Ex Parte Beaty et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 28, 201411848258 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 28, 2014) Copy Citation 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. 11/848,258 08/31/2007 Kirk A. Beaty YOR920070273US1 3486 48062 7590 03/28/2014 RYAN, MASON & LEWIS, LLP 1175 Post Road East 2nd Floor Westport, CT 06880 EXAMINER CHANG, LI WU ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2129 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/28/2014 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 KIRK A. BEATY and ANCA SAILER __________ Appeal 2012-000183 Application 11/848,258 Technology Center 2100 ___________ Before GLENN J. PERRY, TRENTON A. WARD, and STACEY G. WHITE, Administrative Patent Judges. WARD, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Appeal 2012-000183 Application 11/848,258 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Rejection on Appeal Claims 1-3 and 10-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) unpatentable over Berenji (Hamid R. Berenji, Case-Based Reasoning for Fault Diagnosis and Prognosis, IEEE INT’L CONF. ON FUZZY SYSS. 1316 (2006)) and Yang (Qiang Yang et al., CaseAdvisor: Supporting Interactive Problem Solving and Case Base Maintenance for Help Desk Applications, PROC. IJCAI 97 WORKSHOP ON PRAC. APPLICATIONS CBR 1 (1997)).1 Claims 4-9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Berenji, Yang, and Breslow (Leonard A. Breslow & David W. Aha, NaCoDAE: Navy Conversational Decision Aids Environment, NAVY CENTER RES. LAB. 1 (1997)). The Claimed Invention The claimed invention is directed to problem determination and resolution in the field of information technology. Spec. 3. The claimed invention provides a method that includes the steps of detecting anomalous changes in an environment for which a problem diagnosis is to be provided, generating domain specific key words and predicates, searching in a knowledge repository for solutions related to the generated key words and predicates, and generating a particular solution for the problem, based on the solutions from the knowledge repository. Id. Furthermore, the claimed invention provides that generation of domain specific key terms and predicates that relate to the anomalous IT changes in the environment can 1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to the Appeal Brief (“App. Br.”) filed on June 6, 2011, and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”) mailed on July 18, 2011. Appeal 2012-000183 Application 11/848,258 3 guide the search for resolution by using appropriate and relevant clauses. Id. Claim 1 is illustrative and is reproduced below, with certain limitations emphasized: 1. A method for problem determination and resolution, said method comprising the steps of: detecting anomalous changes in an environment for which a problem diagnosis is to be provided; generating domain specific key words and predicates based, at least in part, on said detected anomalous changes; searching in a knowledge resolution repository for solutions related to said generated key words and predicates; and generating a particular solution for said problem, based, at least in part, on said solutions from said knowledge resolution repository, wherein one or more of said steps are performed by a hardware device. DISCUSSION A. Obviousness Rejection of Claims 1, 13, 15, and 18 over Berenji and Yang Independent Claims 1, 15, and 18 The Examiner finds that Berenji discloses the claim 1 limitations involving detecting anomalous changes in an environment for which a diagnosis is to be provided. Ans. 6. Furthermore, the Examiner found that Berenji does not particularly disclose generating the claimed “domain specific key words and predicates.” Id. The Examiner cited Yang as teaching this feature, along with the additional claim limitations regarding searching in a knowledge resolution repository for solutions and generating a solution, in concluding that the claim would have been obvious. Ans. 7-8. Appellants disagree with the Examiner and argue that Yang fails to disclose the claimed limitation regarding “domain specific keywords and Appeal 2012-000183 Application 11/848,258 4 predicates.” App. Br. 4 (quoting claim 1). Although, Appellants agree with the Examiner that Yang discloses key words and key phrases, Appellants disagree that Yang discloses the “predicates” recited in claim 1. Id. at 5. Appellants argue that the term “predicate” should be construed as a “verb phrase template” that describes a “property of objects, or a relationship among objects represented by the variables.” Id. (emphases omitted). Appellants fail to point to any statements or discussion in the Specification regarding the definition of the term predicate. We have reviewed the Specification and we find no definition of “predicate.” The Examiner determined that the term “predicate” is defined in neither the Specification nor the claim. Ans. 13. We agree with the Examiner’s findings that Appellants failed to clearly state their intent to assign a special definition to the term “predicate.” Id.; see also Laryngeal Mask Co. Ltd. v. Ambu A/S, 618 F.3d 1367, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (concluding the patentee did not act as his own lexicographer because “[t]o be his own lexicographer, a patentee must use a ‘special definition of the term [that] is clearly stated in the patent specification or file history’” (citations omitted)). Because Appellants did not act as lexicographer for the term “predicate,” the Examiner used the plain meaning of the term: “part of a sentence or clause that expresses what is said of the subject and that usually consists of a verb with or without objects, complements, or adverbial modifiers.” Ans. 13. We agree with the Examiner’s construction of the term “predicate.” See In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (finding that the USPTO must give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification.). Appeal 2012-000183 Application 11/848,258 5 Using this plain meaning of “predicate,” the Examiner found that Yang discloses that “[c]ases are indexed on problem features” and the “system retrieves the cases that most likely match important keywords in the description and ranks the cases.” Ans. 6 (citing Yang §§ 3.2, 4.2). Yang further discloses generating “key words and key phrases from the unstructured text.” Yang § 3.2. The Examiner relied upon this disclosure in Yang as teaching the claimed step of “generating domain specific key words and predicates.” Ans. 6. Based on this disclosure, we see no error in the Examiner’s position that it would have been obvious to combine the detection of anomalous changes from Berenji with Yang’s disclosure regarding generating key words and key phrases. Accordingly, we are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments regarding the rejection of claim 1 as obvious over Berenji and Yang. Therefore, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1, and claims 15 and 18 not separately argued. Claim 13 Appellants argue that claim 13 was improperly rejected as being unpatentable over Berenji and Yang. App. Br. 8. Specifically, Appellants argue that “Breslow discloses projects that are planned and extensions to NaCoDAE” and “Breslow[] does not disclose or suggest wherein a knowledge repository comprises at least a database and wherein a database in turn comprises assets generated by an offline analyzer and troubleshooting knowledge generator.” Id. (emphases added). As the Examiner identifies, Breslow was not relied upon to reject claim 13, but rather Berenji was. Ans. 16. Accordingly, Appellants’ arguments are not persuasive and we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 13. Appeal 2012-000183 Application 11/848,258 6 B. Obviousness Rejection of Claims 4, 6, and 9 over Berenji, Yang, and Breslow Claim 4 Claim 4 recites that the “step of creating said knowledge repository comprises the sub-step of periodically organizing available environment historical data.” The Examiner relied upon Breslow’s disclosure regarding cyclic review and revision steps in constructing solutions in combination with Berenji and Yang in determining that claim 4 is obvious. Ans. 10-11. Appellants argue that, although Breslow teaches how to adapt constructed solutions, it fails to disclose periodically organizing available environment historical data, as required by claim 4. Contrary to Appellants’ arguments, Breslow discloses that the “review and revision steps can cycle.” Breslow § 1.1. The Examiner found that the cycle of these two steps in case-based reasoning represents periodicity. Based on this disclosure, we see no error in the Examiner’s position that it would have been obvious to combine Breslow with Berenji and Yang in finding claim 4 is obvious. Therefore, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 4. Claim 6 Claim 6 recites that the “step of creating said knowledge repository further comprises the additional sub-step of analyzing and pre-processing said environmental historical data to obtain said knowledge repository.” With respect to this claim limitation, the Examiner relied upon Breslow’s disclosure regarding “library revision” in enhancing case retrieval performance, in combination with Berenji and Yang, in determining that claim 6 is obvious. Ans. 11 (citing Berenji § 2.6). Appellants argue that, Appeal 2012-000183 Application 11/848,258 7 although Breslow teaches extracting cases to reorder them by an induced hierarchy, it fails to disclose analyzing and pre-processing environmental historical data to obtain the knowledge repository, as required by claim 6. Breslow discloses inducing a hierarchy from the case library, editing the cases, and extracting the cases as part of its library revision process. Breslow § 2.6. The Examiner found that the induction, editing, and extraction steps require analyzing and pre-processing historical data as required by claim 6. Based on this disclosure in Breslow, we see no error in the Examiner’s position that it would have been obvious to combine Breslow with Berenji and Yang in finding claim 6 is obvious. Therefore, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 6. Claim 9 Claim 9 recites that the “step of creating said knowledge repository further comprises the additional sub-step of indexing said knowledge repository by said domain specific key words and predicates.” With respect to this claim limitation, the Examiner relied upon Breslow’s disclosure regarding inducing a hierarchy from the case library, in combination with Berenji and Yang, in determining that claim 9 is obvious. Ans. 12 (citing Berenji § 2.6). Appellants argue that, although Breslow teaches an induced hierarchy, it fails to disclose indexing the knowledge repository by domain specific key words and predicates, as required by claim 9. Breslow discloses inducing a hierarchy from the case library as part of its “library revision” process. Breslow § 2.6. The Examiner found that this induction of a hierarchy, in combination with key word generation disclosed in Yang, teaches the indexing by key words and predicates required by claim 9. Based on this disclosure, we see no error in the Examiner’s position that Appeal 2012-000183 Application 11/848,258 8 it would have been obvious to combine Breslow with Berenji and Yang in finding claim 9 is obvious. Therefore, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 9. C. Rejection of Claims 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10-12, 14, 16, 17, 19, and 20 Appellants indicate in the Appeal Brief that “claims 1-20 are presently pending” but that “[c]laims 1, 4, 6, 9, 13, 15, and 18 are being appealed.” App. Br. 2. Nevertheless, in the “Statement of Grounds of Rejection to Be Reviewed on Appeal,” Appellants state that “[c]laims 1-3 and 10-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being unpatentable over Berenji in view of Yang et a1. and claims 4-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being unpatentable over Berenji, in view of Yang and further in view of Breslow et a1.” App. Br. 4. Therefore, the Appeal Brief is ambiguous as to which claims are subject to appeal. Regardless, the Appeal Brief only presents arguments as to the claims 1, 4, 6, 9, 13, 15, and 18. See App. Br. 4-9. Accordingly, arguments that could have been made to the remaining claims are waived. Therefore, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of the remaining claims 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10-12, 14, 16, 17, 19, and 20. ORDER The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-20 is affirmed. 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)(iv). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED Appeal 2012-000183 Application 11/848,258 9 bab Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation