Ex Parte Tripathi

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 29, 2014

11597674 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 29, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte SHAILENDRA TRIPATHI ____________________ Appeal 2012-004660 Application 11/597,674 Technology Center 2100 ____________________ Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, and JASON J. CHUNG, Administrative Patent Judges. STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2012-004660 Application 11/597,674 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 1, 3, 5–17, 19, and 20. Claims 2, 4, and 18 are canceled. We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. THE INVENTION The claims are directed to pathname translation in a file system. Abst. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter (disputed limitations emphasized in italics): 1. A pathname translation system for translating a path name that comprises one or more components, the system comprising: a central processing unit (CPU) on which a file system and an operating system run; wherein said operating system operable to perform pathname translation by: searching for said components in a directory cache that contains pathname translations for directories in said file system; and searching said file system for any components not located in said directory cache; wherein said operating system is further configured to search a name cache for said components before searching said directory cache, wherein said searching of said directory cache comprises a search only for components not located in said name-cache. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Sim US 2002/0133491 A1 Sept. 19, 2002 Appeal 2012-004660 Application 11/597,674 3 Harmer US 7,103,616 B1 Sept. 5, 2006 (filed Feb. 19, 2003) REJECTIONS1,2 The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1, 3, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15–17, 19, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Harmer. Ans. 4–13. Claims 5–7, 10, 11, and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Harmer and Sim. Ans. 13–17. APPELLANT’S CONTENTIONS 1. Harmer’s access of inode table 34 to identify cookies 74 that do not match corresponding cookies 66 of DNLC entry 60 is a search of 1 Appellant argues the rejection of claim 1, asserting that “[o]ne or more of [these] arguments also apply to the other independent claims and their dependent claims as well.” App. Br. 16. We find such general assertion fails to provide the specificity of argument required by our Rule 41.37. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2011) (“[T]he failure of appellant to separately argue claims which appellant has grouped together shall constitute a waiver of any argument that the Board must consider the patentability of any grouped claim separately.”); see also In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“We conclude that the Board has reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to require applicants to articulate more substantive arguments if they wish for individual claims to be treated separately.”). Therefore, based on Appellant’s arguments, we decide the appeal of claims 1, 3, 5–17, 19, and 20 based on claim 1 alone. 2 We have decided the Appeal before us, however, in the event of further prosecution, the Examiner should evaluate claims 19 and 20 in light of In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2007); Subject Matter Eligibility of Computer Readable Media, 1351 Off. Gaz. Pat. Office 212 (Feb. 23, 2010). We note that since Appellants’ Specification states, “essentially any data storage medium will suffice,” this possibly includes a transitory data storage medium. Spec. 10:33. Appeal 2012-004660 Application 11/597,674 4 inode table 34 such that Harmer fails to disclose the disputed limitation of performing a search only for components not located in the name-cache. App. Br. 15–16. 2. Because “one of ordinary skill in the art would understand, a directory cache is not the same as an inode table,” Harmer’s inode table does not disclose the claimed directory cache. App. Br. 16. ISSUES ON APPEAL Based on Appellant’s arguments in the Appeal Brief (App. Br. 14–16) and Reply Brief (Reply Br. 1–2), the issues presented on appeal are: 1. Whether the Examiner erred in finding Harmer discloses searching “only for components [of the pathname to be translated] not located in said name-cache.” 2. Whether the Examiner erred in interpreting the disputed directory cache to include and be disclosed by Harmer’s inode table. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellant’s conclusions. We adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken (Ans. 4–17) and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief (Ans. 18–22) and concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the following for emphasis. Appeal 2012-004660 Application 11/597,674 5 Appellant contends Harmer’s “technique for determining whether a DNLC entry 60 is valid—by comparing the entry’s cookie 66 to the cookie 74 in the corresponding inode 70” fails to disclose “the hierarchical pathname component search requirements of claim 1 in which a name cache is searched for a pathname component and then, if the component is not found, a directory cache is searched for the unfound pathname component.” App. Br. 15–16. Appellant argues, Hammer’s inode Table 34 (equated to the claimed directory cache per the Examiner) is always searched when the DNLC 32 is accessed and is so accessed to validate the cookie 66 in the DNLC. Claim 1, by contrast requires the directory cache to be searched “only for [directory pathname] components not located in said name-cache.” Reply Br. 2. The Examiner responds by construing claim 1, finding under a broad but reasonable interpretation, the caches of claim 1 are included in and thereby disclosed by “areas of memory storing small quantities of data in order to speed up access time.” Ans. 18. Contrary, to Appellant’s argument, the Examiner finds no requirement for the caches to be arranged in a multi- level or hierarchical structure. Id. The Examiner further finds “the type of data stored in the cache is given no patentable weight . . . because the functionality of string and searching data in a cache is the same regardless of what type of data is stored in the cache.” Id. Absent persuasive evidence or argument from Appellant in rebuttal, we find the Examiner’s interpretation of terms and resulting claim construction to be reasonable. Addressing Appellant’s contention 1, the Examiner finds Harmer first searches the Directory Name Lookup Cache (DNLC, i.e., “name cache”) for a portion of a file path name. Ans. 22. Next, a validation search is Appeal 2012-004660 Application 11/597,674 6 performed via the inode table (i.e., “directory table”) for a validated cookie that is not stored in the DNLC or name cache. Id. Accordingly, the Examiner concludes Harmer anticipates claim 1. Id. We agree with the Examiner. Claim 1 requires searching of the directory cache comprises a search only for components not located in said name-cache. This “open-ended” language permits the performance of additional actions including searches so that claim 1 does not exclude also searching for components that are located in the name-cache. Furthermore, while Harmer may access the inode table (i.e., “directory table”) for each DNLC entry found, the reason the inode table is accessed is to make comparisons and, thus, find invalid entries by searching for a mismatch between the values of cookies 66 and 74. Harmer col. 6, ll. 58–67. Finding the mismatch by comparing the cookies is equivalent to searching for similarities and differences. That is, the process of searching for invalid entries includes searching for cookies 74 stored in inode 70 (“directory table”) that are not stored in the corresponding DNLC entry (i.e., in the “name cache”) based on a comparison of cookies failing to find a match. Therefore, a broad but reasonable interpretation of the disputed claim language of searching of said directory cache comprises a search only for components not located in said name-cache includes and is thereby disclosed by Harmer’s system for identifying invalid DNLC entries. Accordingly, Appellant’s contention 1 is not persuasive of Examiner error in connection with claim 1. Because the disputed limitation argued in connection with Appellant’s contention 1 is not present in claims 3, 5–17, 19, or 20, Appellant’s arguments are not relevant to those claims. Appeal 2012-004660 Application 11/597,674 7 In connection with contention 2, Appellant argues “it is not reasonable to interpret the claim term ‘directory cache’ to include inodes or inode tables as the Examiner has done.” App. Br. 16. According to Appellant, “one of ordinary skill in the art would understand, a directory cache is not the same as an inode table” because “a directory cache contains information usable to locate relevant inodes.” Id. The Examiner responds by finding, in contrast to Appellant’s argument, claim 1 only requires that a directory cache contains pathway translations for the directories in the file system. Ans. 19– 20. The Examiner further finds Harmer’s inode table provides a means for caching on-disk inodes and “[t]he inodes cached in the inode table of Fig. 2, element 34 [of Harmer] comprise data stored in a directory cache [inode table stored in memory] that is used to access a file or directory [inodes used to locate files].” Ans. 20. We agree with the Examiner. Claim 1 only requires the directory cache contain pathway translation for the directories in the file system, not the location of inodes as argued. Appellant neither provided sufficient evidence that the directory cache of claim 1 necessarily includes the argued information usable to locate relevant inodes nor replied to the Examiner’s response addressing this issue in its Reply Brief. Therefore, in the absence of sufficient evidence or line of reasoning rebutting the Examiner’s findings, we find contention 2 unpersuasive of error. For the reasons supra we are unpersuaded of Examiner error. Accordingly, we sustain the rejections of independent claim 1 and, for the same reasons, independent claims 3, 9, 13, 15–17, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Harmer together with the rejections of dependent claims 8 and 12 not separately argued. We further Appeal 2012-004660 Application 11/597,674 8 sustain the rejection of dependent claims 5–7, 10, 11, and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Harmer and Sim, these dependent claims also not separately argued. CONCLUSIONS We find 1. The Examiner did not err in finding Harmer discloses searching “only for components [of the pathname to be translated] not located in said name-cache.” 2. The Examiner did not err in interpreting the disputed directory cache to include and be disclosed by Harmer’s inode table. 3. The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1, 3, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15– 17, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Harmer 4. The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 5–7, 10, 11, and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Harmer and Sim. DECISION The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 3, 5–17, 19, and 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)(1)(iv) (2011). AFFIRMED msc