John Griffith et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 30, 2021

2020005847 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 30, 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.
13/458,281 04/27/2012 John A. Griffith AUS920120038US1 2835
104079 7590 12/30/2021
IBM CORPORATION - Patent Center
1701 North Street
B/256-3
Endicott, NY 13760
EXAMINER
COUGHLAN, PETER D
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2121
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/30/2021 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):
fdciplaw@us.ibm.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JOHN A GRIFFITH, ROBERT P. PETERSON,
PHILIP R. RIEDEL, and DAVID L. SCHMIDT
Appeal 2020-005847
Application 13/458,281
Technology Center 2100

Before JENNIFER S. BISK, JENNIFER L. McKEOWN, and
NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges.
BISK, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1
I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant2 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 8–19 and 26–32. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 Throughout this Decision, we have considered the Specification filed April
27, 2012 (“Spec.”), the Final Office Action mailed November 27, 2019
(“Final Act.”), the Appeal Brief filed April 21, 2020 (“Appeal Br.”), the
Examiner’s Answer mailed June 24, 2020 (“Ans.”), and the Reply Brief
filed August 9, 2020 (“Reply Br.”).
2 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as International
Business Machines Corporation. Appeal Br. 2.
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II. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to “discovering a grouping related computing
resources using machine learning.” Spec. Abstract. Claim 8, reproduced
below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
8. A system, comprising
a processor unit;
logic executable by the processor unit to:
discover and identify computing resources
deployed in a computing environment;
store, in a repository, a dataset of configuration
items corresponding to the discovered and identified
computing resources representing an infrastructure of the
computing environment;
analyze a grouped unit of at least two of the
configuration items from the repository;
determine a network relationship between the
configuration items of the grouped unit based on the
analysis of the grouped unit;
create a rule based on the determined network
relationship;
apply the rule to the repository;
identify another configuration item in the
repository related to the configuration items of the
grouped unit based on the application of the rule to the
repository; and
responsive to identifying another configuration
item in the repository based on the application of the rule,
include the identified configuration item in the grouped
unit.
Appeal Br. 33 (Claims App.).
III. REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:
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Name Reference Date
Riosa US 2002/0120734 A1 Aug. 29, 2002
Huang US 2003/0071840 A1 Apr. 17, 2003
Nguyen US 2010/0074141 A1 Mar. 25, 2010
Arkin US 2010/0315975 A1 Dec. 16, 2010
Yamato US 2011/0317701 Al Dec. 29, 2011
Oostlander US 2011/0320540 A1 Dec. 29, 2011
IV. REJECTIONS
Claims 8, 10, 15, 17, 26, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Arkin and Riosa. Final Act. 2–15.
Claims 9, 16, and 27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Arkin, Riosa, and Oostlander. Id. at 15–19.
Claims 12–14 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Arkin, Riosa, and Huang. Id. at 19–23.
Claims 30–32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Arkin, Riosa, and Nguyen. Id. at 23–26.
Claims 11, 18, and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Arkin, Riosa, and Yamato. Id. at 26–29.
V. RELATED APPEAL
This appeal is related to Appeal 2020-005848, decided concurrently,
which involves Application 13/767,687, of which this application is a
continuation.
VI. OPINION
We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues
identified by Appellant, and in light of the corresponding arguments and
evidence. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010)
(precedential).
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A. Claims 8, 15, and 26
The Examiner rejects independent claims 8, 15, and 26 as obvious
over the combination of Arkin and Riosa. Final Act. 3–6, 7. Appellant
focuses the discussion on claim 8 (Appeal Br. 5–14) and we do the same.
Although Appellant appears to argue claim 26 separately, the arguments are
substantially the same as those for claim 8. Compare Appeal Br. 5–14 with
id. at 14–24.
The Examiner relies on Arkin as teaching claim 8’s recitations of
discovering and identifying computing resources deployed in a computing
environment and storing, in a repository, a dataset of configuration items
corresponding to those discovered resources. Final Act. 3–4 (citing Arkin
Abstract, ¶ 41). The Examiner elaborates “[t]he nodes in Arkin are
computing resources such as a switch, a router, a host, a printer, a terminal,
etc.” Ans. 6 (citing Arkin ¶ 32).
The Examiner relies on Riosa as teaching the remaining limitations: a
processor unit, analyzing a grouped unit of at least two of the configuration
items from the repository, determining a network relationship between the
items of the grouped unit, creating a rule based on the determined network
relationship, applying that rule to the repository to identify another
configuration item related to those of the grouped unit, and including that
item in the grouped unit. Id. at 4–6 (citing Riosa Fig. 8, ¶¶ 21, 23, 54, 121,
125). The Examiner points to paragraph 32 of the Specification as stating
that configuration items include “hardware, middleware, software, network
switches, and the like.” Ans. 4 (quoting Spec ¶ 32). Further, the Examiner
explains that each event in Riosa “is associated with an event source that
identifies various system components” and that the event nodes in Riosa’s
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correlation diagram (Figure 3) “correspond to the claimed configuration
items” and “represent infrastructure computing resources.” Ans. 4–5, 7–8,
10, 12 (citing Riosa ¶¶ 11, 21). In addition, the Examiner explains that
“[t]he causal chain of events represents network relationships between the
configuration items.” Id. at 5 (citing Riosa ¶¶ 23, 54).
According to the Examiner, it would have been obvious to a skilled
artisan at the time of the invention “to modify Arkin to incorporate
automatic rule generation and application of Riosa” to gain “the advantage
of employing the rule for discovery of additional nodes.” Final Act. 6.
Appellant argues that the combination of Arkin and Riosa does not
render claim 8 obvious. Appeal Br. 5–14; Reply Br. 2–12. First, Appellant
argues that Riosa’s disclosed events are not items “representing an
infrastructure of the computing environment” as recited by claim 8. Appeal
Br. 8. In particular, Appellant “disagrees” that Figure 3 of Riosa shows
nodes representing configuration items, instead asserts that “Figure 3 of
Riosa appears to depict different types of events.” Reply Br. 2–4.
According to Appellant, Riosa, therefore, does not disclose analyzing a
grouped unit of such items and cannot determine a network relationship
between such items. Id.
Riosa discloses that each event is associated with a source (see Riosa
¶ 9) consisting of, for example “hardware device, operating system platform,
application” (id. ¶ 11). These sources qualify as configuration items, as used
by the Specification. See Spec. ¶ 32. The events shown in Riosa’s
correlation diagram, Figure 3, are also associated with a source, and,
therefore, we agree with the Examiner that the events shown in Figure 3
correspond with configuration items. Appellant’s conclusory attorney
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argument to the contrary is not persuasive. In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465,
1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997); see also In re Pearson, 494 F.2d 1399, 1405 (CCPA
1974) (attorney argument is not evidence). See also Manual of Patent
Examining Procedure (MPEP) § 2145 (“Attorney argument is not evidence
unless it is an admission, in which case, an examiner may use the admission
in making a rejection.”). In particular, Appellant does not explain or provide
evidence showing that claim 8’s recitation of configuration items does not
encompass Riosa’s event sources that include hardware devices, etc.
Second, Appellant argues that Riosa’s working rule “appears to be a
rule or template that is defined in advance of event analysis/correlation” and,
therefore, does not meet the recitations of claim 8. Appeal Br. 9. Appellant
adds that Riosa’s working rule “is not applied to any repository” and “does
not result in the inclusion of any other item with any previous grouped unit
of items” as required by claim 8. Appeal Br. 8–9.
The Examiner explains that Riosa’s “changes in severity, status,
administrators, etc. are . . . automatically filled in by the tool to create a
working rule,” and, these changes (the event causal chain) are equivalent to
the claimed “network relationship.” Ans. 14. According to the Examiner,
Riosa’s working rule “is a combination of a rule template and determined
network relationship (i.e. changes in severity and status).” Ans. 15 (citing
Riosa ¶¶ 23, 54). The Examiner also points to Riosa’s Figure 8, which
shows verifying the event network relationship and then fixing any errors.
Id. at 16 (citing Riosa Fig. 8, items 804, 806); Riosa ¶¶ 117–118. In
addition, the Examiner explains that “[w]hen the event relationship network
(ERN) is verified, the rules are check[ed] to identif[y] errors,” “[a]t step 806,
the ERN is fixed due to unsuccessful verification,” and “[t]he ERN is
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modified to include further identified item when it is fixed.” Ans. 18.
For the first time, in the Reply Brief, Appellant argues (1) that “the
‘working rule’ of Riosa relied on by the Examiner would appear to need to
be created based on a network relationship of the ‘events’ of Riosa – but it is
not,” and (2) that Riosa’s Figure 8 refers only to the initial creation of
working rules and are not based on any derived network relationship. Reply
Br. 7–8. These arguments could have been presented in the Appeal Brief,
are not prompted by the Examiner’s Answer, and are not based on any new
argument or grounds of rejection in the Examiner’s Answer. See Final Act.
5 (citing Riosa Fig. 8)). As a result, Appellant has waived this untimely
argument because Appellant has not shown good cause for belatedly raising
it. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.41(b)(2) (2019). Moreover, we agree with the
Examiner that Riosa’s (1) events correspond to the infrastructure of the
computing environment, (2) working rule is created based on a network
relationship of events, and (3) Figure 8 shows identifying and fixing errors.
