Ex Parte Dettinger et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 17, 2012

10877229 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 17, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte RICHARD D. DETTINGER, CALE T. RATH,
RICHARD J. STEVENS, and SHANNON E. WENZEL
____________________

Appeal 2010-000009
Application 10/877,229
Technology Center 2100
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Before KALYAN K. DESHPANDE, DAVID M. KOHUT, and JASON V.
MORGAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

DESHPANDE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2010-000009
Application 10/877,229

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STATEMENT OF CASE1
The Appellants seek review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of a final
rejection of claims 1-3, 5-11, and 23-26, the only claims pending in the
application on appeal. We have jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant to 35
U.S.C. § 6(b)(1).
We REVERSE.

The Appellants invented optimizing workflow execution by making
intelligent decisions regarding service requests to perform workflow
processes on one or more servers. Specification ¶ 0001.
An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of
exemplary claim 7, which is reproduced below [bracketed matter and some
paragraphing added]:
7. A method of executing a workflow in a multi-server environment,
comprising:
[1] obtaining, at a local server, a sequence of tasks to be performed
as part of the workflow;
[2] analyzing, at the local server, the workflow to determine if
multiple tasks may be performed locally on a first remote server; and
[3] upon determining that multiple tasks may be performed locally
on the first remote server, executing the workflow, by the local server,
with a call to a previously generated remote service to perform the
two or more tasks locally on a first remote server.

REFERENCES
The Examiner relies on the following prior art:
Duscher US 5,606,493 Feb. 25, 1997

1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App.
Br.,” filed December 22, 2008) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed May 18,
2009), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed March 18, 2009), and
Final Rejection (“Final Rej.,” mailed March 31, 2008).
Appeal 2010-000009
Application 10/877,229

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Chaar
Norgaard
US 5,960,404
US 6,895,573 B2
Sep. 28, 1999
May 17, 2005

Schulz, K., Oriowska, M. "Facilitating Cross-Organisational Workflows
With A Workflow View Approach." March 3, 2004. SAP Australia Ltd.
Corporate Research.

BEA, "Configuring BEA eLink TCP for IMS." March 11, 2001.

REJECTIONS
Claims 7, 8, 10, 23, 24, and 26 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §102(b)
as being anticipated by Chaar.
Claims 1 and 2 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being
unpatentable over Chaar and Duscher.
Claims 3 and 5 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being
unpatentable over Chaar, Duscher, and Schulz.
Claim 6 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being
unpatentable over Chaar, Duscher, Norgaard, and BEA.
Claims 9, 11, and 25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being
unpatentable over Chaar and Schulz.

ISSUES
The issue of whether the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-3, 5-11,
and 23-26 turns on whether Chaar describes limitations [2] and [3] of
independent claim 7 and as similarly recited by independent claims 1 and 23.
Appeal 2010-000009
Application 10/877,229

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ANALYSIS
Claims 7, 8, 10, 23, 24, and 26
The Appellants contend that Chaar fails to describe limitations [2] and
[3] of independent claim 7 and as similarly recited by independent claim 23.
App. Br. 11-14 and Reply Br. 2-4. We agree with the Appellants.
Limitation [2] requires a local server to analyze the workflow to determine if
more than one task can be performed on a first remote server. Limitation [3]
further requires that if multiple tasks can be performed on a first remote
server, executing the workflow by the local server with a call to a previously
generated remote service to perform the tasks on the first remove server.
The Examiner found that Chaar describes that a local server generates
a service request and routes the request to the remote server that has the
initiating subflow script. Ans. 16-18 (citing Chaar 12:33-54). The
Examiner further finds that Chaar describes receiving a request, instantiating
a subflow, processing workflow steps in the subflow by a performer, and
sending task response message. Ans. 17. However, the Examiner fails to
provide any rationale or evidence to illustrate how these steps describe
analyzing a workflow to determine if multiple tasks can be performed
locally on a remote server. We further do not find any evidence that Chaar
describes executing the workflow by a local server with a call to a
previously generated remote service to perform the tasks and the Examiner
fails to direct us to where such a disclosure in Chaar can be found. As such,
we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 7 and 23.
Claims 8, 10, 24, and 26 depend from claims 7 and 23 and therefore we do
not sustain the rejection of these claims for the same reasons.
Appeal 2010-000009
Application 10/877,229

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Claims 1-3, 5-6, 9, 11, and 25
Independent claim 1 recites the same limitations that we found that
Chaar fails to describe supra. Duscher fails to cure this deficiency. As such,
we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 for the same reasons
discussed supra. Claims 2-3, 5-6, 9, 11, and 25 depend from independent
claims 1, 7, and 23 and we do not sustain the rejection of these claims for the
same reasons discussed with respect to independent claims 1, 7, and 23.

CONCLUSIONS
The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-3, 5-11, and 23-26.

DECISION
To summarize, our decision is as follows.
 The rejection of claims 1-3, 5-11, and 23-26 is not sustained.

REVERSED

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