Ex Parte Koops

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Aug 24, 2011

10359141 (B.P.A.I. Aug. 24, 2011)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE 1
___________ 2
3
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS 4
AND INTERFERENCES 5
___________ 6
7
Ex parte MARK KOOPS 8
___________ 9
10
Appeal 2010-005118 11
Application 10/359,141 12
Technology Center 3600 13
___________ 14
15
Before MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD, ANTON W. FETTING, and 16
JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, Administrative Patent Judges. 17
FETTING, Administrative Patent Judge. 18
DECISION ON APPEAL 19
Appeal 2010-005118
Application 10/359,141

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE1 1

1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellant’s Appeal Brief (“App.
Br.,” filed July 2, 2009) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed December 14,
2009), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed October 15, 2009).
Mark Koops (Appellant) seeks review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 (2002) of a 2
final rejection of claims 1-4, the only claims pending in the application on 3
appeal. We have jurisdiction over the appeal pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) 4
(2002). 5
The Appellant invented a way of managing data networks such as 6
telecommunications networks, and to managing the services implemented on 7
such networks by means of policy rules a way for facilitating 8
implementation of such policy rules (Specification 1:3-10). 9
An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of 10
exemplary claim 1, which is reproduced below [bracketed matter and some 11
paragraphing added]. 12
1. A policy management apparatus for deploying rules over a 13
set of network elements in a data network, in particular a 14
telecommunications network, said rules enabling services to be 15
implemented, wherein the apparatus comprises: 16
[1] means 17
for giving the policy management apparatus access 18
to a database 19
containing information 20
about said set of network elements, 21
about said services, and 22
about said rules, 23
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these various kinds of information being matched with 1
one another, and 2
wherein deployment is performed as a function of said 3
information. 4
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art: 5
Godlew US 5,377,196 Dec. 27, 1994
Lebourg US 2002/0152297 A1 Oct. 17, 2002
Claims 1-3 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by 6
Godlew. 7
Claim 4 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over 8
Godlew and Lebourg. 9
10
ISSUES 11
The issues of anticipation and obviousness turn primarily on what 12
structure and equivalents are within the scope of the means recited in claim 1 13
and whether Godlew describes such a structure. 14
15
FACTS PERTINENT TO THE ISSUES 16
The following enumerated Findings of Fact (FF) are believed to be 17
supported by a preponderance of the evidence. 18
Facts Related to Appellant’s Disclosure 19
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01. The Appellant points to Specification 5:9-30 as support for the 1
claimed means for giving the policy management apparatus access 2
to a database. Appeal Br. 6. 3
02. Specification 5:9-30 states 4
One of the main functions of the policy manager PM is to 5
deploy rules to the various elements of the network, 6
usually via policy decision points. In the invention, the 7
policy manager has means giving it access to the 8
database DB which contains the information about the 9
network elements. This information can be stored using 10
the above-described method consisting in causing the 11
data to be sent upwards by registration messages from the 12
elements of the network, or by any other means (in 13
particular manually when the network is configured). 14
15
Facts Related to the Prior Art 16
Godlew 17
03. Godlew is directed to an expert system for diagnosing a data 18
communication network that includes a knowledge base of rules. 19
A subset of the rules pertains to reactive diagnosis, i.e. diagnosis 20
of the data communication network performed by the expert 21
system in response to requests from users, and another subset of 22
the rules pertains to proactive diagnosis, i.e. diagnosis of the data 23
communication network automatically performed by the expert 24
system without prior requests from users. Godlew 3:11-22. 25
04. Godlew exchanges within an expert system questions which 26
pertain to diagnosis of the data communication network, and 27
processes the questions with modules that include a measurement 28
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module to perform network measurements to collect network data 1
in accordance with a first subset of the questions. A remote 2
module obtains network data from a remote data communication 3
network, and the data pertains to the interaction between the 4
remote data communication network and the data communication 5
network. Godlew 3: 23-41. 6
05. Godlew’s rule module manages, schedules, and applies the 7
rules in the knowledge base to answer and pose questions. 8
Godlew 15:41-43. 9
06. Godlew’s expert system contains a baseline database and a 10
topology database. The baseline database contains information 11
regarding baselines and nominal conditions in the network. The 12
baselines are normal values for certain parameters of a particular 13
network. These values vary among networks. Average collision 14
rate, traffic rate, broadcast rate, external traffic rates, and typical 15
routes are examples of baselines. When the current value of these 16
parameters differs significantly from the baselines, landmarks 17
related to potential problems on the network are identified. The 18
topology database contains information regarding the topology of 19
the network, such as node locations, cable connections, and 20
orientation of spanning devices. Godlew 17:1-32. 21
Lebourg 22
07. Lebourg is directed to controlling the quality of at least one 23
service provided to a customer. It concerns any service having at 24
least one technical component defined according to one of several 25
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possible technologies, the quality of service being defined by a 1
technical contract between the provider of the service and a 2
customer. Lebourg ¶ 0001. 3
08. Lebourg shows that models such as service models may be built 4
by rules governed by particular grammars. Lebourg ¶ 0048. 5
09. Lebourg states that the description of the structure of these 6
grammars may be written in Unified Modeling Language UML, 7
because it is well adapted to the description of objects in object-8
oriented technology. Lebourg ¶ 0057. 9
10
ANALYSIS 11
Claims 1-3 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Godlew. 12
We are unpersuaded by the Appellants’ argument that Godlew fails to 13
describe the recited means. Appeal Br. 8-11. 14
Since this claim limitation is recited as a means plus function to be 15
construed under 35 U.S.C. § 112, sixth paragraph, the Appellant points to 16
Specification 5:9-30 as support for the claimed means for giving the policy 17
management apparatus access to a database. FF 01. 18
Specification 5:9-30 states “[T]he policy manager has means giving it 19
access to the database DB which contains the information about the network 20
elements. This information can be stored using the above-described method 21
consisting in causing the data to be sent upwards by registration messages 22
from the elements of the network, or by any other means (in particular 23
manually when the network is configured).” FF 02. 24
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Thus the means in claim 1, which is the only limitation in the claim, can 1
be registration messages or any other means including manual entry or their 2
equivalents. 3
The function of the means is “giving the policy management apparatus 4
access to a database.” Accordingly this element does not include the 5
database itself, only the structure that gives access to that database. As such 6
the claim does not require the presence of the database contents recited in 7
the claim, but only the capacity to give access to such a database when such 8
a database is available. 9
Godlew provides a knowledge database and a way to access that 10
database. FF 05-06. Therefore on that basis alone claim 1 is met. But 11
Godlew goes further to recite that its database contains rules, the topology of 12
the network, and information regarding baselines and nominal conditions in 13
the network that identify landmarks related to potential problems on the 14
network. FF 05-06. Thus Godlew’s database contains information about 15
network elements, services, and rules. The Appellant’s argument that 16
Godlew’s rules are not deployed over a set of network elements is 17
unpersuasive because the claim does not recite actually deploying rules in 18
that manner, only that the means be capable of acting toward such a purpose, 19
because that phrase is a mere statement of intended use in the preamble, and 20
because Godlew does use the rules to identify potential problems in the 21
network. No particular manner of deployment is recited. 22
In the Reply Brief at 7, the Appellant did not explicitly argue the 23
“deployment” limitation, but did bold and underline that limitation in the 24
copy of claim 1. Although the word “deployment” occurs in the body in the 25
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last wherein clause, this does not breath life and meaning into the preamble 1
phrase “over a set of network elements.” And again, such deployment in the 2
wherein clause is not part of the structure recited in the claim, but merely an 3
attribute the structure must be capable of supporting. 4
5
Claim 4 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Godlew and 6
Lebourg. 7
The Appellant relied on the arguments in support of claim 1 in the 8
Appeal Brief. The Appellant does not so much make an argument for the 9
patentability of claim 4 in the Reply Brief at 8, so much as say that the 10
rejection was unclear. 11
Since claim 4 simply adds that the matching is performed by a UML 12
(Unified Modeling Language) language diagram, the Examiner applied 13
Lebourg fort hat feature. Apparently, the Appellant takes issue with whether 14
one of ordinary skill would have looked to Lebourg for such a solution to 15
matching. 16
Lebourg is applied simply to show that in creating models built with 17
rules, the Unified Modeling Language UML is a known and used option, 18
because it is well adapted to the description of objects in object-oriented 19
technology. Thus, the Examiner simply applied Lebourg as evidence that in 20
implementing Godlew’s rule modeling, one of ordinary skill would have 21
predictably chosen to use UML and its features. 22
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CONCLUSIONS OF LAW 1
The rejection of claims 1-3 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by 2
Godlew is proper. 3
The rejection of claim 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over 4
Godlew and Lebourg is proper. 5
DECISION 6
To summarize, our decision is as follows. 7
 The rejection of claims 1-3 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by 8
Godlew is sustained. 9
 The rejection of claim 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable 10
over Godlew and Lebourg is sustained. 11
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this 12
appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. 13
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv) (2007). 14
15
AFFIRMED 16
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mev 20