Ex Parte Frey et alDownload PDFBoard of Patent Appeals and InterferencesAug 28, 201210040799 (B.P.A.I. Aug. 28, 2012) Copy Citation 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. 10/040,799 01/07/2002 Leonard E. Frey END920010075US1 2893 7590 08/29/2012 John R. Pivnichny, Ph.D IBM Corporation, N50/040-4 1701 North Street Endicott, NY 13760 EXAMINER CHANNAVAJJALA, SRIRAMA T ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2157 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/29/2012 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 BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS AND INTERFERENCES ____________________ Ex parte LEONARD E. FREY, WILLIAM M. HOUSTON, JAMES A. MARTIN JR., and DEBRA L. ZEGGERT ____________________ Appeal 2010-005167 Application 10/040,799 Technology Center 2100 ____________________ Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, LANCE LEONARD BARRY, and THU A. DANG, Administrative Patent Judges. DANG, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL1 1 In a prior Decision (Appeal Number 2008-001451, decided December 17, 2008), we affirmed the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the teachings of Brodersen and Raz. Appeal 2010-005167 Application 10/040,799 2 I. STATEMENT OF CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a final rejection of claims 1-19. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). A. INVENTION According to Appellants, the invention relates to processing transactions in a plurality of interconnected databases and, more particularly, for providing an intermediary database having documents representing individual transactions to be processed by the databases (Spec. 1, ll. 3-7). B. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM Claim 1 is exemplary and is reproduced below: 1. A method of processing transactions, comprising the steps of: providing a plurality of processing databases of a plurality of types including at least one relational database and one sequential database and one spreadsheet database, each of said processing databases having a respective agent included therein; providing a transaction database; writing one or more transactions, each having included therein a key and a detail, from a first of said plurality of processing databases to said transaction database; Appeal 2010-005167 Application 10/040,799 3 periodically searching, using a processing agent from a second of said plurality of processing databases, said second of said plurality of databases having a different type than said first of said plurality of databases, in said transaction database for a key and detail to determine whether said processing agent should process said one or more transactions; and updating a record in said second of said plurality of processing databases, by using said key and detail. C. REJECTIONS The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Brodersen US 6,405,220 B1 Jun. 11, 2002 (filed Jul. 06, 2001) Raz US 6,292,827 B1 Sept. 18, 2001 Claims 1-19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the teachings of Brodersen and Raz. We AFFIRM. II. ISSUES Have Appellants shown that the Examiner erred in concluding that the combined teachings of Brodersen and Raz teach or would have suggested 1) a plurality of processing databases, each “having a respective agent included therein,” and 2) “writing one or more transactions, each having included therein a key and a detail” (claim 1). Appeal 2010-005167 Application 10/040,799 4 III. FINDINGS OF FACT The following Findings of Fact (FF) are shown by a preponderance of the evidence. Brodersen 1. Brodersen discloses relational databases which represent data in the form of a collection of two-dimensional tables, wherein a column in a table represents either a data field or a pointer to a row in another table (col. 1, ll. 22-29). 2. A database for an organizational structure comprises a table describing each employee in the organization, which may include information specific to the employee, such as name, employee number, age, salary, etc. (col. 1, ll. 30-35). 3. A transaction is created in a local database resident on one of the workgroup connected clients (330-a), and the transaction is entered into a transaction log resident on the workgroup connected client (330-a) (col. 15, ll. 52-56). 4. The next step is copying the transaction file to an inbox identified to the workgroup connected client (330-a) and updating the transaction file into a workgroup database (305) resident on the workgroup server (315), where the workgroup database (305) includes a transaction log (col. 15, ll. 58-63). 5. Multi-user docking clients store data for one or many users; allow multiple users to access and change data on the workgroup database Appeal 2010-005167 Application 10/040,799 5 simultaneously; permit users to execute server-side programs against the workgroup; and execute a periodic docking program to exchange data with the master database at predefined times or intervals (col. 16, ll. 5-11). 6. Broderson also discloses creating a transaction in a local database resident on one of the workgroup user clients (310) and entering the transaction into a transaction log resident on the workgroup user client (310) (col. 16, ll. 21-25). 7. Next, the transaction file is copied to an inbox identified to the workgroup user client (310), and the transaction file is updated into the workgroup database (305) resident on the workgroup server (315) (col. 16, ll. 27-31). IV. ANALYSIS Appellants do not provide separate arguments with respect to the rejection of claims 1-19. Therefore, we select independent claim 1 as being representative of the cited claims. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). Appellants concede that “Brodersen suggests that each of the plurality of databases has an agent” (App. Br. 6). However, Appellants contend that the Appellants have amended the claims “to specifically require the respective agent to be included in each of said processing databases” wherein “[s]uch amending has overcome the Board’s interpretation of the claim term ‘having’ to mean ‘being associated with’” (App. Br. 5). Further, Appeal 2010-005167 Application 10/040,799 6 Appellants contend that although “[t]he Board also found that the skilled artisan would have understood that the key and detail included in the databases in Brodersen are used in the updating of the databases,” Appellants have amended the claims to “require that there be a key and detail included in each transaction” (App. Br. 7). The Examiner notes that the “Board’s opinion did not specifically suggests any limitation[s] to overcome 35 USC 103(a)” and maintains that Brodersen in view of Raz “at the least suggests ‘providing a plurality of processing databases of a plurality of … having a respective agent included therein’” (Ans. 11). The Examiner then finds that “one of ordinary skill in the art would have understood each of the transactions in the transaction log files represented in the form of transaction tables is part of database as taught by Brodersen, to include key and detail” (Ans. 12). We agree with the Examiner. Brodersen discloses a plurality of local databases, each database has therein a program that creates a transaction in the database, enters a transaction in a transaction log, and updates the transaction file in the workgroup database (FF 3, 4, 6 and 7), as well as a periodic docking program to exchange data with the master database at predefined times or intervals (FF 5). As we set forth in our previous Decision, we find that Brodersen teaches, or at the least, strongly suggests, that each of the plurality of databases has an agent (Decision 10). That is, each of the plurality of Appeal 2010-005167 Application 10/040,799 7 databases has therein programs, i.e., agents which perform the create, data entry and update functions. Though Appellants contend that by amending the claim to require that the agents are “included therein,” Appellants have “overcome” the Board’s interpretation (App. Br. 5), as the Examiner notes, the “Board’s opinion did not specifically suggest[] any limitation[s] to overcome 35 USC 103(a)” (Ans. 11). We note that Appellants have not identified any support in the Specification for such “included therein” limitation. Nevertheless, we find that an artisan would have understood that it would have been obvious that an “agent” included in the databases performs the functions of the database, such as create, data entry and update, since the artisan is a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton. See KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 421 (2007). We thus agree with the Examiner that the combined teachings of Brodersen and Raz would disclose or at the least fairly suggest a plurality of processing databases, each “having a respective agent included therein” (Ans. 11) as required by claim 1. Further, Brodersen discloses that the databases represent data in the form of a collection of two-dimensional tables, wherein a column in a table represents either a data field or a pointer to a row in another table and wherein each table includes detailed information (FF 1-2). Although Appellants contend that “[t]he Board also found that the skilled artisan would have understood that the key and detail included in the databases in Appeal 2010-005167 Application 10/040,799 8 Brodersen are used in the updating of the databases” (App. Br. 7), as we also found in our previous Decision, “[o]ne of ordinary skill in the art would have understood each of the transactions in the transaction files, represented in the form of tables as set forth by Brodersen, to include a key and a detail” (Decision 11, emphasis added). Thus, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that “one of ordinary skill in the art would have understood each of the transactions in the transaction log files represented in the form of transaction tables is part of database as taught by Brodersen, to include key and detail” (Ans. 12). We thus agree with the Examiner that the combined teaching of Broderson and Raz would disclose or at the least suggest “writing one or more transactions, each having included therein a key and a detail” as required by claim 1. Although the Examiner finds that Brodersen teaches claim 1’s “providing a plurality of processing databases including at least one relational database and one sequential database and one spreadsheet database” (Ans. 5) and provides a detailed explanation of the finding (Ans. 13-17), Appellants merely repeat the claim language and contend that such language “clarifies the meaning of database types” (App. Br. 7-8). However, a statement which merely points out what a claim recites will not be considered an argument for separate patentability of the claim. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). See also In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997); In re De Blauwe, 736 F.2d 699, 705 (Fed. Cir. 1984); and Ex Appeal 2010-005167 Application 10/040,799 9 parte Belinne, No. 2009-004693, 2009 WL 2477843, at *3-4 (BPAI Aug. 10, 2009) (informative). Thus, we see no error in the Examiner’s finding. Accordingly, we conclude that Appellants have not shown that the Examiner erred in finding all elements of the claimed invention are disclosed or suggested by the combined teaching of Brodersen and Raz and in rejecting claim 1 and claims 2-19 falling with claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). CONCLUSION AND DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). AFFIRMED peb Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation