Ex Parte Buragohain et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 25, 201612838627 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 25, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/838,627 07/19/2010 85197 7590 08/29/2016 Brocade c/o Blank Rome LLP 717 Texas Avenue, Suite 1400 Houston, TX 77002 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR SAUMITRA BURAGOHAIN 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. l 12-0530US 1 6699 EXAMINER MANSFIELD, THOMAS L ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3623 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/29/2016 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): klutsch@counselip.com acollins@blankrome.com houstonpatents@blankrome.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte SAUMITRA BURAGOHAIN, SATHISH KUMAR GNANASEKARAN, and DENNIS HIDEO MAKISHIMA Appeal2014-003297 Application 12/838,627 Technology Center 3600 Before MICHAEL L. HOELTER, LYNNE H. BROWNE, and PAUL J. KORNICZKY, Administrative Patent Judges. BROWNE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON REQUEST FOR REHEii .. RING STATEMENT OF THE CASE Saumitra Buragohain et al. (Appellants) filed a request for rehearing under 37 C.F.R. § 41.52 (hereinafter "Request), dated August 16, 2016, of our decision mailed June 24, 2016 (hereinafter "Decision"). In the Decision, we affirmed the Examiner's rejection of claims 10-27 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and reversed the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-27 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b ). Appellants seek rehearing as to the portion of the Decision affirming the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Appeal2014-003297 Application 12/838,627 DISCUSSION Appellants assert that "the Board may not have fully appreciated the technological improvement recited in at least independent claims 10 and 19" and that "[t]his issue then flowed over to affirming the Examiner's position that claims 10-27 are directed to non-statutory subject matter." Request 3. In support of these assertions, Appellants direct our attention to paragraphs 6-10 of the Specification which "describes the state of telecommunication and network technology, the problems involved with the current state of technology, and the benefits for overcoming these problems." Id. In paragraphs 6-10, the Specification describes the state of the art and the technological problems associated with therewith. However, the claims do not address these issues. For example, as noted in the Decision (see Decision 4), claim 10 merely recites: "A method comprising: determining, by a storage area network (SAN) interface, that a command has been received from a hypervisor for an unknown LUN /LBA; and querying, by the SAN interface, the hypervisor to determine virtual machine (VM) information related to the LUN /LBA." Appeal Br. 22. Similar instructions are recited in claim 19. Appeal Br. 23. The determining and querying steps recited in claim 10 and the similar instructions recited in claim 19 do not differentiate between routine determining and querying steps and steps which allegedly solve the described technological problems. We construe claims in light of the Specification without reading limitations from the Specification into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184--85 (Fed. Cir. 1993). We apply this claim construction regardless of whether we are construing claims for compliance with § 101, or for compliance with other sections of the United States Code Title 35 - 2 Appeal2014-003297 Application 12/838,627 Patents. See Bancorp Servs., L.L. C v. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada, 687 F.3d 1266, 1273-74 (Fed. Cir. 2012) ("[I]t will ordinarily be desirable- and often necessary-to resolve claim construction disputes prior to a § 101 analysis, for the determination of patent eligibility requires a full understanding of the basic character of the claimed subject matter."). Appellants would have us construe the claim limitations at issue to require the results of simplified management and improved QoS without reciting those results or specifying how they are achieved. See Request 6. We decline to limit claims 10 and 19. Appellants further allege that claim 10 is analogous to the claims in the "E-Commerce Outsourcing System/Generating a Composite Web Page" example presented in the "Examples: Abstract Ideas" posted at http://www.uspto.gov/patent/laws-and-regulations/examination- policy/2014-interim-guidance-subject-matter-eligibility-o ("Abstract Ideas Examples") in that the both sets of claims are rooted in computer technology and overcome a problem specifically arising in the realm of computer networks. Request 7. However, the examples cited differ from claim 10 because they recite the technological problem solved and the results achieved. As discussed supra, claim 10 is not so limited. 1 In addition, Appellants allege that claim 10 "as a whole amounts to significantly more than an abstract idea," because it is "analogous to the modeled claims presented in the 'Digital Image Processing' example in the Abstract Ideas Examples." We reproduce these example claims below with 1 Although not argued, claim 19 is also not limited to an improvement which simplifies management and improves QoS. 3 Appeal2014-003297 Application 12/838,627 emphasis added to highlight a technological problem solved and a result produced by the solution in the claims: 1. A computer-implemented method for halftoning a gray scale image, comprising the steps of: generating, with a processor, a blue noise mask by encoding changes in pixel values across a plurality of blue noise filtered dot profiles at varying gray levels; storing the blue noise mask in a first memory location; receiving a gray scale image and storing the gray scale image in a second memory location; comparing, with a processor on a pixel-by-pixel basis, each pixel of the gray scale image to a threshold number in the corresponding position of the blue noise mask to produce a binary image array; and converting the binary image array to a halftone image. 2. A non-transitory computer-readable medium with instructions stored thereon, that when executed by a processor, perform the steps comprising: generating a blue noise mask by encoding changes in pixel values across a plurality of blue noise filtered dot profiles at varying gray levels; storing the blue noise mask in a first memory location; receiving a gray scale image and storing the gray scale image in a second memory location; comparing, on a pixel-by-pixel basis, each pixel of the gray scale image to a threshold number in the corresponding position of the blue noise mask to produce a binary image array; and converting the binary image array to a halftoned image. 3. A systemfor halftoning a gray scale image, comprising: a processor that generates a blue noise mask by encoding changes in pixel values across a plurality of blue noise filtered dot profiles at varying gray levels; a first memory for storing the blue noise mask; and a second memory for storing a received gray scale image; wherein the processor further compares, on a pixel-by-pixel basis, each pixel of the gray scale image to a threshold number 4 Appeal2014-003297 Application 12/838,627 in the corresponding position of the blue noise mask to produce a binary image array and converts the binary image array to a halftoned image. Claim 10 is not similar to the Digital Image Processing example claims. As discussed supra, these example claims recite the technological problem being solved and the results produced by the solution. Claim 10 does neither. Thus, claim 10 is not directed to an improvement in computer technology.2 Accordingly, we did not overlook a technological improvement set forth in claims 10 and 19 or err in affirming the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 10-27 under 35 U.S.C. § 101. DECISION AND ORDER We grant the Request to the extent that we have considered the arguments pertaining to matters allegedly overlooked or misapprehended, but otherwise deny the Request. DENIED 2 Although not argued, claim 19 is not directed to an improvement in computer technology either. 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation