Ex Parte Wilson

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 3, 2013

11153093 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 3, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte DAVID E. WILSON
____________________

Appeal 2010-012540
Application 11/153,093
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before ERIC B. CHEN, JUSTIN BUSCH, and PATRICK M. BOUCHER,
Administrative Patent Judges.

BOUCHER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2010-012540
Application 11/153,093

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a final rejection of
claims 1, 4–6, 8, 9, 11, 14–16, 18, 19, 22–24, and 26. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

Illustrative Claim
The disclosure relates to “a method, system, and computer program
product for correlating directory changes to access control modifications.”
Abs.
Claim 1 is illustrative and is reproduced below:
1. A method for correlating directory changes to access control
modifications, comprising at least one computing device for
processing the steps of:

detecting a change in a membership of a group in a
directory, wherein the group in the directory is comprised of at
least one of a user and a group of users;

determining if at least one access control list controls
access to the group in the directory, wherein the determining
results from the detected change in the membership of the
group in the directory;

logging a modification to the access control list of the
system that resulted from the detected change in the
membership of the group in the directory; and

reporting the modification to the access control list to a
security administrator.
(Emphasis added).
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Application 11/153,093

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References
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Long
Arai
US 2003/0195866 A1
US 2004/0193606 A1
Oct. 16, 2003
Sep. 30, 2004

Brandt et al., Efficient Metadata Management in Large Distributed
Storage Systems, Proceedings of the 20th IEEE / 11th NASA Goddard
Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies (MSS’03),
pp. 1–9 (2003)

Swift et al., Improving the Granularity of Access Control in Windows
NT, SACMAT'01, May 3–4, 2001, Chantilly, Virginia, USA, pp. 87–
96 (2001)

Rejections
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1, 5, 8, 9, 11, 15, 18, 19, 23, and 261 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C §103(a) as unpatentable over Brandt taken with Long and Arai.
Claims 4, 6, 14, 16, 22, and 24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C §103(a)
as unpatentable over Brandt taken with Long in view of Arai and further in
view of Swift.

1 The Final Rejection dated March 18, 2010 omits an explicit identification
of claims 8, 18, and 26 in ¶6, but includes reasons for the rejections of those
claims in ¶¶16 and 17. Appellant similarly omits an identification of these
claims in his statement of the grounds of rejection to be reviewed on appeal
(see Br. 4), but identifies them in the argumentative portion of his Brief.
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Application 11/153,093

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ISSUE
Appellant argues on pages 5–7 of his Appeal Brief that the
Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 5, 9, 11, 15, 19, and 23 under 35 U.S.C.
§103(a) are in error.2 These arguments present us with the issue of whether
the Examiner erred in finding that Long discloses “determining if at least
one access control list controls access to the group in the directory, wherein
the determining results from the detected change in the membership of the
group in the directory.”

ANALYSIS
We have reviewed Appellant’s arguments in his Appeal Brief, and
have reviewed the Examiner’s response to Appellant’s arguments. We
disagree with Appellant’s conclusion.
Appellant’s sole argument is that, contrary to the Examiner’s finding,
Long fails to disclose “determining if at least one access control list controls
access to the group in the directory, wherein the determining results from the
detected change in the membership of the group in the directory”
(highlighted in the reproduction of claim 1 supra).
Long is directed generally “to electronic file systems, and in particular
to transaction-aware caching of file system metadata for electronic file
systems” (Long ¶4). Of particular relevance is the disclosure of Long at

2 Appellant presents arguments for claims 1, 9, 11, and 19 collectively.
While other paragraphs are devoted to the remaining claims, including a
separate heading for claims 4, 6, 14, 16, 22, and 24, no additional arguments
are presented to establish separate patentability beyond a reference to the
arguments made collectively for claims 1, 9, 11, and 19. We therefore treat
claim 1 as representative. Except for our ultimate decision, the other claims
are not discussed further herein.
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¶¶114–154, which describes “permissions metadata,” with Long defining
“permissions” as “constructs used to indicate which users can perform which
operations” (¶114). Long discloses that “[o]ne technique for managing
permissions in a system with large numbers of files and [a] large number of
users involves the use of Access Control Lists (i.e., ACLs), groups and
Access Control Entries (i.e., ACEs)” (¶115). The Examiner correctly notes
Long’s teaching that
[c]hanging a single group may affect the permissions of many
ACLs. Specifically, the permissions represented by all ACLs
associated with a particular group may be affected by a change
in the membership of the group. Therefore, when a session
changes a group, all permission data for all ACLs that include
the modified group are invalidated in the uncommitted cache of
the session.

(Ans. 4–5, citing Long ¶¶148-154).
We find Appellant’s argument that “while the modification of a group
may have an affect [sic] on an ACL, this does not mean that an ACL
affected controls access to the group that was modified” (Br. 5–6)
unpersuasive. Specifically, we find that Appellant’s Specification provides a
broad construction of “access” that includes “the ability to read a file (or
some/all files in a folder), to write to a file or files, and to execute a file (if it
is an executable file, or program)” (Spec. ¶2). Applying the broadest
reasonable interpretation of “access”, we do not agree that the Examiner has
erred: “Long discloses permissions such as read, write, delete, and lock for
objects are controlled by ACLs wherein the permissions that a particular
user has relative to a file are typically determined by ‘resolving’ the ACLs
that govern access to [the] file” (Ans. 7–8, citing Long ¶¶133, 135).
Appellant’s argument insufficiently accounts for Long’s disclosure of
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“resolving” ACL’s (see Long ¶134), which provides context for its
description of actions taken in response to changes in group membership
(see ¶154).
We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in finding the
argued limitation disclosed by Long, and accordingly sustain the Examiner’s
rejection.

CONCLUSION
On the record before us, we conclude that the Examiner has not erred
in rejecting claims 1, 4–6, 8, 9, 11, 14–16, 18, 19, 22–24, and 26 under 35
U.S.C. §103(a).

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 4–6, 8, 9, 11, 14–16, 18,
19, 22–24, and 26 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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