Ex Parte Jain et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jul 14, 2009

10648577 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 14, 2009)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________________

Ex parte NAMIT JAIN, ELLEN BATBOUTA, NIPUN AGARWAL, RAVI
MURTHY, PAUL REILLY, and JAMES STENOISH
____________________

Appeal 2008-004465
Application 10/648,577
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Decided: July 14, 20091
____________________

Before LANCE LEONARD BARRY, JAY P. LUCAS, and
THU ANN DANG, Administrative Patent Judges.

DANG, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-20 under
35 U.S.C. § 134. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part.

1 The two-month time period for filing an appeal or commencing a civil
action, as recited in 37 C.F.R. § 1.304, begins to run from the decided date
shown on this page of the decision. The time period does not run from the
Mail Date (paper delivery) or Notification Data (electronic delivery).
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I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
A. INVENTION
According to Appellants, the present application discloses techniques
and systems “for storing instances of an opaque type in a database according
to a direct path loading approach” (Spec. 26, ll. 2-3).

B. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM

1. A method of storing data into a database, the
method comprising:

a loader application receiving data;

determining one or more routines that are associated with
a type of said data, wherein said one or more routines are
implemented by a program that is external to both said loader
application and a database server that manages said database;

invoking said one or more routines;

in response to said one or more routines being invoked,
said program performing steps comprising:

creating a data structure that has one or more
elements that correspond to one or more attributes of said
type; and

populating said one or more elements with one or
more values that are specified in said data, wherein said
one or more values correspond to said one or more
attributes;

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generating, based on said data structure, a data stream
that conforms to a format of data blocks of said database; and

writing said data into one or more data blocks in said
database.

C. REJECTIONS
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art in rejecting the
claims on appeal:

Skinner US 6,085,198 July 4, 2000

O’Reilly, What is the Direct Path?, Oracle SQL*Loader: The
Definitive Guide, Ch. 10, Sec. 10.1, (2001),
http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/1565929489/copyright
(hereinafter “O’Reilly”).

Claims 1-3, 5-11, and 13-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)
as anticipated by Skinner.
Claims 4 and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Skinner and O’Reilly.

II. ISSUES
1) Have Appellants shown the Examiner erred in
finding Skinner discloses a “program” that is “external to both
said loader application and a database server,” implements “one
or more routines that are associated with a type of said data,”
and, “in response to said one or more routines being invoked,”
performs the step of “creating a data structure that has one or
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more elements that correspond to one or more attributes of said
type” (claim 1)?
2) Have Appellants shown the Examiner erred in
finding Skinner discloses the step of “generating, based on said
data structure, a data stream that conforms to a format of data
blocks of said database; and writing said data into one or more
data blocks in said database” (claim 1)?

III. FINDINGS OF FACT
Skinner
1) Elements of Skinner’s client, application, and database
tiers may be executed within separate computers interconnected by a
network (col. 2, ll. 29-36).
2) Skinner loads extracted metadata into an “import data
structure such as a Vector [sic],” which Skinner describes as an array
of elements that may be of any data type (col. 18, ll. 6-39).
3) Skinner’s data store management component 308 obtains
metadata, e.g., from a vector, to generate SQL “create table”
commands (col. 16, ll. 38-44; col. 37, ll. 16-58; and col. 38, ll. 18-21).
4) An SQL “create table” command specifies the table name
and attributes that make up a database table and is submitted to the
database server 311 to configure the database (col. 38, ll. 18-21).
5) The database may be organized such that, for a database
table, each column represents a particular data attribute and each row
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represents a set of attribute values (col. 13, ll. 13-18).

IV. PRINCIPLES OF LAW
Claim Interpretation
“[T]he PTO gives claims their ‘broadest reasonable interpretation.’”
In re Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320, 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (quoting In re Hyatt, 211
F.3d 1367, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2000)). However, “limitations are not to be read
into the claims from the specification.” In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181,
1184 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (citing In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321 (Fed. Cir.
1989)).
When descriptive material is not functionally related to the substrate,
the descriptive material will not distinguish the invention from the prior art
in terms of patentability. In re Ngai, 367 F.3d 1336, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
Cf. In re Gulack, 703 F.2d 1381, 1385 (Fed. Cir. 1983).

35 U.S.C. § 102
Under 35 U.S.C. § 102, “[a] single prior art reference that discloses,
either expressly or inherently, each limitation of a claim invalidates that
claim by anticipation.” Perricone v. Medicis Pharm.Corp., 432 F.3d 1368,
1375 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (citation omitted).

35 U.S.C. § 103
Section 103 forbids issuance of a patent when “the differences
between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such
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that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the
invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said
subject matter pertains.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 406
(2007). In KSR, the Supreme Court emphasized “the need for caution in
granting a patent based on the combination of elements found in the prior
art,” and discussed circumstances in which a patent might be determined to
be obvious. Id. at 415 (citing Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 12
(1966)). The Court reaffirmed principles based on its precedent that “[t]he
combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be
obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.” Id. at 416.
The operative question in this “functional approach” is thus “whether the
improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according
to their established functions.” Id. at 417.
In affirming a determination of obviousness, the Federal Circuit has
relied, in part, on an applicant’s failure to present evidence that the
modification was “uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill
in the art” or “represented an unobvious step over the prior art.” Leapfrog
Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007)
(citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 418-19).

V. ANALYSIS
35 U.S.C. § 102
Claims 1-3, 5, 6, 9-11, 13, and 14
With respect to claim 1, Appellants argue the Examiner fails to cite a
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feature of Skinner that teaches all limitations of the recited “program.”
(App. Br. 5). More particularly, they argue:

Claim 1 requires (a) that this “creating” step be performed by
“said program” (“said program performing steps comprising:
creating”), (b) that “said program” must be “a program that is
external to both said loader application and a database server
that manages said database,” and (c) that the “routines,” in
response to whose invocation the “program” performs the
“creating,” must be “implemented by” that same “program.”
Even if Skinner’s approach creates database tables in a
database, Skinner does not disclose, teach, or suggest that these
database tables are created by a program that is external to a
database server or in response to the invocation of routines that
are implemented by such an external program.

(App. Br. 5; Appellants’ emphasis).
The Examiner does not cite a specific component of Skinner as
teaching the “program” of claim 1. He appears to rely on “distinct”
programs of Skinner’s database server 311, stating, “If the database server
were considered to be a software server application (such as an Oracle
database), then the program of Skinner would be a distinct software
program, and thus ‘external’ (logically) to the loader application and the
database server” (Ex. Ans. 9).
In view of the above, an issue we address on appeal is whether
Skinner discloses a “program” that is “external to both said loader
application and a database server,” implements “one or more routines that
are associated with a type of said data,” and, “in response to said one or
more routines being invoked,” performs the step of “creating a data structure
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that has one or more elements that correspond to one or more attributes of
said type” (claim 1).
We begin our analysis by giving the claims their broadest reasonable
interpretation. See In re Bigio, 381 F.3d at 1324. Furthermore, our analysis
will not read limitations into the claims from the specification. See In re
Van Geuns, 988 F.2d at 1184.
Claim 1 simply does not place any limitation on what the term
“external” is to be, is to represent, or is to mean, other than that the
“program” must be “external to both said loader application and a database
server.” Thus, we interpret the “external program” of claim 1 to be a
program that is separate and distinct from the “loader application” and
“database server.”
Skinner discloses that its data store management component may be
separated, by networks, from other elements of Skinner’s client, application,
and database tiers (FF 1). That is, the data store management component of
Skinner is separate and distinct from other components of the client,
application and database tiers. An artisan would have therefore understood
the data store management component as being “external to both said loader
application and a database server” (claim 1).
To create database tables, Skinner’s data store management
component obtains metadata, e.g., from vectors, and generates SQL “create
table” commands from the metadata (FF 3). Because the data store
management component obtains metadata, an artisan would have understood
the component to implement “one or more routines that are associated with a
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type of said data.” Further, because the data store management component
generates the “create table” commands from the obtained metadata, an
artisan would have understood the component to perform the “creating a
data structure” step “in response to said one or more routines being invoked”
(claim 1).
Thus, for the above reasons, we find that Skinner discloses a
“program” that is “external to both said loader application and a database
server,” implements “one or more routines that are associated with a type of
said data,” and, “in response to said one or more routines being invoked,”
performs the step of “creating a data structure that has one or more elements
that correspond to one or more attributes of said type” (claim 1).
In addition to arguing that Skinner does not disclose the “program” of
claim 1, Appellants argue that “Skinner doesn’t disclose that any ‘data
stream,’ which ‘conforms to a format of the data blocks of the database,’ is
‘generated based on’ a database table (the alleged ‘data structure’) that has
already been created in the database” (App. Br. 6).
However, the Examiner responds that the “generating” and “writing”
steps “merely require writing data to a database” and “may be carried out by
any part of the system” of Skinner (Ex. Ans. 10).
Accordingly, an issue we address on appeal is whether Skinner
discloses the steps of “generating, based on said data structure, a data stream
that conforms to a format of data blocks of said database; and writing said
data into one or more data blocks in said database” (claim 1).
Giving claim 1 its broadest reasonable interpretation, we agree with
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the Examiner’s statement that the “generating” and “writing” steps merely
require writing data to a database and may be carried out by any part of the
system. Contrary to Appellants’ argument, which is not commensurate with
the language of claim 1, these steps of claim 1 do not require the recited
“data stream” to be generated based on a data structure “that has already
been created in the database” (App. Br. 6).
Skinner discloses that an SQL “create table” command specifies the
table name and attributes that make up a database table and is submitted, via
the data store management component, to the database server to configure
the database (FF 4). The database may be organized such that, for a
database table, each column represents a particular data attribute and each
row represents a set of attribute values (FF 5).
Because Skinner’s system submits an SQL “create table” command to
the database server and, in that submission, specifies attributes
corresponding to blocks of a database table, an artisan would have
understood the system as “generating, based on said data structure, a data
stream that conforms to a format of data blocks of said database” (claim 1).
Further, an artisan would have understood the system as “writing said data
into one or more data blocks in said database” (claim 1).
Accordingly, we conclude that Appellants fail to show that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated
by Skinner.
Appellants do not provide separate arguments for claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 9-
11, 13, and 14. Therefore, Appellants fail to show that the Examiner erred
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in rejecting claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 9-11, 13, and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
anticipated by Skinner.

Claims 7 and 15
Claim 7 depends from claim 1 and recites “adding, to a table, an entry
that indicates an association between said type and said one or more
routines.” However, the phrase “that indicates an association between said
type and said one or more routines” is nonfunctional descriptive material
that is not functionally related to the claimed method of storing data. That
is, the phrase “that indicates an association” does not change the
functionality of or provide an additional function to the adding step of claim
1, but is merely a description of the entry of the table being added in the
adding step. When descriptive material is not functionally related to the
claimed embodiment, the descriptive material will not distinguish the
invention from the prior art in terms of patentability. See In re Ngai at 1339
and In re Gulack at 1385. Thus, we interpret claim 7 as merely requiring the
step of “adding, to a table, an entry.”
The Examiner cites Skinner’s “myMethods” vector as teaching the
limitations of claim 7 (Ex. Ans. 5 and 11). Skinner describes a vector as
being an array of elements that may be of any data type (FF 2). An artisan
would have understood Skinner’s use of the “myMethods” vector, an array
of elements, as teaching the limitation of “adding, to a table, an entry”
(claim 7).
Accordingly, Appellants fail to show that the Examiner erred in
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rejecting claim 7 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Skinner.
Claim 15 recites “instructions which . . . causes [sic] the one or more
processors to perform the method recited in Claim 7.” Appellants do not
provide separate arguments for claim 15. Therefore, Appellants fail to show
that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
anticipated by Skinner.

Claims 8 and 16
Claim 8 depends from claim 1 and recites “said invoking comprises
invoking one or more routines that are located at one or more addresses that
are associated with said type via an associative structure.” However, the
phrase “that are located at one or more addresses that are associated with
said type via an associative structure” is nonfunctional descriptive material
that is not functionally related to the claimed method of storing data. That
is, the phrase “that are located at” does not change the functionality of or
provide an additional function to the “invoking” step but is merely a
description of the “routines” being invoked in the invoking step. When the
descriptive material is not functionally related to the claimed embodiment,
the descriptive material will not distinguish the invention from the prior art
in terms of patentability. See In re Ngai at 1339 and In re Gulack at 1385.
Thus, we interpret claim 8 as merely requiring the act of “invoking one or
more routines” in performing “said invoking” step of base claim 1.
The Examiner cites Skinner’s loading of extracted metadata into data
structures (Ex. Ans. 6; citing col. 18, ll. 6-10), such as vectors (Ex. Ans. 12),
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as teaching the limitations of claim 8. Skinner indeed stores extracted
metadata into vectors (FF 2). Further, Skinner’s data store management
component obtains such metadata, e.g., from a vector, to generate the SQL
“create table” commands (FF 3). An artisan would have therefore
understood the use of such vectors, to obtain the metadata and generate the
SQL “create table” commands, as teaching the limitation of “invoking one
or more routines” (claim 8).
Thus, Appellants fail to show that Skinner does not disclose the
limitations of claim 8. Accordingly, Appellants fail to show that the
Examiner erred in rejecting claim 8 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated
by Skinner.
Claim 16 recites “instructions which . . . causes [sic] the one or more
processors to perform the method recited in Claim 8.” Appellants do not
provide separate arguments for claim 16. Therefore, Appellants fail to show
that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
anticipated by Skinner.

Claims 17 and 19
Claim 17 depends from claim 1 and recites “said program registering,
with said loader application, said one or more routines, which are not
implemented by said loader application.” The Examiner cites Skinner’s
“reflection methods” as teaching this limitation of claim 17 (Ex. Ans. 6).
Appellants argue, “Skinner does not disclose that a program registers, with a
loader application, routines having such characteristics [as the “routines” of
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claim 1] (e.g., routines that create and populate a data structure as discussed
above with reference to Claim 1).” (App. Br. 10-11).
Based upon the record on appeal, we agree with Appellants that the
Examiner has not shown that Skinner’s “reflection methods” disclose the
step of “said program registering, with said loader application, said one or
more routines” (claim 17). For example, the relied-upon sections do not
show that Skinner’s “reflection methods” cause a program to register
routines with Skinner’s communication management component, which is
cited as teaching the “loader application” of base claim 1 (Ex. Ans. 4).
As such, we reverse the rejection of claim 17. We thus conclude that
Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 17, and
dependent claim 19 falling therewith, under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).

Claims 18 and 20
Claim 18 depends from claim 1 and recites “said loader application
invoking at least one of said one or more routines to find out (a) a number of
one or more attributes within an opaque type and (b) one or more types of
said one or more attributes within said opaque type.” As with claim 17, the
Examiner cites Skinner’s “reflection methods” as teaching this limitation of
claim 18 (Ex. Ans. 7 (citing col. 19, ll. 14-17) and 13). Appellants argue,
“Skinner does not disclose that the ‘reflection methods’ that the Examiner
analogizes to the ‘said one or more routines’ in the rejection of Claim 18
have such characteristics [as the routines of claim 1] (e.g., routines that
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create and populate a data structure as discussed above with reference to
Claim 1)” (App. Br. 11-12).
Based upon the record on appeal, we agree with Appellants that the
Examiner has not shown that Skinner’s “reflection methods” disclose the
step of “said loader application invoking at least one of said one or more
routines to find out (a) a number of one or more attributes within an opaque
type and (b) one or more types of said one or more attributes within said
opaque type” (claim 18). For example, the relied-upon sections do not show
that Skinner’s “reflection methods” cause the communication management
component, which is cited as teaching the “loader application” of base claim
1 (Ex. Ans. 4), to invoke routines with the characteristics “(a)” and “(b)” of
claim 18; or to invoke routines that create and populate a data structure (as
required by claim 1). Thus, those sections do not teach the limitations of
claim 18.
As such, we reverse the rejection of claim 18. We thus conclude that
Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 18, and
dependent claim 20 falling therewith under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).

Claims 4 and 12
Claim 4 depends from claim 1 and recites “said creating, said
populating, said generating, and said writing are performed using a direct
path loading approach rather than a conventional path loading approach, and
without causing a Structured Query Language (SQL) engine to load said
data.” With respect to claims 4 and 12, Appellants acknowledge “that direct
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path loading, in general, was known prior to the filing of the present
application,” but argue that “at the time of Skinner and O’Reilly, people of
ordinary skill in the art did not know how to load data of opaque types,
whose structure was not known to the loader, into a database using the direct
path loading approach” (App. Br. 12-13). However, the Examiner finds:

Direct path loading is a well known technique that would have
yielded predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art at
the time of the invention. There are no facts that would lead
one to expect that opaque types, properly serialized by Skinner,
could not be processed for direct path loading.

(Ex. Ans. 13).
We agree with the Examiner’s finding that “[t]here are no facts that
would lead one to expect that opaque types … could not be processed for
direct path loading” (Ex. Ans. 13; Board’s emphasis). Appellants have
presented no evidence that the inclusion of direct path loading in Skinner’s
system would have been “uniquely challenging or difficult for one of
ordinary skill in the art,” Leapfrog, 485 F.3d at 1162, or would yield “more
than one would expect from such an arrangement,” KSR, 550 U.S. at 417.
Accordingly, we affirm the rejection of claim 4 and claim 12 falling
therewith under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Skinner and
O’Reilly.

CONCLUSIONS
(1) Appellants have not shown the Examiner erred in finding that
claims 1-3, 5-11, and 13-16 are anticipated by Skinner.
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(2) Appellants have shown the Examiner did not meet his burden in
finding that claims 17-20 are anticipated by Skinner.
(3) Appellants have not shown the Examiner erred in finding that
claims 4 and 12 are unpatentable over Skinner and O’Reilly.
(4) Claims 1-16 are not patentable.

DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-3, 5-11, and 13-
16 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).
We reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 17-20 under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b).
We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 4 and 12 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)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED IN PART

PEB

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