Ex Parte Pederson et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 31, 2017

13300066 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 31, 2017)

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. 13/300,066 11/18/2011 Donald R. Pederson 20556 6437 26890 7590 09/05/2017 JAMES M. STOVER TERADATA US, INC. 10000 INNOVATION DRIVE DAYTON, OH 45342 EXAMINER CHANNAVAJJALA, SRIRAMA T ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2157 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/05/2017 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): michelle.boldman @ teradata. com j ames. stover @ teradata.com td.uspto@outlook.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte DONALD R. PEDERSON, PAUL SINCLAIR, and STEVEN B. COHEN Appeal 2017-005706 Application 13/300,0661 Technology Center 2100 Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, LARRY J. HUME, and JOYCE CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judges. CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—20, which are all of the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Teradata US, Incorporated. App. Br. 2. Appeal 2017-005706 Application 13/300,066 INVENTION Appellants’ claimed invention relates to techniques for extending horizontal partitioning to column partitioning. Spec., Title. Claim 1 is representative of the appealed subject matter and reads as follows: 1. A method for partitioning a database table, the method implemented as executable instructions within a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and the executable instructions executed by a hardware processor from the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, the method comprising: extending, by the processor, an existing “PARTITION BY” syntax used for horizontal partitioning to a “PARTITION BY COLUMN” syntax indicating that a database table is partitioned based on one or more groupings of columns that follow the “PARTITION BY COLUMN” syntax, wherein the database table has no primary index and indicating by the “PARTITION BY COLUMN” syntax a partitioning level for processing instead of usage of a partitioning expression that follows the existing “PARTITION BY” syntax; identifying, by the processor, the existing “PARTITION BY” syntax followed by on one or more groupings of rows for partitioning the database table based on the one or more groupings of rows; and partitioning, by the processor, the database table into the one or more groupings of the rows and into the one or more groupings of the columns by processing the “PARTITION BY COLUMN” syntax with the one or more groupings of the columns and by processing the existing “PARTITION BY” syntax with the one or more groupings of the rows, the database table partitioned by both custom-defined rows and custom- defined columns. 2 Appeal 2017-005706 Application 13/300,066 REJECTION2 Claims 1—20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of French et al. (US 5,794,229; issued Aug. 11, 1998) (“French”) and Ghosh et al. (US 2006/0190947 Al; published Aug. 24, 2006) (“Ghosh”). ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellants’ contentions the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants’ contentions. Except as noted below, we adopt as our own: (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellants’ Appeal Brief. We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the following additional points. Rejection of Claims 1—20 under 25 U.S.C. § 102(a) Appellants contend the Examiner erred because the combination of French and Ghosh does not teach or suggest the limitation, extending, by the processor, an existing “PARTITION BY” syntax used for horizontal partitioning to a “PARTITION BY COLUMN” syntax, as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 7. Appellants argue Ghosh teaches a technique for parallelizing window functions that does not rely on the 2 We note a terminal disclaimer was filed on June 24, 2016, and approved and entered on July 1, 2016, to render moot the Examiner’s obviousness- type double patenting rejection of claims 1—20 over claims 1-21 (as amended 10/6/2014) of co-pending US Application 12/979,526. (Final Act. 10). Therefore, this rejection is not before us on appeal. 3 Appeal 2017-005706 Application 13/300,066 PARTITION BY clause and, thus, Ghosh does not teach or suggest “any mechanism, teaching, or suggestion of extending an existing ‘PARTITION BY’ syntax used for horizontal partitioning to a ‘PARTITION BY COLUMN’ syntax,” as claim 1 requires. Id. at 7—10. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments because Appellants argue the references separately. Nonobviousness cannot be established by attacking the references individually when the rejection is predicated upon a combination of prior art disclosures. In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). Here, the Examiner relied on French, not Ghosh, as teaching existing horizontal partitioning and SQL syntax commands indicating that a database table is to be partitioned based on columns. Final Act. 12 (citing French, Figs. 3A—3C, col. 5,11. 1—3, 50-67, col. 12,11. 15—25, col. 7,11. 1-6, 7-15, col. 6,11. 56-67). Moreover, Appellants have not persuasively rebutted the Examiner’s responses, additional findings, and clarifications presented in the Answer. Arguments not made are waived. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). The Examiner found French’s horizontal and vertical partitioning of database tables is identical to that disclosed in Appellants’ Specification. Ans. 4. The Examiner also found Ghosh teaches or suggests a database table that has no primary index and the “PARTITION BY COLUMN” command syntax, as claim 1 requires. Id. at 5—6 (citing Ghosh H 3, 6, 66—74). The Examiner concluded it would have been obvious to an artisan of ordinary skill “to incorporate partitioning the work of a qualified window function into ranges, aggregate values, particularly using SQL statements of Ghosh et al. into database table by vertically, horizontally partitioning 4 Appeal 2017-005706 Application 13/300,066 column of the French because both French, Ghosh specifically supports database table partition.” Id. at 6. Appellants have not presented sufficient persuasive argument or objective evidence to rebut the Examiner’s findings or persuade us of error in the Examiner’s ultimate conclusion of obviousness. For these reasons, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in finding the combination of French and Ghosh teaches or suggests the disputed limitations recited in claim 1. Accordingly, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of representative claim 1, as well as the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of grouped claims 2—20, for which Appellants make no separate, substantive arguments for patentability. See App. Br. 10; see also 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—20. 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)(iv). See 37 C.F.R. §41.50(f). AFFIRMED 5