Ex Parte Urdang

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 28, 2017

13916420 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 28, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
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
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/916,420 06/12/2013 Erik Gwyn Urdang 0465-US-01 1092
83579 7590 01/02/2018
LEVEL 3 COMMUNICATIONS, LLC
Attn: Patent Docketing
1025 Eldorado Blvd.
Broomfield, CO 80021
EXAMINER
JEON, JAE UK
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2193
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/02/2018 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):
patent, docketing @ leve!3. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ERIK GWYN URDANG
Appeal 2017-008378
Application 13/916,420
Technology Center 2100
Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, HUNG H. BUI, and JON M. JURGOVAN,
Administrative Patent Judges.
KRIVAK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
final rejection of claims 1—20, which are all the claims pending in the
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Level 3 Communications,
LLC.
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Application 13/916,420
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant’s invention relates to systems and methods for “generating
generic data patterns or structures that may be used to generate data-driven
objects for subsequent use in software development” to “design the
anticipated behavior of a software application” (Abstract).
Claims 1, 7, and 13 are independent. Independent claim 1,
reproduced below, is exemplary of the subject matter on appeal.
1. A system comprising:
a memory; and
at least one processor interacting with the memory to:
define one or more generic objects in a standard data
format;
generate an application implemented based on the
one or more generic objects; and
update the one or more generic objects by removing
or adding an attribute in a data representation
corresponding to at least one of the one or more generic
objects, thereby changing the functionality of the
application by adding, removing, modifying, or updating
a human interactive feature from user interface without
generating a new version of the application.
REFERENCES and REJECTIONS2
(1) The Examiner rejected claims 1,5, 7, 11, 13, and 17 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 based upon the teachings of Getchius (US 6,496,843 Bl;
issued Dec. 17, 2002) and Paas (US 7,174,361 Bl; issued Feb. 6, 2007).
2 Claims 19 and 20 were rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) or
35 U.S.C. § 112 (pre-AIA), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the
written description requirement (Final Act. 2.) However, this rejection was
withdrawn in the Examiner’s Answer, and is no longer pending on appeal
(Ans. 3, 11).
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(2) The Examiner rejected claims 6, 12, and 18 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 based upon the teachings of Getchius, Paas, and Schmitter
(US 7,168,062 Bl; issued Jan. 23, 2007).
(3) The Examiner rejected claims 2—4, 8—10, and 14—16 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 based upon the teachings of Getchius, Paas, and Patnode
(US 7,475,032 Bl; issued Jan. 6, 2009).
(4) The Examiner rejected claims 19 and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103
based upon the teachings of Getchius, Paas, Schmitter, and Vishnia-Shabtai
(US 2007/0061427 Al; published Mar. 15, 2007).
ANALYSIS
With respect to claim 1, Appellant contends the Examiner’s
combination of Getchius and Paas does not teach or suggest a memory to
update the one or more generic objects . . . thereby changing the
functionality of the application without seneratins a new version of the
application’” (Br. 6). Particularly, Appellant argues “the ‘generic objects’
referenced in . . . Getchius can only be undated by also updating the
purported ‘application’ (e.g., the PHTML script code),” in contrast to
Appellant’s “claim 1 [that] recites: ‘updating the one or more generic objects
. . . without generating a new version of the application’” (Br. 8 (citing
Getchius col. 1,11. 62—67; col. 7,11. 49-57; col. 21,11. 7—25)). Appellant
argues Paas does not teach “generic objects” and an “application” generated
based on generic objects, as claimed (Br. 10—12). Rather, Paas merely
discloses a script that “cannot correspond to a generic object because a
generic object includes a representation of data only, decoupled from logical
components, and the script of Paas combines the data with the logical
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components” (Br. 12 (citing Paas col. 1,11. 62—65; col. 10,11. 40-41)).
Lastly, Appellant asserts the Examiner’s combination of Getchius and Paas
is improper and frustrates the purpose of claim 1 because “Paas . . .
combines data with logical components in its script. Paas therefore teaches
doing essentially the opposite from what is taught in the present
application’s specification by [Paas’] combining the two elements (logic and
data) that the present application states should be segregated” (Br. 12). We
do not agree.
We agree with and adopt the Examiner’s findings as our own.
Particularly, we agree with the Examiner that Getchius “define[s] one or
more generic objects in a standard data format” as claimed, by “storing
each item of data as a generic object” represented by a “script [such as
HTML] . . . indicating] handling of attributes and fields of each generic
object” of various data types (Final Act. 3 (citing Getchius col. 1,11. 59—67;
col. 6,11. 5—9; col. 7,11. 49—53); Ans. 5—6 (citing Getchius col. 21,11. 4—28;
col. 22,11. 30-64)).
Appellant does not rebut the Examiner’s finding that Getchius teaches
the claimed “generic objects” (Ans. 6—7). Rather, Appellant argues Paas
does not teach “generic objects, of which data-driven objects are a type,
[which] may contain only data, and not programming logic” or any
“logical components” (Br. 11—12 (citing Spec. ^fl[ 19, 21, 26)). Appellant’s
argument regarding Paas is also not persuasive as that argument is not
commensurate with “generic objects” as recited in claim 1 and, likewise, as
described in Appellant’s Specification (Ans. 9). Particularly, Appellant’s
Specification does not exclude logical components from “generic objects”;
rather, Appellant’s Specification excludes logical components from “data-
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driven objects”—which are not recited in claim 1 (Ans. 9; see Spec. 1119,
21, 26).3
We are also not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments that Getchius’
generic objects “can only be undated by also updating the purported
‘application’ (e.g., the PHTML script code),” in contrast to Appellant’s
“claim 1 [which] recites: ‘updating the one or more generic objects . . .
without generating a new version of the application’” (Br. 8). Appellant’s
arguments do not address the Examiner’s specific findings that the
application in Getchius is the “GTE Superpages online system (online
yellow page system)'1'’ displaying business listings generated based on generic
objects (Ans. 5—6 (citing Getchius col. 21,11. 4—28; col. 26,11. 61—65; Fig. 3)
(emphasis added)). We agree with the Examiner’s findings. Getchius’ GTE
Superpages interface is commensurate with the description of “application”
in Appellant’s Specification.4
3 Appellant’s Specification describes “generating data-driven objects that
effectively decouple the data of a[sic] object from its logical components
(e.g.[,] methods),” such that a “data-driven object includes a representation
of data only” (see Spec. H 19, 21 (emphases added)). Additionally,
“generated generic data-driven data objects may be implemented in a
standard data format, such as according to an extensible markup language
(‘XML’),” but “such an implementation is not intended to be limiting in any
way. Rather, it is contemplated that other types of data formats may be
implemented, some of which include JavaScript object notation (‘JSON’),
ordered graph data language (‘OGDL’), comma-separated values (‘CSV’),
and yet another markup language (‘YAML’), among others” (see Spec. 126
(emphases added)).
4 Appellant’s Specification provides that “[a]ny software generated from the
source code, which may be any type of software application . . . may process,
analyze, and/or otherwise access the generated data-driven objects,” and
“[i]n one particular embodiment, the generated application may be a
graphical user-interface including various interactive elements, such as
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We also agree with the Examiner that Getchius updates generic
objects without generating (e.g., recompiling) a new version of the
application (Ans. 5—6). Particularly,
the generic objects [of Getchius] are updated via adding or
removing object attributes ... by updating the script or PHTML
to effect the GUI changes [i.e. [,] color features changes] . . .
without changing the application code or recompiling the web
application, which is GTE Superpages online system . . . [and]
this technique provides for rapid integration of new data types
[generic data objects] without requiring recompilation or code
changes in source code which uses instances of data that include
the additional data types
(Ans. 5—6 (citing Getchius col. 1,11. 40-56; col. 9,11. 1—8; col. 22,11. 30-
64)). Appellant’s arguments have not addressed the Examiner’s findings.
Additionally, Paas discloses “user-interface components [the generic objects
for human interactive features] . . . can be updated . . . without having to
rewrite and recompile the application code” of applications using the
updated user-interface components, thereby also suggesting “without
generating a new version of the application” (Ans. 7—8 (citing Paas col. 11,
11. 49-55)).
Appellant argues Paas frustrates the purpose of claim 1 because Paas
“combin[es] the two elements (logic and data) that the present application
states should be segregated” (see Br. 12). This argument is not persuasive
because the claimed “generic objects” do not require segregation of logic
and data, as discussed supra.
buttons, forms, fields, selections, inputs, streams, etc., that are data-driven
by the generic data objects generated by the processing device” (see Spec.
130 (emphases added)).
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In light of the broad terms recited in claim 1 and the arguments
presented, Appellant has failed to clearly distinguish the claimed invention
over the prior art relied on by the Examiner. Thus, we sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1, independent claims 7 and 13
for which Appellant provides substantially the same arguments, and
dependent claims 2—6, 8—12, and 14—20, not separately argued (Br. 13—14).
DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting 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)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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