Ex Parte Geist

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 22, 2017

13564079 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 22, 2017)

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.
13/564,079 08/01/2012 Daniel GEIST 665-22 5751
24336 7590 02/24/2017
TUTUNJIAN & BITETTO, P.C.
401 Broadhollow Road, Suite 402
Melville, NY 11747
EXAMINER
THATCHER, CLINT A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2191
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/24/2017 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):
patents@tb-iplaw.com
sandy@tb-iplaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DANIEL GEIST
Appeal 2016-002032
Application 13/564,079
Technology Center 2100
Before MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, JOHN F. HORVATH, and
ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2016-002032
Application 13/564,079
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims
1—14 and 16—21. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
THE INVENTION
The claims are directed to debugging programs. Spec., Title. Claim
1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1 A computer-implemented method performed by a
computerized device, comprising:
displaying a graphic waveform showing values of at least
two state variables of a computer program being debugged in at
least two points in time, wherein the graphic waveform
displaying a timeline indicating for each of the at least two points
in time, values of each of the at least two state variables;
receiving a user selection from the graphic waveform,
wherein the user selection is a selection of a selected point in
time in execution which is graphically displayed in the graphic
waveform; and
resuming within a debugger an execution state of the
computer program associated with the selected point in time.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Kovacs (Kovacs, Jozsef, et al.; “Integrating temporal assertions into a
parallel debugger”; Euro-Par 2002)
Lewis (Bill Lewis; “Debugging Backwards in Time”; Fifth Int. Workshop
on Automated and Algorithmic Debugging (AADEBUG2003); Sept.
2003)
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Appeal 2016-002032
Application 13/564,079
LabVIEW2 (“Waveform Graph Cursors”; Lab VIEW virtual instrumentation
(VI) tutorial pages, National Instruments website (ni.com); 30 Apr.
2010)
REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Claims 1—7, 9—14, and 16—21, stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Lewis and Lab VIE W2.
Claim 8 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Lewis, LabVIEW2, and Kovacs.
APPELLANT’S CONTENTION1
Lewis discloses display of all values of a single variable over a
designated time period but fails to teach or suggest using a display to show
values of two or more different variables over time as claimed. App. Br. 17.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s
arguments the Examiner has erred in rejecting claims 1—14 and 16—21 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a). We agree with Appellant’s conclusions as to this
rejection of the claims.
Appellant argues Lewis’s display of values of a single variable over
time fails to teach or suggest the display of two or more different variables
over time as required by independent claims 1,9, and 12. See App. Br. 17.
1 We note Appellant raises additional contentions of error but we do not
reach them as our resolution of this contention is dispositive of the appealed
rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
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Appeal 2016-002032
Application 13/564,079
The Examiner responds by finding: according to Lewis, “[a]ll values of a
variable over time may be selected for display.” Ans. 15.
The Examiner’s response is insufficient because it neither finds the
prior art teaches or suggests the display of two or more variables over time
nor does it provide any citations to the prior art in support of such a finding.
The portion of Lewis relied upon in the Final Rejection for teaching the
disputed limitation discloses “it is possible to bring up a list of all the values
a variable ever had and select one of them.” Lewis p. 229 (emphasis
added). That is, as shown in Figure 2, Lewis displays the values of a single
variable at multiple points in time (displaying values for array[16] at
multiple points in time) or displays the values for more than one variable at a
single point in time (displaying values for variables array[14]—array[19] at
timestamp 69), but does not explicitly describe displaying values for more
than one variable over time. The Examiner furthermore does not find it
would have been obvious for Lewis to display the values for two or more
variables at two or more points in time, and does not rely on LABVIEW2 for
teaching the display of values of two state variables as claimed. See Final
Act. 3^4. Absent some persuasive basis for the Examiner’s finding that the
prior art teaches or suggests the disputed limitation of displaying values for
at least two variables in at least two points in time, whether because
explicitly disclosed by the prior art, suggested by the prior art, based on
official notice, or otherwise2, we are constrained by the record before us.
Accordingly, based on this record, we do not sustain the rejection of
independent claims 1, 9, and 12 which include the disputed limitation, nor
2 See, e.g., In re Harza, 274 F.2d 669 (CCPA 1960) (“It is well settled that
the mere duplication of parts has no patentable significance unless a new and
unexpected result is produced.”).
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Appeal 2016-002032
Application 13/564,079
do we sustain the rejections of dependent claims 2—8, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 16—
21 based on their dependency from independent claims 1, 9, and 12.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—14 and 16—21.
REVERSED
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