Ex Parte Hahn et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 25, 201713742515 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 25, 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. 13/742,515 01/16/2013 Uwe H.O. Hahn 2010P00009US01 3783 52025 7590 01/27/2017 SAP SE c/o BUCKLEY, MASCHOFF & TALWALKAR LLC 50 LOCUST AVENUE NEW CANAAN, CT 06840 EXAMINER CHANNAVAJJALA, SRIRAMA T ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2157 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/27/2017 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): martin @ BMTPATENT.COM szpara@bmtpatent.com colabella@bmtpatent.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte UWE H.O. HAHN, TORSEN STRAHL, and HENRIK HEMPELMANN Appeal 2015-0080231 Application 13/742,515 Technology Center 2100 Before HUNG H. BUI, IRVIN E. BRANCH, and AMBER L. HAGY, Administrative Patent Judges. HAGY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 20—35, which are all of the pending claims.2 We have jurisdiction over these claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 Appellants identify SAP SE as the real party in interest. (App. Br. 2.) 2 Claims 1—19 have been canceled. (App. Br. 12 (Claims App’x).) Appeal 2015-008023 Application 13/742,515 Introduction According to Appellants, the claimed invention relates “to database systems” and to “providing database functions to more than one tenant company.” (Spec. 1:3—5.) Exemplary Claim Claim 20, reproduced below with the disputed limitations italicized, is exemplary of the claimed subject matter: 20. A computer-implemented method for a database instance associated with a database management system, the method comprising: receiving a command to perform at least one of a copy and a move on a first tenant partition from a first database instance to a destination partition in a second database instance; halting ongoing maintenance or administrative processes on the first database instance; shutting down the first tenant partition, wherein access by one or more users to tenant specific data within the first tenant partition is prevented; packing tenant-dependent data in a common partition of the first database instance into tenant-dependent tables; acquiring a data definition lock that prevents changes to metadata describing the first tenant partition; obtaining tenant-specific metadata of a catalog of the first database instance; packing the first database instance catalog tenant-specific metadata into the first tenant partition; locking write transactions on tenant-specific data in the first tenant partition; creating a tenant-specific snapshot of the first tenant partition; 2 Appeal 2015-008023 Application 13/742,515 storing the tenant-specific snapshot in a storage device external to the first database instance; performing the received command; releasing both the write transaction lock and the data definition lock; and completing the halted maintenance or administrative processes after releasing the write transaction lock and the data definition lock. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Gilbert US 2003/0115206 A1 June 19,2003 Kumar et al. US 2005/0015353 A1 Jan. 20, 2005 Colrain et al. US 2005/0171945 Al Aug. 4, 2005 REJECTION Claims 20-35 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gilbert, Colrain, and Kumar. (Final Act. 10—15.) ISSUE Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Gilbert, Colrain, and Kumar teaches or suggests “halting ongoing maintenance or administrative processes on the first database instance” and “completing the halted maintenance or administrative processes after releasing the write transaction lock and the data definition lock,” as recited in independent claim 20. 3 Appeal 2015-008023 Application 13/742,515 ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ arguments the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants’ conclusions and we adopt as our own: (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 10— 15) and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellants’ Appeal Brief. (Ans. 8—12.) We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner, and we highlight the following for emphasis.3 The Examiner finds the combination of Gilbert and Colrain teaches or suggests the limitations of independent claim 20, except for the steps of “halting ongoing maintenance or administrative processes on the first database instance” and “completing the halted maintenance or administrative processes after releasing the write transaction lock and the data definition lock.” (Final Act. 10—12.) As to those steps, the Examiner finds Kumar teaches a “transaction manager” that may “pause” and “resume” transactions: “prior art of Kumar supports administrative commands such as ‘pause’ and ‘resume’, pause command typically halts transactions directed by the administrative requirement, also ‘resume’ mode transaction command operation resumes transactions in the administrative direction - is well known in the typical database transactions environment.” (Ans. 11 (citing Kumar || 7, 10, 11, 30, 48); see also Final Act. 13.) We agree these findings are supported by the teachings of Kumar. (See also Kumar 129: “The 3 Only those arguments made by Appellants have been considered in this decision. Arguments 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). 4 Appeal 2015-008023 Application 13/742,515 transaction manager may be configured to pause transactions in progress. This pausing of transaction manager function may be referred to as freezing the transaction manager. . . . The transaction manager may be resumed maintaining continuity of transactions and restoring normal operation to functions using the transaction manager.”). Appellants argue Kumar does not teach “halting ongoing maintenance or administrative processes” because Kumar discloses “allowing maintenance or administrative processes to issue commands that result in one or more transactions while that transaction is prevented from changing transactional state (e.g., read to write, or write to read).” (App. Br. 8.) In particular, Appellants note Kumar discloses “an administrative application may issue commands that can result in one or more transactions being aborted, rolled back, partially rolled back, or committed while the transaction manager is paused.” {Id. (citing Kumar 130).) We find Appellants’ arguments are premised on an overly narrow reading of the teachings of the cited art and are, therefore, not persuasive of Examiner error. Although we agree Kumar discloses taking “corrective actions” (such as “one or more transactions being aborted, rolled back, partially rolled back, or committed” while the transaction manager is paused to addresses a “transaction-related problem” (Kumar || 30-31)), we disagree this disclosure contradicts the Examiner’s findings. Kumar discloses that these corrective actions may be taken “in response to detecting anomalous transaction behavior,” in which event the “system administrator or administrative application may pause the transaction manager.” (Kumar 130; see also 110.) In other words, Kumar’s disclosure of taking corrective action while the transaction manager is paused is in the context of pausing 5 Appeal 2015-008023 Application 13/742,515 the transaction manager specifically to take such corrective action. Kumar’s disclosure is not, as Appellants suggest, limited to such context. Rather, as the Examiner finds, and we agree, Kumar broadly teaches or suggests administrative commands of “pause” and “resume.” (Ans. 11.) For example, Kumar broadly discloses: A transaction manager may be paused so that transactions managed by the transaction manager are prevented from making transactional state changes. When all transactions being coordinated by a transaction manager are paused, the transaction manager may be said to be paused or frozen. While the transaction manager is paused, the transactions that the transaction manager is supporting may not be allowed to complete. (Kumar | 7.) Thus, as the Examiner finds, and we agree, Kumar, in combination with Gilbert and Colrain, teaches or suggests pausing (or “halting”) “ongoing maintenance or administrative processes” while the recited steps of claim 1 are performed, and then “completing the halted maintenance or administrative processes,” as recited in claim 1. (Ans. 8—12.) Appellants’ arguments assigning error to these findings are premised on an overly narrow reading of Kumar’s teachings, and are, therefore, not persuasive. Appellants’ additional argument that Kumar “teaches away” from the invention as recited in claim 1 (App. Br. 9—10; Reply Br. 2—3) is similarly unpersuasive because it is premised on the same overly narrow view of Kumar ’ s teachings. For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of independent claim 20, or of claims 21—35, which are not argued separately (see App. Br. 10). We, therefore, sustain the Examiner’s rejection. 6 Appeal 2015-008023 Application 13/742,515 DECISION For the above reasons, the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 20—35 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)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation