Ex Parte Attinella et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jan 26, 2012

11211951 (B.P.A.I. Jan. 26, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte JOHN MICHAEL ATTINELLA, LARRY J. CRAVENS,
MICHAEL JAMES DENNEY, EDWIN C. GRAZIER,
JAY PAUL KURTZ, and DAVID FERGUSON LEGLER
____________

Appeal 2009-012692
Application 11/211,951
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before DENISE M. POTHIER, JEFFREY S. SMITH, and
BRUCE R. WINSOR, Administrative Patent Judges.

SMITH, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2009-012692
Application 11/211,951

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1 and 5-7, which are all the claims remaining in the
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

Invention
Appellants’ invention relates to a method utilizing a virtual flight
recorder to harvest a subset of events being collected by an active system
tracing facility during operation of a computer system. The virtual flight
recorder is virtual in the sense that it is not specifically instrumented into a
component with which the virtual flight recorder is associated. This
eliminates the burden on developers to specifically instrument components
of interest and minimizes the impact on system performance as a result of
performance metric collection. Abstract.

Representative Claim
1. A method of monitoring a computer system, the method
comprising:

actively collecting a plurality of events associated with a
plurality of components in the computer system during
operation of the computer system using a system tracing
facility;

during active collection of the plurality of events,
dynamically creating a virtual flight recorder for harvesting a
subset of the plurality of events for a first component from the
plurality of components, wherein the subset of events are less
than the collected plurality of events, the virtual flight recorder
Appeal 2009-012692
Application 11/211,951

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including an interface configured to support user analysis of the
subset of events for the first component, while the system
tracing facility is actively collecting events associated with the
plurality of components; wherein dynamically creating the
virtual flight recorder includes harvesting the subset of events
for the first component from events associated with the first
component such that the interface supports user analysis of the
first component, and wherein harvesting the subset of events for
the first component is performed without any dedicated
instrumentation of the first component; and

responding to user input directed to the interface to
provide near real-time analysis of the subset of events,
including near real-time analysis of the first component from
the plurality of components.

Prior Art
Klassen 6,351,724 B1 Feb. 26, 2002
Srinivas 7,380,172 B2 May 27, 2008

Examiner’s Rejections
Claims 1, 5, and 7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being
anticipated by Srinivas.
Claim 6 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being
unpatentable over Srinivas and Klassen.

ISSUE
Did the Examiner err in finding that Srinivas discloses a virtual flight
recorder for harvesting a subset of the plurality of events for a first
component, wherein harvesting is performed without any dedicated
instrumentation of the first component?

Appeal 2009-012692
Application 11/211,951

4
ANALYSIS
Appellants contend that the flight recorder described by Srinivas is
dedicated to a specific software component. In particular, Appellants
contend that the rules database 316 of Srinivas selects a software component
analyzer for an I/O device whose interface matches the interface of the
software driver of the disk drive in question. Appellants conclude that
Srinivas does not disclose harvesting a subset of the plurality of events for
the first component from the plurality of components without any dedicated
instrumentation of the first component. Br. 8. The Examiner finds that the
software component analyzer described by Srinivas is not dedicated
instrumentation of the first component because events are stored in real time
and accessed from the software component analyzer, not the first
component. Ans. 7.
We find that each software component analyzer described by Srinivas
is associated with only one corresponding software component. See col. 10,
l. 41 to col. 11, l. 9. We find that the term “harvesting … without any
dedicated instrumentation of the first component” recited in claim 1, and by
dependency in claims 5-7, excludes harvesting using a software component
analyzer that is associated with only one corresponding software component
as described by Srinivas. Also,the Examiner has not relied upon Klassen to
cure the above-noted deficiency (see Ans. 5-6) when rejecting claim 6 under
§ 103.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner erred in finding that Srinivas discloses a virtual flight
recorder for harvesting a subset of the plurality of events for a first
Appeal 2009-012692
Application 11/211,951

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component, wherein harvesting is performed without any dedicated
instrumentation of the first component.

DECISION
The rejection of claims 1, 5, and 7 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being
anticipated by Srinivas is reversed.
The rejection of claim 6 under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being
unpatentable over Srinivas and Klassen is reversed.

REVERSED

msc