Ex Parte Carlson et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 7, 2014

12038446 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 7, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte DAVID GLENN CARLSON, STEVEN VIRGIL HOESCHEN,
and KEVIN JAMES KATHMANN1
____________

Appeal 2011-011970
Application 12/038,446
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before ERIC GRIMES, JEFFREY N. FREDMAN, and TINA E. HULSE,
Administrative Patent Judges.

HULSE, Administrative Patent Judge

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 involving claims relating to
monitoring and debugging query execution objects. The Examiner rejected
the claims at issue as obvious. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1 Appellants identify the Real Party in Interest as International Business
Machines Corporation. (App. Br. 1.)
Appeal 2011-011970
Application 12/038,446

2

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Database systems allow a computer to store a large amount of
information such that a user may search for and retrieve specific information
in the database. (Spec. 1.) Retrieving information from a database is
typically done using queries. (Id.) “The database is searched for records
that satisfy the query, and those records are returned as the query result.”
(Id.)
The prior art teaches “an object oriented data structure that includes a
plurality of node objects arranged in a tree relationship to define a query.”
(Id. at 2.) But, according to the Specification, one problem with such query
execution data structures is that the data structure becomes complex for
complicated queries, making it difficult to debug. (Id.) The Specification
states that “it is very difficult, if not impossible, to debug a complex query
execution data structure that includes many query execution objects using
known statement level debuggers.” (Id. at 2-3.) Thus, the Specification
discloses a “tool that allows efficiently monitoring and debugging a query
implemented in an object oriented query execution data structure.” (Id. at
3.)
Claims 1-20 are on appeal. (App. Br. 2.)
Claims 1 and 6 are representative and are reproduced below:
1. An apparatus comprising:
at least one processor;
a memory coupled to the at least one processor;
a database residing in the memory;
Appeal 2011-011970
Application 12/038,446

3
a query engine residing in the memory and executed by the
at least one processor, the query engine querying the
database; and
a query execution data structure residing in the memory and
executed by the query engine, the query execution data
structure comprising a plurality of object oriented nodes,
wherein each node includes a monitor method that
enables collection of monitored data from the node and a
dump method that outputs the monitored data.

6. An apparatus comprising:
at least one processor;
a memory coupled to the at least one processor;
a database residing in the memory; and
a monitor and debug mechanism residing in the memory and
executed by the at least one processor, wherein the
monitor and debug mechanism receives monitored data
from an object oriented query execution data structure
that comprises a plurality of object oriented nodes
representative of a query to the database and displays
information corresponding to the plurality of nodes to a
user in a graphical user interface.

Claims 1-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over
Cooper,2 Ciolfi,3 and Wynblatt.4,5 (Ans. 3-20.)

2 Cooper et al., US 2004/0039942 A1, published Feb. 26, 2004.
3 Ciolfi et al., US 2005/0216248 A1, published Sept. 29, 2005.
4 Wynblatt et al., US 2002/0143755 A1, published Oct. 3, 2002.
5 In the Final Rejection, the Examiner implied that the claims were rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 101 (Office action mailed July 22, 2010, page 20).
However, because the Examiner failed to substantively address the rejection
under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in the Answer (see Ans. 3-24), we understand that
this rejection is withdrawn.
Appeal 2011-011970
Application 12/038,446

4
DISCUSSION
The Examiner rejected the claims as obvious over Cooper, Ciolfi, and
Wynblatt. Cooper relates to network security and assessment, and teaches a
method and apparatus for generating an initial policy specification file.
(Cooper ¶ 2.) Cooper teaches a system that “translates traffic on the network
into protocol events that are themselves combined into network events.” (Id.
at ¶ 88.) The protocol events are compared against a policy, which specifies
a disposition of the network event. (Id.) “Information about the protocol
events, the network event and its disposition is stored in a database. This
database of network traffic information can be mined for policy violations.”
(Id.)
Regarding claim 1, the Examiner found that Cooper teaches “a query
execution data structure residing in the memory and executed by the query
engine, the query execution data structure comprising a plurality of object
oriented nodes.” (Ans. 4.) The Examiner also found that Cooper “does not
explicitly disclose how a dump method outputs the monitored data,” and
relied on Ciolfi as support for these limitations of the claim. (Id. at 5.) The
Examiner determined that it would have been obvious to incorporate the
teachings of Ciolfi into Cooper “to have a localized indexing scheme to
track the pertinent variables of an object that is part of the context.” (Id. at
6.)
The Examiner also found that Cooper “does not recite the terminology
‘object oriented nodes.’” (Id. at 6.) The Examiner relied on Wynblatt for
disclosing “querying multiple ‘object oriented nodes,’” and concluded that it
would have been obvious to incorporate the teachings of Wynblatt into
Cooper, as modified by Ciolfi, to allow a program, “running on a device
Appeal 2011-011970
Application 12/038,446

5
logically connected to a network that also logically connects the networked
data sources, to issue a traditional database query onto the network and to
receive back from the network the result of that query as it applies to the
data produced by those data sources.” (Id. at 6-7.)
The Examiner made similar findings regarding claim 6. (Id. at 8-11.)
The issue presented on appeal is whether the preponderance of the
evidence supports the Examiner’s conclusion that Cooper, Ciolfi, and
Wynblatt teach or suggest “a query execution data structure . . . executed by
the query engine,” as required by claim 1, or “an object oriented query
execution data structure that comprises a plurality of object oriented nodes
representative of a query to the database,” as required by claim 6.
We find that the preponderance of the evidence does not support the
Examiner’s conclusions.
Claim 1 requires a “query engine querying the database” and “a query
execution data structure . . . executed by the query engine.” As evidence of
“the query engine querying the database,” the Examiner cites Figures 6-9 of
Cooper (Ans. 4), which depict a query tool dialog box (Cooper, FIGS. 6-9,
¶¶ 55-58), and paragraph 90, which states that “database 104 for storing
synthesized information of the packet dump’s 115 conformance to the
specified policy. . . can be mined with a query tool 135.” (Id. at ¶ 90.)
Regarding “a query execution data structure . . . executed by the query
engine,” the Examiner cites paragraph 401 of Cooper (Ans. 4), which states
that “[i]nput packet data 115 is read into a known object-oriented structure
6101, such as, for example, a C structure here named pkt_t structure.”
(Cooper ¶ 401.) The Examiner concludes that these disclosures in Cooper
teach “a query execution data structure residing in the memory and executed
Appeal 2011-011970
Application 12/038,446

6
by the query engine, the query execution data structure comprising a
plurality of object oriented nodes.” (Ans. 4.)
We do not find the Examiner’s reasoning persuasive. As noted by
Appellants (App. Br. 9-10), Cooper teaches that the object-oriented
structure, the “pkt_t structure,” receives packet data 115, which is dumped
into database 104. (Cooper ¶¶ 90, 401.) The query tool then executes
queries on data that has been stored in database 104. (Id. at ¶¶ 90, 113.)
The Examiner, however, cites nothing in Cooper that suggests that the
object-oriented “pkt_t structure” constitutes a query or is “executed by the
query engine,” as required by claim 1.
In response, the Examiner states that Cooper specifies two methods
where the object-oriented pkt_t structure is executed by the query tool:
“One is a monitor method where object oriented nodes can be monitored
while running the monitoring program. The second method is a dump
method which dumps the textual or binary files having inputs and outputs
information for each monitored.” (Ans. 24.) We are not persuaded, as the
Examiner’s response does not address Appellants’ arguments. The
Examiner has not explained how the pkt_t structure, which receives packet
data, relates to the monitor or the dump method, or how Cooper’s disclosure
of these methods teaches executing the pkt_t structure by the query tool.
We therefore conclude that the preponderance of the evidence does
not support the Examiner’s finding that Cooper teaches “a query execution
data structure residing in the memory and executed by the query engine, the
query execution data structure comprising a plurality of object oriented
nodes,” as required by claim 1.
Appeal 2011-011970
Application 12/038,446

7
Independent claim 6 requires “an object oriented query execution data
structure that comprises a plurality of object oriented nodes representative of
a query to the database.” The Examiner cites paragraph 401 of Cooper as
disclosing this limitation, as well. As with claim 1, the Examiner has failed
to show how the object-oriented pkt_t structure, which receives packet data
115 and then stores that data to database 104, is an “object oriented query
execution data structure that comprises a plurality of object oriented nodes
representative of a query to the database.” Nor does the Examiner respond
to Appellants’ arguments in the Response to Argument. (Ans. 20-24.)
Thus, for the same reasons as above, we find that the preponderance of the
evidence does not support the Examiner’s finding that Cooper teaches or
suggests “an object oriented query execution data structure that comprises a
plurality of object oriented nodes representative of a query to the database,”
as required by claim 6.
Finally, because independent claims 11 and 16 each contain similar
limitations (and because the Examiner has not responded to Appellants’
arguments regarding these claims, either), we reverse the Examiner’s
rejection of these claims for the same reasons.

SUMMARY
We reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) over Cooper, Ciolfi, and Wynblatt.

REVERSED
dm