Ex Parte Koch et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 5, 2014

11760483 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 5, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte WOLFGANG KOCH, RAINER BRENDLE, JAN
KARSTENS, GUNTHER LIEBICH, and ANDREAS
WILDHAGEN
____________________

Appeal 2012-002062
Application 11/760,483
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before LEE E. BARRETT, JEAN R. HOMERE, JON M. JURGOVAN,
Administrative Patent Judges.

JON M. JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of
claims 20-30 and 32. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). Claims
1-19 and 31 have been cancelled.
We affirm.2

1 The real party in interest is SAP AG.
2 Our decision is based on Appellants’ Appeal Brief filed June 27, 2011
(“App. Br.”), the Examiner’s Answer mailed Sept. 29, 2011 (“Ans.”), the
Reply Brief filed Nov. 4, 2011 (“Reply Br.”), and the Specification as
originally filed on June 8, 2007 (“Spec.”).
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The claims are directed to a system and method for translating and
executing queries. Claim 20, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed
subject matter:
20. A method for executing a query in a business system, comprising:
receiving a first query to access data stored in a plurality of
business objects, each business object including a plurality of nodes
and at least one element in one of the plurality of nodes arranged in a
hierarchy, the first query including a projection clause, a from clause,
and a where clause, the first query defined in a structured query
language, the projection clause including an identifier for each of a
plurality of nodes and an element of each node included a result set,
each identifier merging a name of the element with a name of the
corresponding node, the from clause identifying a business object
from which data is selected, the where clause identifying a condition
on the result set;
parsing each identifier to identify those with a unique node
name;
generating a second query for each unique node name, the
second query:
retrieving data records from the business object under the
unique node name in the hierarchy of the business object;
identifying the retrieved data records satisfying the condition in
the where clause;
reporting a value from the identified data records of each
element named in each identifier having the unique node name;
and
consolidating the reported values from each of the
plurality of second queries into the result set.

REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
1. Claims 20-32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, First Paragraph,
as failing to comply with the written description requirement (Ans.
4-7).
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2. Claims 20-30 and 32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
being anticipated by Vlahos3 (Ans. 8-20).

ANALYSIS
Issue 1: Whether the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 20-32 under 35
U.S.C. § 112, First Paragraph, as failing to comply with the written
description requirement.
Appellants argue that the Specification provides adequate written
description for the claimed invention for purposes of 35 U.S.C. § 112, First
Paragraph (App. Br. 8-9). As support for their contention, Appellants point
to Figure 3 of the Specification. Figure 3 shows the engine 100 parsing the
identifiers ITEM.PRODUCT, ITEM.QUANTITY, and PARTY.NAME in the
projection clause of the standardized query 300 to identify and group those
with unique node names ITEM and PARTY, which are then used to generate
different native queries 340 and 345 (id.). Appellants also point to
paragraphs 19, 25, and 28 of the Specification as providing support for their
contentions.
The Examiner responds to Appellants’ arguments by stating that the
phrase “unique node names” appears nowhere in the Specification (Ans. 5,
Item 3). The Examiner states that Figure 3 shows items grouped by their
node name, which is not the same as “identifying those with a unique node
name” as claimed (Ans. 5, Item 5). The Examiner further states there are
other alternatives other than node uniqueness to explain the grouping in
Figure 3, such as grouping by similarity, or by first letter, of the node names
(Ans. 5-6, Item 5). The Examiner reviews the Appellants’ comments
concerning paragraphs 19, 25, and 28 of the Specification, and concludes

3 United States Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0133504 A1.
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that nowhere in the Specification or Drawings is there shown that the parser
has the ability to identify unique node names from the inputted queries, and
parse the identifiers of only the unique nodes (Ans. 7, Item 10). The
Examiner further finds that in order for the parser to identify unique node
names, the parser must compare the node names to each other, which
requires a comparison component and a memory to store the node names
parsed to determine if a node name is unique (Ans. 7, Item 11). According
to the Examiner, none of these are explicitly found in the Specification. The
Examiner notes that “parser” is mentioned twice in the Specification at
paragraphs 17 and 21 (Ans. 7, Items 12-14). At paragraph 17, the parser
“decomposes a structured query” and the components are passed to the
native translation engine, which the Examiner finds is simply a parser, not a
smart component that determines uniqueness of node names (id.). The
Examiner further notes that paragraph 21 states that the engine “parses the
structured query into queries that can be processed by the target business
object.” (id.). The Examiner concludes that nowhere in the Specification is
it stated that the node in the target business object must be grouped by
unique node (id.).
We agree with the Examiner’s findings and conclusions. There is no
mention of “unique node names” (emphasis added) in the Specification or
Drawings as originally filed. Therefore, the claim limitations which recite
this feature, such as “parsing each identifier to identify those with a unique
node name,” are not supported by a written description in the Specification
under 35 U.S.C. § 112, First Paragraph, for the reasons set forth by the
Examiner. These limitations occur in all independent claims 20, 25, and 28,
and thus all of their dependent claims as well. We therefore sustain the
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Examiner’s rejection of claims 20-32 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, First
Paragraph, based on the written description requirement.

Issue 2: Whether the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 20-30 and 32 under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Vlahos.
Appellants argue that Vlahos does not disclose the specifically
claimed manner of translating queries as recited in independent claims 20,
25, and 28 (App. Br.9). The Examiner responds that Vlahos discloses this
feature in paragraph 81, which states “[q]uery engine 74 is an interpreter that
translates a query (usually an SQL query) into calls to individual
accumulators 28 and wrappers 24.” We agree with the Examiner that
Vlahos discloses translating queries as broadly claimed.
Appellants further argue that the limitation “each identifier merging a
name of the element with a name of the corresponding node” is not disclosed
in Vlahos (App. Br. 10-12). Appellant again references Figure 3 of the
Specification to show that the merged identifiers ITEM.PRODUCT are
composed of the node name ITEM and the element name PRODUCT (App.
Br. 10). Similarly, merged identifiers ITEM.QUANTITY are composed of
node name ITEM and element name QUANTITY, and merged identifiers
PARTY.NAME are composed of node name PARTY and element name
NAME (id.).
In response to Appellants’ argument, the Examiner notes that the term
“merging” is nowhere defined in the Specification (Ans. 28). Accordingly,
the Examiner interprets the term “merging” according to its broadest
reasonable interpretation (Ans. 27). Specifically, the Examiner points to
paragraph 158 of Vlahos which states “[t]he queries that are sent to the
accumulator are first evaluated for correctness, then mapped according to the
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fields in the virtual table representations of the relevant data sources” (Ans.
28). The Examiner finds that the merging of elements and node names
occurs in the virtual table of Vlahos where fields are mapped to their
relevant data sources.4
We agree with the Examiner’s findings and conclusion that Vlahos
discloses the limitation “each identifier merging a name of the element with
a name of the corresponding node” as recited in independent claims 20, 25,
and 28. The recited “merging” limitation is sufficiently broad to encompass
Vlahos’s mapping of fields to data sources using the field name identifier.5
We thus sustain the Examiner’s rejection on this ground.
Appellants’ remaining argument is that because Vlahos does not
disclose the “merging” limitation, it also does not disclose the “parsing”,
“generating” and “reporting” limitations of independent claims 20, 25, and
28 (App. Br. 10-12). As explained previously, under broadest reasonable
interpretation, the “merging” limitation is disclosed by Vlahos and, for the
reasons noted by the Examiner, so too are the “parsing”, “generating” and
“reporting” limitations that involve it. We therefore sustain the Examiner’s
rejection on this ground.
No separate arguments are presented for dependent claims 21-24,
26-27, 29-30, and 32. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of these claims
for the reasons stated with regard to their respective independent claims.6

4 The Examiner notes that clarification of the claims is necessary as to what
an element and node are in order to overcome this rejection (Ans. 28).
5 The Examiner further notes that the claims do not recite an identifier with a
merged element name and node name (Ans. 29).
6 See In re King, 801 F.2d 1324, 1325 (Fed. Cir. 1986); In re Sernaker, 702
F.2d 989, 991 (Fed. Cir. 1983).

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DECISION
For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejection of claims 20-32 is
affirmed.
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

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