Ex Parte Lobo et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 7, 2016

12500282 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 7, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/500,282 0710912009
32615 7590 09/09/2016
OSHA LIANG LLP/Oracle
TWO HOUSTON CENTER
909 FANNIN, SUITE 3500
HOUSTON, TX 77010
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Sheldon M. Lobo
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.
33227/544001; SUN090482 2006
EXAMINER
VU, TUAN A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2193
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/09/2016 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):
docketing@oshaliang.com
lord@oshaliang.com
hathaway@oshaliang.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SHELDON M. LOBO and FU-HWA WANG
Appeal2014-008639
Application 12/500,282
Technology Center 2100
Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, and
JOHN R. KENNY, Administrative Patent Judges.
LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1--4, 6-9, and 11-20. Claims 5 and 10
have been canceled. See App. Br. 4. We have jurisdiction over the pending
claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We AFFIRM.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Oracle America, Inc.
App. Br. 4.
Appeal2014-008639
Application 12/500,282
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants' Invention
Appellants' invention generally relates to finding and removing
duplicate virtual function tables. Spec. i-f 13. Claim 1, which is illustrative,
reads as follows:
1. A method for duplicate virtual function table removal
compnsmg:
identifying, using a processor of a computer, a first virtual
function table formed when a first source code is compiled into
a first object code;
identifying, using the processor, a second virtual function
table formed when a second source code is compiled into a
second object code; and
before linking the first object code and the second object
code:
identifying, using the processor, that the first virtual
function table and the second virtual function table are
identical based on criteria established by a user; and
deleting, using the processor, the second virtual
function table,
wherein identifying that the first virtual function table and
the second virtual function table are identical compnses
comparing a naming scheme in a symbol table.
Rejection
Claims 1--4, 6-9, and 11-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over the combination of Riniker (US 2010/0180266
Al; July 15, 2010); Asao (US 2005/0097530 Al; May 5, 2005); and Hasha
(US 2005/0125805 Al; June 9, 2005). Final Act. 2-11.
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Application 12/500,282
ANALYSIS
Appellants direct their arguments to independent claim 1, which is
representative of the claims on appeal. Appellants set forth no independent
arguments with respect to claims 2--4, 6-9, and 11-20, which stand or fall
with claim 1. See App. Br. 8.
Issue 1: Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Riniker,
Asao, and Hasha teaches or suggests:
before linking the first object code and the second object
code:
identifying, using the processor, that the first virtual
function table and the second virtual function table are
identical based on criteria established by a user; and
wherein identifying that the first virtual function table and
the second virtual function table are identical compnses
comparing a naming scheme in a symbol table,
as recited in claim 1?
Appellants contend the combination of Riniker, Asao, and Hasha does
not teach or suggest the disputed limitations. App. Br. 12-14; Reply Br. 3-
6. Regarding the teachings of Riniker, Appellants contend
In the Final Office Action, the Examiner accurately notes,
"Riniker does not explicitly disclose identifying using a
processor, the first and second virtual function table as identical
based on criteria established by the user, " as required by
independent claims 1 and 14. Accordingly, Riniker is silent with
respect to, and therefore fails to disclose or render obvious, at
least, limitation (iii) [the disputed limitation], as required by
independent claims 1 and 14.
App. Br. 12. Regarding the teachings of Hasha, Appellants contend
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Application 12/500,282
Hasha merely discloses, "a method and system for
implementing functions in a class that inherits an interface and
that inherits an implementing class which implements the
interface." See Hasha, paragraph [0019]. As such, Hasha is
clearly directed to the treatment of a virtual function, whereas the
claimed invention is clearly directed to virtual function tables.
One of ordinary skill in the art would know and appreciate that
virtual functions are a type of function or method implemented
in source code which can be overridden in an inheriting class.
However, one of ordinary skill in the art would also appreciate
that, despite "virtual function" and "virtual function table" being
similar terms, the two terms are distinct in meaning and, at most,
have complementary but dissimilar uses. A virtual function
table, as claimed, is a component of object code, which is not the
same as source code.