Third, Appellant disagrees that “it would have been obvious to modify
Arkin with the purported teaching of Riosa ‘to incorporate automatic rule
generation’ ‘for discovery of additional nodes.’” Appeal Br. 13. According
to Appellant, Arkin has no need for automatic rule generation because it
already includes a topology detector and because Riosa’s rule is used to
determine a type of event, it would have no bearing on Arkin’s topology
detector. Id.
The Examiner responds that Arkin “performs event processing in
response to node connectivity in paragraphs 0047-48.” Id. at 19. Thus, the
Examiner does not agree that Riosa’s automatic rule generation has no
bearing on Arkin. Id. at 19–20. In the Reply Brief, Appellant does not
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address this finding of the Examiner and instead continues to assert that
“Arkin appears to be directed toward the automatic identification of nodes
connecting to or disconnecting from a network” and thus, Appellant
concludes that Riosa’s teachings have no bearing on Arkin. Reply Br. 11.
Because Appellant does not point to any error in the Examiner’s finding that
Arkin performs event processing, we are not persuaded that the Examiner
erred in concluding that a person of ordinary skill would have been
motivated to combine Riosa’s teachings with those of Arkin to provide
automatic rule generation and correlation analysis for discovery of additional
nodes.
For these reasons, Appellant’s arguments have not persuaded us of
error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 8. We also sustain the Examiner’s
obviousness rejections of claims 8, 15, and 26.
B. Claims 10, 17, and 28
Claims 10, 17, and 28 depend from claims 8, 15, and 26 respectively
and also recite “to create the rule based on a network pattern associated with
at least one of the configuration items of the grouped unit.” Appeal Br. 34,
36, 38. The Examiner relies on Riosa for this limitation. Final Act. 6 (citing
Riosa ¶ 23).
Appellant argues that Riosa’s working rule “is not based on an
infrastructure resource of a computing environment, much less a network
pattern associated at least one of the infrastructure items of an item grouping
as recited by Claim 10.” Appeal Br. 24. Appellant adds that Riosa’s
hierarchical graph “appears to be directed to a particular event’s relationship
to another event.” Id. at 24–25.
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As discussed above, we agree with the Examiner that Riosa’s events
correspond to the infrastructure of the computing environment and Riosa’s
working rule is created based on a network relationship of events.
Appellant’s conclusory attorney arguments to the contrary are not
persuasive.
For these reasons, Appellant’s arguments have not persuaded us of
error in the Examiner’s rejection of claims 10, 17, and 28.
C. Claims 9, 16, and 27
Claims 9, 16, and 27 depend from claims 8, 15, and 26 respectively.
Each adds “to create the rule based on text metadata of at least one of the
configuration items of the grouped unit.” Appeal Br. 33, 35, 37.
The Examiner relies on Oostlander as disclosing this limitation. Final
Act. 16–19 (citing Oostlander ¶ 52). Further, the Examiner explains that a
skilled artisan would have found it obvious “to modify Arkin and Riosa to
incorporate metadata with a function of a rule of Oostlander” because “the
advantage of metadata is often associated with a configuration item of a
group of configuration[] items.” Final Act. 16–17.
Appellant argues that Oostlander “appears to ‘apply’ a rule, but not
create one” and only analyzes a single node. Appeal Br. 26. This argument
is not persuasive of error because the Examiner relies on Riosa for creating a
rule by analyzing more than one node. Final Act. 15–16.
For the first time, in the Reply Brief, Appellant argues that
“Oostlander does not appear to disclose that any metadata is analyzed.”
Reply Br. 25. This argument is waived because it could have been presented
in the Appeal Brief, is not prompted by the Examiner’s Answer, and is not
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based on any new argument or grounds of rejection in the Examiner’s
Answer. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.41(b)(2) (2019).
For these reasons, Appellant’s arguments have not persuaded us of
error in the Examiner’s rejection of claims 9, 16, and 27.
D. Claims 12, 14, and 19
Claims 12 and 19 depend from claims 8 and 19 respectively and recite
“receive an acceptance or rejection of the identified configuration item for
the grouped unit” and “responsive to receiving the acceptance or rejection,
modify the rule based on the acceptance or rejection.” Appeal Br. 34, 36.
The Examiner relies on Huang as disclosing these limitations. Final Act.
19–20 (citing Huang ¶¶ 28, 59). Further, the Examiner explains that a
skilled artisan would have found it obvious “to modify Arkin and Riosa to
incorporate the ability to refine results of Huang” because it would give
better results and less computational costs. Id. at 20. The Examiner adds
that in Huang, “[s]ince the user is allowed to build and modify network
models, this would obviously allow the user to make choices to reject or
accept a proposed modification.” Ans. 37. According to the Examiner, an
example of this is Huang paragraph 249, which discloses a user can accept
or reject data entries and “[s]imilar user interface tools could be include[d]
in the NDMS GUI to allow user to modify network models.” Id. at 38.
Appellant argues that Huang does not “disclose any ‘acceptance’ or
‘rejection’ of the grouping of a new item with previously grouped items
based on the application of any rule” because they are “not added or
removed independent of developer action.” Appeal Br. 29. Appellant adds
that the removal or addition of a network element in Huang “should have no
bearing whatsoever” on Riosa’s working rule. Id. According to Appellant,
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paragraph 249 of Huang “appears to either ‘store’ the data that’s in the row
or ‘undo’ the data in the row,” and does not modify a rule based on this
action. Id.
We are not persuaded that Appellant’s argument comports with the
language of the claim. For example, we see no language in claims 12 or 19
that require the acceptance or rejection to be based on the application of a
rule or independent of developer action. As for modifying a rule, Appellant
does not address the Examiner’s finding that tools similar to that disclosed in
Huang’s paragraph 249 could be used to modify network models. See Reply
Br. 28–29. Moreover, as explained above, we agree with the Examiner that
Riosa’s working rule is created based on a network relationship of events.
Thus, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s rejections of claims
12 and 19.
Claim 14 depends from claim 8 and recites “display the rule to a
user,” “receive a modification to the rule from the user,” and “apply the
modified rule to the computing environment.” Appeal Br. 34. The
Examiner relies on Huang as disclosing these limitations. Final Act. 21–22
(citing Huang ¶¶ 28, 29).
Similar to the argument made for claims 12 and 19, Appellant argues
that “Huang does not appear to disclose any ‘modification’ of a rule based
on a network relationship between computing resource configuration items.”
Appeal Br. 30. For the same reasons as those described for claims 12 and
19, we are not persuaded by this argument of error in the Examiner’s
rejection of claim 14.
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E. Claim 11
Claim 11 depends from claim 8 and recites “wherein the logic is
executable to create the rule based on a data flow pattern corresponding to at
least one of the configuration items of the grouped unit.” Appeal Br. 34.
The Examiner relies on Yamato as disclosing this limitation. Final Act. 27
(citing Yamato ¶ 112). Further, the Examiner explains that a skilled artisan
would have found it obvious “to modify Arkin and Riosa to incorporate
network flow patterns within a computer network of Yamato” because
“network flow patterns often disclose a computer network topology and thus
subnets.” Id.
Appellant argues that “[t]he ‘processing rule’ referenced by Yamato
does not appear to be applied to any repository to identify another item in
the repository to group with any other grouped items” and even if
incorporated with Arkin and Riosa, “there would appear to be no application
of such ‘processing rule’ to identify another item in the repository to group
with any other grouped items.” Appeal Br. 27. Appellant adds that
Yamato’s processing rule “appear[s] to have no relevance to the
determination of a type of event” by Riosa’s working rule. Id.
The Examiner responds by explaining “Arkin and Riosa’s event
causal chain is a form of data flow” and “[t]he occurrence of an event on one
system component will cause the occurrence of another event at another
component.” Ans. 35. According to the Examiner, “[t]he combination of
Yamato’s forwarding path rules will allow the notifications in Arkin and
Riosa to be routed to the other nodes affected by the event.” Id. at 35–36.
In addressing this finding, Appellant “respectfully disagrees” and
reiterates that “[t]here would appear to be no reason to have an event routed
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13
to another node that may have been affected by that event.” Reply Br. 27.
This conclusory attorney argument does not persuade us of error in the
Examiner’s rejection of claim 11.
F. Claims 13, 18, 29, and 30–32
Claims 13 and 30–32 depend from claim 8, claim 18 depends from
claim 15, and claim 29 depends from claim 26. Appellant does not make
any separate arguments for these claims. See Appeal Br. 26–27 (claims 30–
32, 18, and 29), 29 (stating that claim 13 is patentable because claim 8 “is
clearly patentable over the cited references”).
We, therefore, sustain the rejection of claims 13, 18, 29, and 30–32.
CONCLUSION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejections.
DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
8, 10, 15,
17, 26, 28
103 Arkin, Riosa 8, 10, 15,
17, 26, 28

9, 16, 27 103 Arkin, Riosa,
Oostlander
9, 16, 27
12–14, 19 103 Arkin, Riosa,
Huang
12–14, 19
30–32 103 Arkin, Riosa,
Nguyen
30–32
11, 18, 29 103 Arkin, Riosa,
Yamato
11, 18, 29
Overall
Outcome
8–19, 26–32

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TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED