Ex Parte Ly et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jul 25, 2016

11186294 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 25, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
111186,294 0712012005
105727 7590 07/27/2016
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP (CA, Inc.)
PO Box 10500
McLean, VA 22102
An V.Ly
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.
019287-0319727 3642
EXAMINER
LEE, JAMES J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2195
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/27/2016 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):
Docket_IP@pillsbury law. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte AN V. LY, ARUN PADMANABHAN, and
EDWARD F. CHEN
Appeal2014-007375
Application 11/186,294
Technology Center 2100
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., and
ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final
Rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, 6-10, 14--18, 20, 22, 23, and 25. Claims 3, 5,
11-13, 19, 21, and 24 have been canceled. See App. Br. 2. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
Appeal2014-007375
Application 11/186,294
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants' disclosure relates to a job manager that "is operable to
normalize a command submitted by a user" and "then executes a first job
associated with a first operating environment in response to the normalized
command and executes a second job associated with a second operating
environment in response to the normalized command." Abstract. Claims 1,
9, and 17 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative (with
emphases added):
1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium for
providing a job manager, the computer-readable medium having
computer-executable instructions thereon to configure a
processing device of a server to perform a plurality of operations
compnsmg:
receiving, at a job manager operating on a job manager
operating environment instance on the server, a plurality of job
commands from a client device;
identifying, by the job manager, at least first and second
job commands from the plurality of job commands, wherein the
first and second job commands share a common job command
nomenclature;
identifying, by the job manager, from a plurality of
existing job objects, at least one job object associated with a job,
the job being associated with the first job command and/or the
second job command, wherein each of the plurality of existing
job objects includes a representation of a job, a reference pointer
to an operating environment associated with the job, and a job
property associated with the job;
identifYing, by the job manager, a first operating
environment associated with the first job command using a first
reference pointer from the at least one job object;
identifying, by the job manager, a second operating
environment associated with the second job command using a
second reference pointer from the at least one job object,
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Application 11/186,294
wherein the first and second operating environments
utilize heterogeneous job command nomenclatures;
converting the first job command into a convertedfirstjob
command that has a format executable by the first operating
environment, responsive to a determination that the common job
command nomenclature is different from the job command
nomenclature of the first operating environment;
converting the second job command into a converted
second job command that has a format executable by the second
operating environment, responsive to a determination that the
common job command nomenclature is different from the job
command nomenclature of the second operating environment;
transmitting the converted first job command to an
instance of the first operating environment separate from the job
manager operating environment instance; and
transmitting the converted second job command to an
instance of the second operating environment separate from the
job manager operating environment instance.
References and Rejections1
Claims 1, 2, 4, 6-10, 14--18, 20, 22, 23, and 25 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as being indefinite. Final Act. 2.2
Claims 1, 4, 6, 9, 14, 17, 20, and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Warren (US 2003/0204612 Al; Oct. 30,
2003). Final Act. 4.
Claims 2, 10, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Warren and Kraus (US 8,447,963 B2; May 21, 2013).
Final Act. 10.
1 The Examiner withdrew the rejection of claims 7, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 25
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). See Ans. 4.
2 Appellants do not contest the indefiniteness rejection. See App. Br. 7. We
thus summarily sustain this rejection. Except for our ultimate decision, this
rejection is not discussed further herein.
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Application 11/186,294
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed Appellants' arguments that the Examiner has erred.
We adopt the conclusions and findings of fact made by the Examiner in the
Final Office Action and Examiner's Answer as our own, and we highlight
the following points for emphasis.
A. Rejection of Claims 1, 9, and 17
Appellants do not separately argue independent claims 1, 9, and 17.
See App. Br. 7. We select claim 1 as representative. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 because the
"Examiner does not identify a job object that includes a representation of a
job, a reference pointer to an operating environment associated with the job,
and a job property associated with the job. Nowhere does the Examiner
identify such a job object except to the ambiguous reference to
'information."' Reply Br. 3; see also App. Br. 8-9. Particularly, Appellants
contend that the Examiner has mapped the job object elements only to
"discrete information that has no particular association" with these claimed
elements. Reply Br. 4.
We find Appellants' arguments unpersuasive of error. The Examiner
finds, and we agree, that:
( 1) the claimed "representation of a job" encompasses Warren's
"abstraction device identifying information" that is "associated with a
function" and includes "describing command(s) to invoke the function
(representation)." Final Act. 5, citing Warren i-fi-1 49, 67;
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Application 11/186,294
(2) the claimed "reference pointer to an operating environment"
encompasses Warren's "IP address of a network element." Ans. 6, citing
Warren i-f 60; and
(3) the claimed ')ob property" encompasses Warren's "sequence of
the command(s) to invoke the function (property)." Final Act. 6, citing
Warren i-f 55.
