Ex Parte Cornwell et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Sep 4, 2003

08735168 (B.P.A.I. Sep. 4, 2003)

1
The opinion in support of the decision being entered today was
not written for publication and is not binding precedent of the
Board.
Paper No. 19
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
__________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
__________
Ex parte KARELLE L. CORNWELL, BARBARA T. COUCH, ROBERT W. LYLE,
JAMES ZU-CHIA TENG and JULIE A. WATTS
__________
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
___________
ON BRIEF
___________
Before FLEMING, DIXON, and BARRY, Administrative Patent Judges.
FLEMING, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal from the final rejection of
claims 1 through 30, all the claims pending in the instant
application.
Invention
The invention relates to a system and method within the
field of database management for providing concurrent access to
database contents by individually locking partitions of a table
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
2
without locking the entire table. See page 1 of Appellants’
specification. The need to provide concurrent access to database
content is a recurring requirement in current database
technology. Concurrency applies to multiple applications
requiring access to the same data at the same time through one
database management system. The virtually universal technique of
concurrency control is locking. In this regard, an application
will acquire a lock on an object in the database in which it has
an interest for reading, inserting, deleting, or changing. In
order to ensure that the object will not change while the
application is accessing it, the database management system
provides a lock giving the application access to the object,
while preventing other applications from modifying the object so
long as the application holds the lock. See pages 1 and 2 of
Appellants’ specification.
In relational database systems, contents of a database are
represented as tables of database values. Each table corresponds
to a relation. In a relational database, a table can be divided
into partitions. Each partition contains a portion of the data
in the table. By partitioning a table, partitions containing
more frequently-used data can be placed on faster devices, and
parallel processing of data can be improved by spreading
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
3
partitions over different DASD volumes, with each I/O stream on a
separate channel path. However, when access is granted to an
application, the entire table is locked, even if a subset of the
data (e.g. data for only a few partitions) will be accessed.
When a table is partitioned, locking the entire table may degrade
concurrency and database system performance. It is an object of
Appellants’ invention to provide a means for serializing access
to a partitioned table in a relational database without requiring
locking of the entire table when a serialized application
requires access to less than all of the partitions of the table.
See page 2 of Appellants’ specification. Appellants provide this
object by the use of selective partition locking that allows the
database system to lock only those partitions of a partitioned
table space to which access is sought by the first application.
See page 3 of Appellants’ specification.
Independent claim 1 present in the application represent
Appellants’ claimed invention and is reproduced as follows:
1. A method for controlling concurrency of access to data
in a database system, comprising:
partitioning a table in the database system into a plurality
of partitions;
receiving a request for access to data in the table;
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
1 Appellants filed an appeal brief on February 19, 1999.
Appellants filed a reply brief on June 1, 1999. The Examiner
mailed out an office communication on August 16, 1999, stating
that the reply brief has been entered.
4
determining a partition of the plurality of partitions that
contains the data;
locking the partition in response to the request; and
granting access to the partition.
References
The references relied on by the Examiner are as follows:
Crus et al. (Crus) 4,716,528 Dec. 29, 1987
Bhide et al. (Bhide) 5,625,811 Apr. 29, 1997
(Filing date Oct. 31, 1994)
Bireley et al. (Bireley) 5,692,174 Nov. 25, 1997
(Filing date Oct. 5, 1995)
Rejections at Issue
Claims 1 through 9, 11 through 15 and 17 through 29 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102 as being anticipated by Bireley.
Claims 10, 16 and 30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Bireley in view of Crus. Claims 1, 5
through 7, 9, 21, 26, 27 and 29 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102 as being anticipated by Bhide.
Throughout the opinion, we will make reference to the
briefs1 and the answer for the respective details thereof.
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
5
OPINION
With full consideration being given to the subject matter on
appeal, the Examiner’s rejections and the arguments of Appellants
and the Examiner, for the reasons stated infra, we reverse the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 1 through 9, 11 through 15 and 17
through 29 under 35 U.S.C. § 102, and we reverse the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 10, 16 and 30 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Rejection of Claims 1 through 9, 11 through 15 and 17 through 29
under 35 U.S.C. § 102 as being anticipated by Bireley
It is axiomatic that anticipation of a claim under § 102 can
be found only if the prior art reference discloses every element
of the claim. See In re King, 801 F.2d 1324, 1326, 231 USPQ 136,
138 (Fed. Cir. 1986) and Lindemann Maschinenfabrik GMBH v.
America Hoist & Derrick Co., 730 F.2d 1452, 1458, 221 USPQ 481,
485 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
Appellants argue that Bireley fails to anticipate the steps
of partitioning a table in a database system into a plurality of
partitions; receiving a request for access to data in a table;
determining a partition of the plurality of partitions that
contains the data; and locking the partition in response to the
request as recited in Appellants’ claims. See pages 4 through 7
of Appellants’ brief. Appellants further argue that Bireley
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
6
fails to teach the sequences of the steps as recited in
Appellants’ claims. Appellants argue that the claims establish a
relationship between individual elements of the claim (the steps)
that must be taken into account when analyzing the claim for
anticipation. Appellants note that the Examiner randomly
hopscotches through Bireley and has not established clear
sequence other than arbitrarily signified by the Examiner. See
page 7 of the brief.
In response, the Examiner maintains that Bireley discloses
partitioning a database into several partitions and reading an
access request to such data wherein access to a partition table
is deemed to contain a plurality of partitions. The Examiner
points us to column 12, lines 20 through 63, and column 13, lines
13 through 27, of Bireley. The Examiner argues that the Bireley
partition tables are located in separate physical storage devices
which are accessed by query of a clarity. The Examiner argues
that the fact that the partition tables are located in separate
physical storage devices inherently requires a plurality of
partitions. The Examiner points us to column 6, lines 39 through
48, of Bireley. The Examiner also maintains that Bireley
discloses a lock manager which is deemed to lock a table
partition. The Examiner points us to column 20, lines 40 through
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
7
67. The Examiner points out that Bireley states that his
invention provides a global locking of resources and Bireley
describes for illustrative purposes that the page resource is a
lockable resource. The Examiner argues that a table partition is
an accessible database resource and thereby is deem lockable.
In response, Appellants argue that the Examiner has only
offered conclusionary statements about inherency and has not
brought forth extrinsic evidence to establish that those steps,
elements and limitations which he holds to be inherent are
necessarily present in Bireley. Appellants argue that the
Examiner as a result has not set forth a prima facie case of
anticipation.
Our reviewing court states that “[t]o establish inherency,
the extrinsic evidence ‘must make clear that the missing
descriptive matter is necessarily present in the thing described
in the reference, and that it would be so recognized by person of
ordinary skill.’” In re Robertson 169 F.3d 743, 745, 49 USPQ
1949, 1950-51 (Fed. Cir. 1999) citing Continental Can Co. v.
Mosanto Co., 948 F.3d 1264, 1268, 20 USPQ2d 1746, 1749 (Fed. Cir.
1991). “Inherency, however, may not be established by
probabilities or possibilities. The mere fact that a certain
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
8
thing may result for a given set of circumstances is not
sufficient.” Id. citing Continental Can Co. v. Monsanto Co.,
948 F.3d 1264, 1269, 20 USPQ2d 1746, 1749 (Fed. Cir. 1991).
We note that Bireley is dealing with the problem of shared
data database management systems comprising multiple database
management systems and a single copy of data. Bireley decomposes
long-running complex queries into a plurality of parallel tasks
allocated across the database management systems of a shared
database management system. See column 1, lines 5 through 11.
Bireley solves the problem of a shared database management system
having multiple database management systems in which each
database management system decomposes a large data intensive
query into multiple parallel tasks and allocates the parallel
tasks across the database management systems. Bireley’s shared
database management system comprises multiple database management
systems each of which has direct access to data stored on
multiple storage devices. Each database management system does
not have to communicate through another database management
system to access data. Each database management system is
further capable of decomposing a long-running complex query into
multiple parallel tasks. See column 5, lines 30 through 42, of
Bireley.
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
9
Bireley also solves the problem of dynamically disabling one
or more modes of parallelism at the system level without the need
to reconfigure the originating database management system.
Bireley includes a dynamic mechanism providing selective
disablement of the different modes of parallelism within a shared
database management system. The mechanism allows a system
administrator to dynamically respond to system utilization levels
by selectively disabling parallel modes. See column 6, line 66,
through column 7, line 6, of Bireley.
Finally, Bireley solves the problem of reducing workfile
overhead in a shared database management system by providing a
consuming database management system read-only access to a
producing database management’s working files. Bireley also
includes a system and method for a consuming database management
system in a shared database management system to only have read
access to a producing database management working file. See
column 7, lines 35 through 45, of Bireley. We will refer to
these four problems as query, parallelism, selective disabling of
parallel modes, and bufferpool coherency for working file data.
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
10
Figures 3 and 4 describe how Bireley solves the problem of
query parallelism. See column 10, lines 53 through 55. The high
level control flow of query parallelism is described in figures
5A and 5B. See column 11, lines 36 through 40. In step 504,
shown in figure 5A, the originating database management system
binds the query thereby creating a plan for executing the query.
See column 11, lines 47 through 52, of Bireley. The operation of
the originating database management system during the buying time
shown in step 504 is represented by a control flow diagram shown
in figure 6. Thus, the portion of Bireley which the Examiner
relies on for disclosing partitioning a database into several
partitions and reading an access request to such data wherein
access to a partition database is deemed to contain a plurality
of partitions is directed to the method of determining query
parallelism. This portion of Bireley, column 12, lines 20
through 63, is describing the operation of the original database
management during the buying time in which the database
management system decomposes the query into multiple parallel
tasks and allocates the parallel tasks across to the other
database management systems. We agree with the Examiner that
this portion of Bireley does teach that the data is in
partitioned tablespace located in separate physical storage
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
11
devices. However, we fail to find that this requires a plurality
of partitions because physical storage space does not
neccessarily dictate the makeup of a database.
The selectively disabling of parallel modes is described in
section 5, Originating the Database Management Systems at Run
Time in column 13, line 28, of Bireley. The operation of the
original originating database management system during run time
is represented by a control flow diagram in figure 7. See column
13, lines 29 through 31, of Bireley. In section 6, Originating
Database Management processing results at Run Time is described.
See column 17, line 33, of Bireley. The operation of the
original database management receiving processing results from
parallel tasks during run time is represented by a control flow
diagram in figure 8. See column 17, lines 33 through 36.
Finally, Bireley describes in section 7, Parallel Tasks at Run
Time. See column 19, line 51. The operation of the assisting
database management system during run time is represented by a
control flow diagram in figure 9. See column 19, lines 51
through 54.
Bireley finally addresses how to solve the buffer coherency
for working file data problems in section 8, Setting Bufferpool
Allocation Thresholds. See column 20, line 55. Section 9,
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
12
Global Compatible Class Locking, Bireley discusses the problem of
parallel tasks causing contention on locking database resources
during the processing of the query. See column 22, lines 31
through 33. Bireley teaches that it is imperative that shared
database management systems treat all locking requests resulting
from the parallel task of a query as belonging to the same
family. Under such a scheme, one parallel task executing on one
database management system can share database resources with
other parallel tasks distributed across the database management
systems. Bireley discloses that figure 11 describes global
compatible class locking of the invention. Bireley uses a
globally compatibility token as a key for locking and unlocking
database resource along parallel tasks of a query.
From our review of Bireley, we fail to find that the
Examiner has established that Bireley teaches locking a partition
of a table in a database having a plurality of partitions. The
only portion of Bireley that discusses locking does not teach or
suggest locking only a single partition of a table having
multiple partitions. Bireley only teaches about locking in
columns 22 and 23. The portions that the Examiner relies on for
partitioning is addressing a completely different problem.
Therefore, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection.
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
13
Rejection of Claims 10, 16 and 30 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
We note that claims 10, 16 and 30 recite the above
limitations discussed above due to their dependencies. We
further note that the Examiner relies on Bireley for the above
limitations. Furthermore, we find that Crus does not provide the
missing pieces. Therefore, we will not sustain the rejection of
claims 10, 16 and 30 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable
over Bireley in view of Crus.
Rejection of Claims 1, 5 through 7, 9, 21, 26, 27 and 29 under
35 U.S.C. § 102 as being Anticipated by Bhide.
Appellants argue that Bhide does not teach or suggest
partitioning a table of a database into a plurality of partitions
receiving a request for the access of the table, determining the
partition that contains data, locking the partition in response
to the request and granting a request to the partition as recited
in Appellants’ claim. In response, the Examiner maintains that
Bhide’s teaching of the locking of blocks reads on locking
partitions as claimed. See page 12 of Examiner’s answer.
Appellants argue that Bhide’s teaching of locking blocks
can-not read on Appellants’ claims because a block denotes a unit
of physical storage and not a partition of a database table that
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
14
is indicated by a range of a partitioning key. See page 10 of
Appellants’ brief and Appellants’ reply brief.
We find that Bhide is directed to the storage of data
involving physically partitioning the data and distributing the
resulting partitions to responsible or owner nodes in system
which become responsible for transitions involving their own
corresponding partitions. See columns 1 and 2 of Bhide. Bhide
does teach that during the transition period of transferring
logical ownership from one logical owner to another, node will
maintain block locks of physical blocks accessed by transitions
at node and new transitions at node. See column 10, lines 41
through 50, and column 11, lines 50 through 57. However, we fail
to find a teaching of partitioning a table of a database into a
plurality of partitions, receiving a request for access to the
table, determining a partition for containing the data, and
locking the partition in response to the request as recited in
Appellants’ claims. Therefore, we will not sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 5 through 7, 9, 21, 26, 27 and
29 under 35 U.S.C. § 102.
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
15
In view of the foregoing, we have not sustained the
Examiner’s rejection of claims 1 through 9, 11 through 15 and 17
through 29 under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Furthermore, we have not
sustained the rejection of claims 10, 16 and 30 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103.
REVERSED

MICHAEL R. FLEMING )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
JOSEPH L. DIXON )
Administrative Patent Judge ) APPEALS AND
)
) INTERFERENCES
)
LANCE LEONARD BARRY )
Administrative Patent Judge )
MRF:pgg
Appeal No. 2001-1605
Application 08/735,168
16
Joseph A. Sawyer Jr.
Sawyer Law Group
P.O. Box 51418
Palo Alto, CA 94303