Ex Parte Baskaran et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 24, 2015

11260578 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 24, 2015)

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.
11/260,578 10/27/2005 Guruprasad Baskaran AUS920050320US1 6157
50170 7590 03/25/2015
IBM CORP. (WIP)
c/o WALDER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW, P.C.
17304 PRESTON ROAD
SUITE 200
DALLAS, TX 75252
EXAMINER
REYES, MARIELA D
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2159
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/25/2015 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 GURUPRASAD BASKARAN, KULVIR S. BHOGAL,
KANMANI NACHIMUTHU, and LAKSHMI N. POTLURI
____________________

Appeal 2012-010819
Application 11/260,578
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and
JEFFREY A. STEPHENS, Administrative Patent Judges.

MacDONALD, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2012-010819
Application 11/260,578

2
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1 and 21–38. Claims 2–20 have been cancelled.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

Exemplary Claim
Exemplary claim 1 under appeal read as follows (emphasis added):
1. A method, in a client side data processing system, for
processing a portion of a Web page, comprising:
receiving, by the client side data processing system, code
for a portion of a first Web page from a source computing
device, wherein the code breaks the portion of the first Web
page into blocks of Web page content, wherein one or more of
the blocks of Web page content have associated caching
properties identified in the code, and wherein the associated
caching properties have a conditional requirement that
identifies an operational characteristic of the client side data
processing system that is required before the caching property
is applied to content data for the corresponding block of Web
page content;
parsing, by the client side data processing system, the
code for the portion of the first Web page to identify the blocks
of Web page content and their associated caching properties;
and
caching, by the client side data processing system, in a
client side data processing system cache, content data
corresponding to the blocks of Web page content based on the
associated caching properties, wherein at least two blocks of
Web page content have different caching properties, and
wherein at least two portions of content data corresponding to
the at least two blocks of Web page content are cached using
the different caching properties.

Appeal 2012-010819
Application 11/260,578

3
Rejections on Appeal
1. The Examiner rejected claims 1, 30, and 37 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Agrawal (US
2002/0004813 A1; Jan. 10, 2002) and Tang (US 7,925,738 B2; Apr. 12,
2011).
1

2. The Examiner rejected claims 21–29, 31–36, and 38 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over various combinations of
Agrawal, Tang, and other prior art references.
2

Appellants’ Contention
1. Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because:
Appellants respectfully submit that Agrawal has no such
condition requirement of an operational characteristic of the
client side data processing system identified in the associated
caching properties that has to be met prior to the caching
property being applied.
App. Br. 10. Additionally:
[W]hile the resource manager does indeed determine a cache hit
ratio for each media server, the determined cache hit ratio is not
a conditional requirement that identifies an operational
characteristic of the client side data processing system that is
required before the caching property is applied to content data
for the corresponding block of Web page content. That is, Tang
uses the determined cache hit ratio to determine what resources

1
Separate patentability is not argued for claims 30 and 37. Except for our
ultimate decision, these claims are not discussed further herein.
2
Separate patentability is not argued for these claims. Rather, rejection of
these claims turns on our decision as to the underlying § 103 rejection of
claim 1. Except for our ultimate decision, these claims are not discussed
further herein.
Appeal 2012-010819
Application 11/260,578

4
from a resource pool should be assigned to the media server not
to allow or prevent a caching property to be applied to content
data for the corresponding block of Web page content.
App. Br. 11.

Issues on Appeal
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 1 as being obvious?

ANALYSIS
We agree with the Appellants’ above recited contentions.

CONCLUSIONS
(1) Appellants have established that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claims 1 and 21–38 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
(2) On this record, these claims have not been shown to be
unpatentable.

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1 and 21–38 are reversed.

REVERSED
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