Ex Parte Coren et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 29, 2016

13074720 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 29, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
13/074,720 03/29/2011 Itzhak Coren
56436 7590 08/02/2016
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
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.
82581555 1332
EXAMINER
AGUILERA, TODD
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2196
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/02/2016 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):
hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com
mkraft@hpe.com
chris.mania@hpe.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ITZHAK COREN, TOMER ENGEL,
and ALON ZANBAR
Appeal2015-004232
Application 13/074,7201
Technology Center 2100
Before JEFFREYS. SMITH, DANIEL N. FISHMAN, and
KEVIN C. TROCK, Administrative Patent Judges.
TROCK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Introduction
Appellants seek review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 3---6, 9-12, and 14--18, which constitute all the
claims pending in this application.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b ).
We REVERSE.
1 Appellants indicate the real party in interest is Hewlett-Packard
Development Company, L.P. App. Br. 2.
2 Claims 1, 2, 7, 8, and 13 were cancelled. See Advisory Act. (mailed Oct.
22, 2014); App. Br. 2.
Appeal2015-004232
Application 13/074,720
Invention
The claims are directed to autocomplete application lifecycle
management entities (ALM). Abstract.
Exemplary Claim
Exemplary claim 3 is reproduced below with the disputed limitations
emphasized:
3. A method to autocomplete an application lifecycle
management (ALM) entity, the method comprising:
determining an action associated with the ALM entity;
tracing an ALM repository starting with the ALM entity
to automatically identify a connected set of entities and
relationships, wherein the connected set includes all entities and
relationships required to carry out the action without including
any unneeded entities or relationships, wherein tracing the
ALM repository comprises:
identifying descendants of the ALM entity and relations
connected to the descendants; and
adding the descendants and the relations to the connected
set of entities and relationships;
identifYing a broken one of the relations connected to
only a single entity in the connected set of entities and
relationships;
identifYing an additional entity connected to the broken
one of the relations that is not already included in the
connected set of entities and relationships; and
adding the additional entity to the connected set of
entities and relationships that are required to carry out the
action without including any unneeded entities or relationships.
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Application 13/074,720
Applied Prior Art
The Examiner relies on the following prior art in rejecting the claims:
Goiff on et al.
Begel et al.
US 6,226, 792 B 1
US 2010/0211924 Al
May 1, 2001
Aug. 19, 2010
Lock, S. et al., Systematic Change Impact Determination in Complex
Object Database Schemata, Proceedings of the European Conference on
Object Oriented Programming (1999), http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/
computing/ aose/papers/SAD ES_PhDOOS 1999. pdf.
Rejections
Claims 3, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, and 14--18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Goiffon and Begel.
Claims 4 and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Goiffon, Begel, and Lock.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed Appellants' arguments in the Briefs, the
Examiner's rejection, and the Examiner's response to Appellants'
arguments. We concur with Appellants' conclusion that the Examiner erred.
We highlight specific findings and argument for emphasis as follows.
Appellants contend the Examiner erred in rejecting independent
claims 3, 9 and 18, because the combination of Goiffon and Begel does not
teach or suggest the disputed limitations italicized in claim 3 supra, and as
similarly recited in claims 9 and 18. App. Br. 7-14, 16, 17; Reply Br. 2-8.
Appellants argue Goiffon does not teach or suggest identifying a
broken relation or identifying an additional entity connected to a broken
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Application 13/074,720
relation because Goiffon merely traverses relationships between elements
without identifying whether such relationship are broken. App. Br. 12.
Appellants argue Goiff on does not identify relations as broken because the
relations being traversed in Goiffon are all connected to two or more entities.
Id.
In response, the Examiner submits that,
prior to traversing any [] relationships, they are "broken." They
are broken because they connect two elements as shown in
Figure 8B but only one of those elements has been located. Only
one of those elements is in the set of located elements. Each
untraversed relationship (broken relation) is connected to only
one element (entity) in the set of located elements (connected set
of entities and relationships).
Ans. 5 (citing Goiffon, Fig. 8B). The Examiner goes on to explain that
"[t]he above 'broken' relationships are identified, at least because they are
traversed. To be traversed, they must be discovered or perceived." Id.
In renlv. Annellants an.me the Examiner is unreasonablv construirn.!
_I_e// _.__._ '-' el '-'
"identifying a broken one of the relations connected to only a single entity in
the connected set of entities and relationships" as nothing more than tracing
elements (traversing) and not requiring actual identification of broken
relations. Reply Br. 4. Appellants argue that one of ordinary skill in the art
would understand the disputed claim language to mean actually identifying a
relation as broken and not merely traversing a relation as the Examiner
submits. Reply Br. 6. Appellants argue the Examiner's interpretation is
unreasonable because it turns the phrase "identifying a broken one of the
relations" into "traversing a relation," which would completely eliminate the
word "broken" from the claim. Reply Br. 6, 7.
We agree with Appellants. Claims are to be given their broadest
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Application 13/074,720
reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification, reading the claim
language in light of the specification as it would be interpreted by one of
ordinary skill in the art. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359,
1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). We agree with Appellants that the Examiner's
reading of the claims unreasonably interprets "identifying a broken one of
the relations" as "traversing a relation," which is contrary to the plain and
ordinary meaning of the claim in light of the Specification. Reply Br. 6, 7.
Paragraph 21 of Appellants' Specification defines a broken relation as "a
relation that is only logically connected to an entity at one end." Thus, one
of ordinary skill in the art in reading the claims in light of the Specification
would not understand "identifying a broken one of the relations" to mean
"traversing a relation."
We also do not agree with the Examiner's finding that an "untraversed
relationship" in Goiffon is a "broken relation." Ans. 5. Nor do we agree
with the Examiner's finding that Goiffon's "broken relationships" are
"identified" merely because they are traversed. Id.
Accordingly, we are persuaded the Examiner erred finding the
combination of Goiffon and Be gel teaches or suggests the disputed
limitations recited in claim 3, and similarly recited in independent claims 9
and 18. Therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 3,
9, and 18, as well as dependent claims 4---6, 10-12, 14--16, and 17. Because
this decision is dispositive of all claims, we do not reach Appellants' other
arguments.
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Application 13/074,720
DECISION
We REVERSE the Examiner's rejection of claims 3---6, 9-12, and
14--18.
REVERSED
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