Okta, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 8, 2021

2019004823 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 8, 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.
14/919,500 10/21/2015 Christopher Barbara 30382-30608/US 6404
758 7590 03/08/2021
FENWICK & WEST LLP
SILICON VALLEY CENTER
801 CALIFORNIA STREET
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA 94041
EXAMINER
ALMAMUN, ABDULLAH
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2431
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/08/2021 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):
PTOC@Fenwick.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte CHRISTOPHER BARBARA and RAGHURAM PAMIDIMARRI

Appeal 2019-004823
Application 14/919,500
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before JOHN A. EVANS, JOYCE CRAIG, and SCOTT E. BAIN,
Administrative Patent Judges.

EVANS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL1
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final decision to reject Claims 1, 2, 4–13, and 16–23.2 Appeal Br. 2.
Claims 3, 14, and 15 are canceled. Id. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6.
We REVERSE.3

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies Okta, Inc., as the real party in interest.
Appeal Br. 2.
2 The Examiner finds Claims 1–8, 10–13, 15–18, and 20–23 stand rejected.
Non-Final Act. 8. We find this statement to be harmless error in view of the
cancellation of Claims 3 and 14.
3 Throughout this Decision, we refer to the Appeal Brief filed December 21,
2018 (“Appeal Br.”); the Reply Brief filed May 30, 2019 (“Reply Br.”); the
Non-Final Office Action mailed March 28, 2018 (“Non-Final Act.”); the
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Application 14/919,500

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims relate to a method for managing third-party applications.
See Abstract.
CLAIMS
Claims 1 and 12 are independent. Claim 1 is illustrative and
reproduced below:
1. A computer-implemented method of a server, the method
comprising:
storing a user lifecycle application programming
interface (API) that declares but does not define a plurality of
user lifecycle functions for accessing data of users of third-
party applications, the user lifecycle API implemented as an
interface of a programming language;
storing a plurality of lifecycle code modules
corresponding to the plurality of third-party applications and
including code providing third-party application-specific
implementations of each of the user lifecycle functions of the
interface, each of the third-party applications having a
corresponding lifecycle code module, the code of a first one of
the lifecycle code modules differing from the code of a second,
different one of the lifecycle code modules;
identifying an occurrence of a user lifecycle event;
identifying a first user of an organization associated with
the user lifecycle event;
mapping the user lifecycle event to a function of the user
lifecycle API associated with the user lifecycle event;

Examiner’s Answer mailed April 10, 2019 (“Ans.”); and the Specification
filed October 21, 2015 (“Spec.”).
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Application 14/919,500

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identifying, as a subset of the third-party applications,
third-party applications to which the organization has granted
the first user access; and
for each third-party application of the identified subset:
identifying the lifecycle code module
corresponding to the third-party application, and calling
code of the identified lifecycle code module that
implements the mapped function, thereby making a
change to data of the user in the third-party application,
the data of the user in the third-party application being
stored in a database of the third-party application that is
remote from the server.

REFERENCES

Name4 Reference Date
Anand US 8,667,024 B2 Mar. 4, 2014
Charyk US 9,477,737 B1 Oct. 25. 20165
Thomason US 2016/0330138 A1 Nov. 10, 20166

REJECTIONS7 AT ISSUE8
1. Claims 1, 2, 4–8, 10–13, 16–18, and 20–239 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Anand and Charyk. Non-

4 All citations herein to the references are by reference to the first named
inventor/author only.
5 Filed November 19, 2014.
6 Filed May 7, 2015.
7 The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being
examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. Final Act. 2.
8 The Examiner has withdrawn the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Ans.
3.
9 Claims 3, 14, and 15 are canceled. Appeal Br. 2.
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Final Act. 8–18.
2. Claims 9 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious over Anand, Charyk, and Thomason. Non-Final Act.
18–19.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the rejections of Claims 1, 2, 4–13, and 16–23 in
light of Appellant’s arguments that the Examiner erred. We are persuaded of
error. We provide the following explanation to highlight and address
specific arguments and findings primarily for emphasis. We consider
Appellant’s arguments as they are presented in the Appeal Brief and the
Reply Brief.
CLAIMS 1, 2, 4–8, 10–13, 16–18, AND 20–23:
OBVIOUSNESS OVER ANAND AND CHARYK.
Appellant argues these claims as a group specifically over the
recitations of Claim 1. App. Br. 17 (“Independent claim 12 recites
substantively similar limitations to those of independent claim 1 . . . [t]he
remaining claims depend from either claim 1 or claim 12 and overcome the
applied references for at least the same reasons.”). Therefore, we decide the
appeal of the § 103 rejections on the basis of Claim 1 and refer to the
rejected claims collectively herein as “the claims.” See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(iv); In re King, 801 F.2d 1324, 1325 (Fed. Cir. 1986).

Claim 1 recites, inter alia, “storing a user lifecycle application
programming interface (API) that declares but does not define a plurality of
user lifecycle functions for accessing data of users of third-party
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applications, the user lifecycle API implemented as an interface of a
programming language.”
The Examiner acknowledges Appellant’s prior contention that the
prior art fails to teach the claimed “application programming interface (API)
that declares but does not define a plurality of user lifecycle functions.”
Non-Final Act. 5 (“Examiner respectfully disagrees with applicant’s
assertion. Applicant is arguing a point that is not supported by the
application provided specification.”). The Examiner “interprets the terms
‘defining’ or ‘declaring’ as synonymous.” Non-final Act. 7.
To teach this limitation, the Examiner finds Anand discloses “shared
data management (SDM)” which “provides a common platform for
independent software vendors published applications i.e., ‘third-party
applications’ to share data.” Non-Final Act. 8 (citing Anand, col. 3, ll. 1–
27). The Examiner does not cite the prior art as teaching the claimed
“application programming interface (API) that declares but does not define a
plurality of user lifecycle functions,” because the Examiner “interprets the
terms ‘defining’ or ‘declaring’ as synonymous.” Non-Final Act. 7.
Appellant contends “a person having ordinary skill in the art
understands that ‘declaring’ and ‘defining’ functions are not synonymous,
and as such it is improper to assert that these actions are equivalent.”
Appeal Br. 13. Appellant argues these two concepts:
have been well-known in computer science for decades. For
example, the seminal work The C Book, 2nd Ed., by Mike
Banahan, Declan Brady, and Mark Doran, pub. 1991, clearly
teaches these basic computer science concepts. Section 2.5,
“Declaration of Variables,” and Section 4.2.1, “Declaring
Functions,” teach these concepts. In particular, Section 4.2.1
states “you turn a function declaration into a definition by
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providing a body for the function in the form of a compound
statement.” These concepts are known to persons having
ordinary skill in the art and need not be explicitly defined in the
Specification.
Id. Appellant argues these concepts are supported by the Specification. Id.
(citing Spec., ¶ 27) (“the ingest module 205 precompiles the code of the user
lifecycle code module 104, thereby verifying that the code module 104
properly implements the lifecycle API (e.g., that all the required functions
are defined, that the proper arguments are provided, and that the proper
return types are specified).”
In view of Appellant’s arguments, the Examiner agrees the
Specification supports the claimed distinction between “defining” and
“declaring.” Ans. 3. However, the Answer does not discuss the disputed
limitation, i.e., the claimed distinction between “defining” and “declaring”
or show where the prior art teaches this limitation. See Reply Br. 2 (“the
examiner has failed to properly address the limitation ‘storing a user
lifecycle application programming interface (API) that declares but does not
define a plurality of user lifecycle functions.’”). Appellant argues:
The Office Action at p. 7 objected to this language and
improperly equated “defining” and “declaring” functions. As
the Examiner’s Answer has withdrawn the objection, the
examiner can no longer interpret “defining” and “declaring”
functions as synonymous. Because the examiner uses an
incorrect interpretation of “defining” and “declaring” functions,
the rejection fails to show, for example, “storing a user lifecycle
application programming interface (API) that declares but does
not define a plurality of user lifecycle functions for accessing
data of users of third-party applications.
Reply Br. 2.
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We agree with Appellant. The Examiner fails to demonstrate where,
or how, the prior art teaches “storing a user lifecycle application
programming interface (API) that declares but does not define a plurality of
user lifecycle functions for accessing data of users of third-party
applications,” as claimed. Independent Claim 12 contains limitations
commensurate with those of Claim 1 as discussed above. In view of the
foregoing, we decline to sustain the rejection of Claims 1, 2, 4–8, 10–13,
16–18, and 20–23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
CLAIMS 9 AND 19: OBVIOUSNESS OVER ANAND, CHARYK, AND THOMASON.
As discussed above, we find the Examiner fails to demonstrate where,
or how, Anand and Charyk teach or suggest the limitation discussed above.
The Examiner does not assert that Thomason overcomes the deficiencies of
Anand and Charyk. In view of the foregoing, we decline to sustain the
rejection of Claims 9 and 19 under
35 U.S.C. § 103.

CONCLUSION
In summary:
Claim(s)
Rejected
35
U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 2, 4–8, 10–
13, 16–18,
20–23
103
Anand, Charyk
1, 2, 4–8,
10–13, 16–
18, 20–23
9, 19 103 Anand, Charyk, Thomason 9, 19
Overall
Outcome
1, 2, 4–13,
16–23

REVERSED