Ex Parte Murthy et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 21, 2016

12131395 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 21, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/131,395 06/02/2008 Arnn Keshava Murthy
56436 7590 09/23/2016
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
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.
82241282 5744
EXAMINER
JORDAN, KIMBERLY L
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2194
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/23/2016 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):
hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com
mkraft@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 ARUN KESHA VA MURTHY,
CRETAN ASWATHANARAYANA, and
NEDUCHERALATHANSHANMUGAM
Appeal2015-002464
Application 12/131,395
Technology Center 2100
Before DANIEL N. FISHMAN, JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, and
AARON W. MOORE, 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 1-5, 7-12, and 14--19. Claims 6, 13,
and 20 have been canceled. App. Br. 3. 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 Hewlett-Packard
Development Company, LP. App. Br. 3.
Appeal2015-002464
Application 12/131,395
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants' Invention
Appellants' invention generally relates to multiplexing reserved ports.
Spec. ,-r 1. In response to receiving a request to communicate with a host, it
is determined whether a mapping exists between the host and a first remote
procedure call (RPC) client handle. Id. ,-r 4. If a mapping does not exist
between the host and the RPC client handle, a second RPC client handle is
determined to establish a mapping. Id. The mapping facilitates RPC
(remote procedure call) communication with the host. Id. Claim 1, which is
illustrative, reads as follows:
1. A method, comprising:
configuring a remote procedure control (RPC) application
to utilize a shared pool of RPC handles wherein a handle is a
structure stored in cache that includes transport address
information of a remote host, each handle bound independently
to a limited number of reserved ports dedicated to the RPC
application, to enable a connection to a number of hosts greater
than the limited number of reserved ports, without a 1 to 1
mapping of limited number of reserved ports, associated with the
pool of RPC handles to the number of hosts;
receiving a request to communicate with a host;
determining whether a mapping exists between the host
and a first remote procedure call (RPC)2 client handle; and
in response to determining that the mapping does not exist
between the host and the first RPC client handle, determining a
second RPC client handle, from the pool of RPC handles, to
establish the mapping by filling the transport address of the host,
2 In claim 1, Appellants use the acronym "RPC" to refer to "remote
procedure control" and "remote procedure call." In this Decision, we use
the acronym "RPC" to refer to "remote procedure call."
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Appeal2015-002464
Application 12/131,395
the established mapping facilitating RPC communication with
the host,
wherein determining the second RPC client handle
includes utilizing a least recently used (LRU) queue where each
element within the LRU queue is bound to one of the limited
number of reserve ports, wherein the LRU queue is shared
among other cache elements.
Rejections
Claims 1-5, 7-12, and 14--19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over the combination of Aiken et al. (US 7, 120, 697
B2; issued Oct. 10, 2006) ("Aiken"), Bull, AIX Communications
Programming Concepts, chapter 8 (2002) ("Bull"), and Boucher et al. (US
2004/0030745Al; published Feb. 12, 2004) ("Boucher"). Final Act. 2-7.
Issue on Appeal
Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Aiken, Bull,
and Boucher teaches or suggests "wherein determining the second RPC
client handle includes utilizing a least recently used (LRU) queue where
each element within the LRU queue is bound to one of the limited number of
reserve ports, wherein the LRU queue is shared among other cache
elements," as recited in claim 1?
ANALYSIS
Appellants do not separately argue claims 1-5, 7-12, 14--19 but,
instead, rely on the same arguments for all of these claims. See App. Br. 8-
10; Reply Br. 2-3. We select claim 1 as representative, and claims 2-5, 7-
12, 14--19 stand or fall with claim 1. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
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Application 12/131,395
Claim 1
Appellants contend the combination of Aiken, Bull, and Boucher does
not teach or suggest the disputed limitations. App. Br. 8-10; Reply Br. 2-3.
According to Appellants, the Examiner states Aiken and Bull do not teach or
suggest "wherein the LRU queue is shared among other cache elements" and
relies on Boucher for teaching this limitation. Appellants contend "Boucher
does not address and therefore does not teach or suggest an LRU queue that
is shared among other cache elements." App. Br. 8-9. Appellants further
contend:
Aiken appears to teach, "structure or structures for the
DVIP A are retrieved from the coupling facility and a lock placed
on the structure( s) to prevent other communications protocol
stacks from accessing the structure. This may prevent two stacks
from simultaneously selecting the same port." (Column 19,
Lines 55-60). In addition, Bull appears to teach, "A client
program can minimize port mapper calls by caching the port
numbers of recently called remote programs." (Page 144,
Paragraph 4). Furthermore, the Boucher [reference] states, "The
complete set of CCBs exists in host memory, but a subset of these
may be "owned" by the card at any given time. This subset is
the CCB cache. The INIC can own (cache) up to 256 CCBs at
any given time." (Paragraph 0081 ). Thus, the Aiken, Bull, and
Boucher references appear to teach that the CCBs can exist in
host memory and/or cache memory, but do not address that the
LRU queue is shared among other cache elements.
Reply Br. 3.
We do not find Appellants' contentions persuasive. Non-obviousness
cannot be established by attacking the references individually when the
rejection is predicated upon a combination of prior art disclosures. See In re
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Application 12/131,395
Merck & Co. Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). Here, the
Examiner finds:
Aiken teaches a port is selected for connection between a
client and a server (column 4: 28-30) and a port is selected from
a shared pool of ports (figure 4 and associated description, figure
12, and column 19: 54-61). Bull discloses a limited number of
reserved port numbers, and ports are mapped dynamically to
remote programs since the number of remote programs is large
compared to the number of ports (page 143, last paragraph- page
144, first paragraph). Boucher discloses a LRU queue and the
acquisition of CCB (communication control block that contains
context associated with a connection (IP addresses and ports))
buffers controlled by a LRU mechanism (paragraphs 0526, 0584
and 0081 ). The combination discloses dynamic binding of RPC
ports, where the range of reserved port numbers is small
compared to the number of remote programs, utilizing a LRU
queue.
Ans. 7-8. Based on these findings, the Examiner concludes the combined
teachings of Aiken, Bull, and Boucher teach or suggest the disputed
limitations. Id. Appellants' contentions are directed to the references
individually and fail to address what the combined teachings of the
references would have taught or suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art.
As such, Appellants' contentions are unpersuasive of error.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1 and
claims 2-5, 7-12, and 14--19, which fall with claim 1.
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Appeal2015-002464
Application 12/131,395
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-5, 7-12, and 14--19
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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