Ex Parte Doraiswamy et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 26, 2016

12964658 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 26, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/964,658 12/09/2010
28863 7590 08/30/2016
SHUMAKER & SIEFFERT, P, A,
1625 RADIO DRIVE
SUITE 100
WOODBURY, MN 55125
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
VIJAA Y DORAISW AMY
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.
1209-029US01 5173
EXAMINER
ROSTAMI, MOHAMMAD S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2154
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/30/2016 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):
pairdocketing@ssiplaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Exparte VIJAAY DORAISWAMY, JAGANATHAN JEYAPAUL,
TSUNYEN WENG, NATHAN JANKEN, MOHAN NA VARATNA,
and BRIAN JAMES LITTLE
Appeal2015-003468
Application 12/964,658 1
Technology Center 2100
Before CATHERINE SHIANG, CARLL. SILVERMAN, and NORMAN
H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges.
SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1 and 3-20, which constitute all the pending
claims. Claims 2 and 21 are cancelled. App. Br. 3. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We reverse.
1 The real party in interest is identified as Equinix, Inc. App. Br. 3.
Appeal2015-003468
Application 12/964,658
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants' invention relates to managing permissions for accessing
assets. Abstract; Spec. i-fi-13, 5. Claim 1 is exemplary of the matter on
appeal:
1. A system for managing assets in a data center co-location
facilities environment, the system comprising:
a central relational database containing information associated
with assets of a service provider, wherein the assets are associated
with one or more geographically distinct co-location facilities,
wherein the assets are provided by a service provider for use by
a customer, and wherein the service provider is associated with the
customer based on one or more agreements to enable the customer to
access the assets,
wherein a permissions model is configured to enable at least
one user from the customer to be designated as having authority to
grant permissions to access the assets, the permissions granted to
other users of the same customer, wherein an asset hierarchical model
is configured to enable grouping of the assets in one or more asset
groups, and a user group model is configured to enable grouping of
the users of the customer in one or more user groups and according to
the geographically distinct co-location facilities, the user groups and
the asset groups managed independently of one another,
wherein many-to-many relationships are established among the
users in the user groups, the assets in the asset groups, and the
permissions granted to the users to use the assets, and wherein
components of the system are implemented in hardware, software, or
a combination of both, and where components of the system that are
implemented in software are stored in an executable format on one or
more non-transitory machine-readable mediums.
App. Br. 20-21 (Claims App'x).
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Appeal2015-003468
Application 12/964,658
REJECTION2
Claims 1 and 3-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Johnson et al. (US 2002/0016757 Al; Feb. 7, 2002)
("Johnson") in view of Walls et al. (US 2011/0072018 Al; Mar. 24, 2011)
("Walls"). Final Act. 3-10.
ANALYSIS
The Examiner finds Johnson teaches the claim 1 limitations, except
"wherein a permissions model is configured .... "and relies on Wall for this
limitation. Final Act. 9-12; Ans. 3-15.
Appellants argue Johnson does not teach the limitation:
wherein the assets are provided by a service provider for use by
a customer, and wherein the service provider is associated with the
customer based on one or more agreements to enable the customer to
access the assets.
App. Br. 10-11; Reply Br. 5-9.
The Examiner finds Johnson teaches this limitation. Final Act. 10
(citing i-fi-f 11, 28); Ans. 4--5 (citing i-fi-f 11, 47, 56; Fig 5). Regarding
"wherein the assets are provided by a service provider for use by a
customer" the Examiner finds Johnson teaches:
2 Claims 3 and 21 are cancelled (App. Br. 3) and, therefore, we do not
address the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) and 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) rejections of these
claims. The provisional double patenting rejection of claims 1 and 3-20 is
withdrawn. Ans. 3.
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Application 12/964,658
The embodiment also includes a database in communication with the
web site for storing asset information. In this embodiment, various
users of the system (e.g., enterprise personnel, service providers, and
equipment manufacturers) are allowed differing levels of access to
applications located within the web site so that asset information can be
easily inputted or downloaded through a client processor or kiosk 11 i-f
[0011]. After a service request is completed, information pertaining to
the repair or maintenance of an asset may be gathered from service
providers through the web site or through a client computer 12 or a
kiosk 15 and stored in the database 13 ,-r [0047]. The main navigational
sections (shown in FIG. 5) include, "Sites," "Service & Maintenance,""
Asset Types " "Service Providers " "Manufacturers " "Reports " and
' ' ' '
"Messages." Selection of one of these main navigational sections
determines what appears on the second section ,-r [0056].
Ans. 4--5.
Regarding "wherein the service provider is associated with the
customer based on one or more agreements to enable the customer to access
the assets" the Examiner finds Johnson's databases 13 store access
information and are accessed by various users with distinct levels of access
[to the database 13]. Ans. 7-8. In particular, the Examiner finds:
To limit access to authorized users, in one embodiment, the subject
invention allows for various types of users and users at various
distributed sites to have distinct levels of access. For example an
enterprise or store user, in one embodiment, has full access to all assets
and all pending work orders pertaining to his or her store. A service
provider user has access to all assets of a type that he services and all
work orders that he is responsible for fulfilling. These assets may
include assets located at various distributed sites and may even include
assets owned by distinct enterprises. An equipment manufacturer may
have access to the assets at the various distributed sites that it
manufactured ,-r [0039]. Levels of access can be controlled by
specifying securable or configurable attributes for each system user.
These attributes can be specified by a system administrator, who may
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Appeal2015-003468
Application 12/964,658
be an enterprise asset management company or may be with the
enterprise itself. In one embodiment, the securable attributes are pre-
defined based on the type of user. For example, user can have access to
assets based on hierarchical levels within an enterprise. If the user is a
regional manager, he will have access to assets in all of the locations of
his store within his region. If the user is manager of a particular
location, access may be limited to assets within that particular location
ii [0040]).
Ans. 8.
According to Appellants, Johnson's assets, e.g., cash registers, are
assets already owned by a customer rather than being "provided by a service
provider." Id. at 10. Appellants further argue "Johnson is not disclosing the
service provider (who provides the assets) is associated with the customer
based on one or more agreements to enable the customer to access the
assets." Id. According to Appellants:
[t]he service providers of Johnson who are the users of the asset
management system, provide service (e.g. maintenance service) for the
assets of the system. In contrast to claim 1, the assets in Johnson are not
provided by a service provider for use by a customer but rather the
service providers provide service for the assets. Also, in contrast to
claim 1, the customer owns the assets and any agreements between the
two are not to enable the customer to access and use the assets provided
by the service provider.
Reply Br. 7.
We are persuaded by Appellants' arguments. In particular, Johnson
teaches tracking costs of assets, e.g., cash registers, and these assets are not
provided by a service provider as the service provider provides services for
the assets, not the assets. See, for example, Johnson Abstract; Fig. 1; iii-I 4, 5,
29, 39, 44, 46. Also, while the Examiner does not present a clear statement
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Application 12/964,658
regarding Johnson teaching "wherein the service provider is associated with
the customer based on one or more agreements to enable the customer to
access the assets," the assets are owned by the customer and the Examiner
has not explained how or why an agreement is needed to enable the
customer to access the assets.
In view of the foregoing, based on the record before us, we do not
sustain the rejection of claim 1, and independent claims 11 and 19, which
recite the disputed limitation and are argued together with claim 1. We also
do not sustain the rejection of dependent claims 3-10, 12-18, and 20. Cf In
re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266 (Fed. Cir. 1992) ("[D]ependent claims are
nonobvious if the independent claims from which they depend are
nonobvious .... ") .. Because our decision with regard to the disputed
limitation is dispositive of the rejection of all pending claims, we do not
address additional arguments raised by Appellants.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1 and 3-20.
REVERSED
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