Ex Parte Dewall et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 17, 201713326928 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 17, 2017) 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. 1933.2060000 8772 EXAMINER RAYYAN, SUSAN F ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2167 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 13/326,928 12/15/2011 82515 7590 03/17/2017 Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C. 1100 New York Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20005 Rhett Dondi Dewall 03/17/2017 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 RHETT DONDI DEWALL and HEPING SHANG Appeal 2016-001913 Application 13/326,928 Technology Center 2100 Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, SHARON FENICK, and DAVID J. CUTITTAII, Administrative Patent Judges. WINSOR, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of claims 1—22, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. and its1 The real parties in interest identified by Appellants are Sybase, Inc., parent corporation, SAP SE. App. Br. 3. Appeal 2016-001913 Application 13/326,928 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants’ disclosed “invention relates generally to data processing environments and, more particularly, to . . . directing a data replication environment through policy declaration.” Spec. | 1. Claim 1, which is illustrative, reads as follows: 1. A computer-implemented method for directing data replication in a database system environment, the method comprising: identifying a policy declaration defining a replication environment declared in a hierarchical policy declaration document; and processing the policy declaration to instantiate the replication environment according to parameters, including precedence among tables, publishers, and subscribers, established in the policy declaration. Claims 1,2, 4—10, 12—18, and 20-22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Moore et al. (US 2007/0106864 Al; May 10, 2007) and Anglin et al. (US 2013/0054518 Al; Feb. 28, 2013). See Final Act. 3—8. Claims 3,11, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Moore, Anglin, and Prahlad et al. (US 2010/0122053 Al; May 13, 2010). See Final Act. 8—9. Rather than repeat the arguments here, we refer to the Briefs (“App. Br.” filed May 11, 2015; “Reply Br.” filed Nov. 30, 2015) and the Specification (“Spec.” filed Dec. 15, 2011) for the positions of Appellants and the Final Office Action (“Final Act.” mailed June 2, 2014) and Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.” mailed Oct. 2, 2015) for the reasoning, findings, and conclusions of the Examiner. Only those arguments actually made by 2 Appeal 2016-001913 Application 13/326,928 Appellants have been considered in this decision. Arguments that Appellants did not make in the Briefs have not been considered and are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (2014). ISSUE The issue presented by Appellants’ arguments is whether the Examiner errs in finding Anglin, when combined with Moore, teaches or suggests “processing the policy declaration to instantiate the replication environment according to parameters, including precedence among tables, publishers, and subscribers, established in the policy declaration” (the “processing step”), as recited in claim 1. ANALYSIS We have reviewed Appellants’ arguments and contentions regarding claim 1 (App. Br. 5—10; Reply Br. 2—A) in light of the Examiner’s findings, conclusions, and explanations (Final Act. 2—\\ Ans. 2—11) regarding claim 1. We agree with the Examiner’s findings, conclusions, and explanations and, except as may be set forth below, we adopt them as our own. The following discussion, findings, and conclusions are for emphasis. The Examiner finds Anglin, when combined with Moore, teaches the processing step. See Final Act. 3^4 (citing Moore 119; Anglin || 6, 19—20); see also Ans. 4—11 (additionally citing Anglin || 18, 26—27, 30, 33, 35—36; Figs. 1—3, 6). In particular, the Examiner maps the recited “tables” to Anglin’s “List of Chunks” in Anglin’s Information Object structure (Ans. 5 (citing Anglin || 26, 35, Fig. 2)); the Examiner maps the recited “publishers” and “subscribers” to Anglin’s “Client Nodes” in the 3 Appeal 2016-001913 Application 13/326,928 Information Object structure (Ans. 4—5 (citing Anglin || 35—36, Figs. 1, 2)); and maps the recited “processing . . . according to parameters, including precedence” to Anglin’s replication rules having assigned levels and priorities (Ans. 5—7 (citing Anglin || 18, 27, 30, 33, Figs. 3, 6)). Appellants contend Anglin, combined with Moore, does not teach or suggest the processing step for the reasons discussed infra. Tables, Publishers, and Subscribers Appellants contend “there is no disclosure in Anglin that maps [Anglin’s] information types to tables, publishers, and subscribers.” App. Br. 8. Appellants further contend “Anglin’s attributes are not equivalent to tables, publishers, and subscribers of claim 1.” App. Br. 8. We disagree. “[A],.. reference . . . need not duplicate word for word what is in the claims.” Standard Havens Prods., Inc. v. Gencor Indus., Inc., 953 F.2d 1360, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 1991); cf. In re Bond, 910 F.2d 831, 832-33 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (citing Akzo N.V. v. U.S. Inti Trade Comm’n, 808 F.2d 1471, 1479 & n.l 1 (Fed. Cir. 1986)) (interpretation of references “is not an ‘ipsissimis verbis’ test.”). Anglin teaches the replication of data objects 12a, 12b (Anglin, Fig. 1), each of which has an associated object information 10a, 10b (id.), 50 (id. at Fig. 2) made up of metadata or entries for the objects 12a, 12b (id. 119). Anglin’s data object is comprised of an ordered list of chunks of data assigned to the object (id.) and the list of chunks is an entry 54 (i.e., attribute) in the object information 50 (id. at Fig. 2). The Specification contains no definition of a “table,” and an “ordered list” of data, i.e., information, falls within the ordinary meaning of “table.” Accordingly, we conclude, as did the Examiner, that Anglin’s list of chunks 4 Appeal 2016-001913 Application 13/326,928 of data falls within the broadest reasonable interpretation of “table” in light of the Specification. See Ans. 5. As pointed out by Appellants, the Specification states “[a] publisher describes what is to be pulled from a primary source (e.g., a primary database), and a subscriber describes which information will be replicated from any of its publishers.” Spec. 1 6; see App. Br. 9.2 Each data information 50 (Anglin, Fig. 2) includes an entry 56 identifying the client node as an attribute of the data object 10a, 10b. Anglin describes that “[t]he replication may be performed on behalf of client nodes connected to the source server 4a to replicate objects owned by the client node and provided by the client node to store in the source storage 8a.” Id. 119. Thus Anglin’s client nodes both describe what is to be pulled from the source database and what will be replicated in the target database, and are within the broadest reasonable interpretation of “publishers” and “subscribers.” See Ans. 4—5. Precedence Appellants contend “Anglin at best describes a hierarchy or precedence of replication rules rather than ‘precedence among tables, publishers, and subscribers’ as specifically recited in claim 1.” App. Br. 7. We disagree. As explained by the Examiner, Anglin teaches replication rules 80 govern the replication of data objects in accordance with one or more replication attributes 86, 88. Anglin 127, Fig.3; see Ans. 5—6. Each of 2 Appellants and Examiner erroneously cite to paragraph 8 of the Specification for this quotation (see App. Br. 9; Ans. 4), perhaps referring to the corresponding published patent application, US 2013/0159253 Al, June 20, 2013, rather than the Specification. 5 Appeal 2016-001913 Application 13/326,928 Anglin’s replication rules 80 has a specified level 84 and priority 94. Anglin, Fig. 3; see also id. at Fig. 6. Anglin teaches that the function of the “level 84 of the replication rule [is] to provide a hierarchical arrangement of replication rules, such that rules at a lower, more specific, level are applied before those at a higher, more general, level.” Id. 127. In other words, low level rules (e.g., level 3 {id. Fig. 6)) are applied before high level rules (e.g., level 1 {id.)). Appellants are correct that Anglin describes a precedence among replication rules. App. Br. 7. However, one of the attributes 86, 88 that causes the replication rule to be applied to a data object is the client node value 166i n, 186^, 196^. Anglin, Fig. 6. Thus, the precedence among Anglin’s replication rules establishes a precedence among Anglin’s client nodes, i.e., among “publishers” and “subscribers.” Anglin further teaches “priorities may be provided in the replication rule to associate a priority with objects that satisfy the replication rule to control the priority in which objects are copied to the target server as part of replications.” Id. 118. By establishing priorities, i.e., precedence, among data objects to be copied, a precedence is established among the lists of chunks of data, i.e., “tables,” included in the data objects to be replicated. Therefore, we agree with the Examiner that Anglin’s levels and priorities of replication rules fall within the broadest reasonable interpretation of “precedence among tables, publishers, and subscribers,” as recited in claim 1. See Ans. 5—7. Granularity Appellants contend the combination of Moore and Anglin fails to achieve the advantage of granularity among tables, publishers and subscribers. Reply Br. 3. Although presented for the first time in the Reply 6 Appeal 2016-001913 Application 13/326,928 Brief, Appellants’ contention is reasonably responsive to the Examiner’s Answer. Cf. 37 C.F.R. § 41.41(a)(2). The Specification discloses the following: Additionally, the declarations describe the arrangement of the data constituents of the replication environment, i.e., the data groups/publishers/subscribers/tables arrangement. In an embodiment, a data group acts as a container mechanism of publishers and subscribers and their associated tables undergoing replication. These declarations may be specified at any and/or every level, where a table precedes a subscriber value, which precedes a publisher value, which precedes a data group value. In this manner there is granular control over the replication environment, e.g., one subscriber may behave differently than another and tables within a subscriber may behave differently than another. Spec. 134 (emphases added). We are not persuaded of error. The processing step of claim 1 does not recite a data group that acts as a container mechanism. Indeed, claim 1 does not recite any limitation of how the precedence is established and how the precedence of the tables, publishers, and subscribers may be interrelated. As conceded by Appellants, the advantages achieved by the embodiment described in paragraph 34 of the Specification are “non-limiting.” Reply Br. 3. Hindsight Appellants contend “the Examiner . . . relies on improper hindsight to map the elements of Appellants’] claims to prior art using Appellants’] claims as a road map.” App. Br. 9. We disagree. In view of our findings and conclusions set forth supra, we find the Examiner has “take[n] into account only knowledge which was within the level of ordinary skill at the time the claimed invention was made and does 7 Appeal 2016-001913 Application 13/326,928 not include knowledge gleaned only from applicant’s disclosure.” In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 1395 (CCPA 1971). Therefore, we conclude the Examiner has not exercised improper hindsight. Summary Appellants do not persuade us of error in the rejection of claim 1. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of (1) claim 1; (2) independent claims 9 and 17, which are argued relying on the arguments made for claim 1 (see App. Br. 10); (3) claims 2, 4—8, 10, 12—16, 18, and 22, which variously depend, directly or indirectly, from claims 1,9, and 17, and were not separately argued with particularity (see id.)', and (4) claims 2, 11, and 19, which respectively depend indirectly from claims 1, 9, and 17, and were not separately argued with particularity, other than to contend that Prahlad does not cure the deficiencies in the rejection of claims 1, 9, and 17 (see App. Br. 10-11). DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1—22 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). See 37 C.F.R. §§ 41.50(f), 41.52(b). AFFIRMED 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation