Ex Parte Dettinger et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 25, 2012

11463364 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 25, 2012)

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.
11/463,364 08/09/2006 Richard D. Dettinger ROC920060041US1 6824
46797 7590 09/26/2012
IBM CORPORATION, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW
DEPT 917, BLDG. 006-1
3605 HIGHWAY 52 NORTH
ROCHESTER, MN 55901-7829
EXAMINER
ALAM, SHAHID AL
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2162
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/26/2012 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
________________

Ex parte RICHARD D. DETTINGER, DANIEL P. KOLZ, and
FREDERICK A. KULACK
________________

Appeal 2010-001860
Application 11/463,364
Technology Center 2100
________________

Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, ERIC B. CHEN, and
ANDREW CALDWELL, Administrative Patent Judges.

BAUMEISTER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2010-001860
Application 11/463,364

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SUMMARY
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1-9:
Claims 1-7 and 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being
anticipated by Reiner (US 5,742,806; published Apr. 21, 1998); and
Claim 8 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over
Reiner in view of Ransil (US 2007/0168336 A1; issued July 19, 2007).
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We review the appealed
rejections for error based upon the issues identified by Appellants, and in
light of the arguments and evidence produced thereon. Cf. Ex parte Frye, 94
USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (citing In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445
(Fed. Cir. 1992)).
We reverse.

STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellants describe the present invention as follows:
A method, article of manufacture and apparatus for
decomposing an initial query into smaller conditional groups
for execution on a database is disclosed. A separate database
query may be generated for each of the conditional groups, and
the results of executing these separate database queries may be
combined and returned as the result of the initial query.
Typically, the initial query may be decomposed because it is
otherwise too large and/or too complex to be executed directly.
(Abstract).

Appeal 2010-001860
Application 11/463,364

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Claim 1, the sole independent claim, is illustrative:
1. A method of executing a primary query on a database
contained within a database system, comprising:
decomposing the primary query into a plurality of
conditional groups, wherein each conditional group is a
fragment of the primary query, and wherein the conditional
groups are logically related to one another;
generating a secondary query for each of the two or more
conditional groups;
executing at least one of the secondary queries;
combining the results of the secondary queries based on
the logical relationships between the conditional groups; and
returning the combined results of the secondary queries
as the result of the primary query.

CONTENTIONS
The Examiner finds that Reiner teaches all of the limitations of
independent claim 1 (Ans. 4). Appellants assert, inter alia, that Reiner fails
to disclose decomposing the primary query into a plurality of conditional
groups, wherein each conditional group is a fragment of the primary query
(App. Br. 12).

PRINCIPLES OF LAW
Office personnel must rely on Appellants’ disclosure to properly
determine the meaning of the terms used in the claims. Markman v.
Westview Instruments, Inc., 52 F.3d 967, 980 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (en banc).
“[I]nterpreting what is meant by a word in a claim is not to be confused with
adding an extraneous limitation appearing in the specification, which is
Appeal 2010-001860
Application 11/463,364

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improper.” In re Cruciferous Sprout Litig., 301 F.3d 1343, 1348 (Fed. Cir.
2002) (citations omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted).
“[T]he ordinary and customary meaning of a claim term is the
meaning that the term would have to a person of ordinary skill in the art in
question at the time of the invention, i.e., as of the effective filing date of the
patent application.” Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1313 (Fed. Cir.
2005) (en banc). It is the use of the words in the context of the written
description and customarily by those skilled in the relevant art that
accurately reflects both the “ordinary” and the “customary” meaning of the
terms in the claims. Ferguson Beauregard/Logic Controls, Div. of Dover
Res., Inc. v. Mega Sys., LLC, 350 F.3d 1327, 1338 (Fed. Cir. 2003).
[The claims] are part of a fully integrated written instrument,
consisting principally of a specification that concludes with the
claims. For that reason, claims must be read in view of the
specification . . . . [T]he specification is always highly relevant
to the claim construction analysis. Usually, it is dispositive; it
is the single best guide to the meaning of a disputed term.
Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1315 (citations omitted) (internal quotation marks
omitted).

ANALYSIS
Interpreting the claim terms “fragment of the primary query” in light
of Appellants’ Specification, we find Appellants’ arguments to be
persuasive. Contrary to the Examiner’s interpretation (Ans. 8, 13), we
interpret claim 1 as requiring that a conditional group must be composed of
conditions that are a part of the primary query as opposed to merely being a
query with a result set that is a subset of the result set of the primary query.
Appeal 2010-001860
Application 11/463,364

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Reiner teaches a system for database query processing by a database
management system (Ans. 4 (citing Reiner, Abstract)). Reiner endeavors to
improve query execution by intercepting a primary query and decomposing
the primary query into subqueries that are executed in parallel (Reiner,
col. 2, ll. 52-61). In Reiner, the data records of a database table are stored
among a plurality of independently accessible partitions (id., col. 2, ll. 44-
51), and each subquery is directed to one of the partitions (id., col. 2, ll. 52-
61). Reiner discloses generating the subqueries by adding additional query
conditions to the primary query (id., col. 3, ll. 1-8). Following, the
conditional groups of Reiner contain conditions not found in the primary
query. As such, Reiner does not teach decomposing the primary query into a
plurality of conditional groups, wherein each conditional group is a fragment
of the primary query.
We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of
independent claim 1, or of claims 2-7 and 9, which depend from claim 1.
With respect to the remaining rejection of dependent claim 8, the
Examiner does not rely on Ransil to cure the deficiency of the rejection
explained above. Accordingly, we do not sustain the obviousness rejection
of claim 8 for the reasons noted in relation to independent claim 1.

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-9 is reversed.

REVERSED

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