Ex Parte Gopal et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 22, 2017

12130568 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 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.
12/130,568 05/30/2008 Burra Gopal 14917.0796US01/321909.01 4216
27488 7590 12/27/2017
MERCHANT & GOULD (MICROSOFT)
P.O. BOX 2903
MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55402-0903
EXAMINER
ONAT, UMUT
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2194
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/27/2017 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):
US PT027488 @ merchantgould .com
u sdocket @ micro soft .com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte BURRA GOPAL, SANDER M. VIEGERS, JEFF KEYES,
CHRIS ALAN KEYSER, and JAGDISH SINGH
Appeal 2017-005490
Application 12/130,56s1
Technology Center 2100
Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, HUNG H. BUI, and JON M. JURGOVAN,
Administrative Patent Judges.
BUI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1, 4-15, 17-20, 22, and 23. Claim 21
has been objected to as a dependent claim including allowable subject
matter. Final Act. 32. Claims 2, 3, and 16 have been canceled. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.2
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Microsoft Technology
Licensing, LLC, which is a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation. App. Br. 2.
2 Our Decision refers to Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App. Br.”) filed July
29, 2016; the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.”) filed February 15, 2017; Examiner’s
Answer (“Ans.”) mailed December 15, 2016; Final Office Action (“Final
Appeal 2017-005490
Application 12/130,568
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants ’ Invention
Appellants’ invention relates to methods and systems for “[allowing
multiple software applications to share an object of an application system,”
with “[ejach of the multiple software applications [being] associated with a
line of business (LOB) system and . . . with a solution ID.” Abstract. The
multiple software applications share the object by: “establishing] a first
binding between the object and a first LOB entity instance for [the] first
software application”; establishing “a second binding between the object and
a second LOB entity instance for [the] second software application. . . .
when the first and second software applications have matching solution IDs
and compatible sharing levels to the object”; and establishing a “user
interface and data sharing between the first and second LOB entity instances
in the object.” Abstract. Examples of software applications and shared
objects include “WORD (document objects), EXCEL (spreadsheet objects),
POWERPOINT (slide presentation objects), and ACCESS (database
objects),” as well as “software application modules/applications for creating
and editing various objects, for example, emails tasks, contacts and
appointments.” Spec. ^ 20.
Claims 1, 7, and 12 are independent. Representative claim 1 is
reproduced below with disputed limitations in italics'.
1. A method of allowing multiple software applications to
share an object of an application system, the method
comprising:
Act.”) mailed March 18, 2016; and original Specification (“Spec.”), filed
May 30, 2008.
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receiving a request to establish a first binding between
the object and a first line of business (LOB) entity instance for
a first software application;
establishing the first binding between the object and the
first LOB entity instance,[sic];
receiving a request to establish a second binding between
the object and a second LOB entity instance for a second
software application;
determining that the first software application and the
second software application have matching solution identifiers
(IDs) and compatible sharing levels to the object;
establishing the second binding between the object and
the second LOB entity instance in response to determining that-
the[sic] first software application and the second software
application have matching solution identifiers (IDs) and
compatible sharing levels to the object; and
establishing a user interface and a data sharing between
the first LOB entity instance and the second LOB entity
instance in the object, the user interface comprising controls
from both the first software application and the second software
application.
App. Br. 42-50 (Claims App’x).3
Examiner’s Rejections & References
(1) Claims 1, 7, and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Babbrah (US 2002/0188458 Al; published Dec. 12,
2002) and Monteleone et al. (US 7,165,221 B2; issued Jan. 16, 2007;
“Monteleone”). Final Act. 3-11.
3 We count the pages of Appellants’ Appeal Brief (which are not numbered)
starting from the first page.
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(2) Claims 4, 5, and 8-10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Babbrah, Monteleone, and Burst et al. (US
2006/0265359 Al; published Nov. 23, 2006; “Burst”). Final Act. 11-17.
(3) Claims 6 and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Babbrah, Monteleone, and Khaba (US
2007/0136662 Al; published June 14, 2007). Final Act. 18-20.
(4) Claim 22 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Babbrah, Monteleone, and Bacha et al. (US 6,950,943 Bl;
issued Sept. 27, 2005; “Bacha”). Final Act. 20-21.
(5) Claims 12-15 and 17-19 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Babbrah, Burst, Nori et al.
(US 2006/0195476 Al; published Aug. 31, 2006; “Nori”), and Monteleone.
Final Act. 22-31.
(6) Claim 20 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Babbrah, Burst, Nori, Monteleone, and Khaba. Final Act.
31-32.
Issue on Appeal
Based on Appellants’ arguments, the dispositive issue on appeal is
whether the combination of Babbrah and Monteleone teaches or suggests the
following limitations:
(i) the “binding request” limitation (“receiving a request to
establish a first binding between the object and a first line of
business (LOB) entity instance for a first software application,”
and “receiving a request to establish a second binding between
the object and a second LOB entity instance for a second
software application”),
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(ii) the “determining” limitation (“establishing the second
binding between the object and the second LOB entity instance
in response to determining that the first software application and
the second software application have matching solution
identifiers (IDs) and compatible sharing levels to the object”),
and
(iii) the “user interface” limitation (“establishing a user
interface and a data sharing between the first LOB entity instance
and the second LOB entity instance in the object, the user
interface comprising controls from both the first software
application and the second software application”),
recited in Appellants’ independent claim 1, and similarly recited in
independent claims 7 and 12. App. Br. 14-32; Reply Br. 2-5.
ANALYSIS
With respect to independent claim 1, the Examiner finds Babbrah’s
knowledge repository teaches an object, and Babbrah’s portal applications
teach first and second software applications associated with respective line-
of-business (LOB) entities, the first software application and the second
software application having respective solution identifiers (IDs) and
compatible sharing levels to the object, as claimed. Ans. 6-8, 12-14 (citing
Babbrah^Hj 19, 21, 25, 27, 29-30, 32, 43, Fig. 2 (portals 210, 212, 214, 216),
Fig. 3 (portals 328, 330, 332; knowledge repositories 320, 322, 324)); Final
Act. 3. The Examiner then finds Babbrah’s knowledge repository 320 is
shared between portals 328 and 330, thereby teaching first and second
bindings established between the object and first and second FOB entity
instances for the first and second software applications, as claimed. Ans. 9
(citing Babbrah ^ 29-30, Fig. 3); Final Act. 4-5. The Examiner
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Application 12/130,568
additionally finds Babbrah teaches a web browser for presenting other
portals’ workflows on a user’s own portal, thereby establishing a user
interface and a data sharing, in the object, between LOB entity instances for
first and second software applications. Final Act. 5-6 (citing Babbrah 20,
45).
Babbrah’s Figure 3 is reproduced below with additional markings for
illustration.
A 1 E.DERA 1 r' iJ ; v: -A ARCilEi A ; V ■ U
PORTAL SERVERS
DATA
SOURCES
I 7
KNEAV
T E: \ : : : : /-\NU
KB (KNOWLEDGE BEOKI
INFORMATION TS STORE!
. A * EHL__ ______ 'r
—-------- J £** U----
( w-, y-
r 1 .
.Wf- 3 KNOWLEDGEREPOSITORIES
\
FEDERATED
KNOWLEDGE
DIRECTORY
'-FEDERATED
SERVER BUS
Babbrah’s Figure 3 shows a federated portal architecture with portal servers
or portal applications 328, 330, and 332 bound via a federated server bus
325 using a pluggable architecture, to allow portals 328, 330, and 332 to
share knowledge repositories 320, 322, and 324. Babbrah 16, 29-30.
To support the conclusion of obviousness, the Examiner relies on
Monteleone’s user interface with tabs for Review and Diagnosis
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applications, for teaching the claimed user interface comprising controls
from both first and second software applications. Ans. 16-17 (citing
Monteleone 8:44^16, 9:2-5, Fig. 3B); Final Act. 6-7.
Appellants dispute the Examiner’s factual findings regarding Babbrah
and Monteleone. In particular, Appellants argue Babbrah does not teach or
suggest (1) the claimed “object” and first and second “software
applications,” (2) the “binding request” limitation, and (3) the “determining”
limitation recited in claim 1. App. Br. 14-18; Reply Br. 2—4. Appellants
also argue Monteleone and Babbrah do not teach or suggest the “user
interface” limitation recited in claim 1. App. Br. 18-20; Reply Br. 4-5.
We do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive. Rather, we find the
Examiner has provided a comprehensive response to Appellants’ arguments
supported by a preponderance of evidence. Ans. 5-17. As such, we adopt
the Examiner’s findings and explanations provided therein. Id. At the
outset, we note claim terms are given their broadest reasonable interpretation
consistent with the Specification. In re Am. Acad. ofSci. Tech Ctr., 367
F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Under the broadest reasonable
interpretation, claim terms are given their ordinary and customary meaning,
as would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art in the context of
the entire disclosure. In re Translogic Tech., Inc., 504 F.3d 1249, 1257
(Fed. Cir. 2007).
Appellants’ Specification does not provide an explicit and exclusive
definition of the claimed term “object.” The Specification merely provides
discussion of non-limiting examples of the term, including “various useful
objects, such as word processing documents, spreadsheets, slide presentation
slides, database files, electronic mail items, calendar objects (e.g.,
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appointments and tasks), contact information, desktop publishing
documents, and more.” Ans. 7-8 (citing Spec. ^ 1). Based on Appellants’
Specification, the Examiner has broadly interpreted the term “object” as
encompassing Babbrah’s knowledge repositories 320, 322, and 324 as
shown in Figure 3. Ans. 8. Particularly, the Examiner finds Babbrah’s
“knowledge repositories 320-324 ... are databases . . . where DBI [digital
business identity] and KB [knowledge broker] information is stored” and
“since database files are a form of an ‘object’ according to the instant
application,” Appellants’ claimed “object” can be broadly interpreted to
encompass the knowledge repositories disclosed in Babbrah. Ans. 8 (citing
Babbrah 30). We find the Examiner’s interpretation reasonable and
consistent with Appellants’ Specification.
The Examiner further finds Babbrah’s portal applications—including
“portals 210—216 (e.g., sales portals, executive portals, vendor portals, and
the like),” and portals 328, 330, and 332—are “each associated with a
corresponding departmental Line-of-Business (LOB) entity” and therefore
analogous to the claimed first and second “software applications.” Ans. 6-7
(citing Babbrah ]fl[ 19, 21, 29, Figs. 2-3) (emphasis added). As such, the
Examiner concludes Babbrah teaches the claimed first and second LOB
entity instances for first and second software application because Babbrah
discloses “a first LOB entity instance for a first portal application (e.g. a
sales LOB entity for a sales portal) and a second LOB entity instance for a
second portal (e.g. an executive LOB entity for an executive portal).” Ans.
7. We agree with the Examiner’s reasonable findings, which are consistent
with Appellants’ Specification that does not provide an explicit and
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exclusive definition of the claimed terms “software application” and “line of
business (LOB) entity instance.” See Spec. 1, 21-22, 28, 37.
In the reply, Appellants further argue:
Babbrah does not teach or disclose that the portal is able to access
and display information or data in a specific format that the
portal can’t normally access or display using its given user
interface. . . .
Babbrah is not directed to allowing the user interface of the
portal to access and display information in a format that is
different from what the user interface of the portal usually allows
or, in other words, is not directed to allowing the portal
application to show an object in an application format different
than the portals normal user interface format. As such, a person
of skill in the art would not be motivated by Babbrah to arrive at
the recited claims. . . .
[T]he portal and data repositories as described in Babbrah
cannot be found to be equivalent to the claims [sic] software
application and objects as claimed, since the portal is configured
or designed to retrieve and display the type of data stored in the
data repositories, even if the portal does not usually have access
to these databases.
Reply Br. 3^1 (emphases and reformatting added). However, Appellants’
arguments are not persuasive because these arguments are not supported by
corresponding language in claim 1. Particularly, claim 1 does not recite any
characteristics of the “object” or “software applications” as argued by
Appellants. See Reply Br. 3-4.
We are also not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments that “Babbrah
does not teach or disclose binding a repository to a first portal and a second
portal” and “binding a repository to a first LOB entity instances [sic]
associated with a first portal and binding the repository to a second LOB
entity instances [sic] associated with a second portal.” App. Br. 16
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(emphasis added). Appellants’ arguments do not address the Examiner’s
findings that Babbrah’s “knowledge bus 325 . . . shows the bindings (i.e.
channels, communication routes/links) between the portals 328, 330, 332
and their knowledge repositories 320, 322, 324” enabling the portals “to
share each other’s knowledge repositories,” thereby “establishing a binding
between the knowledge repository 320 [the object] and the portal application
328 [first software application] and establishing bindings between the
knowledge repository 320 [object] and the other portal applications (e.g.
portal 330, portal 332) [second software application].” Ans. 9-10 (citing
Babbrah ffl[ 29-30, Fig. 3).
Appellants’ additional argument that “Babbrah does not teach or
disclose providing a direct binding between the portal and a specifically
requested different database” because Babbrah’s “portal can only access
other data repositories that are associated with the knowledge directory
server” is not commensurate with the scope of claim 1, as the claim does not
recite or otherwise describe a “direct binding.” Reply Br. 4 (emphasis
added).
Appellants further argue “Babbrah does not teach or suggest that a
request must be received to establish the first binding or that a request must
be received to establish the second binding,” and “does not teach or disclose
that an object is only shared between different applications when separate
requests for binding are received.” App. Br. 16 (emphasis added).
Appellants’ arguments do not address the Examiner’s specific findings that
“since Babbrah discloses establishing bindings using common
communication protocols, such as LDAP and XML,” Babbrah discloses
“receiving requests for establishing these bindings, such as the LDAP bind
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request for establishing a binding between the portal application (i.e. client)
and the knowledge repository (i.e. server).” Ans. 11 (citing Babbrah 19,
30). We agree with the Examiner’s findings, which are supported by
evidence that LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is “known in
the art as requiring requests for establishing bindings between
communicating components.” Ans. 10-11.
Accordingly, we find Babbrah teaches the claimed “binding request”
limitation (“receiving a request to establish a first binding between the object
and a first line of business (LOB) entity instance for a first software
application,” and “receiving a request to establish a second binding between
the object and a second LOB entity instance for a second software
application”).
Appellants next argue Babbrah does not teach or suggest the
“determining” limitation because Babbrah’s “DBI and KB objects are not
equivalent to [the claimed] solution identifiers (IDs) and compatible sharing
levels of an object,” and “Babbrah does not teach or suggest that the
pertinent DBI and KB object must match in order to allow the sharing of
information or in order to bind the portals.” App. Br. 17-18.
Appellants’ arguments again do not address the Examiner’s findings.
Particularly, the Examiner finds users are coupled to respective portals in
Babbrah, and Babbrah’s “DBIs are equivalent to the claimed ‘solution
identifiers’” because a DBI identifies a user’s “skills, role within the
organization, projects/activities being worked on,” and “positions within an
organization,” which is commensurate with the broad description of
“solution identifier” in Appellants’ Specification. Ans. 12-14 (citing
Babbrah ]fl[ 25, 30; Spec. ^ 27). Thus, “similar to identifying matching
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business applications described in [Appellants’] application . . . Babbrah
discloses identifying which [users’] digital business identifiers [DBIs] are
pertinent to each other for collaborating and sharing knowledge repositories”
between the users’ portals. Ans. 14.
The Examiner also finds Babbrah teaches “security rules that restrict
some information from being shared within the federated environment” and
“varying sharing levels in accordance with [these] security rules,” thereby
teaching and suggesting portals (software applications) share their associated
knowledge repositories (objects) when the portals have compatible sharing
levels to the objects. Ans. 14-15 (citing Babbrah ]fl[ 27-28, 32, 43). We
agree with the Examiner that Babbrah teaches the claimed “determining”
limitation (“establishing the second binding between the object and the
second LOB entity instance in response to determining that the first software
application and the second software application have matching solution
identifiers (IDs) and compatible sharing levels to the object”). Ans. 12-15.
With respect to the “user interface” limitation, Appellants
acknowledge Monteleone merely discloses data gathered from different
databases and displayed by a chart assist application under a tab for each
application, but argue that Monteleone “does not teach or disclose that the
chart assist application utilizes tabs from the user interfaces of these
databases” or that “the tabs are generated by or come from different software
applications.” Reply Br. 5; App. Br. 19. Appellants’ arguments are not
commensurate with the claimed “user interface comprising controls from
both the first software application and the second software application.”
That is, claim 1 does not require the “controls” to be “from the user
interfaces” of the software applications as Appellants advocate (see Reply
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Br. 5); neither does claim 1 require the “controls” to be “generated by” the
software applications as Appellants advocate (see App. Br. 19). Claim 1
merely requires the “controls” to be “from both the first software application
and the second software application,” and we agree with the Examiner that
Monteleone’s controls (tabs) are from two software applications (a Review
application and a Diagnosis application). Ans. 16-17 (citing Monteleone
8:44^16, 9:2-5, Fig. 3B).
Appellants further argue “Monteleone also does not teach or disclose
sharing information, such as an object, between different LOB entity
instances for different software applications.” App. Br. 19. As discussed
supra, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that Babbrah, not Monteleone,
teaches this feature.
Accordingly, Appellants’ arguments have not persuaded us of error in
the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. As such, we sustain the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of claim 1 based on Babbrah and Monteleone, and
similarly, independent claim 7 for which Appellants provide the same
arguments, and dependent claim 23 argued for its dependency. App. Br. 20-
25, 33.
With respect to independent claim 12, Appellants provide
substantially the same arguments as for claim 1. App. Br. 25-30.
Appellants further argue Burst and Nori do not cure the alleged deficiencies
of Babbrah and Monteleone because Burst and Nori do not teach or suggest
sharing an object between different LOB entity instances for different
software applications. App. Br. 30-31. Because we find Babbrah teaches
sharing an object between different LOB entity instances for different
software applications, Burst and Nori are not needed to cure any deficiency
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of Babbrah, and therefore we sustain the rejection of independent claim 12
for the same reasons as claim 1. We also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
dependent claims 13-15 and 17-19, argued for their dependency therefrom.
App. Br. 35-36. Further, with respect to dependent claims 4-6, 8-11, 20,
and 22, Appellants provide substantially the same arguments as for claims 1,
7, and 12, and additionally argue that Burst, Nori, Khaba, and Bacha do not
cure the alleged deficiencies of Babbrah and Monteleone. App. Br. 33^41.
Again, because we find Babbrah and Monteleone are not deficient, and
because we find Burst, Nori, Khaba, and Bacha are not needed to cure any
deficiencies of Bahhrah and Monteleone, we sustain the rejection of
dependent claims 4-6, 8-11, 20, and 22 for the reasons stated with respect to
the independent claims.
CONCLUSION
On the record before us, we conclude Appellants have not
demonstrated the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 4-15, 17-20, 22, and
23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
DECISION
As such, we AFFIRM the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1, 4-
15, 17-20, 22, and 23.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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