Ex Parte Lawande et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 12, 2015

11461926 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 12, 2015)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte SHILPA LAWANDE, ALEXANDER RASIN,
OMER TRAJMAN, and STANLEY B. ZDONIK
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Appeal 2012-009732
Application 11/461,926
Technology Center 2100
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Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., DANIEL N. FISHMAN, and
CHRISTA P. ZADO, Administrative Patent Judges.

ZADO, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
final rejection of claims 34–42, 44–52, and 54–62.2 3 We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 Appellants identify as the real party in interest Hewlett-Packard
Development Company, LP. (App. Br. 2.)
2 The Examiner has withdrawn the rejection of claims 43, 53, and 63.
(Ans. 2.)
3 Claims 1–33 are canceled.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE4
Appellants’ invention generally relates to enhancing a database’s
physical layout. (Spec. 3, ll. 12–18.) Representative claim 34 is reproduced
below:
34. A computer-implemented method comprising:
for each of multiple candidate sort orders, determining a
cost based on candidate training queries that have execution
costs that satisfy an improvement criterion;
based on the respective costs of the candidate sort orders,
selecting sort orders at least one of which satisfies all of the
candidate training queries;
for each of the selected sort orders, adding, to a design of
a database, an included projection comprising a view of one or
more columns of the database that were referred to by the
candidate training queries, the columns of the projection to be
physically stored in accordance with the selected sort order; and
each of the multiple candidate sort orders from which the
sort orders are selected defining an order with respect to a
putative projection comprising a view of one or more columns
that are not necessarily identical to the columns of the included
projection.

REFERENCES
Lawande US 2005/0187917 A1 Aug. 25, 2005
Farrar US 2005/0203940 A1 Sept. 15, 2005

4 Rather than repeat the arguments here, we refer to the Briefs for the
positions of Appellants and the Final Office Action and Answer for the
positions of the Examiner. Only those arguments actually made by
Appellants have been considered in this decision. Arguments that
Appellants did not make in the Briefs have not been considered and are
deemed to be waived. (See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2012).)

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Lightstone US 2006/0184338 A1 Aug. 17, 2006
Mike Stonebraker et al., C-Store: A Column-oriented DBMS,
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 31ST VLDB CONFERENCE, 2005, 553
(hereinafter “Stonebraker”)
Hu Tian-lei et al., Automatic Relational Database Compression
Scheme Design Based on Swarm Evolution, JOURNAL OF
ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY SCIENCE A, Apr. 6, 2006, 1642
(hereinafter “Tian-lei”)

THE REJECTIONS
Claims 34, 37–39, 42, 44, 47–49, 52, 54, 57–59, and 62 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Lawande and Stonebraker.
(Final. Act. 4.)
Claims 35, 36, 41, 45, 46, 51, 55, 56, and 61 stand rejected 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Lawande, Stonebraker, and Farrar. (Final
Act. 14.)
Claims 40, 50, and 60 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Lawande, Stonebraker, and Tian-lei. (Final. Act. 17.)

ISSUES
Under § 103, has the Examiner erred by finding that Lawande and
Stonebraker collectively would have taught or suggested:
(1) “for each of multiple candidate sort orders, determining a cost
based on candidate training queries that have execution costs that satisfy an
improvement criterion,” as recited in claim 34;
(2) “for each of the selected sort orders, adding, to a design of a
database, an included projection comprising a view of one or more columns
of the database that were referred to by the candidate training queries, the
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columns of the projection to be physically stored in accordance with the
selected sort order,” as recited in claim 34; and
(3) “where each replicated segment has a different sort order,” as
recited in claim 39?

ANALYSIS
Claims 34, 37–39, 42, 44, 47–49, 52, 54, 57–59, and 625
Appellants contend Lawande does not teach or suggest “multiple
candidate sort orders,” as recited in claim 34, because Lawande teaches
multiple candidate indexes, which do not reflect sort orders. (App. Br. 11.)
To support their contention, Appellants argue an index must reflect the same
sort order as the database itself, otherwise the index is useless. (Id.)
However, Appellants do not provide a basis or further explain why an index
must reflect the same order as a database. Contrary to Appellants’
argument, Lawande provides an index may be in the form of a B*Tree,
expressly contemplating the index will sort data of a column based on data
values rather than based on how the data is stored in a table. (Lawande ¶ 4.)
Furthermore, as explained by the Examiner, Lawande recognizes ordering of
indexes is significant. (Ans. 5, citing Lawande ¶ 6 (“for a table T with two
columns a and b, the following indexes could exists: (a), (b), (a,b) (b,a)”).)
Appellants also contend, “A pivotal issue in this application is that the
Action attempts to equate an ‘index’ with the claimed ‘projections’ being
added to the database.” (App. Br. 10). As a result of this alleged difference,
Appellants argue Lawande does not teach or suggest “for each of [a number

5 This grouping of the claims reflects the grouping in the Examiner’s Final
Rejection (Final Act. 6) and Appellants’ Appeal Brief (App. Br. 10–15).
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of] selected sort orders, adding, to a design of a database, an included
projection . . . the columns of the projection to be physically stored in
accordance with the selected sort order,” as recited in claim 34. (App.
Br. 12.) We are unpersuaded by Appellants’ argument because it addresses
Lawande individually and does not address the Examiner’s rejection in view
of the combination of Lawande and Stonebraker. (Final Act. 4–6; Ans. 5,
6.)
The Examiner explains Lawande teaches selecting candidate sort
orders based on candidate training queries. (Final Act. 5, 6.) The Examiner
acknowledges Lawande does not disclose adding projections based on the
selected sort orders (i.e., indexes) to a database. (Ans. 5.) However, the
Examiner explains Stonebraker discloses physically storing in a database
columns of a projection having different sort orders. (Id. at 6.) Accordingly,
it is the combination of Lawande and Stonebraker that teaches or suggests
adding a projection (for each of the selected sort orders) to the design of a
database, and physically storing the columns of the projection in selected
sort orders.
Appellants also contend that although Stonebraker teaches the use of
“projections,” Stonebraker does not teach or suggest selection of projections
from candidate sort orders as recited in the disputed claim limitations. (App.
Br. 13, citing claim 34, “for each of multiple candidate sort orders . . .
selecting sort orders . . . for each of the selected sort orders, adding, to a
design of a database, an included projection . . . the columns of the
projection to be physically stored in accordance with the selected sort
order.”) We are unpersuaded by this argument because the Examiner does
not rely on Stonebraker alone for teaching “for each of selected sort orders,
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adding, to a design of a database, an included projection . . . the columns of
the projection to be physically stored in accordance with the selected sort
order,” but rather relies on the combination of Lawande and Stonebraker.
(Final Act. 4–6; Ans. 5, 6.)
Furthermore, Appellants’ argument is not commensurate with the
scope of the disputed claim. Appellants argue Stonebraker does not teach or
suggest selection of projections from candidate sort orders (App. Br. 13);
however, claim 34 recites sort orders being selected rather than projections:
“for each of the selected sort orders, adding, to a design of a database, an
included projection comprising a view of one or more columns of the
database that were referred to by the candidate training queries.” (Emphasis
added.)
As a result, we are unpersuaded that the Examiner incorrectly
concluded the combination of Lawande and Stonebraker would have taught
or suggested the disputed claim limitations.
We, therefore, sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claim 34. For similar reasons, we also sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
independent claims 44 and 54, which recite limitations commensurate with
those disputed by Appellants and for which Appellants argue are allowable
for the same reasons given for claim 34. (App. Br. 14, 15.)

Claim 39
Claim 39 additionally recites “further comprising segmenting the
projection into a plurality of segments” (claim 37), “replicating each of the
segments on a plurality of storage nodes” (claim 38), and “where each
replicated segment has a different sort order” (claim 39).
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Appellants contend the Examiner fails to even allege the disputed
subject matter is taught by Stonebraker. (Reply Br. 11, 12.) We disagree.
The Examiner finds Stonebraker “makes clear that every projection is
segmented into one or more segments . . . i.e., segmenting the projection into
a plurality of segments as recited in claim 37.” (Ans. 7, citing Stonebraker
556, “every projection is horizontally partitioned into 1 or more segments.”)
The Examiner finds Stonebraker “makes clear that the system
provides for redundant storage . . . in several overlapping projections . . . and
that the segments are horizontally partition [sic] across the disks of various
nodes, i.e., replicating each of the segments on a plurality of storage nodes
as recited in claim 38.” (Ans. 7, citing Stonebraker 555, “Redundant storage
of elements of a table in several overlapping projections in different
orders.”)
The Examiner finds Stonebraker “makes clear that the projections,
that have been segmented, and stored across the shared system, have
columns that can exists possibly sorted on a different attribute . . . i.e., where
each replicated segment has a different sort order as recited in claim 39.”
(Ans. 7, citing Stonebraker 554, “However, there is no requirement that one
store multiple copies in the exact same way. C-Store allows redundant
objects to be stored in different sort orders . . .”, 555, “Redundant storage of
elements of a table in several overlapping projections in different orders.”)
In support of their contention, Appellants argue the Examiner has
“merely alleged that Stonebraker teaches segmenting projections, that
different projections may be sorted on different attributes, that projections
may be stored in a distributed system comprises nodes.” (Reply Br. 12.)
However, this contradicts the Examiner’s findings that Stonebraker teaches
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the disputed limitations. (Ans. 7.) In the absence of evidence or an
explanation, Appellants’ argument amount to attorney argument.
As a result, we are unpersuaded that the Examiner incorrectly
concluded the combination of Lawande and Stonebraker would have taught
or suggested the disputed claim limitations.
We, therefore, sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claim 39.

Claims 35, 36, 41, 45, 46, 51, 55, 56, and 61
Appellants argue these claims should be sustained for at least the
reasons given in favor of patentability of the independent claims. (Reply
Br. 12.) For reasons we provide supra regarding independent claims 34, 44,
and 54, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 35, 36, 41, 45, 46, 51,
55, 56, and 61.

Claims 40, 50 and 60
Appellants have not presented arguments with regard to the rejection
of claims 40, 50, and 60. Arguments not made are considered waived.
Therefore, we summarily sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 40, 50,
and 60. (See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2012).)

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 34–42, 44–52, and 54–62 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).

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AFFIRMED

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