Ex parte Burch et al.

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Oct 23, 2000

08370963 (B.P.A.I. Oct. 23, 2000)

THIS OPINION WAS NOT WRITTEN FOR PUBLICATION
The opinion in support of the decision being entered today (1) was not written for
publication in a law journal and (2) is not binding precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 9
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte CARL D. BURCH and RAJIV KUMAR
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Appeal No. 1998-1514
Application No. 08/370,963
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ON BRIEF
____________
Before HAIRSTON, FLEMING, and DIXON, Administrative Patent Judges.
DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal from the examiner's final rejection of claims 1 and 2,
which are all of the claims pending in this application.
We REVERSE.
Appeal No. 1998-1514
Application No. 08/370,963
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BACKGROUND
The appellants' invention relates to a profile based optimization of shared libraries.
An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of exemplary claim 1,
which is reproduced below.
1. A method of operating a digital computer to provide instrumentation
data for a shared library running in an environment in which programs are
loaded and unloaded by a loader, said environment supporting the operation
of at least one program in addition to said shared library, said program
utilizing at least one function provided by said shared library, said
environment including means for storing a predetermined environment
variable that may be read by any program running in said environment, said
method comprising the steps of:
causing said loader to examine said environment to determine if said
predetermined environment variable has been set; and
storing profile based optimization data stored in said shared library
code in a location specified by said predetermined environmental variable if
said predetermined environmental variable was present in response to a
command being sent to said loader.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the examiner in rejecting the
appealed claims are:
Janis et al. (Janis) 5,247,681 Sep. 21, 1993
Graham et al., “gprof: a Call Graph Execution Profiler”, Association for Computing
Machinery (1982) (Graham)
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Claims 1 and 2 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over
Graham in view of Janis.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and the
appellants regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the examiner's
answer (Paper No. 8, mailed Oct. 27, 1997) for the examiner's reasoning in support of the
rejections, and to the appellants’ brief (Paper No. 7, filed July 14, 1997) for the appellants’
arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to the
appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
Appellants describe the operation of shared libraries and the problem which exists
in profiling their operation because the shared libraries remain resident in the operating
environment as opposed to client programs which are loaded, run and unloaded by the
computer operating system. (See brief at page 2.) Appellants argue that Graham does
not discuss the problem inherent in instrumenting shared libraries.
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Id. at 3. We agree with appellants. Appellants argue that Graham does not teach the step
of “causing said loader to examine said environment to determine if said predetermined
environment variable has been set” as recited in claim 1. We agree with appellants.
Appellants argue that Janis does not remedy the deficiency in Graham and further does
not teach saving information of any kind to a location specified by an environmental
variable. We agree with appellants. Appellants further argue that the teachings of Graham
could be modified, but that the examiner has not pointed to any suggestion in the prior art
to modify Graham to address the inherent problem with shared libraries. We agree with
appellants.
Here, the examiner has not, in our view addressed the language of the claims nor
has the examiner provided evidence or a convincing line of reasoning to modify the
teaching of Graham to address the inherent problem of instrumenting shared libraries.
Therefore, the examiner has not set forth a prima facie case of obviousnesss, and we will
not sustain the rejection of claim 1 or dependent claim 2.
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Application No. 08/370,963
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CONCLUSION
To summarize, the decision of the examiner to reject claims 1 and 2 under 35
U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.
REVERSED
KENNETH W. HAIRSTON )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
MICHAEL R. FLEMING ) APPEALS
Administrative Patent Judge ) AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
JOSEPH L. DIXON )
Administrative Patent Judge )
jld/vsh
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Application No. 08/370,963
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RECORDS MANAGER
LEGAL DEPARTMENT 20BO
HEWLETT PACKARD COMPANY
P O BOX 10301
PALO ALTO, CA 94303-0890