Ex Parte Evans et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 31, 2016

12138585 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 31, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 12/138,585 06/13/2008 Tom Evans 74599 7590 04/04/2016 Cantor Colburn LLP-IBM Europe 20 Church Street 22nd Floor Hartford, CT 06103 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. GB920070238US 1 9709 EXAMINER YUN, CARINA ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2194 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/04/2016 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): usptopatentmail @cantorcolbum.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte TOM EV ANS, GRAHAM D. WALLIS, DAVID WARE, and CHRISTOPHER WILKINSON Appeal2014-007657 Application 12/138,585 Technology Center 2100 Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, JASON V. MORGAN, and JEREMY J. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judges. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1, 3-5, 7-9, 11, and 12, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. App. Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). Claims 1, 3-5, 7-9, 11, and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as obvious over Glenn (US 7,898,964 Bl; issued Mar. 1, 2011), Walzer (Carlos Walzer, How to correlate request/response messages by using System.Messaging, Knowledge Base Article ID 555298 (rev. 1.0), Appeal2014-007657 Application 12/138,585 Microsoft, Apr. 23, 2005, available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/ 555298), Patakula (US 2007/0121896 Al; May 31, 2007), and MQSeries (MQSeries Intercommunication, IBM, 1999). Ans. 3-10. We affirm. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants' invention relates to a "method for preferential reply routing." Abstract. Claim 1 is illustrative and reproduced below, with disputed limitations emphasized: 1. A method for preferential reply routing, wherein the method comprises: receiving a request-reply message from a requesting application; detecting there is a preferred partition of a reply queue managed locally to an application server to which the requesting application is connected; qualifying a name of a reply queue stored in the request- reply message so that the name refers to the preferred partition that is managed locally to the application server; determining whether the preferred partition is available, wherein the preferred partition is determined to be unavailable if the preferred partition is not reachable or is full; and wherein in the event the preferred partition is available: storing a reply message in the preferred partition; retrieving the reply message from the preferred partition in response to the requesting application; and wherein in the event the preferred partition is unavailable: routing the reply message to an alternate partition of the reply queue managed locally to the application server to which the requesting application is connected; 2 Appeal2014-007657 Application 12/138,585 directing the requesting application to the alternate partition; and retrieving the reply message from the alternate partition in response to the requesting application. ANALYSIS The Examiner finds that the combined teachings of Glenn, Walzer, Patakula, and MQSeries teach all limitations of claim 1. Ans. 3--4. Specifically, the Examiner finds Glenn teaches determining whether the partition is available. Id. at 3. The Examiner also finds Glenn teaches routing the reply message to an alternate partition of the reply queue. Id. at 4. The Examiner finds MQSeries teaches wherein the preferred partition is determined to be unavailable if the preferred partition is not reachable or is full. Id. The Examiner further finds Patakula teaches a preferred partition. Id. The Examiner also finds that Walzer teaches qualifying a name of a reply queue so that the name refers to the partition. Id. The Examiner reasons "it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time [] the invention was made to modify the teachings of Glenn and Walzer by adapting the teachings of Patakula for the purposes of allocating preferred request to a specific queue (see if[0005])." Ans. 4. The Examiner further reasons "it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the teachings of Glenn, Walzer, and Patakula by adapting the teachings of MQSeries Intercommunication for the purposes of handling a message for when it cannot be delivered." Id. 3 Appeal2014-007657 Application 12/138,585 Appellants present the following principal arguments: Argument i: As provided [in Glenn (col. 5, 11. 6-15),] a queue manager, that is part of the queue, determines if the queue can service the message locally and if the queue manager determines that the queue cannot service the message, the queue manager forwards the message to another queue. In contrast, in the claimed system the message is routed to an alternate partition, or queue, when the messaging service determines that the preferred partition, or queue, is unavailable. In the system of Glenn, if the queue was truly "unavailable" then the queue manager for that queue would not be available to forward the message to another queue. App. Br. 7; see also Reply Br. 2-3. Argument ii: Walzer only discloses including message response queue identification in a message that requests a response and using the message response queue identification to direct a response to a specific queue. App. Br. 7. Argument iii: MQSeries fails to teach that in the event the preferred partition is unavailable[], by the messaging system, [routing] the reply message to an alternate partition of the reply queue. Rather, MQSeries teaches that in the event the preferred partition is unavailable[,] retrying to deliver the message, or returning the message to the sender. Reply Br. 3. The Examiner has persuaded us that the combined teachings of Glenn, Walzer, Patakula, and MQSeries teach all limitations of claim 1. The test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the 4 Appeal2014-007657 Application 12/138,585 references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981) (citations omitted). Regarding Appellants' arguments i-iii, these arguments only argue the references individually, and do not show error in the Examiner's findings with regard to the references, collectively. Appellants' arguments do not persuasively address the Examiner's specific findings with respect to the disputed limitations, discussed above. We agree with and adopt as our own the Examiner's findings and reasons that the combined teachings of the references teach all limitations of claim 1. Ans. 3--4 and 10-12. As discussed above, and noted again here for emphasis, the disputed limitations are taught, collectively, by Glenn, MQSeries, and Patakula. The teaching of "unavailable" having the meaning of not reachable or full is provided by MQSeries, the teaching of a preferred partition is provided by Patakula. See Ans. 3--4. Further regarding argument i, Glenn's queue 144 is unavailable as determined by manager 118. See Glenn, col. 4, 11. 55-59 ("The first queue manager 118 evaluates messages received on the first transmission queue 142, and determines whether each message can be serviced locally by the first local queue 144 or needs to be forwarded to another queue"). Further regarding argument ii, Walzer is not relied on for the disputed limitations. See Ans. 4 ("Walzer teaches qualifying a name of a reply queue stored in the request-reply message so that the name refers to the partition that is managed locally to the application server"). Further regarding argument iii, MQSeries is not relied on for the specific language argued. See Ans. 4 ("MQSeries Intercommunication teaches wherein the preferred partition is 5 Appeal2014-007657 Application 12/138,585 determined to be unavailable if the preferred partition is not reachable or is full"). We, therefore, sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1, as well as claims 3-5, 7-9, 11, and 12, which are not argued separately with particularity. ORDER The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1, 3-5, 7-9, 11, and 12 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. Â§ 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 6