Ex Parte Montagut et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 20, 2014

11588205 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 20, 2014)

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

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