Ex Parte Mannarswamy et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 16, 2017

12642544 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 16, 2017)

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.
12/642,544 12/18/2009 Sandya Srivilliputtur MANNARSWAMY 82259204 2729
56436 7590
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
EXAMINER
BARTELS, CHRISTOPHER A.
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2184
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/21/2017 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):
hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com
chris. mania @ hpe. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SANDYA SRIVILLIPUTTUR MANNARSWAMY and
RISHI SURENDRAN
Appeal 2016-003553
Application 12/642,5441
Technology Center 2100
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JOHN A. EVANS, and
JOHN P. PINKERTON, Administrative Patent Judges.
PINKERTON, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Final
Rejection of claims 1, 2, 4—9, and 11—14, which constitute all of the claims
pending in this application. Claims 3,10, and 15 are canceled. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellants identify Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP, a
wholly-owned affiliate of Hewlett-Packard Company, as the real party in
interest. App. Br. 2.
Appeal 2016-003553
Application 12/642,544
We have reviewed Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief and
Reply Brief, and the Examiner’s response to Appellants’ arguments. We
concur with Appellants’ contention that the Examiner erred in rejecting
independent claims 1, 7, and 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because Higgins2
and Bhansali,3 alone or in combination, do not teach or suggest “creating an
optimized data structure associated with the delinquent region, wherein the
optimized data structure includes at least one data field selected based on
delinquent region profile information,” as recited in claim 1, and as similarly
recited in claims 7 and 12. App. Br. 8—9; Reply Br. 1—3.
The Examiner finds that the disputed limitation of claim 1 is taught by
Higgins. Ans. 2—3 (citing Higgins Fig. 20, ^fl[ 50, 98, 101—102); Final Act. 3
(citing Higgins ^fl[ 232, 306—307). In particular, the Examiner finds
paragraph 98 of Higgins teaches ‘“cache manager 225 is coupled to the
workflow engine to improve the execution of a workflow’” and “processor
211 uses ‘look-ahead analysis’ to maintain optimized performance of the
workflow.” Ans. 3. The Examiner also finds Higgins teaches “the layout of
data fields ‘user interface form’ are transformed ‘rendered may be cached
and re-initialized when needed’ ([0101]) form the data structure ‘module of
a workflow . . . can be provided as a shared library ... so that the
instructions dynamically become part of the running application program’
([0102]).” Id.
We have reviewed the portions of Higgins cited by the Examiner and
are not persuaded that they teach or suggest the disputed limitation of claim
1. Although Higgins teaches a deviation from a reference execution of a
2 US 2007/0011334 Al; published Jan. 11, 2007.
3 US 2006/0059474 Al; published Mar. 16, 2006.
2
Appeal 2016-003553
Application 12/642,544
workflow can “include a ‘deviation of an execution path from one module to
another and the deviation of data flowing into and/or out of a module’” (see
1302), we agree with Appellants’ argument that “deviations of a workflow
are not equivalent to the recited optimized data structure that may include
transforming a layout of data fields in a data structure.” Reply Br. 2.
Regarding paragraphs 101 and 102 of Higgins, the Examiner has failed to
provide sufficient explanation or reasoning to establish that these paragraphs
teach or suggest “transforming a layout of data fields in a data structure.”
Accordingly, the Examiner’s finding that Higgins teaches the disputed
limitation is in error because it is not supported by a preponderance of the
evidence. See In re Caveney, 761 F.2d 671, 674 (Fed. Cir. 1985)
(Examiner’s burden of proving non-patentability is by a preponderance of
the evidence); see also In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017 (CCPA 1967)
(“The Patent Office has the initial duty of supplying the factual basis for its
rejection. It may not, because it may doubt that the invention is patentable,
resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions or hindsight reconstruction to
supply deficiencies in its factual basis.”).
Thus, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 1, 7, and 12. For the
same reasons, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11,
13, and 14, which depend from one of claims 1, 7, and 12.
DECISION
3
Appeal 2016-003553
Application 12/642,544
We reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 4—9, and
11—14.4
REVERSED
4 Claims 7—9 and 11 are directed to a computer-readable medium. The
claimed “medium” is not expressly limited to non-transitory media, and the
term “computer-readable medium” is broadly described in the Specification
to include examples of volatile and non-volatile memories. See
Specification 126. Should there be further prosecution of this application
(including any review for allowance), the Examiner may wish to review
these claims for compliance under 35 U.S.C. § 101. See Ex parte
Mewherter, 107 USPQ2d 1857, 1862 (PTAB 2013,); In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d
1346, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2007); MPEP § 2106(1) (9th ed. 2014); David J.
Kappos, Subject Matter Eligibility of Computer Readable Media, 1351 Off.
Gaz. Pat. Office 212 (Feb. 23, 2010).
4