Ex Parte Hahn et alDownload PDFBoard of Patent Appeals and InterferencesOct 28, 201010948828 (B.P.A.I. Oct. 28, 2010) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS AND INTERFERENCES ____________________ Ex parte STEPHEN C. HAHN, LIANE PRAZA and JONATHAN WILLIAMS ADAMS ____________________ Appeal 2009-004425 Application 10/948,828 Technology Center 2100 ____________________ Before JAMES D. THOMAS, THU A. DANG, and CAROLYN D. THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judges. DANG, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL1 1 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, or for filing a request for rehearing, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 41.52, begins to run from the “MAIL DATE” (paper delivery mode) or the “NOTIFICATION DATE” (electronic delivery mode) shown on the PTOL-90A cover letter attached to this decision. Appeal 2009-004425 Application 10/948,828 I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-5, 12-20, 22, 23, and 26-31 under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) (2002). Claims 6-11, 21, 24 and 25 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. A. INVENTION According to Appellants, the invention relates to a method for taking a snapshot of a service instance (Spec. 2, ¶ [0003]). B. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM Claim 1 is exemplary and is reproduced below: 1. A method for taking a snapshot of a service instance, comprising: transitioning the service instance to a new state, wherein the service instance is an instance of an executable process; determining whether to take the snapshot based on the new state; obtaining a property composition of the service instance, wherein the property composition of the service instance comprises at least one configuration property of the service instance; taking the snapshot using the property composition; and restarting the service instance using the snapshot. 2 Appeal 2009-004425 Application 10/948,828 C. REJECTIONS The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Evoy US 7,203,868 B1 Apr. 10, 2007 (filed on Nov. 26, 2003) Welsh US 2004/0117572 A1 Jun. 17, 2004 Moriyama US 6,356,904 B1 Mar. 12, 2002 Claims 1-4, 12-14, 16-18 and 26-29 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by Evoy. Claims 5, 15, 19, 22, 23, 30 and 31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Evoy in view of Welsh. Claim 20 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Evoy in view of Moriyama. II. ISSUE Has the Examiner erred in holding that Evoy teaches “transitioning the service instance to a new state, wherein the service instance is an instance of an executable process” and “determining whether to take the snapshot based on the new state” (claim 1)? In particular, the issue turns on whether Evoy teaches determining whether to take a snapshot based on the service instance transitioning to a new state. III. FINDINGS OF FACT The following Findings of Fact (FF) are shown by a preponderance of the evidence: 3 Appeal 2009-004425 Application 10/948,828 Evoy 1. Evoy discloses detecting changes in system states of a complex computer system in real-time and logging the changes (col. 1, ll. 28- 29). 2. In a first embodiment, a Resource Monitor is used as a stand-alone system for real-time monitoring of specified system resources using snapshots of the specified system resources (col. 3, ll. 21-24), wherein, for monitoring a process, no monitor object is created because no snapshot of a process is needed (col. 6, ll. 44-46; Figs. 4A- 4D). In this first embodiment, for monitoring resources other than a process, a new file object is created representing a current state of an identified file while a corresponding file object is located representing a previous state of the identified file (col. 8, ll. 25-30). 3. In a second embodiment, the Resource Monitor is used in conjunction with a Contrast Manager, and wherein snapshots are created by an instantiation of the Contrast Manager (col. 3, ll. 24-29). 4. In monitoring a process, the Contrast Manager creates a process snapshot by receiving a user request to create a process snapshot, collecting process information for each process and adding the information to a list of process items, stepping through the list of process items, creating a process object for each list item, getting attributes of that process item, and storing the attributes into the newly created process object (col. 9, ll. 41-52; Fig. 6). 5. Evoy discloses comparing a previously stored snapshot with a current snapshot, wherein if the attributes are the same the Compare Status is “Unchanged” but if the attributes do not have the same values, the 4 Appeal 2009-004425 Application 10/948,828 Compare Status is “Changed” (col. 10, l. 63 to col. 11, l. 25; Figs. 10A-10B). IV. ANALYSIS Claims 1-4, 12-14, 16-18 and 26-29 Appellants argue that “claim 1 requires determining whether to take a snapshot of a service instance based on the new state of the service instance” (App. Br. 11). In contrast, according to the Appellants, “process 600 [of Evoy] receives a user request to create a process snapshot” (id.). In particular, Appellants argue that “a thorough reading of Evoy shows that Evoy is completely silent with respect to the state-based determination required by the claim” (id.). The Examiner finds that Evoy discloses “‘transitioning the service instance to a new state’ as the CreateAndCompareSingleObject procedure creates a new file object representing the current state of the identified file” and “locates the corresponding file object, representing a previous state of the identified file” (Ans. 3). Though the Examiner finds that “Evoy teaches the newly created file object (e.g. snapshot) is compared to this corresponding file object in the collection to determine what has been changed” (Ans. 18), according to the Examiner, “information pertaining to previous state and current state of identified file, is logged for the records and the corresponding file object (e.g. snapshot) in the collection is updated (e.g. determine to take the snapshot based on state change)” (id.). After reviewing the record on appeal, we agree with the Appellants that the portions of Evoy cited by the Examiner fail to disclose determining whether to take a snapshot based on the service instance transitioning to a 5 Appeal 2009-004425 Application 10/948,828 new state, as required by claim 1. That is, we agree with Appellants that the portions of Evoy “is completely silent with respect to the state-based determination required by the claim” (App. Br. 11). Though we agree with the Examiner that the portions of Evoy cited by the Examiner disclose transitioning to a new state because “the CreateAndCompareSingleObject procedure creates a new file object representing the current state of the identified file” and “locates the corresponding file object, representing a previous state of the identified file” (Ans. 3), such portions of Evoy merely teach transitioning of a file from an old state to a new state. That is, we find that such portions are silent as to transitioning a service instance to a new state, as required by claim 1. In particular, Evoy discloses a plurality of embodiments (FF 2-4), wherein, in the first embodiment cited by the Examiner, a file is transitioned to a new state but there is no transition of a process (service instance) state in this first embodiment (FF 2). Furthermore, though Evoy does disclose detecting changes in system states (FF 1) and does disclose a second embodiment which includes creating a process snapshot (FF 3-4), Evoy discloses comparing a previously stored snapshot with a current snapshot to determine if there are changes (FF 5). Thus, Evoy uses snapshots to determine whether there is a change in states rather than determining whether there is a change in state to take a snapshot, as required by claim 1. In fact, the Examiner admits that Evoy teaches that the snapshot is compared to a corresponding object in the collection “to determine what has been changed” (Ans. 18). Though the Examiner finds that the snapshot “is updated” which is equivalent to “determin[ing whether] to take the snapshot based on state 6 Appeal 2009-004425 Application 10/948,828 change” (id.), we disagree since the snapshot that is compared is already taken. Thus, in addition to the fact that this first embodiment referenced by the Examiner is directed to a file snapshot and not a process snapshot, in Evoy, the snapshot is already taken before the comparison/update, and therefore there is no further determination as to whether or not to take the snapshot. Accordingly, though we find that Evoy discloses detecting changes in system states (FF 1) and creating a process snapshot (FF 3-4), we do not find any teachings of determining whether to take a snapshot based on the service instance transitioning to a new state in the sections cited by the Examiner. As such, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner erred in finding that the portions cited by the Examiner teach the claimed limitations. Therefore, we will reverse the rejection of representative claim 1 and claims 2-4, 12-14, 16-18 and 26-29 standing therewith. Claims 5, 15, 19, 20, 22, 23, 30 and 31 We find that Welsh and Moriyama do not cure the deficiencies of Evoy. As such, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner erred in finding that the portions cited by the Examiner teach the claimed limitations. Accordingly, we will reverse the rejection of claims 5, 15, 19, 22, 23, 30 and 31 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Evoy in view of Welsh and the rejection of claim 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Evoy and Moriyama. V. CONCLUSION AND DECISION Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred in holding claims 1-4, 12-14, 16-18 and 26-29 unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) and claims 5, 7 Appeal 2009-004425 Application 10/948,828 15, 19, 20, 22, 23, 30 and 31 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Therefore, the Examiner’s decision rejecting all claims is reversed. REVERSED peb OSHA LIANG LLP/Oracle TWO HOUSTON CENTER 909 FANNIN, SUITE 3500 HOUSTON, TX 77010 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation