Ex Parte Error

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jul 6, 2011

10356685 - (D) (B.P.A.I. Jul. 6, 2011)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte BRETT ERROR
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Appeal 2009-011478
Application 10/356,685
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, GREGORY J. GONSALVES, and
DAVID M. KOHUT, Administrative Patent Judges.

GONSALVES, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2009-011478
Application 10/356,685

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the rejection of
claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 12-18, 20-28, 30-32, 36, 38, 39, 41-44, 46-52, 54-56, 60,
62-65, and 67-83. (App. Br. 2.) Claims 3-4, 7-11, 19, 29, 33-35, 37, 40, 45,
53, 57-59, 61, and 66 have been canceled. (Id.) We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
The Disclosed Invention
The disclosed invention includes “techniques for collecting [website]
traffic data from multiple sources and aggregating the collected data.”
(Spec. ¶ [0002].) The invention includes data collection nodes that receive
client requests including data representing website usage from client
machines, store the client requests locally, and associate the client requests
with time stamps. (Spec. ¶¶ [0025], [0030], and [0035].) The invention
also includes a data collection node selector that dynamically selects a data
collection node to receive each client request. (Spec. ¶ [0027].) The
invention also includes a master processing center that receives data from
the data collection nodes, sorts and aggregates the data according to the time
stamps, and generates a report from the data representing website usage.
(Spec. ¶¶ [0036] and [0045].)
Exemplary claim 1 follows:
1. A distributed data collection system for collecting website usage
data, comprising:
a plurality of data collection nodes, each comprising a clock, each
data collection node for:
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receiving, via a network connection, client requests for
elements, each client request including data from at least one client machine,
the data representing website usage;
locally storing the received data;
associating each received client request with a time stamp;
and
responsive to occurrence of a predefined trigger event,
attempting to transmit the locally stored data;
wherein the clocks are synchronized with one another;
a data collection node selector, for dynamically selecting, responsive
to current conditions, a data collection node to receive each client request
and to collect the data included in the client request; and
a master processing center, for:
receiving collected data from at least a subset of the data
collection nodes;
sorting and aggregating the received data according to the time
stamps to generate a set of events describing website usage; and
performing statistical analysis on the set of events to generate a
report comprising website usage statistics;
wherein:
responsive to failure of an attempted transmission, the data
collection node retains the locally stored data and the master processing
center flags the corresponding aggregated received data as incomplete.

Appeal 2009-011478
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The Examiner rejected claims 1-4, 12-13, 17-30, 36, 38-39, 43-54, 60,
64-71, 73-75, 77-79, and 81-83 as obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based
on Farrell (U.S. Patent 6,751,663), Cochran (U.S. Patent 6,701,324), Lu
(U.S. Patent 7,069,325), Schweitzer (U.S. Patent 7,065,571), and Glommen
(U.S. Patent 6,766,370).
The Examiner rejected claims 5, 6, 31, 32, 55, 56, 72, 76, and 80 as
obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Farrell, Cochran, Lu,
Schweitzer, Glommen, and Appellant’s Admitted Prior Art.
The Examiner rejected claims 16, 42, and 63 as obvious under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Farrell, Cochran, and Datta (U.S. Patent
7,024,472).

ISSUE
Appellant’s responses to the Examiner’s positions present the
following issue:
Did the Examiner establish that Lu renders obvious “a plurality of
data collection nodes, each comprising a clock … wherein the clocks are
synchronized with one another,” as recited in independent claim 1, and as
similarly recited in independent claims 27 and 51?

FINDINGS OF FACT (FF)
Lu
1. Lu discloses “techniques for synchronizing a plurality of servers,
receiving a client request from the client to access a server of the plurality of
servers, generating a transmit identifier associated with the client request,
the transmit identifier identifying an event upon the occurrence of which the
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plurality of synchronized servers each transmit a response to the client,
forwarding the client request and the transmit identifier to each of the
plurality of synchronized serves.” (Abstract.)
2. With these techniques, multiple “servers are able to send requested
content responses to the client starting at the same starting time.” (4:13-15.)

PRINCIPLES OF LAW
The Examiner bears an initial burden of factually supporting an
articulated rejection. In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
Under § 103, “‘there must be some articulated reasoning with some rational
underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness.’” KSR Int’l
Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007) (citation omitted).

ANALYSIS
Appellant asserts that the prior art does not “suggest data collection
nodes having clocks that are synchronized with one another.” (App. Br. 16.)
The Examiner reasons that Lu teaches synchronizing a clock mechanism for
a plurality of servers. (Ans. 5.) But independent claims 1, 27, and 51
require more; they require a plurality of data collection nodes for receiving
client requests containing data representing website usage wherein the data
collection nodes have clocks that are synchronized with one another.
Claims 2, 5-6, 12-18, 20-26, 28, 30-32, 36, 38-39, 41-44, 46-50, 52, 54-56,
60, 62-65, 67-83 are dependent upon claims 1, 27, and 51. The Examiner
fails to demonstrate that Lu’s teaching of synchronized servers teaches or
suggests the claimed data collection nodes having clocks that are
synchronized with one another. (See e.g., Ans.8-40.) Indeed, as explained
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by Appellant, Lu synchronizes servers so that they can respond to a client
request at the same time. (Reply Br. 26-27; accord FF 2.) Thus, Lu’s
servers are not synchronized for data collection, as required by claims 1, 27,
and 51. (Id.) The additional teachings of Farrell, Cochran, Glommen, and
Datta do not make up for the deficiencies noted above.
Therefore, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claims 1, 27 and 51, and claims 2, 5, 6, 12-18, 20-26, 28, 30-32, 36, 38, 39,
41-44, 46-50, 52, 54-56, 60, 62-65, and 67-83 dependent therefrom.

DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 12-18,
20-28, 30-32, 36, 38, 39, 41-44, 46-52, 54-56, 60, 62-65, and 67-83.

REVERSED

msc