Ex Parte Kennis et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 29, 201611085725 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 29, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 111085,725 03/21/2005 76444 7590 Setter Roche LLP 14694 Orchard Parkway Building A, Suite 200 Westminster, CO 80023 03/02/2016 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Peter H. Kennis 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. 314.0001 3855 EXAMINER NGUYEN, TAND ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 3689 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/02/2016 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): uspto@setterroche.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte PETER H. KENNIS, DANIEL R. KUOKKA, CHARLES A. COOMBS, STAYTON D. ADDISON, ANDREW T. OTWELL, JEFFREY Z. JOHNSON, PATRICKJ.D. TAYLOR, and MICHAELE. LORTZ Appeal2013-006483 Application 11/085,725 Technology Center 3600 Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, MICHAEL W. KIM, and BRADLEY B. BAY AT, Administrative Patent Judges. CRAWFORD Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is an appeal from the final rejection of claims 115-127. We have jurisdiction to review the case under 35 U.S.C. §§ 134 and 6. The invention relates generally to compliance monitoring of electronic enterprise transactions, and more particularly relates to transaction-level integrity monitoring of electronic data transactions within enterprise computing systems for enterprise policy compliance monitoring, anomaly Appeal2013-006483 Application 11/085,725 detection, risk assessment, fraud deterrence, and investigation. Spec. 1, 11. 16-20. Independent claim 115, reproduced below, is further illustrative of the claimed subject matter. 115. A computer-implemented method of monitoring transactions stored in an enterprise database comprising a plurality of source records and a plurality of source fields in each of the plurality of source records, the method comprising: in a computer system: identifying a subset of source fields of the plurality of source fields; during an initial extraction, capturing initial information from the subset of source fields in a first source record, of the plurality of source records, corresponding to a monitored entity; storing the initial information in a staging database; transforming the initial information into a first monitoring entity by storing the initial information in a plurality of target fields of a first target record of a plurality of target records in a monitoring database based on an ontology describing a mapping between the plurality of source fields and the plurality of target fields; during a subsequent extraction, occurring after the initial extraction, capturing subsequent information from the subset of source fields in the first source record corresponding to the monitored entity; storing the subsequent information in the staging database; transforming the subsequent information into a second monitoring entity by storing the subsequent information in the plurality of target fields of a second target record of the plurality of target records in the monitoring database based on the ontology describing the mapping between the plurality of source fields and the plurality of target fields; and identifying an occurrence of improper activity with respect to the monitored entity from processing of the first monitoring entity and the second monitoring entity[.] 2 Appeal2013-006483 Application 11/085,725 Claims 115-127 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Dingman (US 6,820,135 Bl, iss. Nov. 16, 2004) and Stone (US 2003/0212617 Al, pub. Nov. 13, 2003). We AFFIRM. ANALYSIS We are not persuaded the Examiner erred in asserting that the combination of Dingman and Stone renders obvious claims 115-127. App. Br. 8-10. Upon consideration of Appellants' assertions, we agree with the Examiner's findings, rationale and response to argument, set forth on pages 4--9 and 11-13 of the Examiner's Answer, as fully responsive to Appellants' assertions. Accordingly, we adopt them as our own. We add the following for emphasis only. We are unpersuaded of error on the Examiner's part by Appellants' argument that Dingman does not disclose a staging database. We agree with the Examiner the addition of further databases in the Dingman device would have been a mere duplication of parts/services for storing data and would be of no patentable significance. We further agree with the Examiner that the Dingman database 214 may be considered a staging database as broadly claimed. We are unpersuaded of error on the Examiner's part by Appellants' argument that Stone does not disclose identifying an occurrence of improper activity. We find that the teaching in Stone at paragraphs 134 and 135 that unmatched items are not approved for payment is a teaching of identifying an occurrence of improper activity. In this regard, we find that an unmatched item is an improper activity as broadly claimed. 3 Appeal2013-006483 Application 11/085,725 We are unpersuaded of error on the part of the Examiner by Appellants' argument that the prior art fails to teach extraction of data from the same subset of source fields as the source record. We find that as Stone teaches at paragraph 100 that recurring invoices related to the same vendor or similar products are searched, Stone teaches extracting data from the same subset of source fields. We sustain the obviousness rejections of claims 115-127. DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject 115-127 is AFFIRMED. AFFIRMED 4 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation