Ex Parte Brooks et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 3, 2014

12022223 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 3, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte MICHAEL DAVID BROOKS and ANDREW WRIGHT
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Appeal 2011-0133581
Application 12/022,223
Technology Center 2100
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Before JEAN R. HOMERE, CAROLYN D. THOMAS, and
CATHERINE SHIANG, Administrative Patent Judges.

HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 The real party in interest is International Business Machines, Corp. (App
Br. 2.)
Appeal 2011-013358
Application 12/022,223

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 1-20. App. Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Appellants’ Invention
Appellants invented a method and system for recovering in-doubt
transactions between two distributed transaction processing systems. Fig. 3,
Spec. 3, ll. 8-10. In particular, upon re-connecting the two processing
systems following a failure, a transaction manager identifies within a first
processing system (310) all transactions previously processed therein (units
of recovery), but not yet committed, and forwards the transactions to a
second transaction processing system (320) for resynchronization therewith.
Spec. 3, ll. 10-16.
Illustrative Claim
Independent claim 1 further illustrates the invention. It reads as
follows:
1. A method for in-doubt resolution in transaction
processing involving at least two distributed transaction
processing systems, comprising:
re-establishing by a transaction manager executing in
memory of a computer, a connection between a first transaction
processing system and a second transaction processing system
following a failure;
the first transaction processing system searching for any
unresolved units of recovery and resynchronizing each
unresolved unit of recovery with the second transaction
processing system, each unit of recovery comprising processing
performed by the transaction manager for an application
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Application 12/022,223

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program that changes data from one point of consistency to
another;
when the first transaction processing system has finished
processing its unresolved units of recovery, the second
transaction processing system then searching for any
unresolved units of recovery and resynchronizing each
unresolved unit of recovery with the first transaction processing
system.
Prior Art Relied Upon
Buxton US 2004/0215998 A1 Oct. 28, 2004

Rejection on Appeal
The Examiner rejects claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being
anticipated by Buxton.
ANALYSIS
We consider Appellants’ arguments seriatim as they are presented in
the Appeal Brief, pages 6-10, and the Reply Brief, pages 2-6.2

Dispositive Issue: Under 35 U.S.C. § 102, did the Examiner err in
finding Buxton describes a unit of recovery, wherein a processing
(performed by a transaction processing manager for an application
program) changes data from one point of consistency to another, as recited
in claim 1?

2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner, we
refer to the Appeal Brief (filed March 14, 2011), the Reply Brief (filed
August 24, 2011), and the Answer (mailed June 24, 2011) for the respective
details. We have considered in this decision only those arguments
Appellants actually raised in the Briefs. Any other arguments which
Appellants could have made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed
to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).
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Application 12/022,223

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Appellants argue Buxton does not describe the disputed limitations
emphasized above. App. Br. 6-10, Reply Br. 2-6. According to Appellants,
Buxton’s disclosure of a “recovery unit of work” is directed to a process for
restoring messages to a queue, and updating the state of the messages on the
queue, whereas the claimed “unit of recovery” is directed to a “processing
done for an application program which changes data from one point of
consistency to another. . .” Reply Br. 4-5.
In response, the Examiner finds because Buxton’s disclosure of a
“recovery unit of work” performs the same functionality as the claimed “unit
of recovery,” whereby consistent processes are committed, and inconsistent
ones are rolled back, Buxton describes the disputed limitations. Ans. 15-16.
Based upon our review of the record before us, we find no error in the
Examiner’s anticipation rejection regarding claim 1. In view of Appellants’
arguments and the Examiner’s findings set forth above, we find that the
main issue before us turns on whether the claimed “unit of recovery” can be
reasonably construed as Buxton’s “recovery unit of work.” We answer this
inquiry in the affirmative. We thus consider herein the scope and meaning
of the claim limitation “unit of recovery,” which must be given its broadest
reasonable interpretation consistent with Appellants’ disclosure, as
explained in In re Morris:
[T]he PTO applies to the verbiage of the proposed claims the broadest
reasonable meaning of the words in their ordinary usage as they
would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, taking into
account whatever enlightenment by way of definitions or otherwise
that may be afforded by the written description contained in the
applicant’s specification.
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In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997). See also In re
Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (stating that “claims must be
interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow.”). Our reviewing
court further states, “the ‘ordinary meaning’ of a claim term is its meaning to
the ordinary artisan after reading the entire patent.” Phillips v. AWH Corp.,
415 F.3d 1303, 1321 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc).
In particular, Appellants’ Specification states the following:
A unit of recovery is the processing done by a transaction manager for
an application program, which changes data from one point of
consistency to another. . . .
A unit of recovery begins with the first change to the data after the
beginning of the program or following the previous point of
consistency; it ends with a later point of consistency. . . . [T]he
application program makes changes to resources. . . . However, any
complete unit of recovery ends in a commit point.

(Spec. 8.)

Consistent with Appellants’ Specification, we construe “unit of
recovery” as a transaction that processes changes to data to thereby update
the data from one point to another. We find that Buxton’s “recovery unit of
work” also involves a transaction that processes changes to messages (data)
to thereby update the states of the data (i.e., changing the data from one
point to another) on a queue [0054], [0055]. Further, because such updating
of the data is performed on behalf of a synch application program [0056], we
agree with the Examiner that Buxton’s “recovery unit of work” describes the
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claimed “unit of recovery.” It therefore follows Appellants have not shown
error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1.
Because claims 2-20 are not separately argued, they fall with claim 1.
See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-20 as set forth above.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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