Ex Parte Liu et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 29, 2012

11098887 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 29, 2012)

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. 11/098,887 04/04/2005 Zhen Hua Liu 50277-2709 8759 42425 7590 10/29/2012 HICKMAN PALERMO TRUONG BECKER BINGHAM WONG/ORACLE 1 Almaden Boulevard Floor 12 SAN JOSE, CA 95113 EXAMINER NG, AMY ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2155 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/29/2012 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 ZHEN HUA LIU, MURALIDHAR KRISHNAPRASAD, and JAMES W. WARNER ____________________ Appeal 2010-004655 Application 11/098,887 Technology Center 2100 ____________________ Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, ERIC S. FRAHM, and TREVOR M. JEFFERSON, Administrative Patent Judges. JEFFERSON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2010-004655 Application 11/098,887 2 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 25 and 28. Claims 13, 14 and 17 were allowed. Claims 1-12, 15-16, 18-24, 26, 27, and 29-51 were canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. The claims are directed to query processing for supporting XML sequence type and XQuery sequence natively in a SQL system. Spec. ¶ [0008]. Claims 25 and 28, reproduced below, are illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 25. A method of processing a Structured Query Language (SQL) query, comprising: processing a query that contains at least one SQL function that has an input parameter that is of Extensible Markup Language (XML) sequence type and (b) produces output that is not of XML sequence type; and evaluating the SQL function; wherein an input parameter of the SQL function is a first instance that (a) is of XML sequence type and (b) is a sequence of items, wherein the output of the SQL function is a SQL collection of XMLType instances, wherein each XMLType instance in the output SQL collection of instances is of XML sequence type, and wherein for each particular item in the input sequence of items, the output SQL collection contains a separate instance that corresponds to the particular item. 28. A method of processing a Structured Query Language (SQL) query, comprising: processing a query that contains at least one SQL function that (a) does not take any Extensible Markup Language (XML) type as input and (b) produces output that is of XML sequence type; and evaluating the SQL function; Appeal 2010-004655 Application 11/098,887 3 wherein an input parameter of the SQL function is a SQL scalar value, wherein the output of the SQL function is an instance that (a) is of XML sequence type and (b) is a sequence of an XQuery atomic value, and wherein the SQL scalar value is equal to the XQuery atomic value. REJECTIONS Claims 25 and 28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C §102(b) as being anticipated by Jonathan Gennick, “SQL in, XML Out,” Oracle Magazine May/June 2003 (“Gennick”). Ans. 4. OPINION ISSUES Did the Examiner err in finding that Gennick discloses (a) that the XMLConcat function accepts input instances that are of XML sequence type and is a sequence of items and the output “is a SQL collection of XMLType instances, wherein each XMLType instance in the output SQL collection of instances is of XML sequence type, and wherein for each particular item in the input sequence of items, the output SQL collection contains a separate instance that corresponds to the particular item” as recited in claim 25; and (b) that the XMLForest function produced “the output of the SQL function is an instance that … is a sequence of an XQuery atomic value, and wherein the SQL scalar value is equal to the XQuery atomic value” as recited in claim 28? Appeal 2010-004655 Application 11/098,887 4 ANALYSIS Claim 25 With respect to claim 25, Appellants contend that the XMLConcat in Gennick cited by the Examiner does not disclose an SQL function that “takes a single instance as input and generates multiple instances as output.” Br. 6 (emphasis omitted). Thus, Gennick fails to disclose “the output SQL collection [that] contains a separate instance that corresponds to the particular item” as recited in claim 25. Appellants also contend that Gennick fails to disclose “that XMLConcat accepts as input instances that are of the type XML sequence.” Br. 5. The Examiner argues that XMLType is disclosed by Gennick because XMLConcat takes two or more XML values which constitute an XML sequence. Ans. 7. Furthermore, the Examiner found that the output of XMLConcat produces “an aggregation of the XML sequence provided via the input” where “each separate instance of the XML value presented in the output string corresponds to [the XML] value within the XML sequence” at the input. Id. Having reviewed the Appellants’ argument and the Examiner’s response, we do not find that the Examiner has shown that the XMLConcat function produces output that has multiple instances. The Examiner has not shown that XMLConcat which combines two or more XML values together to form a single string (Ans. 7) discloses the claim 25 limitation requiring that “the output SQL collection contains a separate instance that corresponds to the particular item” (Br. 5-6). Based on the foregoing, we find that the Examiner erred in finding that Gennick disclosed that the output of XMLConcat “is a SQL collection Appeal 2010-004655 Application 11/098,887 5 of XMLType instances, wherein each XMLType instance in the output SQL collection of instances is of XML sequence type, and wherein for each particular item in the input sequence of items, the output SQL collection contains a separate instance that corresponds to the particular item.” We reverse the rejection of claim 25 under 35 U.S.C §102(b) as being anticipated by Gennick. Claim 28 Appellants contend that the XMLForest function in Gennick fails to disclose the claim 28 recitation that “the output of the SQL function is an instance that … is a sequence of an XQuery atomic value.” Br. 7. Specifically, Appellants maintain that XQuery is a standard that differs from XML/SQL standards discussed in Gennick. Id. The Examiner found that the XMLForest function produces a “single XML element returned in the forest [that] is an [XQuery] atomic value because XML elements are values from an [XML] document.” Ans. 8. The Examiner continues that “since the value is part of an XML document, then the value is an [XQuery] atomic value.” Id. We disagree with the Examiner’s findings. The Examiner has not adequately shown that Gennick discloses that XMLForest produces a XQuery atomic value sufficient to support that the XMLForest function in Gennick anticipates claim 28. Gennick does not disclose that the XMLForest function that outputs “a forest containing a single XML element” that is an xml value equal to the relational value input is also an XQuery atomic value. Accordingly, we find that the XMLForest function in Gennick does not disclose that “the output of the SQL function is an instance Appeal 2010-004655 Application 11/098,887 6 that … is a sequence of an XQuery atomic value, and wherein the SQL scalar value is equal to the XQuery atomic value” as recited in claim 28. Accordingly, we cannot sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 28 under 35 U.S.C. §102(b) as being anticipated by Gennick. DECISION For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejection of claims 25 and 28 is reversed. REVERSED msc