Ex Parte Hahn et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 25, 2017

13742515 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 25, 2017)

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;
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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.
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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).
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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
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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.
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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
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