Ex Parte LI et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 22, 201613465329 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 22, 2016) Copy Citation United States Patent and Trademark Office 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 APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 13/465,329 05/07/2012 Xue C. Li CN920090021US2 5849 30449 7590 12/27/2016 SCHMEISER, OLSEN & WATTS 22 CENTURY HILL DRIVE SUITE 302 LATHAM, NY 12110 EXAMINER PHAM, TUAN A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2163 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/27/2016 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): 30449@IPLAWUSA.COM PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte XUE C. LI, XIAO J. FU, XUE F. GAO, and XIN XIN Appeal 2016-002411 Application 13/465,3291 Technology Center 2100 Before JUSTIN BUSCH, SCOTT B. HOWARD, and MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 1—22, which constitute all of the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 Appellants identify International Business Machines Corporation as the real party in interest. App. Br. 1. Appeal 2016-002411 Application 13/465,329 THE INVENTION The disclosed and claimed invention is directed to data processing technology, and in particular, to a method and a system for validating data based on a matching relationship between a report dataset (MDS1) that is generated from a data cube and a reference dataset (S) that is generated from the source data. Spec. 1; Abstract. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject 1. A method for validating data, said method comprising: a processor of a data processing system generating warehouse data in a data warehouse by transforming source data in a data source into the warehouse data via an Extract- Transform-Load (ETL) transformation model; said processor generating a data cube by transforming the warehouse data in the data warehouse into the data cube via an On-Line Analysis Processing (OLAP) transformation model; said processor generating a report multi-dimensional data set (MDS1) from the data cube via a data cube query of the data cube; said processor generating a reference multi-dimensional data set (S) from the source data via a source data query of the source data, said source data query corresponding to the data cube query; and said processor performing a data validation based on a matching relationship between MDS1 and S. The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence in rejecting the claims on appeal is: matter: REFERENCES Fazal Dodds US 2007/0239769 A1 Oct. 11, 2007 US 2010/0250485 A1 Sept. 30, 2010 2 Appeal 2016-002411 Application 13/465,329 REJECTIONS2 Claims 1—22 stand rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1—14 of U.S. Patent No. 8,219,520. Final Act. 4-22. Claims 1, 10-12, 14, 16, and 19-22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Dodds in view of Fazal. Final Act. 23— 29. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner erred. In reaching this decision, we have considered all evidence presented and all arguments made by Appellants. We are persuaded by Appellants’ arguments regarding the pending claims Double Patenting Rejection Appellants argue the double patenting rejection should be withdrawn based on a terminal disclaimer that was filed after the Final Action. App. Br. 8. The Examiner acknowledged and approved the filing of the terminal disclaimer, but did not expressly indicate the rejection was withdrawn. Compare Adv. Act. 2 (indicating in Issue I that the 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection was withdrawn), with Adv. Act. 2 (indicating in Issue II that the filing of the terminal disclaimed was “acknowledged and approved” without reciting the words withdrawn). Although the Answer did not identify the double patenting rejection as withdrawn (see Ans. 3), the Answer did not discuss 2 Additionally, claims 14 and 15 were rejected in the Final Action under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention was directed to non-statutory subject matter. Final Act. 3^4. Following an Amendment, the rejection was withdrawn. Adv. Act. 2. 3 Appeal 2016-002411 Application 13/465,329 Appellants’ argument regarding the double patenting rejection (see Ans. 1— 9). Accordingly, to the extent the double patenting rejection has not been withdrawn, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—22 on the grounds of double patenting. Section 103 Rejection Appellants argue the Examiner erred in finding Dodds teaches a “processor performing a data validation based on a matching relationship between MDS1 and S,” as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 13—15. Appellants argue the data verification in Dodds “is validation of data in the memory of the data warehouse server 104, which occurs before the OLAP cube 240 is generated.” App. Br. 14—15 (citing Dodds Tflf 96—97). Claim 1 recites the data verification is performed using MDS1, which claim 1 further recites is generated from the data cube. Appellants argue that Dodds, however, “does not disclose basing the validation on a matching relationship between MDS1 and S.” App. Br. 15. The Examiner finds Dodds teaches “[t]he transformation script 500 specifies that the data from the data vault 112 representing the data from the various operational databases 200 is imported serially when required, so that care can be taken to match up like data from one operational database ... to be performed on the merged, validated and cleaned data, and the operations required to load the transformed data into the data mart 120.” 4 Appeal 2016-002411 Application 13/465,329 Final Act. 24 (quoting Dodds | 643 * 5). The Examiner maps that teaching to the data validation step recited in claim 1. Final Act 24 (citing Dodds Tflf 50- 52, 64), 33 (citing Dodds 45, 46, 50-52, 62, 64); Adv. Act. 2 (citing Dodds 1145, 46, 50-52, 62, 64, 100-101); Ans. 5-6 (citing Dodds H 45, 46, 50-52, 62, 64, 100-101). We are persuaded by Appellants’ arguments as the Examiner has not identified sufficient evidence or provided sufficient explanation as to how Dodds teaches a “processor performing a data validation based on a matching relationship between MDS1 and S,” as recited in claim 1. We have reviewed the cited sections of Dodds and agree with Appellants that Dodds describes validating data in the data warehouse prior to the data cube being formed. See, e.g., Dodds H 65, 96—97. Although the Examiner cites to sections involving the OLAP cubes 240 (see, e.g., Dodds H 102—103), those sections involve data analysis, not data validation. Because we agree with at least one of the dispositive arguments advanced by Appellants, we need not reach the merits of Appellants’ other arguments. Accordingly, we are constrained on this record to reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, along with the rejections of claims 12, 14, and 16, which recite limitations commensurate in scope to the disputed limitations discussed above, and dependent claims 10, 11, and 19-22. 3 Although the Final Action cites to paragraph 65, that is a typographical error as the quoted language is contained in paragraph 64. 5 Appeal 2016-002411 Application 13/465,329 DECISION For the above reasons, we reverse the Examiner’s decisions rejecting claims 1—22. REVERSED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation