Ex Parte Thiyagarajan et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 28, 2014

12043908 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 28, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
12/043,908 03/06/2008 Murali Thiyagarajan 50277-3293 6190
42425 7590 08/29/2014
HICKMAN PALERMO TRUONG BECKER BINGHAM WONG/ORACLE
1 Almaden Boulevard
Floor 12
SAN JOSE, CA 95113
EXAMINER
WITZENBURG, BRUCE A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2166
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/29/2014 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte MURALI THIYAGARAJAN and PRAVEEN KUMAR
____________

Appeal 2012-002348
Application 12/043,908
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, BRUCE R. WINSOR, and
JOHN P. PINKERTON, Administrative Patent Judges.

PINKERTON, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

SUMMARY
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1–5, 8–13, and 16, which constitute all the claims
pending in this application.1 Claims 6, 7, 14, and 15 are cancelled. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1 The real party in interest identified by Appellants is Oracle International
Corporation. Appeal Br. 1.
Appeal 2012–002348
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants describe the present invention as follows: “The present
invention relates generally to computing queries. More specifically,
embodiments of the present invention relate to rewriting queries with a
nested materialized view.” Spec. ¶ 1.
Claims 1, 8, 9, and 16 are independent claims.
Rejections on Appeal
Claims 1–5, 8–13, and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Ahmed (U.S. 7,233,944 B2, June 19, 2007) and Norcott
(U.S. 6,334,128 B1, Dec. 25, 2001). See Appeal Br. 4; Ans. 4.
Illustrative Claims
Claims 1 and 9 are argued together, as are claims 8 and 16. Claims 1
and 8 are illustrative. Claim 1 provides as follows:
1. A computer-implemented method, comprising
steps of:

selecting, from among a hierarchy of materialized
views, only first-tier materialized views that
depend directly on a base table;

establishing a set of candidate materialized views
that consists only of the selected first-tier
materialized views;

based on a cardinality of a nested materialized
view that is a descendant of a particular first-tier
materialized view, selecting the particular first-
tier materialized view from among the set of
candidate materialized views even though the
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particular first-tier materialized view does not
have a lowest cardinality among cardinalities of
first-tier materialized views in said set of
candidate materialized views; and

based on said selecting, rewriting an existing
query statement, which references said
base table, into a rewritten query statement that
references said particular first-tier materialized
view instead of said base table;

wherein said first-tier materialized view is a
parent materialized view to another materialized
view;

wherein said method is performed by one or more
computing devices.

Claim 8 provides as follows:
8. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

selecting a certain candidate materialized view
from among a plurality of candidate materialized
views, wherein each candidate materialized view
of said plurality of candidate materialized views is
associated with a nested materialized view at a
final nesting level;

wherein said selecting includes: (a) making a
comparison of the cardinality of each respective
nested materialized view at the final nesting level,
and (b) selecting the candidate materialized view
with the lowest cardinality based on said
comparison; and

based on said selecting, rewriting an existing
query statement, which references a base table
upon which a first-tier ancestor of the certain
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candidate materialized view directly depends,
with a rewritten query statement that references
the first-tier ancestor instead of the base table;

wherein the method is performed by one or more
computing devices.
Issues on Appeal
Appellants’ arguments in their Appeal Brief2 and Reply Brief present
us with the following dispositive issues:
1. Do Ahmed and Norcott teach or suggest the limitation
“selecting, from among a hierarchy of materialized views, only
first-tier materialized views that depend directly on a base
table,” as recited in claim 1?
2. Do Ahmed and Norcott teach or suggest the limitation
“wherein said selecting includes: (a) making a comparison of
the cardinality of each respective nested materialized view at
the final nesting level, and (b) selecting the candidate
materialized view with the lowest cardinality based on said
comparison,” as recited in claim 8?

ANALYSIS
Issue No. 1
The first “selecting” limitation of claim 1 requires “selecting, from
among a hierarchy of materialized views, only first-tier materialized views

2 Our decision refers to Appellants’ Appeal Brief, filed on June 9, 2011
(“Appeal Br.”), the Examiner’s Answer, mailed on Sept. 14, 2011 (“Ans.”),
Appellants’ Reply Brief, filed on Nov. 8, 2011 (“Reply Br.”), and the
original Specification, filed on Mar. 6, 2008 (“Spec.”).
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. . . .” In discussing Ahmed, the Examiner states that “Ahmed receives a
query which can be broken down into various forms of subqueries from a
query program and calculates the cost to execute each one based on the
processing power needed and the cardinality.” Ans. 12. The Examiner
finds that “[t]here naturally exists a set of interim views which are
calculated from the base tables themselves . . .” and that “[w]hile Ahmed
itself does not refer to materialization of these views,” materialization
would have been obvious in view of Norcott. Ans. 13.
The Examiner further finds that, in the Ahmed system, the “outer
query remains persistent and inner queries are calculated for efficiency as
being nested and un-nested at will” and that “[t]his creates an entire
hierarchy of potential candidate views . . . including . . . (first-tier views).”
Ans. 14. Finally, the Examiner finds “it is quite apparent that selection of
first-tier candidate views is a natural subset of the query rewrite mechanism
as all first tier materialized views are considered and related ones are
selected as candidates.” Ans. 15.
Appellants contend that “the Examiner’s reliance on Ahmed for
generating interim views for each of the combinations is misplaced” and
that, “even assuming Ahmed functions as the Examiner believes it does,”
the limitation of “selecting only first-tier materialized views” as its
candidate set is not met because, “for Ahmed to calculate costs for the
possible orders in which the sub-queries could be applied, Ahmed would
have to analyze the interim views of each combination for cardinality
regardless of whether or not the view for that combination had previously
been materialized.” Reply Br. 8–9 (emphasis omitted).
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We agree with Appellants. Initially, the Examiner has not shown that
Ahmed generates all interim views. As noted by Appellants (Reply Br. 8),
Ahmed uses statistical methods to estimate the initial cardinalities and these
estimations are propagated through the various configurations of sub-
queries through the use of filtering factors. See Ahmed, 5:62–6:11, Figure
2, 6:36–7:44. Once the semantically equivalent query with the lowest cost
is chosen, that query is executed, in which event the interim views for that
path are generated. See id. Figure 3, 8:1–30. Thus, the Examiner has not
shown that Ahmed generates a “set of interim views” or an “entire
hierarchy” of potential candidate views, including first-tier views.
We also agree with Appellants (Reply Br. 8–9) that, even if the
Examiner were correct in regard to Ahmed generating a set or hierarchy of
interim views, the interim views of each combination would need to be
analyzed, including the first-tier and all nested and un-nested views,
regardless of whether they are materialized. Thus, this would not meet the
“selecting” limitation because it requires selecting from “only first-tier
materialized views.” Furthermore, the Examiner has not identified any
teaching or suggestion in either Ahmed or Norcott for “selecting” only the
first-tier views. Although the Examiner finds that “selection of first-tier
candidate views is a natural subset,” the Examiner has not persuaded us that
Ahmed or Norcott teach or suggest selecting first-tier views over any other
views. Accordingly, we conclude that the Examiner has not shown that
Ahmed and Norcott teach or suggest the limitation “selecting, from among
a hierarchy of materialized views, only first-tier materialized views that
depend directly on a base table,” as recited in claim 1.
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Thus, because the Examiner has not shown that the first “selecting”
limitation of claim 1 is taught or suggested by Ahmed and Norcott, we do
not sustain the rejection of claim 1 as obvious over those references. For
the same reasons, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 2–5, which
depend from claim 1, independent claim 9, and claims 10–13, which
depend from claim 9.
Issue No. 2
The initial “selecting” step of clam 8 recites “selecting a certain
candidate materialized view from among a plurality of candidate
materialized views, wherein each candidate . . . is associated with a nested
materialized view at a final nesting level.” Claim 8 further specifies that
the selecting step “includes: (a) making a comparison of the cardinality of
each respective nested materialized view at the final nesting level, and (b)
selecting the candidate materialized view with the lowest cardinality based
on said comparison.”
In the Grounds of Rejection, the Examiner cites Ahmed as disclosing
that the selecting step of claim 8 includes the limitations set forth in clauses
(a) and (b) above. See Ans. 8. In that regard, the Examiner cites Ahmed,
column 8, lines 10–43, and states, “Note that the total cost down to the final
nesting level is considered for evaluation.” Id.
Appellants contend that the features in clauses (a) and (b) are similar
to the second “selecting” limitation of claim 1, which requires selecting a
first-tier materialized view based on the cardinality of a nested descendant
materialized view, and that “the same arguments hold true” for them and
will not be repeated for the sake of brevity. Reply Br. 11. In regard to the
second “selecting” limitation of claim 1, Appellants contend that Ahmed
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“appears to estimate the cost of running each order of the subqueries” and
then selects the order with the lowest estimated cost, rather than selecting
between existing views contained with a hierarchy. Id. at 10. Appellants
further argue that “it is difficult to comprehend how Ahmed teaches
choosing a view based upon the children of that view when no actual views
have been generated until after the order has been decided.” Id.
Furthermore, Appellants contend that the final level of Ahmed’s hierarchy,
based on the Examiner’s interpretation of Ahmed, would be the view of the
query itself, and “[i]t would make little sense for Ahmed to take the
cardinality of that final level into consideration in selecting the first step to
take since it would always result in a tie.” Id. at 12.
We agree with Appellants. Although the Examiner finds that Ahmed
considers the total cost down to the final nesting level, the Examiner has not
demonstrated that Ahmed teaches or suggests (a) comparing the cardinality
of each respective nested materialized view at the final nesting level, and
(b) selecting the candidate materialized view with the lowest cardinality
based on said comparison, as recited in claim 8.
Thus, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 8. For the same
reasons, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 16.

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–5, 8–13, and 16 is
reversed.

REVERSED

msc