Ex Parte Bhoi et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Mar 29, 2006

09495818 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 29, 2006)

1
The opinion in support of the decision being entered today was
not written for publication and is not binding precedent of the
Board.
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
__________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
__________
Ex parte PREETI N. BHOI,
RAMANATHAN SRINIVAS and SHARAD SINGHAL
__________
Appeal No. 2006-0744
Application 09/495,818
__________
ON BRIEF
__________
Before THOMAS, HAIRSTON, and SAADAT, Administrative Patent
Judges.
THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants have appealed to the Board from the
examiner’s final rejection of claims 1 through 20.
Representative independent claim 1 is reproduced below.
1. A TCP/IP-based application system, comprising:
an application module that performs predetermined
functions based on external requests from an external queue,
the external queue being external to the application system
Appeal No. 2006-0744
Application 09/495,818
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and storing the external requests before the requests are fetched
into the application system;
a network interaction module coupled to the application
module and the external queue (1) to fetch the external requests
from the external queue into the application system and (2) to
determine which, if any, of the fetched requests will not be
processed by the application module based on the processing
capacity of the application module and the rate of the external
requests arriving at the external queue.
The following reference is relied on by the examiner:
Swales 6,321,272 Nov. 20, 2001
(filed Sep. 10, 1997)
Claims 1 through 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e) as being anticipated by Swales.
Rather than repeat the positions of the appellants and
the examiner, reference is made to the Brief and Reply Brief for
appellants’ positions, and to the Answer for the examiner’s
positions.
OPINION
We reverse.
Each of independent claims 1 and 14 on appeal requires
in part that the network interaction module “determine which,
if any, of the fetched requests will not be processed by the
Appeal No. 2006-0744
Application 09/495,818
3
application module based on the processing capacity of the
application module and the rate of the external requests arriving
at the external queue.” This feature is substantially set forth
in independent claim 14 as well along with the additional feature
of “rejecting the requests not to be processed such that the
possibility of dropping a request from the external queue is
minimized and the response time of the application system to the
requests is minimized.” This latter quoted feature is not
recited in independent claim 1 on appeal.
We reverse the stated rejection of the claims on appeal
because the feature common to both independent claims 1 and 14 on
appeal is not taught in the Swales patent, even though we recog-
nize, as the examiner urges, that the claimed queuing functions
per se are generally taught in this reference. The Answer does
not appear to squarely address the functional features we quoted
earlier in this opinion and the reference plainly does not teach
them.
The web server 30 in figure 2 of Swales is detailed
more specifically in figure 3. This web server 30 is also shown
in detail as web server 30 in figure 4 composed of a web server
90 and a proxy element 92 as a part of Swales’ first embodiment.
Appeal No. 2006-0744
Application 09/495,818
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A corresponding showing exists in figure 5 and the throttling
router 134 in figure 6 corresponds to the proxy device in
figures 4 and 5.
As revealed initially in the Abstract, this proxy
server takes the role of a TCP/IP router and it is configured
to control the rate at which messages are forwarded from a non-
real time to a real time portion of the network. Its aim is to
keep the loading of the real time portion stable regardless of
external communication demand. What is significantly revealed
initially in the Abstract is that the reference appears not to
determine which, if any, of the fetched requests will not be
processed. According to the last sentence of the Abstract:
All communication from devices whose traffic
loadings cannot be so controlled is arranged
to pass through the proxy device in order to
gain access to the deterministic network, and
the proxy enforces the budget limits by
introducing deliberate delays to the request
messages if necessary.
It therefore appears that this proxy device always
processes incoming messages such as to not be capable of not
processing any of them as the claims require. The messages
according to Swales are still processed, but only by delaying
Appeal No. 2006-0744
Application 09/495,818
5
them. This is emphasized in the discussion of figure 4 beginning
at column 10 of Swales essentially through the end of the patent.
Thus, the reference is not directed to determining
which, if any, of the fetched requests will not be processed at
all by the application module or server based upon the processing
capacity of the application module or server and the rate of the
external requests arriving at the external queue as required by
claims 1 and 14 on appeal. We therefore agree with the appel-
lants’ repeated emphasis in the Brief and Reply Brief that Swales
did not teach these features. Therefore, on this basis alone, we
cannot sustain the rejection of independent claims 1 and 14 on
appeal. Based upon the additional requirement at the end of
independent claim 14 on appeal that the noted requests not to be
processed are rejected such that the possibility of dropping a
request from the external queue is minimized and the response
time of the application system to the requests is minimized also
cannot be met. Since we reverse the rejection of independent
claims 1 and 14 on appeal, we therefore also reverse the
rejection of their respective dependent claims.
Appeal No. 2006-0744
Application 09/495,818
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In view of the foregoing, the decision of the examiner
rejecting claims 1 through 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102 is reversed.
REVERSED
JAMES D. THOMAS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
)
KENNETH W. HAIRSTON ) APPEALS AND
Administrative Patent Judge )
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
MAHSHID D. SAADAT )
Administrative Patent Judge )
JDT:psb
Appeal No. 2006-0744
Application 09/495,818
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