Ex Parte Njemanze

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 22, 2016

12942890 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 22, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/942,890 11/09/2010 Hugh S. Njemanze
56436 7590 03/24/2016
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
82579436 2596
EXAMINER
HASAN, SYED HAROON
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2154
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/24/2016 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):
hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com
mkraft@hpe.com
chris.mania@hpe.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte HUGH S. NJEMANZE
Appeal2014-002705
Application 12/942,890
Technology Center 2100
Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, JOHN F. HORVATH, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
WINSOR, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
.6. .... ,1 .... ,....,-TTr'1.r-"\ l\-1,....Al/'\.r'" , .. C- "1 • ,• Appeuant' appeals unaer j) u.~.L. s U4~aJ rrom me nna1 reJecuon
of claims 1-13, which constitute all the claims pending in this application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part.
RELATED PROCEEDINGS
The Specification identifies U.S. Patent Application 11/966,078 (now
U.S. Patent 9,031,916 B2, May 12, 2015) and U.S. Patent Application
12/554,541 (now U.S Patent 9,166,989 B2, Oct. 20, 2015) as related to the
1 The real party in interest identified by Appellant is Hewlett-Packard
Development Company, L.P., a wholly-owned affiliate of Hewlett-Packard
Company. (App. Br. 3.)
Appeal2014-002705
Application 12/942,890
instant application. (Spec. if 1.) Application 11/966,078 and Application
12/554,541 were the subjects of Appeals 2012-001934, decided August 21,
2014, and 2012-002752, decided August 25, 2014, respectively.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant's disclosed invention "relates to full-text searching and
structured data stores. More particularly, it relates to enabling faster full-text
searching using a structured data store." (Spec. if 2.) Claims 1 and 10,
which are illustrative, read as follows:
1. A computer-implemented method for storing
information in an entry within a structured data store, wherein
the entry includes one or more base fields and one or more
extended fields, comprising:
receiving a string;
determining a meaning of an event from information in
the string;
storing the determined meaning of the event in the one
or more base fields of the entry;
identifying a portion of the string that is to be enabled
for faster searching;
parsing the identified portion of the string into a plurality
of tokens; and
for each token in the plurality of tokens:
determining a hash value of the token based on a
hashing scheme; and
storing the token in an extended field that
corresponds to the determined hash value.
10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
for each token in the plurality of tokens:
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Application 12/942,890
if the token is the first token within the identified
portion of the string:
generating a beginning token that comprises
a special character and the token, wherein the
special character indicates that the token is the first
token within the identified portion of the string;
determining a hash value of the beginning
token based on a hashing scheme; and
storing the beginning token in an extended
field that corresponds to the determined hash
value.
The Examiner relies on the following prior art in rejecting the claims:
Marchisio et al. US 2003/0233224 Al
(hereinafter "Marchisio")
Lowry
Perkins et al.
US 2005/0198070 Al
US 2006/0287920 A 1
(hereinafter "Perkins")
Millett US 2007 /0294235 Al
Dec. 18, 2003
Sept. 8, 2005
Dec. 21, 2006
Dec. 20, 2007
Claims 1--4, 6, 9, 12, and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Millett and Marchisio. (See Final Act. 3-6.)
Claims 5, 7, and 8 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Millett, Marchisio, and Perkins. (See Final Act. 6-9.)
Claims 10 and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Millett, Marchisio, and Lowry. (See Final Act. 9-12.)
Rather than repeat the arguments here, we refer to the Briefs ("App.
Br." filed Aug. 20, 2013; "Reply Br." filed Dec. 16, 2013) and the
Specification ("Spec." filed Nov. 9, 2010) for the positions of Appellant and
the Final Office Action ("Final Act." mailed Mar. 20, 2013) and Answer
("Ans." mailed Oct. 15, 2013) for the reasoning, findings, and conclusions
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Application 12/942,890
of the Examiner. Only those arguments actually made by Appellant have
been considered in this decision. Arguments that Appellant does 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) (2012).
ISSUES
The issues presented by Appellant's contentions are as follows:
Does Marchisio teach or suggest "determining a meaning of an event
from information in the string; [and] storing the determined meaning of the
event in the one or more base fields of the entry" (herein the "determined
meaning limitation"), as recited in claim 1?
Does Lowry teach or suggest "generating a beginning token that
comprises a special character and the token, wherein the special character
indicates that the token is the first token within the identified portion of the
string" (the "beginning token limitation"), as recited in claim 1 O?
Does Lowry teach or suggest "generating an ending token that
comprises the token and a special character, wherein the special character
indicates that the token is the last token within the identified portion of the
string" (the "ending token limitation"), as recited in claim 11?
ANALYSIS
Claim 1
We have reviewed the Examiner's reasoning, findings, and
conclusions regarding claim 1 (Final Act. 3--4; Ans. 13-17) in light of
Appellant's arguments and contentions (App. Br. 9-18; Reply Br. 4--13).
We agree with the Examiner's reasoning, findings, and conclusions (Final
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Application 12/942,890
Act. 3--4; Ans. 13-17) and we adopt them as our own. The following
discussion, findings, and conclusions are for emphasis.
The Examiner finds Marchisio teaches the determined meaning
limitation. (Final Act. 4 (citing Marchisio i-fi-184, 88, 104, 138, 151-155,
159, 171-176); see also Ans. 13-17 (additionally citing Marchisio i-fi-f 11, 86,
145, 147-148, Fig. 20).) Appellant contends "Marchisio does not extract or
determine the meaning of an event from information in a string of data, as
recited in independent claim 1." (Reply Br. 5.) We agree with the
Examiner.
Appellant argues as follows:
[I]n Marchisio, the enhanced data representations include
putting the individual terms of a sentence into categories, such
as "Argentina" being categorized as a country and "YPF" as an
organization.
However, categories of individual terms in a sentence do
not provide the meaning of an event corresponding to
information in the sentence. For instance, the categories
"country" and "organization" for the terms "Argentina" and
"YPF," respectively, in a sentence, do not provide the meaning
of the sentence that contains "Argentina" and "YPF."
(Reply Br. 6 (referring to Marchisio i-fi-f 145, 171, Figs. 20, 20A, 20B).)
Appellant further argues that Marchisio' s enhanced data representations "are
at most tags such as 'name' or 'date' (or other user configured values), [and]
clearly do not provide the meaning of any type of event from information in
the data set." (Reply Br. 6-7 (referring to Marchisio i-fi-f 11, 147-148).)
Appellant's arguments are not commensurate with the language of the
determined meaning limitation. The determined meaning limitation does not
recite determining the meaning of the received string, i.e., of a sentence.
Rather, the limitation recites "determining a meaning of an event from
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information in the string" (emphases added). Contrary to Appellant's
argument, determining that the term "Argentina" in a sentence represents a
country is determining a meaning of the sentence, i.e., a string, and of an
event represented by the string, and is encompassed within the broadest
reasonable interpretation of the determined meaning limitation. In other
words, categorizing the word "Argentina" in a sentence as representing a
country is a determination of a meaning of an event represented by the string
from information in the string, i.e., a determination that the event pertains to
a country.
Similarly, tagging a term in a string representing an event as being a
"name" or "date" (Marchisio i-f 11) determines a meaning from information
in the string, and is encompassed within the broadest reasonable
interpretation of the determined meaning limitation. We note that
Appellant's Specification provides an example of the determined meaning
limitation. (See Spec. i-fi-123-25, Fig. 1; see also App. Br. 3--4 (citing Spec.
i-fi-123-33, 81-84, Figs. 2, 3 (items 320, 330, 340)).) In that example, one
meaning extracted from the string is "Timestamp" (Spec. i-f 24), which is
saved as a value in a time stamp field, similar to Marchisio' s "date" tag.
Appellant contends that "Marchisio does not store the determined
meaning of 'name' or 'date', but instead, appears to store values associated
with the 'name' or 'date'." (Reply Br. 8 (referring to Marchisio i-fi-111, 171,
174).) Appellants' basic argument is that because Marchisio does not teach
"determining a meaning of an event from information in the string," it
cannot teach "storing the determined meaning of the event in the one or
more base fields of the entry." (Id. (emphasis added).) We note that, similar
to Marchisio, Appellants' Specification teaches that determined meanings of
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events are stored as structured data values in fields, such as a time value in a
timestamp field. (See Spec. i-fi-123-24, Fig. 1.). Consequently, we agree with
the Examiner's finding that Marchisio teaches storing the determined
meaning of the event in the one or more base fields of the entry.
Appellant's remaining arguments attack other passages and aspects of
Marchisio' s teaching relied on by the Examiner. The passages and aspects
discussed supra adequately support the Examiner's findings and
conclusions. Accordingly, we will not discuss Appellant's arguments
regarding the other, cumulative, passages and aspects of Marchisio, other
than to reiterate that we agree with and adopt the Examiner's reasoning,
findings, and conclusions.
Appellant has not demonstrated error in the rejection of claim 1.
Accordingly, we sustain the rejections over various combinations of Millett,
Marchisio, and Perkins of claim 1; independent claims 12 and 13, which
were argued relying on the arguments made for claim 1 (App. Br. 18-19);
and claims 2-9, which depend from claim 1 and were argued relying on the
arguments made for claim 1 (App. Br. 20-21 ).
Claims 10 and 11
The Examiner finds Lowry teaches or suggests the beginning token
limitation of claim 10 (Final Act. 9-10 (citing Lowry i-f 172; Millet i-fi-f 18-
20, 69-73, Fig. 3); see also Ans. 17-19 (additionally citing Lowry i-fi-f 165,
167-170, Fig. 3)) and the ending token limitation of claim 11 (Final Act. 11
(citing Lowry i-f 172; Millet i-fi-f 18-20, 69-73, Fig. 3); see also Ans. 19-20).
The Examiner maps the special character to Lowry's position number. (See
Ans. 18 ("The number '1' corresponds to the claim limitation 'a special
character ... wherein the special character indicates that the token is the first
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token'." (ellipsis in original)), 19 ("The 'ending token' limitation of claim 11
can correspond to the index entry for the last word in the example of
paragraph 172, 'text' at position 5, or to the index entry for the punctuation
string of period-space with position 6.").)
Appellant contends Lowry's position indicators are primitives
indicating position that are not part of a beginning or an ending token. (See
Reply Br. 18, 21.) Therefore, Lowry's position indicators do not teach or
suggest a beginning token or an ending token that comprises a special
character and the respective token. We agree with Appellant.
While the broadest reasonable interpretations of the beginning token
and ending token limitations are open ended, by virtue of the term
"comprising," the claim recites that the respective tokens comprise, i.e.,
include, at least a token as determined in accordance with claim 1, and a
special character. Lowry's position indicators are separate from Lowry's
tokens. (Lowry Fig. 3.) Therefore, Lowry's tokens do not "comprise" a
token and a position indicator. For emphasis only, we note that one of
ordinary skill in the computer arts would understand a "special character" to
be "[a]ny character that is not alphabetic, numeric, or the space character."
MICROSOFT COMPUTER DICTIONARY 492-3 (5th ed. 2002). This is consistent
with the Specification, which discloses including "A" and "$" as the special
characters in the beginning and ending tokens respectively. (Spec. i-f 73.)
Lowry' s position indicators are numeric (Lowry i-f 172) and, therefore, are
not "special characters" as that term is understood in the relevant art.
Appellant has demonstrated error in the rejection of claims 10 and 11.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 10 and 11 over
Millett, Marchisio, and Lowry.
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DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-9, 12, and 13 is
affirmed.
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 10 and 11 is reversed.
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). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
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