HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

May 13, 2021

2020000574 (P.T.A.B. May. 13, 2021)

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.
14/763,190 07/24/2015 Anurag Singla 84312765 6983
146568 7590 05/13/2021
MICRO FOCUS LLC
500 Westover Drive
#12603
Sanford, NC 27330
EXAMINER
JACKSON, JENISE E
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2439
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/13/2021 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):
software.ip.mail@microfocus.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte ANURAG SINGLA and ADAM BRODY
____________________

Appeal 2020-000574
Application 14/763,1901
Technology Center 2400
____________________

Before MARC S. HOFF, JASON J. CHUNG, and JOYCE CRAIG,
Administrative Patent Judges.

HOFF, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the Examiner’s Final
rejection of claims 1–3, 6–8, 12, 16, 18, and 20.2 We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as EntIT
Software LLC. Appeal Br. 3.
2 Claims 4, 5, 9–11, 13–15, 17, and 19 have been cancelled.
Appeal 2020-000574
Application No. 14/763,190

2
Appellant’s invention is a system for displaying real-time security
events. An administrator device is coupled to a plurality of client devices.
The administrator device comprises a preferences module and an event rate
adapter module. The preferences module receives input describing how to
display a number of security events on the screen of a graphical user
interface. The event rate adapter module displays a number of more critical
security events on-screen for a relatively longer period of time than other
security events. Spec. ¶ 12. The administrator may set the level of criticality
of a type of security event such that said type will remain displayed on the
graphical user interface until an input acknowledges the security event. Id.
¶¶ 39, 40.
Claim 1 is reproduced below:
1. A system comprising:
a processor; and
a non-transitory computer-readable data storage medium
storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause
the processor to:
receive data describing a first rating associated with a
first subset of a plurality of security events of a computer
network and a second rating associated with a second subset of
the plurality of security events, wherein the first and second
ratings correspond to the first subset of the plurality of security
events being more critical than the second subset of the
plurality of security events;
display security events of the plurality of security events in a
window;
Appeal 2020-000574
Application No. 14/763,190

3
scroll the security events displayed in the window; and
control the scrolling of the security events displayed in
the window such that at least a portion of the security events of
the first subset remain displayed in the window until an input
acknowledges the respective security events, and
unacknowledged security events of the second subset are
scrolled off the window.
Appeal Br. 22, Claims App.

The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence is:

Name Reference Date
Yun et al.
(“Yun”)
US 2010/0172327 A1 July 8, 2010
Hardt US 2010/0180001 A1 July 15, 2010
Smith et al.
(“Smith”)
US 2010/0099500 A1 Apr. 28, 2011
Wong et al.
(“Wong”)
US 2013/0117353 A1 May 9, 2013

Claims 1, 3, 6, 8, 12, 16, 18, and 203 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Hardt and Yun. Final Act. 6.4

3 The Examiner’s Statement of Rejection does not mention claims 16, 18,
and 20. The explanation of the rejection makes clear, however, that claims
16, 18, and 20 remain rejected under § 103. Final Act. 9. We, therefore,
interpret the Examiner’s Statement of Rejection as including claims 16, 18,
and 20.
4 The Examiner has withdrawn the previous rejection of claims 1–3, 6–8,
12, 16, 18, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Ans. 3.
Appeal 2020-000574
Application No. 14/763,190

4
Claims 2 and 7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Hardt, Yun, and Wong. Final Act. 9.
Throughout this decision, we make reference to the Appeal Brief filed
February 20, 2019 (“Appeal Br.”); the Reply Brief filed November 1, 2019
(“Reply Br.”); the Examiner’s Answer mailed September 4, 2019 (“Ans.”);
and the Original Specification, filed July 24, 2015 (“Spec.”) for their
respective details.
ISSUE
Does the combination of Hardt and Yun teach or suggest controlling
the scrolling of security events displayed in the window such that at least a
portion of the security events of the first subset remain displayed in the
window until an input acknowledges the respective security events?

ANALYSIS
Claims 1, 3, 6, 8, 12, 16, 18, and 20
Independent claims 1, 6, and 12 each recite, in pertinent part,
controlling the scrolling of security events displayed in a window such that
“at least a portion of the security events of the first subset remain displayed
in the window until an input acknowledges the respective security events.”
The Examiner finds that Yun teaches this limitation. Final Act. 7–8. In
the portion of Yun relied upon by the Examiner, Yun teaches a method for
receiving a broadcasting signal including receiving emergency alert table
information describing an emergency alert message. Yun ¶ 13. The
emergency alert table information includes an
“‘alert_message_time_remaining’ field [that] indicates the residual output
time of the emergency alert message. For example, the residual output time
Appeal 2020-000574
Application No. 14/763,190

5
may be set in the unit of 0 to 120 seconds.” The field thus indicates the
amount of time that the emergency alert message is displayed “until original
broadcast service returns.” Yun ¶ 147, Fig. 11.
The Examiner rejects Appellant’s argument that Yun does not teach
the limitation “until an input acknowledges the respective security events.”
Appeal Br. 5. In response to Appellant’s argument that “the prior art of Yun
fails to contemplate an input from a user,” the Examiner finds that “input
from a user” is not recited in the rejected claims. Appeal Br. 19; Ans. 4. The
Examiner finds that the expiration of the duration of the alert message time
in Yun corresponds to the claim limitation “until an input acknowledges,”
and that Yun teaches terminating display of the emergency alert when the
alert_message_time_remaining expires. Ans. 5.
Appellant’s Specification does not define the term “input.” Appellant
discloses processor 110 that can “accept and send input to the client
devices.” Spec. ¶ 19. Appellant discloses that in an embodiment, certain
security events appear on the screen of the graphical user interface “until
specifically addressed or acknowledged by a user of the administrator
device,” by, for example, “clicking on them with a mouse or taking steps to
address the security event.” Spec. ¶ 22. “In one example, a user of the
administrator device (Fig. 1, 105) may have to manually acknowledge the
sticky events for them to disappear.” Spec. ¶ 30.
In the absence of an intrinsic definition of “input” within Appellant’s
Specification, we turn to extrinsic evidence to construe the term. The
Microsoft Computer Dictionary5 defines “input” (noun form) as

5 Microsoft Computer Dictionary, Fifth Ed., 274, 2002.
Appeal 2020-000574
Application No. 14/763,190

6
“information entered into a computer or program for processing, as from a
keyboard or from a file stored on a disk drive.”
While we agree with the Examiner that the claims do not recite input
from a user, and that limitations from the specification are not read into the
claims, we find that the cited portions of Yun teach a system that causes an
emergency alert to be displayed for a fixed period of seconds defined by the
value of the alert_message_time_remaining field. We find that the cited
portions of Yun do not teach an input, i.e. some information entered, e.g.,
from a keyboard or from a file stored on a disk drive, that acknowledges a
security event, as a condition for the display of said security event to be
discontinued. Id. In general terms, an acknowledgement of a condition
necessarily occurs in response to the occurrence of the condition; one cannot
acknowledge a condition that has not yet occurred. Stated another way, the
claimed acknowledgement occurs after a condition precedent occurs. Even if
one were to construe the alert_message_time_remaining field of the cited
portions of Yun as an input from a file stored on a disk drive or other storage
medium, we find that it is not reasonable to construe field information, sent
concurrently with the emergency alert in Yun, as constituting an
acknowledgment of that emergency alert.
We therefore find that the combination of Hardt and Yun fails to teach
or suggest all the limitations of independent claims 1, 6, and 12. We do not
sustain the Examiner’s § 103 rejection of claims 1, 3, 6, 8, 12, 16, 18, and
20.
Claims 2 and 7
Claims 2 and 7 depend respectively from independent claims 1 and 6.
The Examiner does not find that Wong teaches the “input” limitation
Appeal 2020-000574
Application No. 14/763,190

7
deemed to be lacking from Hardt and Yun supra. Therefore, we do not
sustain the Examiner’s § 103(a) rejection of claims 2 and 7 over Hardt, Yun,
and Wong, for the same reasons given supra with respect to claims 1 and 6.

CONCLUSION
The combination of Hardt and Yun does not teach or suggest
controlling the scrolling of security events displayed in the window such that
at least a portion of the security events of the first subset remain displayed in
the window until an input acknowledges the respective security events.
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–3, 6–8, 12, 16, 18, and 20
is reversed.

DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:

Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis  Affirmed Reversed
1, 3, 6, 8, 12,
16, 18, 20
103(a) Hardt, Yun 1, 3, 6, 8, 12,
16, 18, 20
2, 7 103(a) Hardt, Yun, Wong 2, 7
Overall
Outcome

1–3, 6–8, 12,
16, 18, 20

REVERSED