App. Br. 12-13. Regarding the teachings of Asoa, Appellants contend
Asoa does not show or suggest, "[i]dentifying using a
processor, the first and second virtual function table as identical
based on criteria established by the user" nor "comparing a
naming scheme in a symbol table" as required by amended
independent claims 1 and 14. This is confirmed by the disclosure
in Asao that "a common function name is registered with respect
to the instantiated function names generated from the same
temp late."
App. Br. 14 (citing Asao i-f 79).
We do not find Appellants' contentions persuasive. Nonobviousness
cannot be established by attacking the references individually when the
rejection is predicated upon a combination of prior art disclosures. See In re
Merck & Co. Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). Here, the
Examiner relies on the combined teachings of Riniker, Hasha, and Asao for
teaching or suggesting the disputed limitations. See Final Act. 2-8; Ans. 2-
8, 11-17. Appellants' contentions fail to address the combined teachings of
the references and, therefore, are unpersuasive of error.
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Application 12/500,282
We also find unpersuasive Appellants' contention that the references
fail to teach or suggest "identifying virtual function tables based on user
established criteria as required by the claims." Reply Br. 4, 5. Appellants'
Specification provides "a user may be a computer programmer, a customer,
a client, another computer program, or any other entity capable of using
and/or creating a computer program associated with the removal of duplicate
virtual function tables." Spec. i-f 12. Riniker teaches consolidating duplicate
portions of virtual function tables into one or more virtual function table
chunks. Riniker i-f 30. Riniker further discloses that the one or more virtual
function table chunks may comprise a complete virtual function table
(Riniker i-f 10) and that the size of a virtual function table chunk may be
defined by a compiler based on analyzing a set of first level virtual function
tables for multiple classes and determining optimized chunk sizes (Riniker
i-fi-1 11-12). Because Appellants' Specification broadly defines the term
"user" to include a computer programmer, Riniker teaches or suggests
identifying that a first virtual function table and a second virtual function
table are identical based on criteria established by a user, as required by
claim 1.
Accordingly, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in finding the
combination of Riniker, Hasha, and Asao teaches or suggests the disputed
limitations.
Issue 2: Did the Examiner err by combining the teachings of Riniker, Asao,
and Hasha?
Appellants further contend the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1
because the combination of Riniker, Hasha, and Asao is improper. App.
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Application 12/500,282
Br. 14--16; Reply Br. 6-7. Particularly, Appellants contend "the subject
matter of Riniker is incompatible with the subject matter of Hasha." App.
Br. 15. According to Appellants, "Riniker is exclusively focused on
modifying object code" and "Hasha is exclusively focused on modifying
source code." Id. Appellants contend, therefore, the combination is
improper because "[t]he disclosed method of modifying object code by
Riniker is unable to be applied to source code and the method of modifying
source code as disclosed by Hasha is unable to be applied to object code."
App. Br. 15-16.
We do not find Appellants' contention persuasive. "The test for
obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be
bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference ... Rather,
the test is what the combined teachings of those references would have
suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art." In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413,
425 (CCPA 1981). See also In re Sneed, 710 F.2d 1544, 1550 (Fed. Cir.
1983) ("[I]t is not necessary that the inventions of the references be
physically combinable to render obvious the invention under review."); and
In re Nievelt, 482 F.2d 965, 968 (CCPA 1973) ("Combining the teachings of
references does not involve an ability to combine their specific structures.").
Further, "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person
of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar
devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual
application is beyond his or her skill." KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550
U.S. 398, 417 (2007). The Examiner's findings are reasonable because the
skilled artisan would "be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together
like pieces of a puzzle" since the skilled artisan is "a person of ordinary
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Application 12/500,282
creativity, not an automaton." KSR, 550 U.S. at 420, 421. Appellants do not
persuasively show that the resulting arrangement was "uniquely challenging
or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art" or "represented an unobvious
step over the prior art." See Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485
F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007). Accordingly, we are not persuaded the
Examiner erred in combining the teachings of Riniker, Hasha, and Asao.
For the foregoing reasons, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred in
rejecting claim 1 and claims 2--4, 6-9, and 11-20, which fall with claim 1.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 1--4, 6-9, and 11-20
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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