Ex Parte Subramaniam et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 23, 201613414175 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 23, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 13/414,175 03/07/2012 Kalambur Subramaniam 56436 7590 03/25/2016 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. 82870596 3903 EXAMINER HOANG, HAU HAI ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2167 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/25/2016 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 KALAMBUR SUBRAMANIAM, RAJESH KUMAR MISHRA, MANDAR NANIV ADEKAR, PRAKASH B. ANGADI, and ALBRECHT SCHROTH Appeal2014-006250 Application 13/414,175 Technology Center 2100 Before JOHNNY A. KUMAR, MONICA S. ULLAGADDI, and JOYCE CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judges. ULLAGADDI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a final rejection of claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Claim 1, reproduced below with certain disputed limitations emphasized, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A computer-implemented method for implementing a scalable test environment, comprising: modeling, within a file system environment creator executing on a computing device, a structure of a file system used by an application; Appeal2014-006250 Application 13/414,175 intercepting a system call from the application to the file system at the file system environment creator; and generating a content of the file system dynamically within the file system environment creator based on the system call and the structure of the file system. REJECTIONS Claims 1, 2, 5-7, 9, 10, 12-16, and 18-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Taylor (US 2012/0131012 Al; published May 24, 2012). Final Act. 2-12. Claims 3, 4, 8, 11, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Taylor and Weissman (US 7,461,076 Bl; issued Dec. 2, 2008). Final Act. 12-16. ANALYSIS The Examiner interprets the claimed "file system" as "the overall structure in which files are named, stored, and organized," and which "consists of files, directories, or folders, and the information needed to locate and access these items." Ans. 5. Based on this interpretation, the Examiner finds Taylor discloses that, [w]hen an application interacts with a file system, a model (e.g., statistical model) is built of which areas of file system are active or highly active. Fig 4., item 408 is a [data] representation of files and folders .... Clearly, a structure of [the] file system comprises folders (e.g., Frank, My Documents) and files (e.g., Customer Details.doc, Shopping.doc) [that] are modeled within memory of endpoint. 2 Appeal2014-006250 Application 13/414,175 Id. at 7. The Examiner further finds Taylor's data representation 408 "is created/updated by system calls to files and folders in [the] file system." Id. at 10. Appellants dispute that Taylor discloses the "modeling" and "generating" limitations of claim 1 and commensurate limitations of claims 9 and 16. App. Br. 8. First, Appellants attempt to distinguish the "modeling" limitation from Taylor's statistical model that "'builds up a data representation of files and folders' to show the type of access and the number of access[ es]" on the bases that [t]he present disclosure provides that a structure of a file system includes the organization of directories within the file system, the number of files within each directory of the file system, or the depth of the file system [and] ... models a file system based on policy, where the structure of the modeled file system can be modeled to 'include a number of directories within the file system, a number of files in each directory of the file system, or a depth of the file system.' Id. at 8-9 citing Taylor i-f 42 and Specification i-f 23, and p. 6, 11. 19-23 (emphasis added). Second, Appellants argue Taylor does not disclose "generating any content dynamically" because [i]n the present claims, the content of the file system is generated dynamically in response to the system calls of a particular application without the use of a dedicated storage space. See Specification, paras. [0018], [0019]. By contrast, the data representation in Taylor is maintained in any convenient manner, such as 'a set of relational tables, as a linked list, as a data array, or the like' ... [and] may be stored as a 'conventional file system.' App. Br. 10 (emphasis added). Third, Appellants also argue Taylor does not disclose the "generating" limitation because 3 Appeal2014-006250 Application 13/414,175 the system call of the present disclosure may be used to dynamically generate the content of a file system to include 'delet[ing], renam[ing], or recreat[ing] certain files at a particular point in time, chang[ing] file attributes, or chang[ing] a few blocks of certain files at a particular point in time.' See Specification, para. [0026]. Additionally, the file system may be generated dynamically by determining for each file within the file system 'a size of the file, a file permission associated with the file, and data within the file.' See id., para. [0033]. Clearly, the monitoring of read and write events to model a file system is not equivalent to a file system that can be dynamically generated in the present independent claims. App. Br. 10-11 (emphasis added). During examination of a patent application, pending claims are given their broadest reasonable construction consistent with the specification, taking into consideration definitions presented in the specification. In re Prater, 415F.2d1393, 1404---05(CCPA1969); In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004) citing In re Bass, 314 F.3d 575, 577 (Fed. Cir. 2002). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181 (Fed. Cir. 1993); see also SuperGuide Corp. v. DirecTV Enters., Inc., 358 F.3d 870, 875 (Fed. Cir. 2004) ("[A] particular embodiment appearing in the written description may not be read into a claim when the claim language is broader than the embodiment."). As to the first argument regarding the "modeling" limitation, Appellants present neither an alternative construction for the claim term "file system" nor sufficient evidence to persuade us the Examiner's interpretation of "file system" is overbroad, unreasonable, or inconsistent with the Specification. See App. Br. 9. The portions of the Specification cited by Appellants describe a "file system" and "a structure of a file system" using 4 Appeal2014-006250 Application 13/414,175 non-limiting, exemplary language. See e.g., Specification if 23 ("[t]he structure of the file system 200 may include a number of directories ... " emphasis added). However, the Specification does not define either of these terms in a manner that conforms to the strict "words or expressions of manifest exclusion or restriction" requirement articulated by the Court in Teleflex, Inc. v. Ficosa N. Am. Corp., 299 F.3d 1313, 1327 (Fed. Circ. 2002). See e.g., Specification iii! 23, 24. Similarly, the Specification does not define a "model" or require the "modeling" limitation to only be based on policy. Id. at iii! 18, 19, 38. With regard to the second and third arguments, the Specification does not define either "a content of the file system" or the "generating" limitation, nor does it exclude storing the content in a dedicated storage space from this limitation. Id. at iii! 18, 19 ("the file system environment creator 124 may dynamically model the state of the file system 128 ... without the use of a dedicated storage space" emphasis added). Further, the Specification does not require the "generating" limitation to include determining file attributes or modifying files and file attributes, contrary to Appellants' arguments. Id. at iii! 26, 31, and 33 ("[t]he system call may be used to delete, rename, or recreate certain files at a particular point in time, change file attributes, or change a few blocks of certain files" emphasis added). The features argued by Appellants are not recited in claims 1, 9, and 16, nor are such features properly imported from the Specification into the claims. See Ans. 5-9 citing In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d at 1181. As such, none of Appellants' first, second, and third arguments are commensurate with the scope of claims 1, 9, and 16 and thus, are not persuasive to rebut the Examiner's findings. In re Self, 671F.2d1344, 1350-51(CCPA1969). 5 Appeal2014-006250 Application 13/414,175 For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in finding Taylor discloses the limitations of claim 1, commensurate limitations of claims 9 and 16, and limitations of claims 2-8, 10-15, and 17-20, which are not separately argued. Therefore, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) rejection of claims 1, 2, 5-7, 9, 10, 12-16, and 18-20 and the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 3, 4, 8, 11, and 17 1. DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-20 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). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv). AFFIRMED 1 Claims 3, 4, 8, 11, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Taylor and Weissman. As these claims are not separately argued, we reach the same conclusion with respect to these claims as with respect to claims 1, 9, and 16, from which claims 3, 4, 8, 11, and 17 depend, for substantially similar reasons. 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation