Ex Parte Do et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 22, 2012

11153846 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 22, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte PHUC K. DO and JUSTIN M. PIERCE
____________

Appeal 2010-006815
Application 11/153,846
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, JEFFREY S. SMITH, and
ANDREW CALDWELL, Administrative Patent Judges.

RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1-12, 14-18, and 25-28. Claims 13 and 19-24 have been canceled.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner,
we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Oct. 22, 2009), the Answer (mailed Jan.
8, 2010), and the Reply Brief (filed Mar. 1, 2010). We have considered in
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this decision only those arguments Appellants actually raised in the Briefs.
Any other arguments which Appellants could have made but chose not to
make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. §
41.37(c)(1)(iv).

Appellants’ Invention
Appellants’ invention relates to a virtualized file system in which file
system views are created for each application executed by a particular user.
These user-specific file system views include operating system files needed
to run the particular application along with file system changes made for the
particular application for the particular user. Changes made to the file
system during execution are permitted but the changes are not visible to
other applications or to other users. See generally Abstract.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows:
1: A computer-implemented method of providing a file system,
comprising:
automatically creating, by a file system access layer that controls all
access to the file system, a file system view for each application executed by
each particular one of a plurality of users of the file system, each of the file
system views comprising all files created by or changed by the application
as it executes on behalf of the particular user, thereby isolating the files in
each of the file system views created for the particular user from access by
any of the other users and from access by any other application executed by
the particular user; and
upon completion of each of the executed applications, persisting the
created file system view created therefor, such that each of the changed or
created files is available for a next execution of the application by the
particular user through use of the persisted file system view.

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The Examiner’s Rejections
The Examiner’s Answer cites the following prior art references:
Hayes, Jr. (Hayes) US 6,339,826 B2 Jan. 15, 2002
Chtchetkine US 6,356,915 B1 Mar. 12, 2002
Schmidt US 2002/0095479 A1 July 18, 2002
Claims 1-3, 9, 14-18, and 25-28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §
103(a) as being unpatentable over Schmidt in view of Chtchetkine.
Claims 4-8 and 10-12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Schmidt in view of Chtchetkine and Hayes.

ANALYSIS
Appellants’ arguments, with respect to the obviousness rejection of
independent claims 1, 25, and 27 based on the combination of Schmidt and
Chtchetkine, contend that neither applied reference, individually or
collectively, teaches all of the claimed elements. In particular, Appellants
contend that the “compute capsules” of Schmidt are disclosed (¶ [0038]) as
including “one or more processes,” which Appellants have argued are
analogous to the claimed “applications.” According to Appellants (App. Br.
10), therefore, the file system views created for the “compute capsules” of
Schmidt would encompass more than one process, i.e., application, in
contrast to the claimed requirement of a file system view for each
application.
We do not agree with Appellants. As pointed out by the Examiner
(Ans. 15), the compute capsules of Schmidt could each have only one
process (application) and, therefore, the files system views created for each
compute capsule would necessarily be created for each application as
claimed. Contrary to Appellants’ contention (Reply Br. 5-6) that the
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Examiner’s interpretation is an attempt to “force-fit” Schmidt’s approach
into the present claim language, support for the Examiner’s interpretation is
taken directly from Schmidt’s disclosure. As recognized by Appellants’
arguments (App. Br. 10), Schmidt discloses that a compute capsule can
contain “one or more processes . . . .” ((quoting ¶ [0038] (emphasis added))).
We also find unpersuasive Appellants’ related argument which directs
attention to Schmidt’s disclosure that the compute capsules include an
arbitrary set of processes (Abstract). According to Appellants (App. Br.
10), this disclosure is contrasted with the claimed requirement that all files
which are created or changed by an executing application are included in a
system view. It is apparent, however, that Schmidt’s use of the term
“arbitrary” means nothing more than that a user’s compute capsule will
contain a set of processes selected from a larger set of available processes.
As explained by the Examiner (Ans. 16), Schmidt indeed discloses that all
files in a compute capsule which are modified will appear and persist in a
private compute capsule view (¶ [0048]).
Further, contrary to Appellants’ contention (Reply Br. 2-5), we do not
interpret the Examiner’s stated position as improperly relying on two
different elements from Schmidt, i.e., the compute capsules and the system
views, as corresponding to Appellants’ claimed system views. While we
agree with Appellants (Reply Br. 2) that Schmidt’s compute capsules are not
the same as his system views, we find that the Examiner’s analysis fully
recognizes this distinction. As explained by the Examiner (Ans. 15-16),
Schmidt discloses that after a user selects and configures the contents of a
compute capsule, the file system views within the compute capsule are
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automatically populated, i.e., “created” as claimed, with system directories
and necessary files (¶ [0048]).
Turning to a discussion of the applied Chtchetkine reference,
Appellants have undertaken a detailed analysis of Chtchetkine as it relates to
the claimed file system view feature (App. Br. 11-15). As pointed out by the
Examiner (Ans. 19-20), however, it is Schmidt, not Chtchetkine, that is
relied upon for a teaching of the file system view feature.
It is apparent from the Examiner’s stated position (Ans. 4) that
Chtchetkine is relied upon solely for an explicit teaching to address the
claimed “file system access layer” feature. We further find that the
Examiner has provided a valid articulated line of reasoning with a rational
underpinning to support the conclusion of obviousness with respect to the
proposed combination of Schmidt and Chtchetkine. We agree with the
Examiner that a skilled artisan would have recognized and appreciated that
Chtchetkine’s teaching of a file system access layer that controls all access
to the file system would have served as an obvious enhancement in the
system of Schmidt thereby enabling the isolation of applications from direct
interaction with file system storage hardware (Ans. 4, 19). KSR Int’l Co. v.
Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). We also agree with the Examiner
(Ans. 17) that Chtchetkine discloses (col. 5, ll. 35-50) a file system view
isolation feature which buttresses Schmidt’s teaching of such feature.
Lastly, we recognize that Appellants have provided arguments
directed to the merits of the Examiner’s stated rationale for combining
Schmidt and Chtchetkine at page 8 of the Reply Brief. Since these
arguments were presented for the first time on appeal in the Reply Brief,
they are therefore deemed to be waived. See Ex parte Borden, 93 USPQ2d
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1473, 1473-74 (BPAI 2010) (“informative”1) (Absent a showing of good
cause, the Board is not required to address an argument newly presented in
the Reply Brief that could have been presented in the principal Brief on
Appeal.).
For the above reasons, the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of
independent claims 1, 25, and 27, as well as dependent claims 2, 3, 9, 14-18,
26, and 28 not separately argued by Appellants, is sustained.

Claims 4-8 and 10-12
We also sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of dependent
claims 4-8 and 10-12 in which the Examiner has applied Hayes to the
combination of Schmidt and Chtchetkine to address the various features of
the rejected claims. Appellants (App. Br. 17) have not argued the rejected
claims with any particularity but, instead, have relied upon arguments
asserted against the rejection of independent claims 1, 25, and 27, which
arguments we have found unpersuasive as discussed supra.

CONCLUSION OF LAW
Based on the analysis above, we conclude that the Examiner did not
err in rejecting claims 1-12, 14-18, and 25-28 for obviousness under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

1 Designated as “Informative Opinion” at
http://www.uspto.gov/ip/boards/bpai/decisions/inform/index.jsp.
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DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-12, 14-18, and
25-28 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv) (2010).

AFFIRMED

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