Ex Parte Allen et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 8, 2016

12262039 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 8, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/262,039 10/30/2008
120226 7590 06/10/2016
Patterson & Sheridan - The Boeing Company
c/o Patterson & Sheridan, LLP
24 GREENWAY PLAZA, SUITE 1600
Houston, TX 77046
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Paul L. Allen
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
7784-000819/US/CPA 5441
EXAMINER
P ALIW AL, YOGESH
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2435
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/10/2016 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):
P AIR_eofficeaction@pattersonsheridan.com
PatentAdmin@boeing.com
PSDocketing@pattersonsheridan.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte PAULL. ALLEN, MICHAEL W. ANDERSON,
DAVID J. FINTON, MING-YUH HUANG, CHARLES T. KITZMILLER,
PHYLLIS MEL VIN, and STEPHEN A. RIDLON
Appeal2015-000125
Application 12/262,039
Technology Center
Before THU A. DANG, CATHERINE SHIANG, and
JOYCE CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judges.
SHIANG, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
rejection of claims 1-8, 10-13, and 15-20, which are all the claims pending
in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We affirm.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
The present invention relates to policies applicable to enterprise
systems. See generally Spec. 1. Claim 1 is exemplary:
Appeal2015-000125
Application 12/262,039
1. A method of implementing requirements applicable to one or more
systems of an enterprise, the method comprising:
modeling the requirements as contents of policies applicable to one or
more target domains of the enterprise;
integrating the policy contents into a single, integrated policy model;
analyzing a plurality of rules of the integrated policy model for
consistency among the rules, the rules including at least some of the policy
contents, and based on the analysis, modifying the integrated policy model;
adapting the integrated policy model based on domain-specific
requirements to obtain representations corresponding to a plurality of target
computing systems each having one or more processors and memory in one
or more of the one or more target domains; and
integrating the one or more representations with the corresponding
target computing systems to implement the domain-specific requirements.
Gai
Kanada
Gil
Joly
Mahajani
References and Rejections
us 6, 167 ,445
US 2001/0039576 Al
US 2002/0188513 Al
US 2005/0257244 Al
US 2006/0190997 Al
Dec. 26, 2000
Nov. 8, 2001
Dec. 12, 2002
Nov. 17, 2005
Aug. 24, 2006
Claims 1--4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15-17, and 19 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Joly and Kanada.
Claims 5 and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Joly, Kanada, and Gil.
Claims 7 and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Joly, Kanada, and Mahajani.
2
Appeal2015-000125
Application 12/262,039
Claim 12 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Joly, Kanada, and Gai.
ANALYSIS
The Obviousness Rejections
We disagree with Appellants' arguments, and agree with and adopt
the Examiner's findings and conclusions in the Final Action and Answer to
the extent they are consistent with our analysis below. We provide the
following points for emphasis.
On this record, we find the Examiner did not err in rejecting claim 1.
Appellants contend Joly does not teach "integrating the policy
contents into a single, integrated policy model," as recited in claim 1
(emphasis added). See App. Br. 6-12. In particular, Appellants argue:
Joly describes that the original policy template is not affected
by the changes in the instance definition (last 4 lines of
paragraph 0058). So in other words, new rules could exist for a
specific policy instance (i.e., bubble instance) that would not be
included in the original policy template (last 4 lines of 0058).
And still further, modified rules could exist for a different
bubble instance which are also not included in the original
policy template.
App. Br. 7.
Appellants also contend there is no motivation to combine the
teachings of Joly and Kanada. See App. Br. 11-12. In particular,
Appellants argue Joly does not suggest Kanada's teachings are needed. See
App. Br. 11.
Appellants have not persuaded us of error.
3
Appeal2015-000125
Application 12/262,039
First, in response to Appellants' arguments, the Examiner provides
comprehensive findings showing Joly teaches the disputed claim limitation.
See Ans. 2-10. For example, the Examiner explains why the claimed
"single, integrated policy model" can reasonably encompass Joly's policy
template, which is a single and integrated model. See Ans. 4--8. Appellants
fail to present persuasive explanation or evidence to respond to such findings
and therefore, fail to show error in the Examiner's findings. See In re Baxter
Travenol Labs., 952 F.2d 388, 391 (Fed. Cir. 1991) ("It is not the function of
this court [or this Board] to examine the claims in greater detail than argued
by an appellant, looking for [patentable] distinctions over the prior art.").
Further, the Examiner correctly concludes Appellants' argument is not
commensurate with the scope of the claim, as the claim does not require the
policy model to include all the possible new rules or modified rules. See
Ans. 5---6. Similarly, the Examiner correctly concludes Appellants'
following arguments (App. Br. 8-9) are not commensurate with the scope of
the claim (Ans. 8-10):
Joly's policies appear to be device-dependent templates
which are deployed as configuration files for routers, switches,
firewalls, or "specific network appliances" by means of
keyword substitution. There is no general modeling language.
The application is very narrow, and there is no need for any
adaptation like what the present application involves. Joly's
deployment appears to be a simple one-for-one keyword
substitution. But the present system and method, as defined in
the independent claims, is capable of deploying policy to any
externally-configurable enforcement point with a documented
interface.
4
Appeal2015-000125
Application 12/262,039
The need for the system and method of the present application
was driven by a much more expressive policy model. Possible
inconsistencies include argument type mis-matches, mis-
matched arguments and operators, as well as redundant or
conflicting expressions or rules, or rules that are either always
true or always false. The system and method of the present
application may run in real time as the policy author is editing a
rule, with visual feedback in the editor. Kanada's scheme,
while adequate for his problem domain, is simply not the same
idea, and does not suggest the presently claimed subject matter.
Second, the U.S. Supreme Court has held "[t]he combination of
familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when
it does no more than yield predictable results." KSR Int 'l Co. v. Teleflex,
Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007). Further, "[i]f the claim extends to what is
obvious, it is invalid under§ 103" and "the analysis need not seek out
precise teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged
claim, for a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a
person of ordinary skill in the art would employ." Id. at 418-19.
Contrary to Appellants' arguments, "[i]n determining whether the
subject matter of a patent claim is obvious, neither the particular motivation
nor the avowed purpose of the patentee controls." KSR, 550 U.S. at 419.
The Examiner has provided articulated reasoning with a rational
underpinning as to why one skilled in the art would have found it obvious to
combine the teachings of Joly and Kanada. See Final Act. 9-10; Ans. 13.
Appellants fail to show error in such finding. In fact, the Examiner correctly
finds Appellants' argument that "there would seem to be no need, and no
benefit, to having a rule consistency mechanism that would check the rules
of one bubble instance against a different bubble instance for inconsistency"
5
Appeal2015-000125
Application 12/262,039
(App. Br. 11) is not directed to the specific combination proposed by the
Examiner. See Ans. 12.
The Examiner's findings are reasonable because the skilled artisan
would "be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of
a puzzle" since the skilled artisan is "a person of ordinary creativity, not an
automaton." KSR, 550 US. at 420-21. Appellants do not present adequate
evidence that the resulting arrangements were "uniquely challenging or
difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art" or "represented an unobvious
step over the prior art." See Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485
F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 418-19).
Therefore, we agree with the Examiner that applying Kanada's
analyzing technique in the Joly method would have predictably used prior
art elements according to their established functions-an obvious
improvement. See KSR, 550 U.S. a 417.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1, and
dependent claims 2-7, which Appellants do not separately argue.
Regarding independent claim 8, Appellants further argue:
Joly discloses no policy model. The Joly "policy templates"
appear to be device-specific "config" files with keywords
inserted strategically. Joly also discloses no meta-model to
control the adaptation of his policies to end devices, since he
needs no such model to do keyword-substitution on his
templates.
App. Br. 9-10.
Appellants have not persuaded us of error. Again, in response to
Appellants' arguments, the Examiner provides findings showing Joly's
policy template is not device specific. See Ans. 11 (citing Joly i-f 58).
6
Appeal2015-000125
Application 12/262,039
Appellants fail to present persuasive explanation or evidence to respond to
the Examiner's findings and therefore, fail to show error in the Examiner's
findings. See Baxter Travenol Labs., 952 F.2d at 391. Further, the
Examiner correctly concludes Appellants' assertion that "Joly ... discloses
no meta-model to control the adaptation of his policies to end devices" (App.
Br. 10) is not commensurate with the scope of the claim. See Ans. 11.
Therefore, and for similar reasons discussed above with respect to
claim 1, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 8, and dependent
claims 10-12, which Appellants do not separately argue.
For similar reasons discussed above with respect to claim 1, we
sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 13, and dependent claims 15-20,
which Appellants do not separately argue.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-8, 10-13, and
15-20.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
7