Ex Parte Frey et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Aug 28, 2012

10040799 (B.P.A.I. Aug. 28, 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.
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.
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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;

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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).

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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
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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,
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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
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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
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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
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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

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