Ex Parte Suenderhauf et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 25, 2014

11396236 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 25, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte PHILIPP SUENDERHAUF, MATTHIAS RICHTER,
FRANK SCHUHMACHER, RICARDO BUSTAMANTE,
THOMAS MOSER, PETER SIEBER, MATTHIAS TEBBE,
HORST VAETH, SILKE A. H. GRUBER, FABIAN GUENTHER, MARC
MOESGES, VOLKER PAUL, MARCUS PHILIPP, and JENS RUTHS
____________

Appeal 2012-004063
Application 11/396,236
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before BIBHU R. MOHANTY, NINA L. MEDLOCK, and
JAMES A. WORTH, Administrative Patent Judges.

MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

The Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final
rejection of claims 18–37 which are all the claims pending in the application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

SUMMARY OF THE DECISION
We AFFIRM.

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THE INVENTION
The Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to service architecture
design that provides enterprise services having human capital management
functionality at the level of an enterprise application (Spec. 1:19–21).
Claim 18, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on
appeal.

18. A non-transitory and tangible computer readable storage
medium including instructions executable by at least one processor for
providing message-based services using a service-oriented
methodology for implementing an instance of a human capital
management deployment unit, the instructions operable when
executed by the at least one processor to:
store an instance of the human capital management deployment
unit for processing human capital, where the human capital
management deployment unit defines the limits of an application-
defined transaction for processing human capital by a set of actions
that have atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability in a
database, and wherein the actions associated with the application-
defined transaction are performed by at least one process component
contained in the human capital management deployment unit, wherein
each process component comprises a software package realizing a
business process and exposing the process component's functionality
as at least one service operation, wherein the human capital
management deployment unit comprises:
a notify of employee compensation change operation, a
personnel time sheet information in operation, a maintain employee
time confirmation view on project operation, a notify of service
provision operation, a notify of service provision cancellation
operation, a notify of project task confirmation operation, a notify of
goods and service acknowledgement notification operation, a notify of
goods and service acknowledgement cancellation operation, and a
notify of personnel change operation;
wherein the service operations of the human capital
management deployment unit are packaged together to be deployed
on a single computer system;
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execute the application-defined transaction for processing
human capital; and
present data associated with the executed application-defined
transaction for processing human capital to a graphical user interface.

THE REJECTION
The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence in support of the
rejections:
Johnson US 5,586,312 Dec. 17, 1996

Reference A:
“SAP Delivers Next-generation ERP to Customers,” PR Newswire. New York,
Mar. 10, 2005, pg. 1.

Reference B:
“mySAP™ ERP 2005,” © 2005, SAP AG, http://web.archive .org/web/200611
04021205/www.sap.com/solutions/businesssuite/
erp/pdf/BWP_mySAP_ERP_2005.pdf (visited March 24, 2010).

Reference C:
Andreas Vogel et al., “mySAP ERP for Dummies,” John Wiley & Sons (2005).

Reference D:
“Time Management With mySAP™ ERP Human Capital Management,” © 2004,
SAP AG,
http://web.archive.org/web/20060105084834/www.sap.com/solutions/businesssuite/
erp/hcm/pdf/HCM_Time_Management.pdf (visited March 24, 2010).

The following rejections are before us for review:
Claims 18–37 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over “mySAP ERP” (as evidenced by References A-D) in view of Johnson.

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FINDINGS OF FACT
We have determined that the findings of fact in the Analysis section
below are supported at least by a preponderance of the evidence.1

ANALYSIS
The Appellants argue that the rejection of claim 18 is improper
because three claim limitations are missing from the cited prior art, and
further that the cited combination would not have been obvious (App.
Br. 14–21, Reply Br. 4–8).
In contrast, the Examiner has determined that the rejection of record is
proper (Ans. 5–8, 13–19).
We agree with the Examiner. The Appellants first argue that the prior
art fails to disclose the claim limitation to “store an instance of the human
capital management unit for processing human capital” (App. Br. 14–16).
In contrast, the rejection of record cites to mySAP ERP 2005, which at
page 16 shows a “HR Administrator” with several open processes, including
“Hire Processes” in Figure 4, which meets the cited claim limitation.
The Appellants next argue that the cited prior art fails to disclose that
the “human capital management deployment unit defines the limits of an
application-defined transaction for processing human capital by a set of
actions that have atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability” (App.
Br. 14). Here, the citation to the prior art mySAP ERP for Dummies at page
223 states that the human capital management strategies can be delivered in

1 See Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988)
(explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the
Patent Office).
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the lowest possible cost, which defines some limit for the application-
defined transaction. Further, the cited prior art of Johnson at column 1, lines
28–34 clearly states that it is known in the art to have a transaction
processing system where the actions together exhibit the properties of
atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability.
The Appellants also argue that the cited prior art fails to disclose
“wherein the actions associated with the application-defined transactions are
performed by at least one process component contained in the human capital
management deployment unit” (App. Br. 17–19). However, mySAP ERP
for Dummies at page 223 shows the use of the system to perform the actions.
Further, mySAP ERP 2005 at page 16 shows a “HR Administrator” with
several open processes, including “Hire Processes” in Figure 4, which shows
a process component performing actions, as claimed.
The Appellants also argue that the cited combination uses improper
hindsight and would not have been obvious (App. Br. 19–21, Reply Br. 6–
9). We disagree. Here, the cited prior art references of SAP Delivers Next-
generations ERP to Customers, MySAP ERP 2005, mySAP ERP for
Dummies, and Time Management with ERP Human Capital Management
are all directed to SAP ERP software, and Johnson merely shows the known
use of a transaction processing system where the actions exhibit the
properties of atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability, which are well
known in the art to make sure transactions are processed reliably. Here, we
agree with the rationale for the combination set forth in the rejection of
record in the Answer. The cited combination of prior art simply brings
together known elements of SAP ERP with the known use of the properties
of atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability in a transaction
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processing system and would have been an obvious, predictable combination
for the benefit each of the respective software process and increased
reliability through the use transaction processing system where the actions
exhibit the properties of atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability as
taught by Johnson. For these reasons, the rejection claim 18 is sustained.
The Appellants have provided the same arguments for the remaining
claims, and the rejection of these claims is sustained for the same reasons
given above.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
We conclude that Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred
in rejecting the claims as listed in the Rejection section above.

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 18–37 is sustained.
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)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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