Ex Parte Iyer et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 25, 2016

13246940 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 25, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/246,940 09/28/2011
45113 7590 04/27/2016
Siemens Corporation
Intellectual Property Department
3501 Quadrangle Blvd Ste 230
Orlando, FL 32817
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Niran jan K. Iyer
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.
2011P09323 USOl 1680
EXAMINER
OBISESAN, AUGUSTINE KUNLE
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2156
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/27/2016 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):
IPDadmin.us@siemens.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte NIRANJAN K. IYER, MATTHEW J. INSKO,
and ROBERT HAYDEN
Appeal2014-004986
Application 13/246,940
Technology Center 2100
Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, NATHAN A. ENGELS, and
NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) the Examiner's Final
Rejection of claims 1-21. We have jurisdiction over the pending claims
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify Siemens Product Lifecycle Management Software Inc.
as the real party in interest. (App. Br. 4.)
Appeal2014-004986
Application 13/246,940
THE INVENTION
Appellants' invention is directed to receiving and processing lock
requests for data of a specified type. (Abstract.) Claim 1, reproduced
below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method performed by a product data management
(PDM) data processing system, comprising:
receiving a lock request for data of a specified type;
processing the lock request in response to the lock request,
including locking the data of the specified type for a
plurality of data objects in response to the lock request;
receiving at least one change to data of the specified type for at
least one of the plurality of data objects; and
updating and saving the at least one of the plurality of objects
according to the received change by changing the data of
the specified type.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1--'3, 6-10, 13-17, 20, and 21under35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Walker (US 2007/0282966 Al,
pub. Dec. 6, 2007) and Elza et al. (US 7,849,401 B2, issued Dec. 7, 2010)
("Elza"). (Final Act. 3-7 .)
The Examiner rejected claims 4, 5, 11, 12, 18, and 19 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Walker, Elza, and Hemess et al. (US
2008/0082761 Al, pub. Apr. 3, 2008) ("Hemess"). (Final Act. 7-9.)
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Appeal2014-004986
Application 13/246,940
ISSUE ON APPEAL
Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following
dispositive issue:2
Whether the combination of Walker and Elza teaches or suggests the
independent claim 1 limitation, "receiving a lock request for data of a
specified type," and the similar limitation recited in independent claims 8
and 15. (App. Br. 15-22, 29-33, 38--42.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants' arguments
and we adopt as our own: ( 1) the findings and reasons set forth by the
Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 3-9); and
(2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in
response to Appellants' Appeal Brief (Ans. 2-14). We concur with the
conclusions reached by the Examiner, and emphasize the following.
For the claim limitation, "receiving a lock request for data of a
specified type," the Examiner relies on the disclosure in Walker of requests
to lock resources, and the disclosure in Elza of requests to lock XML
document nodes. (Final Act. 3-5; Walker Fig. 8, i-fi-f 10, 174, 251; Elza col.
6, 11. 23-28, col. 8, 11. 13-29.) The Examiner finds:
Although locking of resources as disclose by walker [sic]
may be interpreted as locking of data of a specified type[,] Elza
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the positions of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Aug. 26, 2013); the Reply
Brief (filed Dec. 11, 2013), the Final Office Action (mailed Feb. 26, 2013);
and the Examiner's Answer (mailed Nov. 6, 2013) for the respective details.
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Appeal2014-004986
Application 13/246,940
et al (US 7,849,401 82) in an analogous art discloses,
receiving a lock request for data of a specified type ( col.6
lines 23 - 28; "A node identity may be either system-unique or
document-unique", and col.8 lines 13 - 25; "DDOM system
provides a node locking mechanism. This mechanism provides
a client or group of clients with exclusive access to portions of
a document by locking the portions").
(Final Act. 4--5.)
Appellants argue the disclosure in Walker of sending lock requests to
a resource, such as "'memory, disk drives, fiber optic channels, etc.,'" does
not teach a lock request for data of a specified type. (App. Br. 16-17
(quoting Walker i-f 10).) Appellants further argue that the node identity of
Elza "simply refers to the way in which a specific node is identified," and "is
not taught or suggested to be a specified data type or to refer to a specified
data type." Id. at 21.
We are not persuaded that the Examiner errs in relying on the
disclosure in Elza of locking nodes. As stated in the Specification, examples
of specified data types include "schedule data, task scheduling data,
assignments, dependencies, Schedule and Task deliverables, Task costing
information, Task Execution Information, schedule membership,
notifications, calendars, or otherwise," and more generally, "information of
different types (x)." (Spec. i-f 26.) Similarly, the nodes described in Elza
relate to specific portions of documents containing data, which encompass
the foregoing examples. (Elza Fig. 7D, col. 3, 11. 44--50, 4:43--44
("providing a locking mechanism for controlling access to portions of
documents"), col. 20, 11. 5-8 (describing Fig. 7D and "requests for replacing
data relating to nodes"); accord Spec. i-f 25 (describing embodiments in
which locks can be applied to generically described "data of type (x)").) We
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Appeal2014-004986
Application 13/246,940
agree that the combination of Walker and Elza at least teaches or suggests
the claimed "receiving a lock request for data of a specified type." (Ans. 3.)
CONCLUSION
For the reasons discussed above, we sustain the obviousness rejection
over Walker and Elza of independent claims 1, 8, and 15. Because
Appellants' arguments with respect to the remaining dependent claims raise
the same issues as discussed above, we also sustain the obviousness
rejectionofclaims2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, and21 over Walker
and Elza, and of claims 4, 5, 11, 12, 18, and 19 over Walker, Elza, and
Hemess.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejections of claims 1-21.
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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