Ex Parte Mayle et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 15, 201612329873 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 15, 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. 12/329,873 12/08/2008 Wolfgang Mayle DE920080054US1 9733 96768 7590 12/19/2016 Cantor Colburn LLP - IBM Charlotte 20 Church Street Hartford, CT 06103 EXAMINER WONG, HUEN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2155 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/19/2016 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): usptopatentmail@cantorcolbum.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte WOLFGANG MAYLE and SEBASTIAN ROTHBUCHER Appeal 2016-001044 Application 12/329,873 Technology Center 2100 Before JEFFREY S. SMITH, WILLIAM M. FINK, and AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2016-001044 Application 12/329,873 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1—16, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. THE INVENTION The application is directed to “[a] computer based system for capturing and storing enterprise architecture information.” (Abstract.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is exemplary: 1. A computer based system for capturing and storing enterprise architecture information, the system comprising: a database for storing artifacts, each artifact representing a portion of the enterprise architecture; a user interaction module coupled to the database, the user interaction module including: a structured artifact listing containing a listing of each artifact, the artifact listing including a representation of each bidirectional connection between each artifact; a selection module for selecting one or more of the artifacts, wherein selection of an artifact causes the selected artifact and all artifacts connected to the selected artifact to be displayed; a connection support document and artifact viewer coupled to the structured artifact listing, the connection support document and artifact viewer configured to display connection support documents, each connection support document pointing to two and only two connected artifacts 1 Appellants identify International Business Machines Corporation as the real party in interest. (See App. Br. 2.) 2 Appeal 2016-001044 Application 12/329,873 and containing additional information about a relationship between the two connected artifacts, the connection support documents being separate from the two connected artifacts; wherein the two connected artifacts both represent computing devices in the enterprise architecture and include device lifecycle information for one or both of the two devices; and a lifecycle management module configured to examine the device lifecycle information and to notify at least one user that the one or more of the two devices is nearing or at the end of a predefined lifecycle limit defined by the lifecycle information. THE REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Schwartz et al. US 6,718,285 B2 Seelemann, II et al. US 2004/0122897 Al Konidena et al. Petri Kwon Tanner et al. US 2006/0101100 Al US 2008/0077631 Al US 2008/0301289 Al US 2009/0198802 Al Apr. 6, 2004 June 24, 2004 May 11,2006 Mar. 27, 2008 Dec. 4, 2008 Aug. 6, 2009 THE REJECTIONS 1. Claim 1 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Konidena and Kwon. (See Final Act. 5—9.) 2. Claims 1—3, 9, and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Konidena, Tanner, and Schwartz. (See Final Act. 9— 14.) 3 Appeal 2016-001044 Application 12/329,873 3. Claims 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 15, and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Konidena, Tanner, Schwartz, and Petri.2 (See Final Act. 15—22.) 4. Claims 5, 8, 13, and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Konidena, Tanner, Schwartz, Petri, and Seelemann. (See Final Act. 22—24.) ANALYSIS Appellants argue the rejections are in error because the cited portions of Konidena do not teach or suggest “the connection support documents being separate from the two connected artifacts,” as recited in claims 1 and 11. (See App. Br. 4.) We do not agree. In the Final Action, the Examiner found the disputed limitation disclosed in Konidena because, for example, “Ref. Doc. 2 is separate from Doc. 2, Doc. 3, and Doc 4” and “Ref. Doc. 3 & Ref. Doc. 4 are separate from Doc. 1, Doc. 3, and Doc 4.” (Final Act. 7 (citing Konidena 23—25 and Figs. 2—6B).) In other words, the Examiner found the claimed “connection support documents” in Konidena’s “Ref. Docs.,” and also found that they are separate from Konidena’s “Docs.,” which correspond to the claimed “connected artifacts.” (See id. (“[Ajrtifacts are documents.”).) Thus, Appellants’ argument that “the connections of FIGs. 2 and 3 of Konidena are relied on as teaching the connection support documents” (App. Br. 4) mischaracterizes the Examiner’s findings. Because the Ref. Docs, are the connection support documents in the Examiner’s analysis and the cited 2 Claim 7 is also objected to under 37 C.F.R. § 1.121. 4 Appeal 2016-001044 Application 12/329,873 portions of Konidena depict these as separate from the artifacts (see, e.g., Fig. 2), as the disputed limitation requires, the Examiner’s findings are supported by the evidence. We accordingly sustain the rejection of claims 1—16. DECISION The rejections of claims 1—16 are 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)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation