Ex Parte Montagut et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 20, 201411588205 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 20, 2014) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte FREDERIC MONTAGUT, CEDRIC R. J. HEBERT, and CEDRIC S. P. ULMER ____________ Appeal 2012-002842 Application 11/588,205 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, JOHN A. EVANS, and LINZY T. McCARTNEY, Administrative Patent Judges. EVANS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 seek our review2 under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s final rejection of Claims 1–193 as obvious. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM.4 1 The Real Party in Interest is SAP AG. 2 We have considered in this decision only those arguments Appellants actually raised in the Briefs. Any other arguments which Appellants could have made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv). 3 App. Br. 9. 4 Our Decision refers to Appellants’ Appeal Brief filed September 6, 2011 (“App. Br.”); Reply Brief filed November 17, 2011 (“Reply Br.”); and the Examiner’s Answer mailed October 19, 2011 (“Ans.”). Appeal 2012-002842 Application 11/588,205 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The claims relate to a computer device assigned to fulfill a task of a composite service. See Abstract. Claims 1, 10, and 19 are independent. The claims have not been argued separately and therefore stand or fall together. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv). An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of exemplary Claim 1, which is reproduced below: 1. A device assigned to fulfill a task of a composite service, the device comprising: a processing unit configured to determine a further device having a transactional property that complies with a transactional requirement of the composite service with respect to the further device, the further device being configured to fulfill a further task of the composite service; and a communication unit to send task data to the further device, the task data comprising input data to fulfill the further task. References and Rejections The Examiner relies upon the prior art as follows: Sahai US 7,051,094 B1 May 23, 2006 YanPing Yang, QingPing Tan, and Yong Xiao, Setup Algorithm of Web Service Composition, Proc. 6th Int’l Conference on Algorithms and Architecture for Parallel Processing (ICA3PP), LNCS 3719, 139– 148 (2005) (“Yang”). Sami Bhiri, Olivier Perrin, and Claude Godart, Ensuring Required Failure Atomicity of Composite Web Services, Proc. 14th Int’l Conference on World Wide Web, 138–147 (2005) (“Bhiri”). Appeal 2012-002842 Application 11/588,205 3 The claims stand rejected as follows: 1. Claims 1, 10, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Yang and Bhiri. Ans. 5–8. 2. Claims 3, 5, 7–9, 12–14, and 16–18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Yang, Bhiri, and Sahai. Ans. 8–11. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants’ conclusions. Appellants argue independent Claims 1, 10, and 19 and the claims dependent thereon, as a group and do not present separate arguments for dependent Claims 3–9 and 12–18. See App. Br. 11, 15–16. Appellants contend that the web service taught by Yang is not a “device,” as recited in the independent claims. App. Br. 12. Appellants further contend that Yang’s web service is not a “device having a transactional property that complies with a transactional requirement of the composite service,” as recited in the independent claims. App. Br. 11. We refer to, rely on, and adopt the Examiner’s findings and conclusions set forth in the Answer. Our discussions here will be limited to the following points of emphasis. The Examiner finds that “Yang teaches a composite web service supporting interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network.” Ans. 12. We agree with the Examiner that a person of ordinary skill in the internet transactional arts would understand that each of Yang’s web services is implemented on its own network computer/server. Thus, a device is implicit. See Ans. 12. Appeal 2012-002842 Application 11/588,205 4 Appellants’ traversal of Yang as not teaching transactional properties (App. Br. 13–14) is inapt as the Examiner relies on Bhiri to teach a “composite service that has transactional properties as a parameter that outsources part of a requested service to other web services.” See Ans. 12– 13. Appellants admit that Bhiri teaches “properties [that] define. . . the transactional behavior of the service,” but contend that Bhiri does not discuss a “device” having the properties of the “service.” App. Br. 14 (alteration in original). As discussed above, we find that a person of ordinary skill in the internet transactional arts would understand that a “device” is implied because the software of a web-based transactional service requires hardware, such as computers, servers, and communications gear in order to operate. Thus, the teachings of each of Yang and Bhiri imply various devices necessary for the operation of the disclosed web- based service. DECISION The rejection of Claims 1–19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 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)(iv). AFFIRMED msc Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation