Ex Parte Han et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 5, 2019

14023092 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 5, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/023,092 09/10/2013
51111 7590
AKACHANLLP
Melvin Chan
900 LAFAYETTE STREET
SUITE 710
SANTA CLARA, CA 95050
03/07/2019
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Michael C. Han
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
LIFEP012 3081
EXAMINER
ZELE, KRISTA MICHELLE
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2448
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/07/2019 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):
PTO-INBOX@AKACHANLAW.COM
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MICHAEL C. HAN and SHUY ANG ZHOU
Appeal2018-006092
Application 14/023,092
Technology Center 2400
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, ALLEN R. MacDONALD, and
JOHN P. PINKERTON, Administrative Patent Judges.
SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1-22. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We AFFIRM.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Liferay, Inc. App.
Br. 3.
Appeal2018-006092
Application 14/023,092
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants' invention relates to methods and systems for portals.
Spec. ,r 2. Exemplary claim 1 under appeal reads as follows:
1. A method comprising:
at a first server, receiving a first request from a user at a
first client to a portal web page, wherein a first portlet of the
portal web page is managed by a master portal process executing
at the first server and the first request includes a first portlet
identifier indicating that it relates to the first portlet;
at the master portal process, processing the user's first
request comprising:
performing a lookup using the first portlet
identifier;
based on the lookup, determining a first sandbox,
executing at the first server, executes a first portlet
executable corresponding to the first portlet;
transferring the first request to the first sandbox for
operation; and
receiving an updated render of the first portlet at the
master portal process based on the first request; and
generating a response for the user's first request
compnsmg:
assembling output for a plurality of portlets on the portal
web page, including the updated render of the first portlet; and
rendering an updated portal web page.
Claims 1, 8-12, and 20-22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over Altrichter et al. (US 2008/0120343 Al; published May 22,
2008) ("Altrichter"), and Bakke et al. (US 2007/0011272 Al; published
January 11, 2007) ("Bakke"). See Final Act. 3-14.
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Application 14/023,092
Claims 2--4, 15, 17-19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over Altrichter, Bakke, and Turbin (US 2012/0278892 Al;
published November 1, 2012) ("Turbin"). 2 See Final Act. 15-22.
Claims 5-7 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over Altrichter, Bakke, Turbin, and Geddes (US 7,475,089 Bl;
issued January 6, 2009) ("Geddes"). See Final Act. 22-25.
Claim 13 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as unpatentable
over Altrichter, Bakke, and Krasin et al. (US 2015/0278513 Al; published
October 1, 2015) ("Krasin"). See Final Act. 25-26.
Claim 14 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as unpatentable
over Altrichter, Bakke, and Murray (US 7,921,353 Bl; issued April 5, 2011)
("Murray"). See Final Act. 26-27.
PRINCIPLES OF LAW
The Supreme Court has rejected the rigid requirement of
demonstrating a teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the references to
show obviousness. See KSR Int'! Co., v. Teleflex Co., 550 U.S. 398, 415-16
(2007); see also In re Ethicon, Inc., 844 F.3d 1344, 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2017)
("KSR directs that an explicit teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the
references is not necessary to support a conclusion of obviousness.").
Further, it is well settled that "a determination of obviousness based on
teachings from multiple references does not require an actual, physical
substitution of elements." In re Mouttet, 686 F. 3d 1322, 1332 (Fed. Cir.
2 The header of this rejection erroneously indicated that claim 16 was also
included with this rejection, but the body of this rejection did not reference
claim 16. See Final Act. 15-22.
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Application 14/023,092
2012) (citations omitted). Nor is the test for obviousness whether a
secondary reference's features can be bodily incorporated into the structure
of the primary reference. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413,425 (CCPA 1981).
Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have
suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. See id.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments in Appellants' Appeal Brief and Reply Brief that the Examiner
has erred. 3 We are unpersuaded by Appellants' contentions and concur with
the findings and conclusions reached by the Examiner as explained below.
Independent Claims 1 and 20
Appellants contend the combination of cited references fails to teach
or suggest "determining a first sandbox [that] executes a first portlet
executable corresponding to the first portlet," and "transferring the first
request to the first sandbox for operation," as recited in independent claim 1.
See App. Br. 7. More specifically, Appellants argue it would not have been
obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine the disclosures of
Altrichter and Bakke because: (a) Altrichter discloses application software
that operates at the application software layer, whereas Bakke discloses
software that operates at an operating system ("OS") virtualization layer; (b)
there is no known method of combining application software and OS level
virtualization software; ( c) there is no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to
3 Appellants indicated in their Reply Brief that they withdrew their
arguments submitted in their Appeal Brief regarding claims 11-12. See
Reply Br. 3.
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Application 14/023,092
make the proposed combination within the references; and ( d) the proposed
combination is not predictable. See App. Br. 8-9; see also Reply Br. 3--4.
Appellants further argue the combination of cited references fails to teach or
suggest "[a] first portlet [that] has been configured to execute on a first
sandbox," "sending the first user's request at the first portlet to the first
sandbox for execution, wherein the first sandbox comprises an executable of
the first portlet that will execute the first user's response," and "at the first
sandbox ... processing the first user's request," as recited in independent
claim 20, for reasons similarly discussed with respect to claim 1. See App.
Br. 10-11.
This contention is not persuasive. As correctly found by the
Examiner, Appellants' argument that the disclosures of Altrichter and Bakke
cannot be combined because they operate at different layers (i.e., application
layer and OS layer) ignores the fact that the test for obviousness is not
whether the features of a secondary reference can be bodily incorporated
into the structure of the primary reference. See Ans. 4 ( citing Keller, 642
F .2d at 425). Instead, the test is what the combined teachings of the
references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. See
Ans. 4 (citing Keller, 642 F.2d at 425). The Examiner does not propose
combining the entire OS virtualization software disclosed in Bakke with the
portal infrastructure disclosed in Altrichter. Instead, the Examiner
specifically proposes modifying the portal infrastructure disclosed in
Altrichter to include a sandboxing feature similar to the sandboxing feature
disclosed in Bakke. See Final Act. 3-5; see also Ans. 4--6.
Here, Appellants have presented no evidence that the modification of
Altrichter' s portal infrastructure to include Bakke' s sandboxing feature
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Application 14/023,092
would be "uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the
art" or "represented an unobvious step over the prior art", or otherwise
would not have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art in light of the
teachings of Altrichter and Bakke. See Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-
Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at
418-19); see also KSR, 550 U.S. at 416 ("The combination of familiar
elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does
no more than yield predictable results."). Mere attorney arguments and
conclusory statements that are unsupported by factual evidence are entitled
to little probative value. In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir.
1997). Furthermore, we agree with the Examiner's finding that the
motivation to modify Altrichter's portal infrastructure to include Bakke's
sandboxing feature is expressly disclosed in Bakke (i.e., isolating service
failures from impact on other running services). See Final Act. 5; see also
Bakke ,r 37.
Thus, we discern no error in the Examiner's finding that the
combination of cited references teaches or suggests all the elements of
claims 1 and 20. Therefore, we sustain the rejection of claims 1 and 20
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
Claims 2, 5, and 13-16
Appellants separately contend the various combinations of cited
references fail to teach or suggest various elements recited in claims 2, 5,
and 13-16. See App. Br. 11-14; see also Reply Br. 5-7. However, to the
extent Appellants' arguments supporting these contentions are not mere
general allegations that the claims define a patentable invention (see e.g.,
Ans. 10), these arguments either expressly reference, or are substantially
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Application 14/023,092
similar to, Appellants' arguments regarding claims 1 and 20, which have
been previously summarized. See e.g., App. Br. 11-12 ("As discussed, the
cited references do not show or suggest portal software ( at the application
layer) operating in a sandbox (also at the application layer). See discussion
[above] ... Turbin should not be combined with Altrichter and Bakke ... A
person having ordinary skill in the art would not apply Turbin for applying
patches for software and validate within the sandbox before applying to an
operating system (OS) or application environment.") Thus, Appellants'
contentions regarding claims 2, 5, and 13-16 are not persuasive for reasons
similar to the reasons previously discussed regarding claims 1 and 20.
Accordingly, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner's finding
that the combination of cited references teaches or suggests all the elements
of claims 2, 5, and 13-16. Therefore, we sustain the rejection of claims 2, 5,
and 13-16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
Remaining Claims
No separate arguments are presented for the remaining dependent
claims. See App. Br. 7, 11-13. We therefore sustain their rejections for the
reasons stated with respect to independent claims 1, 15, and 20.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-22 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
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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