Red Hat, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 10, 2022

2021000243 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 10, 2022)

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. 16/036,257 07/16/2018 Stuart W. Douglas 1145-084/20181094US 9972 137131 7590 03/10/2022 Red Hat, Inc and Withrow & Terranova, PLLC 106 Pinedale Springs Way Cary, NC 27511 EXAMINER WHEATON, BRADFORD F ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2193 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/10/2022 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): patents@wt-ip.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte STUART W. DOUGLAS Appeal 2021-000243 Application 16/036,257 Technology Center 2100 Before JEAN R. HOMERE, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., and PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges. HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE1 Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant appeals from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-20, all of the pending claims.2 Claims App. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 We refer to the Specification filed July 16, 2018 (“Spec.”); the Final Office Action, mailed Nov. 26, 2019 (“Final Act.”); the Appeal Brief, filed Apr. 27, 2020 (“Appeal Br.”); the Examiner’s Answer, mailed Aug. 6, 2020 (“Ans.”); and the Reply Brief, filed Oct. 6, 2020 (“Reply Br.”). 2 “Appellant” refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies Red Hat Inc., as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 1. Appeal 2021-000243 Application 16/036,257 2 II. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER According to Appellant, the claimed subject matter relates to a method and system for automatically updating an application executing on an application server before a service request is provided to the application. Spec. ¶¶ 1, 3. In particular, after receiving an indication that a service request is directed to the application, and before providing the service request to the application, a remote agent updates the application with at least one specified file. Id. ¶¶ 27, 28. Figure 1, reproduced and discussed below, is useful for understanding the claimed subject matter: Appeal 2021-000243 Application 16/036,257 3 Figure 1 above depicts application server 26 including request processor 46 for processing service requests destined for application 38. Spec. ¶¶ 27, 28. Prior to sending a service request to application 38, request processor 46 informs remote agent 52 that it has received from local agent 50 a service request directed to application 38. Id. ¶¶ 28, 29. Upon subsequently receiving from local agent 50 at least one file 24-1 associated with application 38, remote agent 52 updates application 38 with file 24-1, and then informs request processor 46 that application 38 may receive the service request. Id. Request processor 46 then sends the service request to application 38, which then processes the service request using updated file 24-1. Id. ¶¶ 30-34. Claims 1, 12, and 17 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below with disputed limitations emphasized, is illustrative: 1. A method comprising: receiving, by a remote agent, from a request processor, an indication that a request for service has been received, the request for service being directed toward an application executing on an application server; receiving, by the remote agent from a local agent associated with a development environment, a file associated with the application; subsequent to receiving the indication that the request for service has been received, updating, by the remote agent, the application to utilize the file; and subsequent to updating the application to utilize the file, informing, by the remote agent, the request processor that the application may receive the request for service. Appeal Br. 22 (Claims App.) (emphasis added). Appeal 2021-000243 Application 16/036,257 4 III. REFERENCES The Examiner relies upon the following references.3 Name Reference Date Altberg US 6,353,928 B1 Mar. 5, 2002 Suorsa US 8,019,835 B2 Sept. 13, 2011 Umezawa US 2010/0071033 A1 Mar. 18, 2010 Smith US 2012/0102479 A1 Apr. 26, 2012 Kuzins US 2012/0246630 A1 Sept. 27, 2012 Gomilko US 2013/0268864 A1 Oct. 10, 2013 Li US 2014/0201820 A1 July 17, 2014 Elias US 2014/0245275 A1 Aug. 28, 2014 Price US 2016/0004528 A1 Jan. 7, 2016 Stolarchuk US 2016/0019044 A1 Jan. 21, 2016 Habib US 2016/0098261 A1 Apr. 7, 2016 IV. REJECTIONS The Examiner rejects the claims on appeal as follows: Claims 1, 2, 8, 11-13, 17, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combined teachings of Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, and Stolarchuk. Final Act. 5-9. Claim 3 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combined teachings of Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk, and Li. Final Act. 9. 3 All reference citations are to the first named inventor only. Appeal 2021-000243 Application 16/036,257 5 Claim 4 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combined teachings of Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk, and Habib. Final Act. 10. Claims 5, 14, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combined teachings of Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk, and Smith. Final Act. 10-11. Claim 6 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combined teachings of Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk, Smith, and Umezawa. Final Act. 11-12. Claims 7, 15, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combined teachings of Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk, and Kuzins. Final Act. 13. Claims 9 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combined teachings of Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk, and Altberg. Final Act. 14. Claim 10 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combined teachings of Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk, and Elias. Final Act. 15. V. ANALYSIS Appellant argues that the Examiner errs in finding that the combined teachings of Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, and Stolarchuk render claim 1 obvious. Appeal Br. 9-11. In particular, Appellant argues that the proposed combination of references does not teach or suggest a remote agent receiving from a request processor an indication of having received a request for service directed to an application executing on an application server, and the remote agent subsequently updating the application to utilize a file before Appeal 2021-000243 Application 16/036,257 6 informing the request processor to forward the service request to the updated application, as recited in independent claim 1. Id. According to Appellant, Gomilko’s disclosure of a remote agent receiving a copy of a request does not teach or suggest an indication of having been received separately and apart from the actual service request, and thereby does not cure the admitted deficiencies of Suorsa. Id. at 9 (citing Gomilko ¶ 20). Further, Appellant argues that Price’s disclosure of an application tasked with updating other applications does not teach or suggest updating the application subsequent to receiving the indication that the request has been received. Id. at 10 (citing Price ¶¶ 47, 52). In response, the Examiner finds because the claim language does not require that the indication and the request are unique from each other, Gomilko’s disclosure of the remote agent receiving a request teaches the disputed limitations. Ans. 4. We are persuaded by Appellant’s arguments. As an initial matter, we agree with Appellant that claim 1 does set out two separate elements, namely “an indication that the request for service has been received,” wherein the indication is separately transmitted from the request for service. Reply Br. 3 (italics omitted). Accordingly, the Examiner’s reliance upon Gomilko’s request to teach both the required indication separately transmitted from the request for service constitutes reversible error. See Ans. 4. Further, Suorsa discloses a gateway sending a message to an agent at a user device informing it of a task to be performed (e.g., package to be retrieved and installed), and upon receiving the task, the remote agent contacts the central file server with the address of the package so the file server can check it in a central database. Suorsa, col. 10, ll. 53-58. Appeal 2021-000243 Application 16/036,257 7 Furthermore, Gomilko discloses a remote agent receiving from a requesting device a request to copy a file from a source repository to a target repository. Gomilko ¶ 20. Furthermore, Price discloses computing devices executing one or more applications including update modules that are tasked with updating or patching a set of applications. Price ¶ 20. Additionally, Stolarchuk discloses various controllers that communicate during to update a remote application on a shared computing environment. Stolarchuk ¶¶ 54, 93. We find that the proposed combination of Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, and Stolarchuk teaches or suggests at best, a remote agent, upon receiving from a gateway an update request, processes the requested update. Thus, while the proposed combination of references discloses receiving a request and processing the same, it does not teach the separate step of receiving an indication that the request was received. Therefore, we are persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the proposed combination of references does not teach an indication of a request having been received separately from the service request submitted subsequently. Reply Br. 3. Accordingly, we are persuaded that the cited portions of Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, and Stolarchuk do not teach or suggest the disputed limitations. Because Appellant shows at least one reversible error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claim 1, we do not reach Appellant’s remaining arguments. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of independent claim 1 obvious over the combination of Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, and Stolarchuk. Similarly, we do not sustain the rejections of claims 2-20, which also recite the disputed limitations. Appeal 2021-000243 Application 16/036,257 8 VI. CONCLUSION We reverse the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-20. VII. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 2, 8, 11- 13, 17, 18 103 Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk 1, 2, 8, 11-13, 17, 18 3 103 Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk, Li 3 4 103 Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk, Habib 4 5, 14, 19 103 Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk, Smith 5, 14, 19 6 103 Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk, Smith, Umezawa 6 7, 15, 20 103 Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk, Kuzins 7, 15, 20 9, 16 103 Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk, Altberg 9, 16 10 103 Suorsa, Gomilko, Price, Stolarchuk, Elias 10 Overall Outcome 1-20 REVERSED