The Examiner further finds Warren "does not expressly recite job
objects" (Final Act. 7), but that one of ordinary skill in the art would have
been motivated to construct the claimed "job object" using Warren's
disclosure, because it would "allow, for example, a network manager to
communicate with a wide variety of managed elements in the network, even
when the managed elements use different protocols." Final Act. 8 (citing
Warren i-f 7). Accordingly, we find the Examiner has provided an articulated
reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness. See In re Kahn, 441F.3d977, 988 (Fed. Cir 2006). In
contrast, Appellants' arguments that the Examiner has identified "discrete
information that has no particular association" (see Reply Br. 4) with the
claimed elements do not persuade us of error in the Examiner's specific
findings and combination reasoning. 3
Appellants further argue the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1
because Warren fails to disclose or suggest the claimed "converting the first
job command into a converted first job command." Reply Br. 6.
Particularly, Appellants contend that the cited portions of Warren "merely
changes the communication protocol" and such a conversion is "completely
3 See In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
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unrelated to ... converting a job command into a converted job command
with a format executable by the first operating environment." Reply Br. 7;
see also App. Br. 10-11.
We find Appellants' arguments unpersuasive of error. The Examiner
finds, and we agree, that Warren's abstraction device 206 translates a
command received from job manager 102 into one or more device
commands 248, and can include command translator 234 communicating the
device command to one of multiple protocol convertors 238. Ans. 9-10
(citing Warren i-fi-149, 74, 59). Contrary to Appellants' contentions, Warren
clearly demonstrates the conversion of a command into an executable
format, which allows the network element receiving the command to be able
to execute the command. See Warren i1 49. Appellants make similar
arguments for dependent claims 4 and 20 regarding the Examiner's finding
that the claimed first and second "adapter[s]" encompasses Warren's
protocol converters (see Reply Br. 8-9), and we are unpersuaded for the
same reasons discussed above.
Accordingly, we are unpersuaded the Examiner erred with regard to
the rejection of independent claims 1, 9, and 1 7, and dependent claims 4 and
20.
B. Rejection of Claims 6, 14, and 22
Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 6, 14, and 22,
because "the cited portions of Warren appear to be silent regarding
normalizing a job status into a normalized format using a normalization
policy and presenting the normalized job status to the client device." Reply
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Application 11/186,294
Br. 10. Particularly, Appellants contend "paragraph [0086] of Warren
merely refers to putting certain information into a message." Reply Br. 10.
We are unpersuaded of Examiner error. The Examiner finds Warren
teaches:
the abstraction device Gob manager) receives a response from the
network device as to whether each device command executed
successfully (status), formats (normalizes) the response into a
message that can be understood by the manager using
information in the database (normalization policy), and
communicates (presents) the formatted message to the manager
(client device).
Ans. 11 (citing Warren i-fi-179, 86). We agree, noting Warren discloses the
messages received from network element 108 are converted into a "COM+
protocol" by the abstraction device 206. See Warren i-fi-185, 86, Fig. 6.
Further, Warren teaches using a web services interface 230 to format the
message "into proper format" for manager 102 and communicate to manager
102 using a "web services protocol." See Warren i186. One of ordinary
skill in the art would find the claimed "normalizing," "normalized format,"
and "normalization policy" encompasses Warren's "proper format," "COM+
protocol" and "web services protocol," because the steps described by
Warren serve to ensure that the abstraction device may examine the
responses from each network element and determine whether a device
command was executed successfully. See Warren i179.
Accordingly, we are unpersuaded the Examiner erred with regard to
the rejection of claims 6, 14, and 22.
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C. Rejection of Claims 2, 10, and 18
Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 2, 10, and 18,
because "[n]one of the cited portions of Kraus refer to scheduling of
anything, let alone scheduling of a job or a job scheduler to process a job
command." Reply Br. 12; see also App. Br. 14. Particularly, Appellants
contend "[ t ]he cited portions of Kraus appear merely refer to executing
system calls." Reply Br. 12.
We give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent
with the specification. See In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359,
1369 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Here, we note that Appellants' Specification does not
include a narrowing definition of the term "job scheduler," but rather
provides exemplary disclosure, such as "'operating environment 106' and
'job scheduler 137' may be used interchangeably as appropriate." Originally
Filed Spec. 6:30-7:3; see also Figs. 2A-2E. Appellants' Specification also
states operating environment 106 may include Unix, Linux, and Windows.
Originally Filed Spec. 6: 16-19.
We agree with the Examiner that Kraus broadly but reasonably
discloses the disputed limitation. See Ans. 12; Kraus 11: 10-18. That is, the
claimed "job scheduler" is tantamount to Kraus's executor, which itself can
be an operating environment and which "performs the services that are
requested by the standard system call" (Kraus 11: 16-18). We agree with the
Examiner that one of ordinary skill in the art would consider that an
operating system that performs services requested by a standard system call
(such as Kraus' executor) is an example of a job scheduler operable to
process a command (see Ans. 12), because operating systems schedule the
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processing of functions and procedures that comprise commands that form a
job.
Accordingly, we are unpersuaded the Examiner erred with regard to
the rejection of claims 2, 10, and 18.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph,
rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, 6-10, 14--18, 20, 22, 23, and 25.
We affirm the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejections of claims 1,
2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 14, 17, 18, 20, and 22.
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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