Ex Parte Ghirardi

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 18, 2015

10511188 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 18, 2015)

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.
10/511,188 10/12/2004 Maurizio Ghirardi 007516.00001 1843
11435 7590 02/18/2015
BANNER & WITCOFF, LTD.
& attorneys for client 007511
1100 13th Street, N.W.
Suite 1200
WASHINGTON, DC 20005-4051
EXAMINER
OH, ANDREW CHUNG SUK
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2466
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/18/2015 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 PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte MAURIZIO GHIRARDI

Appeal 2012-0104181
Application 10/511,188
Technology Center 2400
____________________

Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and CATHERINE
SHIANG, Administrative Patent Judges.

HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Telecom Italia S.P.A. App.
Br. 2.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Non-Final Rejection of claims 1, 2, 5, 7–11, 13–22, and 25–32. Claims 23
and 24 have been objected as being dependent upon a rejected claim, but
would otherwise be allowable if rewritten in independent form. Claims 3, 4,
6, and 12 have been canceled. App. Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Appellant’s Invention
Appellant invented a method and system having a multilevel
management architecture for allowing a plurality of intermediate/hierarchic
agents (AG) to concurrently manage objects in a database on behalf of an
object manager (A). Spec. 9:9–10:7, Figs. 5, 10.

Representative Claim
Independent claim 1 is representative. It reads as follows:
1. A method managing a management activity of at least
one managed object by at least one manager object through a
communication network, the method comprising the following
steps:
- providing a plurality of intermediate objects configured
to manage said at least one managed object according to a data
set, said management activity being transformed into a set of
results,
- receiving, at said plurality of intermediate objects, said
data set from said at least one manager object,
- concurrently managing said at least one managed object
through said plurality of intermediate objects, to generate said
set of results, and
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- transferring said set of results from said plurality of
intermediate objects to said at least one manager object.

Prior Art Relied Upon

Rozman US 5,438,614 Aug. 1, 1995
Fujino US 5,651,006 Jul. 22, 1997
Birdwell US 6,032,197 Feb, 29, 2000
Osmond US 6,044,468 Mar. 28, 2000
Dorward US 6,236,341 B1 May 22, 2001
Yoshino US 2002/0052946 A1 May 2, 2002
Leon US 2002/0083205 A1 June 27, 2002
Champlin US 6,519,635 B1 Feb. 11, 2003
Noy US 6,539,540 B1 Mar. 25, 2003
Venkatesulu US 2003/0167319 A1 Sept. 4, 2003
Darcy US 6,748,445 B1 June 8, 2004
Le US 6,882,637 B1 Apr. 19, 2005

Rejections on Appeal
The Examiner rejects the claims on appeal as follows:
Claims 1, 5, 7, 8, 29, and 30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over the combination of Fujino and Venkatesulu.
Claim 2 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, and Rozman.
Claims 9–11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, and Osmond.
Claim 13 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, Osmond, and
Champlin.
Claim 14 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, Osmond,
Champlin, and Le.
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Claim 31 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, Osmond,
Champlin, Le, and Leon.
Claim 15 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, Osmond,
Champlin, Le, and Dorward.
Claims 16–19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, Rozman, and
Birdwell.
Claim 20 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, Osmond,
Champlin, and Noy.
Claims 21, 22, and 25–28 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, Osmond,
Champlin, Yoshino, and Noy.
Claim 32 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, and Darcy.

ANALYSIS
We consider Appellant’s arguments seriatim as they are presented in
the Appeal Brief, pages 8–13 and the Reply Brief, pages 1–6.2

2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner, we
refer to the Appeal Brief (filed February 17, 2012), the Reply Brief (filed
June 27, 2012) and the Answer (mailed May 3, 2012) for the respective
details. We have considered in this Decision only those arguments
Footnote continued on the next page.

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Dispositive Issue: Under 35 U.S.C. § 103, did the Examiner err in
finding the combination of Fujino and Venkatesulu teaches or suggests
concurrently managing an object through a plurality of intermediate objects,
as recited in claim 1?
Appellant argues the proffered combination does not teach or suggest
the disputed limitations emphasized above. App. Br. 8, Reply Br. 2–5. We
have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellant’s arguments.
We are unpersuaded by Appellant’s contentions. We adopt as our own the
findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this
appeal is taken, and as detailed in the Examiner’s Answer in response to
Appellants’ Appeal Brief. See Ans. 25–31. However, we highlight and
address specific arguments and findings for emphasis as follows.
Appellant argues although Venkatesulu discloses an element
management system (EMS) that obtains knowledge of a network element
(NE) state information from a cable modem termination system (CMTS),
Venkatesulu does not teach a plurality of CMTSs concurrently managing
the NE. App. Br. 8, Reply Br. 2. Accordingly, Appellant argues
Venkatesulu does not remedy the noted deficiencies of Fujino. Id.
In response, the Examiner concludes because “concurrently
managing” is not defined in Appellant’s Specification, under the broadest
reasonable interpretation, the cited phrase can be construed as the

Appellant actually raised in the Brief. Any other arguments Appellant could
have made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed to be waived. See
37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).
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intermediate managers exercising authority upon the same network element
at the same time. Ans. 30. Consequently, the Examiner finds Venkatesulu’s
disclosure of a CMTS constantly ranging its network devices such that each
CMTS can simultaneously manage a plurality of network elements (Ans. 31)
teaches the disputed limitations. Therefore, the Examiner finds the cited
teaching of Venkatesulu would have complemented Fujino’s disclosure of a
sub-manager being able to carry out parallel processing of SNMP requests in
a network management system thereby allowing Fujino’s sub-managers to
concurrently manage at least an object for the integration manager. Id.
On the record before us, we find no error in the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of claim 1. In particular, we agree with the Examiner
Appellant’s arguments attack of the references individually, as opposed to
the combination thereof, is ineffective to show non-obviousness. Ans. 26–
27. Although the Examiner admitted initially that Fujino does not teach
concurrently managing an object through a plurality of intermediate
managers, and relied upon Venkatesulu to remedy Fujino’s deficiencies,
Appellant cannot simply ignore the Examiner’s findings with respect to
Fujino to exclusively discuss Venkatesulu. As correctly pointed out by the
Examiner, Venkatesulu’s disclosure of a plurality of CMTSs constantly
managing network elements must be taken in combination with Fujino’s
disclosure of sub-managers managing the network elements in parallel. Ans.
29. We agree with the Examiner that because Venkatesulu discloses each of
a plurality of CMTSs (Fig. 2, item 33) constantly acquiring status
information about network elements (¶¶ 8–9, 26) such that each of the
CTMSs can simultaneously manage a plurality of NEs ( ¶ 32), Venkatesulu
fairly teaches or suggests concurrently managing the NEs through a plurality
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of CTMSs. Further, we agree with the additional finding made by the
Examiner in the Answer that Fujino’s disclosure of the sub-managers
performing parallel processing of SNMP requests (col. 10, ll. 1–3) teaches
the concurrent management of a managed object. Ans. 31. We note
Appellant has failed to address this new finding in the Reply Brief.
Notwithstanding the merit with this additional teaching, we find the
cumulative weight and the totality of the evidence on this record reasonably
support the Examiner’s finding that the combined disclosures of Fujino and
Venkatesulu would have taught or suggested the disputed limitations.
For at least the aforementioned reasons, we find no error in the
Examiner’s conclusion that the combination of Fujino and Venkatesulu
renders claim 1 unpatentable.
Regarding the rejection of claim 32, Appellant argues that the
combination of Fujino, Venkatesulu, and Darcy does not teach or suggest
concurrently managing objects based on resources free at the intermediate
objects as a function of time. App. Br. 12. This argument is not persuasive.
As discussed above, the combination of Fujino and Venkatesulu teaches
concurrently managing objects through an intermediate manager. Further,
we agree with the Examiner that Darcy’s disclosure of a manager
exchanging data with a monitored object based on the amount CPU
utilization available (free resources) at the two machines periodically (as a
function of time) would complement the Fujino-Venkatesulu combination to
predictably result in the concurrent management of NEs depending on
amount of processing required in the sub-manager/CMTSs. Ans. 35.
Accordingly, we find no error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection.

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Regarding the rejections of claims 2, 5, 7–11, 13–22, and 25–31
Appellant has either not presented separate patentability arguments or has
reiterated substantially the same arguments as those previously discussed for
patentability of claim 1 above. Therefore, claims 2, 5, 7–11, 13–22, and 25
fall with claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).

DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 2, 5, 7–11, 13–22,
and 25–32 as set forth above.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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