Ex Parte Taieb

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 18, 2014

12481494 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 18, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte DAVID TAIEB
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Appeal 2012-005694
Application 12/481,494
Technology Center 2400
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Before JOHN A. EVANS, CATHERINE SHIANG, and
LINZY T. McCARTNEY, Administrative Patent Judges.

EVANS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 seeks our review2 under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s final rejection of Claims 1–163 as obvious and as reciting non-
statutory subject matter. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.4

1 The Real Party in Interest is International Business Machines Corporation.
2 We have considered in this decision only those arguments Appellants
actually raised in the Briefs. Any other arguments which Appellants could
have made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See
37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
3 App. Br. 2.
4 Our Decision refers to Appellant’s Appeal Brief filed October 3, 2011
(“App. Br.”); Reply Brief filed February 21, 2012 (“Reply Br.”); Examiner’s
Appeal 2012-005694
Application 12/481,494

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The claims relate to a method for plug-in deployment in a clustered
environment. See Abstract.
Claims 1, 6, and 12 are independent. The claims have not been
argued separately and therefore stand or fall together. 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(iv).5 An understanding of the invention can be derived from a
reading of exemplary Claim 1, which is reproduced below:
1. A method for plug-in deployment in a clustered
environment, the method comprising:
adding a plug-in for a component based application to a
plug-in repository for the component based application
executing in a node provided by a server in a clustered
computing environment; and,
directing replication of the added plug-in to other plug-in
repositories in other nodes provided by other servers in the
clustered computing environment.

The claims stand rejected as follows:
1. Claims 1–6, 9, 10, and 12–16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as obvious over Ott (US 2008/0271059 A1, Oct. 30, 2008) and
Todorov (US 2010/0205244 A1, Aug. 12, 2010). Ans. 4–11.
2. Claims 7 and 8 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious
over Ott, Todorov, and Mehr (US 2009/0132562 A1, May 21, 2009).
Ans. 11–13.

Answer mailed December 20, 2011 (“Ans.”); and the original Specification
filed June 9, 2009 (“Spec.”).
5 See App. Br. 11.
Appeal 2012-005694
Application 12/481,494

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3. Claim 11 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over
Ott, Todorov, and Vandanapu (US 2009/0222504 A1, Sept. 3, 2009).
Ans. 13–15.

ANALYSIS6
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellant’s
conclusions. The claims stand or fall as a group. See App. Br. 7, 11.
Appellant contends that the Examiner fails to give patentable weight
to the claim term “plug-in” within the recited term “other plug-in
repositories.” App. Br. 9; Reply Br. 2. Appellant traverses the Examiner’s
reliance upon Ott for the teaching of “other plug-in libraries” by arguing that
Figure 2 of Ott shows only a single plug-in library at the server whereas no
plug-in library is shown at the client. App. Br. 10. We disagree.
We agree with, and adopt, the Examiner’s finding that Ott discloses
that the same business logic extensions (i. e., plug-ins) that execute on a
server platform can be utilized by the client platform, and that the server
platform synchronizes the plug-ins to the client platform. Ans. 17. For
emphasis, we note that Ott discloses: “In one implementation, the server
platform is operative to synchronize a data set and the business logic
extensions to the client platform.” Ott ¶ 9. Ott further discloses that “the

6 Appellant also traverses a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101. See App. Br.
4–6. However, because neither the Examiner’s statement of the grounds of
rejection, nor the Examiner’s response to Appellant’s arguments, refer to a
rejection under § 101 (See Ans. 4, 15), any such rejections are not before us.
Appeal 2012-005694
Application 12/481,494

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client platform 300 maintains a plug-in library 218 that includes the plug-ins
220A-220N. As mentioned above, the plug-ins 220A-220N are deployed
from the server platform 200 to the client platform 300 for execution.” Ott
¶ 33.
In his Reply Brief, Appellant raises, de novo, contentions relating to
“nodes provided by other servers.” We consider these arguments to have
been waived. See Ex parte Borden, 93 USPQ2d 1473, 1474 (BPAI 2010)
(informative)(“Any bases for asserting error, whether factual or legal, that
are not raised in the principal brief are waived.”).
We are not persuaded the Examiner has erred.

DECISION
The rejection of Claims 1–16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 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)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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