Ex Parte Gadkari

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Mar 12, 2010

09715752 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 12, 2010)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte SANJAY S. GADKARI
____________

Appeal 2009-000324
Application 09/715,752
Technology Center 2400
____________

Decided: March 15, 2010
____________

Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAY P. LUCAS, and
CAROLYN D. THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judges.

DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
A Patent Examiner rejected claims 1-3, 6-13, 16-21 and 23-28. The
Appellant appeals therefrom under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a). We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
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A. INVENTION
The invention at issue on appeal relates to a managed system of
consumer-use processor-based devices may be utilized to reliably complete
distributed computing jobs with predictable latency and throughput and
determining, at the server, whether the task is completed after said time; and
if not, determining, at the server, why the task was not completed.

In the words of Appellant:

Distributed computing jobs may be divided into tasks and
distributed to a managed network of consumer-use processor-based
devices. In some cases, the nature and characteristics of each of those
devices as well as their available resources may be well known to a
system service provider or server. Thus, the capability of the network
of processor-based devices may be reliably predicted. Particularly
where all the devices are maintained remotely from a server, the
managed network of processor-based devices may be depended upon
to more reliably execute distributed processing tasks assigned by the
server.

(Abstract.)

When a status response is received, as determined in diamond
40, the server 12 may attempt to resolve any log jams as indicated in
block 42. For example if a software or hardware crash has occurred,
the server 12 may attempt to remotely diagnose and resolve the
problem. The server 12 may determine that a software upgrade may
be needed to complete the task as another example. The server 12
may also send a message to the owner or user of the client 16
requesting completion of certain operations to determine why the
client 16 is not operating as expected.

(Spec. 8.)

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B. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM
Claim 1, which further illustrates the invention, follows.
1. A method comprising:

assigning, from a server, distributed computing tasks to a network of
processor- based client devices;

estimating, at said server, based on a client device's resources, a time
when the client device is to complete an assigned task;

determining, at the server, whether the task is completed after said
time; and if not, determining, at the server, why the task was not
completed.

C. REFERENCES
The Examiner relies on the following references as evidence:
Kraft US 6,112,225 Aug. 29, 2000
Zack US 2002/0124041 A1 Sep. 05, 2002
(filed Apr. 22, 1997)
Doney US 2002/0122077 A1 Sep. 05, 2002
(filed Dec. 29, 1998)
Pronsati, Jr. US 6,678,716 B1 Jan. 13, 2004
(filed Jun. 19, 2000)

D. REJECTIONS
Claims 1-3, 6-8, 10-13, 16-18, 20-21, and 23-28 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being un-patentable over Kraft in view of Zack and
further in view of Doney.
Claims 9 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C § 103(a) as being un-
patentable over Kraft, Zack, and Doney in view of Prosati, Jr.

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II. ISSUE
Has Appellant shown error in the Examiner’s initial showing of
obviousness? Specifically, does the combination of references teach the
claimed "determining, at the server, whether the task is completed after said
time; and if not, determining, at the server, why the task was not completed"
as recited in independent claim 1?

III. PRINCIPLES OF LAW
OBVIOUSNESS
The question of obviousness is resolved on the basis of underlying
factual determinations including (1) the scope and content of the prior art,
(2) any differences between the claimed subject matter and the prior art, and
(3) the level of skill in the art. Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17
(1966). “The combination of familiar elements according to known methods
is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.”
KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).

IV. ANALYSIS
Appellant argues that the combination of references do not teach the
claimed "determining, at the server, whether the task is completed after said
time; and if not, determining, at the server, why the task was not completed,"
as recited in independent claim 1. (App. Br. 10-11.) We agree with
Appellant.
The Examiner maintains that at page 4 of the Answer that Kraft and
Zack do not explicitly disclosed "why/what errors causes incomplete task"
and maintains that Doney teaches displaying diagnostic information or
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discovery errors we will be used to indicate why the task was not completed
and relies upon various paragraphs. The Examiner then summarily
concludes that it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the
art to incorporate Zack’s ideas of estimating completion time for the task
with Doney’s ideas of displaying diagnostic messages/discovery errors to
indicate particular task errors into Kraft's system in order to increase
deficiencies for task management system and saving system resources by
shifting/balancing resources between tasks. The Examiner essentially
repeats the same discussion and conclusion at page 8 of the Answer. We
find that Examiner’s mere laundry list of cited paragraphs for factual support
and unsupported lines of reasoning for conclusions makes us conclude that
the Examiner has not set forth a sufficient initial showing of obviousness
based upon a sufficient factual basis in the relied upon prior art teachings.
We find the teachings of Zack are based upon forward-looking
predictions rather than determinations of why a task was not completed or
backward looking. While Doney teaches recognition of non-normal process
completion such as a task abort or the discovery of non-fatal errors and the
presentation of an icon to the user in paragraph [0038], Doney only provides
diagnostic information in a second pane in paragraph [0039]. We find this
to fall short of the required "determining at the server, why the task was not
completed." The Examiner has not provided any substantive discussion of
the teachings of the reference as to how those skilled in the art would have
understood those teachings and reasoned them to have suggested the
invention as recited in independent claim 1. We are left with two much of a
gap to speculate and find the Examiner has not proffered a sufficient initial
showing of obviousness, and we must reverse the Examiner's rejection of
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independent claim 1 and dependent claims 2, 3, 6-10, which depend
therefrom. Independent claims 11 and 211 contain similar limitations as
independent claim 1. We, therefore, cannot sustain the rejection of those
claims and their dependent claims 12, 13, 16-20, and 23-28.

V. CONCLUSION
For the aforementioned reasons, the Appellant has shown error in the
Examiner’s initial showing of obviousness. Appellant has shown that the
combination references does not teach or fairly suggest the claimed
"determining, at the server, whether the task is completed after said time;
and if not, determining, at the server, why the task was not completed," as
recited in independent claim 1, and this limitation is similarly found in the
other independent claims.

1 Additionally, we note that independent claims 11 and 21 recite "a server"
in line 1 and again in line 3 (claim 11) and line 5 (claim 21) introduces
another "a server." Thereafter, these claims reference "said server" in line 5
(claim 11) and line 5 (claim 21) and subsequently reference "the server” in
line 8 (claim 11) and line 7 (claim 21). In any future prosecution, the
Examiner should clarify whether there is a single server or multiple server's
since two servers are introduced in the claims and later referenced without
clarification.
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VI. ORDER
We reverse the obviousness rejection of claims 1-3, 6-13, 16-21, and
23-28.

REVERSED

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