Ex Parte Charters et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardSep 29, 201612953864 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 29, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/953,864 11/24/2010 46320 7590 10/03/2016 CRGOLAW STEVEN M. GREENBERG 7900 Glades Road SUITE 520 BOCA RATON, FL 33434 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Graham C. Charters 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. GB920090061US1 4271 EXAMINER GOORAY,MARKA ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2199 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/03/2016 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): docketing@crgolaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte GRAHAM C. CHARTERS, MARKP. NUTTALL, and TIMOTHY J. WARD Appeal2015-002447 Application 12/953,8641 Technology Center 2100 Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, AMBER L. HAGY, and SHARON PENICK, Administrative Patent Judges. PENICK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1-27. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b)(l). We affirm-in-part. Invention Appellants' invention relates to loading code modules into a system, in a way that allows load-time bytecode weaving code in the code module. Code associated with the code module is loaded, and responsive to this, a reference is received to a class loader. A code entity from the code module, 1 Appellants identify International Business Machines Corporation as the real party in interest. (Appeal Br. 2.) Appeal2015-002447 Application 12/953,864 having been bytecode woven, can then be provided to the class loader via the reference. (Spec. Abstract, i-f 4.) Exemplary Claims Claims 1 and 3, reproduced below with certain key limitations ernphas1zed, are exemplary: 1. A method for bytecode weaving comprising: determining when a code module that requires bytecode weaving becomes available for loading into memory of a computing system; loading into the memory code associated with the code module, said code having been identified as not requiring weaving; responsive to loading said code associated with the code module, receiving a reference to the entity responsible for loading the code associated with the code module; identifying a code entity within the code module, wherein the code entity requires weaving; and providing a woven set of bytes to the code loading entity identified via the returned reference, wherein the woven set of by'tes represents a transformed version of the identified code entity. 3. The method of claim 1, comprising: generating an enhancing entity comprising code identified as not requiring weaving; and associating the enhancing entity with the code module. Rejections The Examiner rejects claims 3--4, 12-13, and 21-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) as indefinite. (Final Action 2.) The Examiner rejects claims 1---6, 8-15, 17-24, 26, and 27 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Thorsten Keuler & Yuri Komev, A Light- 2 Appeal2015-002447 Application 12/953,864 weight Load-time Weaving Approach for OSGi, Workshop NAOMI 2008 6-10 (2008) (hereinafter "Keuler"). (Final Action 3-7). The Examiner rejects claims 7, 16, and 25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Keuler and Florian Irmert, Marcus Meyerhofer, & Markus Weiten, Towards Runtime Adaptation in a SOA Environment, RAM-SE'07- ECOOP'07 Workshop on Reflection, AOP, and Meta-Data for Software Evolution, Proceedings 17-26 (2007) (hereinafter "Irmert"). (Final Action 7-8). Issues (A) Did the Examiner err in finding the term "enhancing entity" indefinite? (B) Did the Examiner err in finding that Keuler anticipates "loading into the memory [of a computer system] code associated with [a] code module [that requires bytecode weaving and that is available for loading into memory], said code having been identified as not requiring weaving," "responsive to loading said code associated with the code module, receiving a reference to the entity responsible for loading the code associated with the code module," and "providing a woven set of bytes to the code loading entity identified via the returned reference, wherein the woven set of bytes represents a transformed version of [an] identified code entity [from within the code module which requires weaving]" as in claim 1? 3 Appeal2015-002447 Application 12/953,864 ANALYSIS (A) Indefiniteness The Examiner finds claim 3 to be indefinite as failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter, due to the inclusion of the term "enhancing entity." (Final Action 2, 9-10.) Claim 3 includes the limitations of "generating an enhancing entity comprising code identified as not requiring weaving" and "associating the enhancing entity with the code module." The Examiner finds "[a]n enhancing entity ... is not defined in the specification and it is unclear to the examiner what it is." (Id. at 2.) Appellants argue that "paragraph [0019] defines 'enhancing entity' as 'code identified as not requiring weaving."' (Appeal Br. 5.) The Examiner disagrees that the Specification provides a definition, and states that "[p ]aragraph 0019 of the specification is just a summary of the invention that recites the claim language of the claims verbatim." (Answer 3.) Appellants characterize the Examiner's disagreement as premised on the fact their definition is contained within the "summary" portion of the Specification. (Appeal Br. 15; Reply Br. 2-3.) We disagree. The Examiner appears only to be noting that the paragraph does not add additional information, definitional or otherwise, to the words of the claims that include the disputed term. (Final Action 9 ("Paragraph 0019 of the specification is just a summary of the invention that recites the claim language of the claims verbatim" (emphasis added)); Answer 3.) Thus the Examiner finds that no definition of the claim term is provided in Paragraph 19. We agree with the Examiner that the Specification, in Paragraph 19 and otherwise, does not define the term "enhancing entity." Not only does the Examiner correctly note that the cited paragraph merely restates the 4 Appeal2015-002447 Application 12/953,864 claim language, but Appellants' suggested definition of enhancing entity as "code identified as not requiring weaving" is contradicted by the entirety of the cited paragraph itself. In particular, Paragraph 19 implies that use of an "enhancing entity" is an alternative (in a "preferred embodiment") to use of "code identified as not requiring weaving ... that exists within the code module itself." (Spec. i-f 19.) In other words, Paragraph 19 suggests that such code within the code module would not be an enhancing entity, even though it meets Appellants' suggested definition. Far from providing a definition, therefore, Paragraph 19 leaves open for interpretation what an "enhancing entity" is. On this record, we are not convinced that the Examiner erred in rejectig claim 3 as indefinite, or in the rejection of claims 4, 12-13, and 21- 22, not separately argued. (Appeal Br. 4--6; Reply Br. 2-3.) Therefore, we affirm the rejection of claims 3, 4, 12, 13, 21, and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) as indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter regarded as the invention. (B) Anticipation Appellants argue that "[i]ntegral to claim 1 is the loading into memory of code associated with a code module and identified as not requiring weaving and, in response to the loading of the code, receiving a reference to an entity responsible for loading the code." (Appeal Br. 6.) The Examiner finds that Keuler discloses the subject matter of claim 1, and that code is associated with the code module and not require weaving is loaded by the Extended Default Class Loader (EDCL) via "standard class loading ifthe Runtime Weaver bundle is not started." (Final Action 3--4.) Thus the Examiner finds that the EDCL is the entity responsible for loading 5 Appeal2015-002447 Application 12/953,864 the code associated with the code module. (Id.) However, we agree that, as Appellants point out (Appeal Br. 7; Reply Br. 6-8), the Examiner does not specify where in Keuler a reference to a loader is received in response to the loading of code. In Keuler, the EDCL provides loading of byte-woven code by intercepting class loading and providing access to the defined class loader for a bundle, which is the entity that "load[ s] into the memory code associated with the code module" through an Intermediate Class Loader (ICL) instance. (Keuler 3.1; 3.2.1; Figure 3.) This allows loading without "receiving a reference to an entity responsible for loading the code," as recited in the disputed limitation of claim 1. Thus, in the absence of the showing of a disclosure in Keuler of receiving a reference to an entity responsible for loading code not requiring code weaving, and the subsequent provision of byte woven code to that identified entity, we are persuaded the Examiner erred in finding Keuler discloses the subject matter recited in claim 1, independent claims 10 and 19, which recite substantially similar limitations, and claims 2, 5, 6, 8-11, 14, 15, 17-20, 22-24, 26, and 27, which depend from these claims. In rejecting claims 7, 16, and 25 under§ 103(a), the Examiner does not rely on Irmert to cure the deficiency of Keuler discussed above. Therefore, for the reasons discussed above, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of dependent claims 7, 16, and 25 under§ 103(a). 6 Appeal2015-002447 Application 12/953,864 DECISION We reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8-11, 14, 15, 17-20, 22-24, 26, and 27 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Keuler. We reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 7, 16, and 25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Keuler and Irmert. We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 3, 4, 12, 13, 21, and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) as indefinite. Pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv), no time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended. AFFIRMED-IN-PART 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation