Ex Parte Hernandez-Sherrington et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 30, 2016

11149851 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 30, 2016)

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.
11/149,851 06/10/2005 Mauricio Antonio Hernandez-Sherrington S VL920050003US1 3145
47069 7590 01/04/2017
KONRAD RAYNES DAVDA & VICTOR, LLP
ATTN: IBM54
350 SOUTH BEVERLY DRIVE, SUITE 360
BEVERLY HILLS, CA 90212
EXAMINER
NGUYEN, THU N
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2154
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/04/2017 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):
krvu spto @ ipmatters .com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MAURICIO ANTONIO HERNANDEZ-SHERRINGTON,
CHING-TIEN HO, MARY ANN ROTH,
and LINGLING YAN
Appeal 2016-001538
Application 11/149,851
Technology Center 2100
Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, JON M. JURGOVAN, and
JOHN F. HORVATH, Administrative Patent Judges.
JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants1 seek review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Non-Final
Rejection of claims 43—76.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.3
1 The Appeal Brief, page 1, identifies International Business Machines
Corporation as the real party in interest.
2 Claims 1—42 are canceled.
3 Our Decision refers to the Specification filed June 10, 2005 (“Spec.”), the
Non-Final Action mailed May 30, 2014 (“Non-Final Act.”), the Appeal
Brief filed April 11, 2015 (“App. Br.”), the Examiner’s Answer mailed Sept.
11, 2015 (“Ans.”), and the Reply Brief filed Nov. 13, 2015 (“Reply Br.”).
Appeal 2016-001538
Application 11/149,851
CLAIMED INVENTION
The claims are directed to “tolerant and extensible discovery of
relationships in data using structural information and data analysis. (Spec.
If 1.) Claim 43, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
43. A computer-implemented method of discovering
relationships among a first set of elements with respect to a first
data source and a second set of elements with respect to a second
data source, comprising:
applying a metric algorithm to a first structural description
of the first set of elements and a second structural description of
the second set of elements, wherein the first structural description
describes a first structure of data in the first data source and the
second structural description describes a second structure of data
in the second data source, wherein the metric algorithm produces
a metric result comprising relationship strength values between
pairs of elements in the first and second sets, wherein each
relationship strength value indicates a strength of a relationship
between one pair of elements in the first and second sets that has
a well defined meaning when compared with other relationship
strength values;
after applying the metric algorithm to produce the metric
result of the relationship strength values between the pairs of
elements, applying a selected matching strategy algorithm to the
metric result to process the relationship strength values for the
pairs of elements of the first and second sets to generate a
balanced result set comprising element pairs of the first and
second sets whose relationship strength values represent optimal
matches according to a matching criteria; and
returning the balanced result set.
(App. Br. 15.)
2
Appeal 2016-001538
Application 11/149,851
REJECTIONS
Claims 43—47, 51—58, 62—69, and 73—76 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on the teachings of Gamer (US 2004/0093331 Al,
May 13, 2004), Wan (US 6,728,703 Bl, Apr. 27, 2004), and Smith (US
7,337,127 Bl, Feb. 26, 2008). (Non-Final Act. 4-20.)
Claims 49, 50, 60, 61, 71, and 72 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) based on the teachings of Gamer, Wan, Smith, and Casati (US
2005/0080661 Al, Apr. 14, 2005). (Non-Final Act. 20-24.)
Claims 48, 59, and 70 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based
on the teachings of Gamer, Wan, Smith, and Hintermeister (US
2002/0065937 Al, May 30, 2002). (Non-Final Act. 25-28.)
ANAFYSIS
Claims 43, 54, 65
Appellants contend the Examiner has not shown where Gamer teaches
applying a metric algorithm to first and second stmctural descriptions of first
and second sets of elements describing a stmctural format of the data
sources as claimed to produce a metric result. (App. Br. 7—8; Reply Br. 1.)
To the contrary, the Examiner contends the argued feature is taught by the
combination of Gamer (|| 15, 67), Wan (2:12—20), and Smith (7:43—50.)
(Ans. 3^4; Non-Final Act. 4—6.)
Appellants’ argument does not persuade us of Examiner error. As the
Examiner notes, Gamer teaches discovery of relationships between two or
more objects that may be “identified, retrieved, grouped, ranked, filtered and
numerically evaluated.” (Gamer 115.) An “object” may be “any item or
information of interest (generally textual, including noun, verb, adjective,
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Appeal 2016-001538
Application 11/149,851
adverb, phrase, sentence, symbol, numeric characters, etc.).” (Id.) The
objects thus describe a structural format (e.g., textual, symbolic, or numeric
characters, etc.) of the data sources from which they originate. The ranking
of strengths of the relationships between objects produces a metric result.
(Id. ) Accordingly, the Examiner has shown the argued feature is taught by
the cited references.
Claims 45, 56, 67
Appellants next argue the Examiner has not shown where Gamer’s
paragraphs 15 and 158 teach the claimed feature that the metric algorithm
uses sample data from the data sources to determine the relationship strength
value as claimed. (App. Br. 10-11 (citing Gamer 115); Reply Br. 3 (citing
Gamer 1158).) The Examiner indicates Gamer, paragraph 158, discloses a
data source may include objects including “sample information as cell type,
tissue type, lineage, stage of development, and exposure of the sample to an
agent” and further including “patient information where the sample is from a
mammal such as a human and like.” We find no definition of “sample data”
in the Specification, and there is no restrictive limitation in the claims, to
preclude the Examiner from interpreting “sample data” as information from
a biological sample as contemplated by Gardner. “[T]he PTO is obligated to
give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation during examination.” In
re Am. Acad. ofSci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
Claim 76
Appellants argue Gamer fails to teach or suggest the claimed feature
of applying different m metric algorithms to produce a metric result
comprising tuples of elements from first and second sets of elements and
their relationship elements. (Reply Br. 3^4 (citing Gamer H 11, 12, 35, Fig.
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Application 11/149,851
3).) We disagree with Appellants’ argument for the reasons stated by the
Examiner. For example, as noted by the Examiner, paragraph 15 of Gamer
teaches the two objects A and C are connected by relationships B, thus
teaching the claimed feature. Similarly, Gamer, paragraphs 11 and 12,
teaches objects are evaluated to determine relationships between them, and
states this information is stored in a database. Accordingly, we agree with
the Examiner the claimed feature is taught by Gamer.
Claims 48, 59, 70
Appellants argue Wan does not teach the claimed feature of a metric
algorithm processing a metric result to produce a raw result, where a
matching strategy is applied to the raw result. (App. Br. 12—13; Reply Br.
4—5.) The Examiner finds Wan teaches this feature. (Non-Final Act. 25;
Ans. 5 (citing Wan 2:12—23).) Wan teaches, “Once the processing system
has identified the raw metric data that corresponds to the desired results, the
processing system aggregates the matching metric data that will be
necessary to get the final output.” (Wan 2:14—17.) We agree with the
Examiner that Wan teaches the claimed feature.4
Claims 49, 60, 71
Appellants argue Casati’s measuring execution of a task does not
teach the claimed feature of “selecting a metric and matching strategy
algorithms to use that satisfy a resource budget, where the selected metric
algorithm and the selected matching strategy are applied.” (App. Br. 13—14;
Reply Br. 5.) The Examiner finds this feature taught by Casati. (Non-Final
4 We also note the Examiner could have interpreted Gamer’s filtering as a
matching strategy as filtering involves matching data with some filtering
criteria. (Gamer 115.)
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Appeal 2016-001538
Application 11/149,851
Act. 13—14; Ans. 5—6 (citing Casati || 20-24, claim 2).) Casati teaches that
certain metrics may be defined for measurement during execution of a
business process, and that “[tjypical metrics may include execution times,
cost, and service availability.” (Casati 120.) We agree with the Examiner
that Casati’s disclosure, in combination with the other cited references,
teaches the claimed feature.
Remaining Claims
No separate arguments are presented for the remaining dependent
claims. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of these claims for the reasons
stated with respect to the claims from which they depend. (37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv).)
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 43—76 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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