Ex Parte Greef et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jun 18, 2003

08964096 (B.P.A.I. Jun. 18, 2003)

The opinion in support of the decision being entered today
was not written for publication in a law journal and
is not binding precedent of the Board.

Paper No. 25

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
_____________

Ex parte ARTHUR REGINALD GREEF,
THOMAS ROBERT MAGUIRE, and
FRANK CASTELLUCCI
_____________

Appeal No. 2001-2000
Application No. 08/964,096
______________

ON BRIEF
_______________

Before THOMAS, DIXON and BLANKENSHIP, Administrative Patent
Judges.

THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appellants have appealed to the Board from the
examiner’s final rejection of claims 18-24, 26-30 and 32-35.
Representative claim 18 is reproduced below:
18. In an object oriented computer program product recorded
on a recording medium, software for performing a method
comprising the steps of:

storing in permanent storage a persistent class
description including a unique class identifier of a class
of objects and an initial set of one or more fields each
field for a superclass from which the class of objects
inherits attributes;

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preparing for an object which is an instance of said
class a nonpersistent version of said class description;

providing for said object a modified set of fields
containing at least one modification to said initial set of
fields such modification for a field for one of the
superclasses from which the object inherits so that the
object with the modified set of fields having the at least
one modification is not an instance of said class; and

migrating the object to the modified set of fields in a
persistent version by automatically storing in permanent
storage with the migrated object the initial set of fields
unchanged by the at least one modification along with any
action necessary to change the initial set of fields to the
modified set of fields to provide for any difference in the
migrated objects inheritance pattern from that in the
persistent class description so that the migrated object can
be thereafter reproduced in temporary memory using the
initial set of fields of the class stored with the migrated
object.

The following references are relied on by the examiner:

Anderson et al. (Anderson) 5,499,365 Mar. 12, 1996
Cavanaugh, III (Cavanaugh) 5,809,507 Sep. 15, 1998
(filing date July 01, 1996)

Claims 18-24, 26-30 and 32-35 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103. As evidence of obviousness, the examiner
relies upon Anderson in view of Cavanaugh.
Rather than repeat the positions of the appellants and
the examiner, reference is made to the briefs and the answer
for the respective details thereof.

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OPINION
We reverse.
Each of independent claims 18, 24 and 30 on appeal in
some manner recite a feature of migrating an object of an
object-oriented programming system to a modified set of
fields in a persistent version by automatically storing in
permanent storage with the migrated object, the initial set
of fields unchanged by at least one modification along with
any action necessary to change the initial set of fields to
the modified set of fields. It is these features on which
appellants persistently argue patentability in the brief and
reply brief and with which we agree.
As even the title of Anderson reveals, we also find
ourselves in agreement with appellants’ observations at the
bottom of page 2 of the reply brief that the examiner and
appellants view the teachings in Anderson as being based
upon techniques that allow manipulation of different
versions of objects. Appellants continue “this does not
mean that any version of an object in Anderson is stored in
permanent storage with a set of indexes for a class that is

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not an instance along with actions required to conform that
stored set to the true set of indexes.” We agree.
Anderson’s figure 1 shows memory elements within part
of the overall computer environment 12. The relationship of
any version of an object discussed in this reference to
persistence (permanent storage) in any memory appears not to
be disclosed in this reference. The various versions of an
object in Anderson appear to be discussed in terms of real
time or nonpersistent, temporary storage since no fields are
modified in this reference to migrate the object as claimed
in each independent claim on appeal, that is, to
automatically store in permanent storage with a migrated
object, the initial set of fields unchanged by at least one
modification along with any action necessary to change the
initial set of fields to the modified set of fields.
With all this said, we also tend to agree with
appellants’ observations at the top of page 3 of the reply
brief. There, appellants express the view that Anderson

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seems to follow the industry practice of storing with an
object a set of fields of which the object is an instance
and not with one which such a relationship does not exist.
It is noted that each independent claim on appeal also
requires that the object, with a modified set of fields
having the modification, is not an instance of the class.
We therefore tend to agree with appellants’ continued
statements at the middle of page 3 of the reply brief that
according to conventional practice, if changes do affect an
inheritance pattern of objects, they are permanently stored
with indexes which reflect the new inheritance pattern and
not with indexes which do not reflect that pattern and that
are accompanied by actions to be performed by an object
reader to reproduce a true set of indexes.
The examiner’s various “interpretations” of the
teachings of Anderson in the statement of the rejection of
the independent claims at pages 5 and 6 of the answer appear
to be not supported by the actual referenced teachings and

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do not go beyond general understandings in the object-
oriented programming art that persistent objects are
permanently stored.
At page 6 of the answer, the examiner relies upon
Cavanaugh only for details relating to persistent class
descriptions of which the examiner views Anderson as not
providing explicit detail thereof. The entire disclosure of
Cavanaugh relates to storing persistent objects according to
different methodologies. The examiner has not pointed to
any feature of Cavanaugh nor do we discern any which would
make up for the deficiencies of Anderson, even assuming for
the sake of argument that they are properly combinable
within 35 U.S.C. § 103. Thus, Cavanaugh does not appear to
relate to the specific requirements noted earlier of each
independent claim on appeal relating to migrating the
object.
Therefore, since the combination of Anderson and
Cavanaugh does not appear to us to have yielded the subject
matter of each independent claim on appeal, the decision of

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the examiner rejecting them is reversed, as is the separate
rejection of their respective dependent claims.
REVERSED

JAMES D. THOMAS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
JOSEPH L. DIXON ) APPEALS AND
Administrative Patent Judge ) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
HOWARD B. BLANKENSHIP )
Administrative Patent Judge )

jdt/vsh

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STEVEN J. MEYERS
IBM CORPORATION INTELLECTUAL PROP. LAW.
ROUTE 100 INTERNAL ZIP 1J09 1
SOMERS, NY 10589