Ex Parte CheshireDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 14, 201710102174 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 14, 2017) Copy Citation United States Patent and Trademark Office 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 APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 10/102,174 03/19/2002 Stuart D. Cheshire 5607.0200000 (P2768US1) 1937 63975 7590 11/16/2017 STERNE, KESSLER, GOLDSTEIN & FOX P.L.L.C. 1100 NEW YORK AVENUE, N.W. WASHINGTON, DC 20005 EXAMINER OHBA, MELLISSA M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2164 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/16/2017 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): e-office @ skgf.com Apple-eOA @ skgf.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte STUART D. CHESHIRE Appeal 2015-000018 Application 10/102,174 Technology Center 2100 Before SALLY C. MEDLEY, JENNIFER S. BISK, and BETH Z. SHAW, Administrative Patent Judges. BISK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1, 5, 8, 12, 15, 19, 22, 27, 34, 39, 42, 45, 50, 53, 56, and 58.1 Claims 29, 30, 48, and 49 have been canceled. App. Br. 3. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is the second appeal of these claims. In the first appeal, 2010- 003855, we reversed the Examiner’s rejection based on anticipation by P. 1 Appellant does not appeal the rejection of dependent claims 2—4, 6, 7, 9— 11, 13, 14, 16-18, 20, 21, 23-26, 28, 31-33, 35-38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 51,54, and 57. App. Br. 3. Accordingly, for the purposes of this Appeal we treat those claims as canceled. See Manual of Patent Examining Procedure § 1214.05 (9th ed. rev. March 2014). Appeal 2015-000018 Application 10/102,174 Mockapetris, RFC 1035, Network Working Group (Nov. 1987), available at http:/7www.ietf.org/rfe/rfc 1035 (“Mockapetris”).2 Ex Parte Cheshire, 2012 WL 2900653 (BPAI July 12, 2012) (“App. Dec.”). Appellant’s Invention The claimed invention relates to computer networks, specifically a “method and an apparatus that allows a client to issue repeated multicast queries for the sake of reliability, without the inefficiency of receiving redundant identical replies every time.” Spec. 2:11—13. When issuing a Domain Name Service (DNS)3-format query, the requesting entity places the previously received answers into a section of the query packet that normally is unused. A potential responder only sends an answer to the client if the proposed answer is not already contained in the query. Spec. 2:16—3:9. Claim 1, reproduced below with emphasis added, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A computer-executable method to obtain information that is represented using domain name system (DNS) resource records, at a requesting entity in a domain, comprising: multicasting a DNS request query asking for information identified by a DNS name, a query type and a query class as defined in IETF RFC 1035 from a computer system, wherein the query includes: 2 In Appeal 2010-003855, in addition to the claims at issue here, claims 52 and 55 were also rejected and appealed. Here, the Examiner does not appear to include claims 52 and 55 in the rejection at issue. See Final Act. 3—46; App. Br. 3 n.l. Consequently, we do not address those claims in this Decision. 3 DNS is the hierarchical naming system for computers or other resources connected to the Internet. See P. Mockapetris, RFC 1034, Network Working Group (Nov. 1987), available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfcl034. 2 Appeal 2015-000018 Application 10/102,174 a questions section containing the DNS name, the query type and the query class, wherein the query type indicates that the information contained in the query is of one of the following types: a host address, a canonical name of an alias, a CPU and OS used by a host, a mail exchange for the domain, an authoritative name server for the domain, a pointer to another part of the domain name space, or a start of the zone authority, and wherein the query class indicates a network protocol family or an instance of a network protocol, a non-empty answer section containing at least one answer to the request query known by the requesting entity, wherein the list of known answers includes known addresses which correspond to the DNS name in the question section of the request query, receiving at the computer system responses to the multicasted request query that contain additional answers that are not in the list of known answers, wherein the list of known answers is in the request query, and wherein a responding entity suppresses responses to queries that contain answers that are included in the list of known answers in the query; and adding the additional answers to the list of known answers; wherein sending the list of known answers along with the request query suppresses the known answers in the received responses. 3 Appeal 2015-000018 Application 10/102,174 The Rejections Claims 1, 5, 8, 12, 15, 19, 22, 27, 34, 39, 42, 45, 50, 53, 56, and 58 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over Mockapetris combined with U.S. Patent No. 6,081,805, issued June 27, 2000 (“Guha”).4 Final Act. 3—46. ANALYSIS In the previous appeal of these claims, we reversed the Examiner’s anticipation rejection because “the Examiner’s explanation fails to indicate any disclosure in Mockapetris that can be interpreted as a query including ‘a non-empty answer section containing at least one answer to the request query known by the requesting entity’” (the “non-empty answer limitation”), recited by each of the claims at issue. App. Dec. 6. After this reversal, the Examiner rejected these claims under § 103(a) explaining that Mockapetris does not explicitly teach the non-empty answer limitation, but relying on Guha for disclosing this subject matter. Final Act. 5. According to the rejection, Guha “teaches a non-empty answer section containing at least one answer to the query known by the requesting entity.” Id. at 5—6 (citing Guha 2:6—21, 3:48—60). Specifically, the Examiner relies on Guha’s description of two queries from a user to a data source. Id. In response to the first query, a first hash index is computed for the first query result and the query result is passed to the user. Guha 2:6—13. In response to the second query, a second hash index is computed and compared to the 4 The Examiner did not include claims 50, 53, 56, and 58 in the summary of the rejection. See Final Act. 3. These claims, however, are specifically discussed in the body of the rejection. Final Act. 36-46. Appellant does not address the omission. Accordingly, we treat the omission of these claims in the summary as harmless error. 4 Appeal 2015-000018 Application 10/102,174 first hash index. “If the first and second hash indexes match, the first data source is queried for data corresponding to the second query result” and “if the first data source contains the data, then the second query result is considered a duplicate and is discarded.” Id. at 2:13—21. According to the Examiner, “Guha sends the first query results when making the second query, so that the data can be compared to the second results.” Ans. 3^4 (citing Guha 2:6—21). Given this disclosure, the Examiner asserts that a person of ordinary skill would have modified Mockapetris to include a non empty answer section to eliminate duplicate search result addresses. Final Act. 6—7. Appellant argues that Guha “describes using stored hash indices to determine if received results are to be discarded (or retained),” however, the comparison of previous results occurs “after results are received from a data source.” App. Br. 17—18 (emphasis omitted, italics added). According to Appellant, “Guha does not describe or suggest including result information in queries sent to data sources” and, therefore, Guha does not teach or suggest the non-empty answer limitation. Id. at 18 (emphasis omitted). We agree with Appellant that nothing in the relied upon section of Guha discloses including any of the computed hash indices in a query. The language at issue is reproduced in full below: The present invention provides a method and system for providing a pass through architecture for database systems comprising a plurality of data sources that removes duplicate query results via hash techniques. The method and system— includes issuing a query from a user to a first data source. In response to receiving a first query result from the data source, a first hash index is computed for the first query result and the first query result is passed on to the user. In response to receiving a second query result, a second hash index is 5 Appeal 2015-000018 Application 10/102,174 computed. The first hash index is then compared with the second hash index to check for a hash collision. If the first and second hash indexes match, the first data source is queried for data corresponding to the second query result. And if the first data source contains the data, then the second query result is considered a duplicate and is discarded. Guha 2:6—21. This language describes a user issuing two queries and receiving results from those queries. The intermediate step, of creating a hash index, is disclosed as being performed by “pass-through software,” which stores the hash indices in a hash table and uses that table to filter out duplicate results. Guha 4:46—5:32. Nothing in the above disclosure suggests that hash indices are included in any query. Instead, it is more natural to read the above language as suggesting that the hash indices are stored by the pass-through software.5 We also do not agree that this language discloses a first hash index that is “passed to the user” or that the disclosed “second query” contains a second index or other previous result. Ans. 3^4. For these reasons, we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of (1) independent claim 1; (2) independent claims 5, 8, 12, 15, 19, 22, 27, 34, 39, 42, and 45, which contain the same limitation; and (3) independent claims 50, 53, 56, and 58, which recite commensurate limitations. 5 Other portions of Guha arguably disclose including previous results and hash indices (or pointers to a hash table) in a query from the pass-through software to the data source that produced a matching hash index. Guha 5:26—32. This portion of Guha, however, is not referred to in the rejection at issue. Final Act. 5—6. And the Examiner does not assert that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to apply this technique to Mockapetris to result in the non-empty answer limitation. Id. 6 Appeal 2015-000018 Application 10/102,174 DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1,5,8, 12, 15, 19, 22, 27, 34, 39, 42, 45, 50, 53, 56, and 58 is reversed. REVERSED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation