to two or more
plausible claim constructions, the USPTO is justified in requiring an
applicant to more precisely define the metes and bounds of the invention by
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holding the claim unpatentable under 35U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as
indefinite.”).
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s indefmiteness rejection of
claim 1. Appellants do not argue independent claims 7 and 13 separately,
and each of these claims include the limitations found to be indefinite in
claim 1. Accordingly, we sustain the indefmiteness rejection.
Rejections Under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
For the reasons explained above, we determine that independent
claims 1, 7, and 13 are indefinite. The remaining claims all depend from
claims 1, 7, and 13, and thus also are indefinite. Having so determined, we
do not sustain the rejections of claims 1—18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
because to do so would require speculation as to the meaning and scope of
the claims. See In re Steele, 305 F.2d 859, 862—63 (CCPA 1962) (holding
that the Board erred in affirming a rejection of indefinite claims under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a)). Our decision does not reflect an evaluation of the merits
of the prior art rejections of claims 1—18.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—18.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.50(f).
AFFIRMED
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