Ex Parte Cashman et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 20, 2013

11137167 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 20, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte PAUL N. CASHMAN, CARLOS F. FUENTE, and
WILLIAM J. SCALES
____________________

Appeal 2010-011893
Application 11/137,167
Technology Center 2400
____________________

Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, JEAN R. HOMERE, and
MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judges.

STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

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STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims
1-14 and 18-23. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

The claims are directed to a method and system for transmitting an
application message between nodes of a clustered data processing system.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method for communicating an application message
between a plurality of nodes of a data processing system
cluster, said method comprising:
receiving, at a second node of said plurality of nodes, a
read request to receive data from a first node of said plurality of
nodes, wherein said read request is transmitted utilizing an
input/output protocol and comprises data specifying a first
application message storage resource associated with said first
node that is prepared to store said data upon receipt;
determining, at a first time, whether a second application
message storage resource associated with said second node
comprises one or more application messages for transmittal to
said first node in response to a receipt of said read request;
immediately processing said read request if said second
application message storage resource comprises said one or
more application messages at said first time, wherein
processing said read request comprises:
transmitting an application message of said one or more
application messages from said second node to said first node
utilizing said input/output protocol and said data specifying said
first application message storage resource in response to a
determination that said second application message storage
resource comprises said one or more application messages to be
transmitted to said first node;
recording, at said second node, data indicating said read
request from said first node to receive data has been received at
said second node in response to a determination that said
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second application message storage resource does not comprise
said one or more application messages to be transmitted to said
first node; and
suspending processing of said read request until said
application message storage resource comprises said one or
more application messages if said application message storage
resource does not comprise said one or more application
messages at said first time.

REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Fogg
Lewis
Wakeley
Lai
US 4,995,056
US 5,619,544
US 6,463,498
US 6,694,400
Feb. 19, 1991
Apr. 8, 1997
Oct. 8, 2002
Feb. 17, 2004
Kreuzenstein US 2003/0202474 A1 Oct. 30, 2003

"Fibre Channel Physical and Signalling Interface -2" (A maintenance
draft based on revision 7.4, X3T11/96-402v0, dated 09/10/1996) to
American National Standard for Information Systems (ANSI) (“ANSI”)

REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1, 5, 8 and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112 second
paragraph as being indefinite. Ans. 3.
Claims 1-14 and 18-23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Wakeley, Lewis, Fogg, ANSI, Kreuzenstein, and
Lai. Ans. 4.

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Application 11/137,167
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Appellants’ Contentions
(1) Appellants contend (App. Br. 5-6) that the Examiner erred in
rejecting claims 1, 5, 8 and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 112 second paragraph
because “one skilled in the art knows and understands the ordinary definition
of the term ‘immediately’ as recited in claim 1, as supported by
Appellants’specification.” App. Br. 12-13.
(2) Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because:
(a) “Lai teaches or suggests returning the request data
automatically; however, it is automatically returned after the
transaction has been delayed. Therefore, because Lai discloses a
delayed automated process, Lai fails to teach or suggest ‘immediately
processing said read request,’ as recited in claim 1.” App. Br. 15.
(b) [T]he only disclosure of something being recorded in [the
cited] sections of Lai is a buffer identifier (buffer _id), which is
recorded in the initiator (i.e., the first node), which is different from a
read request to receive data. In other words, Lai (and Kreuzenstein)
do not teach or suggest at least the elements of: “recording, at said
second node, data indicating said read request from said first node to
receive data has been received at said second node in response to a
determination that said second application message storage resource
does not comprise said one or more application messages to be
transmitted to said first node,” as recited in claim 1.

App. Br. 18-19.

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Issues
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1, 5, 8 and 18 under 35
U.S.C. § 112 second paragraph as indefinite?
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
because the asserted combination of references fails to teach or suggest the
disputed claim limitations?

Analysis
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We agree with Appellants’
contention 1 above in connection with the rejections of claims 1, 5, 8 and 18
under 35 U.S.C. § 112 second paragraph. We disagree with Appellants’
conclusions with regard to the remaining contentions above and, with
respect to those contentions, adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons
set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and
(2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in
response to Appellants’ Appeal in connection with the remaining rejections.
For emphasis, we highlight Appellants’ arguments seriatim as they are
presented in the Appeal Brief, pages 12-20.

Rejection of Claims 1, 5, 8 and 18 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, Second Paragraph
The Examiner rejects claims 1, 5, 8 and 18 because the term
“immediately” is a relative term which “is not defined by the claim, [while]
the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite
degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised
of the scope of the invention.” Ans. 4. The Examiner further finds the term
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indefinite as used in claim 1 because the claim recites that “immediately
processing” comprises “suspending processing.” Appellants argue that the
disputed term does not render the claims indefinite and that the ordinary
definition of “immediately” should be applied (App. Br. 12.)
The test for definiteness under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, is
whether “those skilled in the art would understand what is claimed when the
claim is read in light of the specification.” Orthokinetics, Inc. v. Safety
Travel Chairs, Inc., 806 F.2d 1565, 1576 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (citations
omitted). While sympathetic to the Examiner’s position, we find that an
ordinarily skilled artisan would understand the meaning of “immediately”
when read in light of the Specification. In particular, the Specification
describes that “where the recipient of the request to receive data already has
a message for the request issuing node, it immediately commences the
transmission process for that message upon receipt of the request to receive
data.” Spec. ¶ 0041. This usage is consistent with the ordinary and
accustomed meaning of “immediately”: “to include without lapse of time;
without delay; instantly; at once.”1 Furthermore we perceive no fatal
inconsistency in the claim language whereby the claimed step of
“immediately processing the read request” includes suspending processing
until requested data becomes available that would render the claim
indefinite. Therefore, on the record before us, we find that Appellants have
shown reversible error in the Examiner’s determination that the claim term
“immediately” renders the claims indefinite. Accordingly, we will not
sustain the rejection of claims 1, 5, 8 and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph.

1 Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language,
Gramercy Books (1996), p. 957.
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Rejection of Claim 1 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because the Lai reference discloses automatically
processing a read request which Appellants argue does not mean
immediately processing. App. Br. 14. In particular, Appellants argue that
many automated processes include delay and, “[i]n fact, Appellants submit
that column 3, lines 24-29 of Lai teaches or suggests such a delay in Lai's
automated process, which delay is contrary to the recitation of the term
‘immediately’ in claim 1.” App. Br. 15. The Examiner responds that the
delay of Lai is only “in order to accommodate when data has not yet been
received/is not yet ready [and] is analogous to the feature of delay
(‘suspension’) applicant claims.” Ans. 20. The Examiner further finds that
Lai describes returning the requested data automatically once the data is
ready thereby disclosing immediately processing if the data is ready and,
otherwise, suspending processing. Ans. 21. That is, Lai describes delaying
when data is not available, thereby teaching or suggesting not delaying when
data is available. The Examiner further refers to Lewis’s Fig. 5 depicting the
transmission of data at steps 57 and 59 immediately following a
determination that the data is ready to be sent at steps 53 and 55. Ans. 22.
We find that Appellants have provided insufficient evidence or
argument to persuade us of Examiner error. Lai describes delaying
processing of a read request if the requested data is not available. A
disclosure of delaying a transmission of data when not available teaches or
suggests not delaying when data is available. Therefore we find that Lai
teaches or suggests the disputed limitation of “immediately processing said
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read request if said second application message storage resource comprises
said one or more application messages at said first time.”
In connection with contention 2(b), Appellants argue that, while Lai
discloses a buffer identifier recorded in Lai’s initiator (i.e., first node),
“Appellants are unable to discern any teaching or suggestion of recording
being done ‘at said second node,’ as recited in claim 1.” App. Br. 18-19. The
Examiner responds that, given the broadest reasonable interpretation of
“recording” and “at second node” consistent with Appellants’ Specification
(Ans. 25-26), the disputed limitation is disclosed by Lewis, ANSI,
Kreuzenstein and Lai (Ans. 26). For example, the Examiner details Lai’s
disclosure of the responder (i.e., second node) generating a defer identifier
DID. Ans. 26. When the responder (i.e., second node) has retrieved the
requested data it issues the DID to the initiator which then prepares to
receive the data. Ans. 26-27, citing Lai col. 8, ll. 4-7. Therefore, Lai
discloses the disputed claim language of “recording, at said second node,
data indicating said read request from said first node to receive data has been
received at said second node in response to a determination that said second
application message storage resource does not comprise said one or more
application messages to be transmitted to said first node.” Ans. 26. We agree
with the Examiner.
Contrary to Appellants’ contention, the defer identifier DID, which
includes a defer address DfrA and the buffer identifier buffer_id, is
generated by responder 32, i.e., the second node. Lai col. 7, ll. 54-59. While
the DID is issued by the responder to the initiator, it is also clear that it is
also retained by the responder (i.e., recorded) such that it is later reissued by
the responder in cycle T19 (Lai Fig. 4) when the requested data is retrieved.
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Lai. col. 8, ll. 4-7. Accordingly, absent sufficient evidence or argument to
the contrary, we find that Lai discloses the disputed limitation of
recording, at said second node, data indicating said read request
from said first node to receive data has been received at said
second node in response to a determination that said second
application message storage resource does not comprise said one
or more application messages to be transmitted to said first node.

For the reasons supra we find that Appellants have failed to provide
sufficient evidence or argument that the combination of Wakeley, Lewis,
Fogg, ANSI, Kreuzenstein, and Lai fails to teach or suggest the disputed
claim limitations. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
independent claim 1 and, for the same reasons, independent claims 5, 8 and
18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Wakeley, Lewis, Fogg, ANSI,
Kreuzenstein, and Lai and sustain the rejections of dependent claims 2-4, 6,
7, 9-14 and 19-23 not separately argued.

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DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1, 5, 8 and 18 under 35
U.S.C. § 112 second paragraph is reversed.
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-14 and 18-23 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Wakeley, Lewis, Fogg, ANSI, Kreuzenstein, and Lai
is affirmed. Because we have affirmed at least one ground of rejection with
respect to each claim on appeal, the Examiner’s decision is affirmed. See
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(a)(1).
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)(2011).

AFFIRMED

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