Ex Parte Nastacio

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 28, 2014

11391653 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 28, 2014)

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. 11/391,653 03/28/2006 Denilson Nastacio RSW920050212US1 4211 87048 7590 08/28/2014 Jordan IP Law (IBM-RSW) 12510 Prosperity Dr., Suite 320 Silver Spring, MD 20904 EXAMINER TRAN, NAM T ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2452 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/28/2014 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 DENILSON NASTACIO ____________________ Appeal 2012-003786 Application 11/391,653 Technology Center 2400 ____________________ Before: EDWARD A. BROWN, JAMES P. CALVE, and THOMAS F. SMEGAL, Administrative Patent Judges. CALVE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the rejection of claims 1, 3, 5–11, 13–15, and 17–21. App. Br. 5. Claims 2, 4, 12, and 16 are cancelled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. Appeal 2012-003786 Application 11/391,653 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Claims 1, 8, 14, and 20 are independent. Claim 1 is reproduced below. 1. A computer-implemented method comprising: obtaining a set of triggers, each of the triggers capable of monitoring a computing environment for a condition; obtaining a set of collectors, each of the collectors capable of collecting environment information for the computing environment; generating a monitor, wherein the monitor is capable of: initiating a trigger in the set of triggers, receiving a notification from the trigger, invoking a first collector from the set of collectors in response to the notification, the first collector related to the trigger based on a first relationship between the first collector and the trigger, invoking a second collector from the set of collectors in response to the notification, the second collector related to the trigger based on a second relationship between the second collector and the trigger, and receiving the environment information from the first and second collectors; and deploying the monitor for implementation on the computing environment, wherein the monitor is to generate event data based on the environment information received from the first and the second collectors, and wherein the event data is to be analyzed together with event data associated with at least one other monitor to identify a condition that causes the trigger to be initiated. REJECTION Claims 1, 3, 5–11, 13–15, and 17–21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), as unpatentable over O’Sullivan (US 2006/0095570 A1; pub. May 4, 2006) and Bagga (US 7,197,546 B1; iss. Mar. 27, 2007). Appeal 2012-003786 Application 11/391,653 3 ANALYSIS Appellant argues claims 1, 3, 5–11, 13–15, and 17–21 as a group. App. Br. 13–18; Reply Br. 5–6. We select claim 1 as representative. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2011). Claims 3, 5–11, 13–15, and 17–21 stand or fall with claim 1. The Examiner found that O’Sullivan discloses all the features of independent claims 1, 8, 14, and 20 except for generating event data and analyzing that event data with event data associated with at least one other monitor to identify a condition that causes the trigger to be initiated. Ans. 4–6, 9–10, 12–13, 14–16. The Examiner found that Bagga discloses this feature and determined it would have been obvious to modify O’Sullivan by integrating Bagga’s Inter-Domain Fault Manager to provide fault resolution across multiple domains or layers. Id. at 6 (citing Bagga, col. 8, ll. 44–55; col. 9, ll. 50–60), 11 (same), 13–14 (same), 16–17 (same); 17–18 (Bagga, col. 9, ll. 50–62). Appellant argues that Bagga does not identify a condition that causes a trigger to be initiated, as claimed, because Bagga only determines the domain in which a root-cause fault has occurred rather than identifying the root cause itself. Reply Br. 5; App. Br. 14–16. Appellant also argues that regardless of whether Bagga refers to a “root-cause,” a “root-cause fault,” or a “root-cause domain,” Bagga as a whole repeatedly describes using an Inter-Domain Fault Manager to determine the domain where a root-cause fault has occurred. Id. at 17. Appellant’s arguments are not persuasive. Although Bagga does disclose the identification of root-cause domains (i.e., domains in which a root-cause fault or condition has occurred), Bagga also discloses that the Appeal 2012-003786 Application 11/391,653 4 root-causes themselves are identified as part of this process so that an inter- domain fault manager and inter-domain capacity manager can provide fault management and transport capacity management functions across the domains of the multi-layer network. See Bagga, col. 2, ll. 13–37. We agree with the Examiner that Bagga discloses the identification of root causes as part of a basic alarm processing system and forwards the root causes to the Inter-Domain Fault Manager, which analyzes the received faults and determines the cross-domain root cause. See Ans. 18 (citing Bagga, col. 9, ll. 50–62). In this regard, Bagga also discloses in Figure 9 that this process determines the cross domain root cause (step 912), notifies a trouble manager with root cause fault information (step 914), and that the Inter- Domain Fault Manager will update affected domains with root cause fault information (step 918) and create an out of service list associated with a given network trouble ticket and provide it to a trouble manager for linking of subsequent customer trouble tickets (step 920). Fig. 9. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claims 1, 3, 5–11, 13–15, and 17–21. DECISION We AFFIRM the rejection of claims 1, 3, 5–11, 13–15, and 17–21. 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 hh