Ex Parte Natarajan et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 15, 201511624253 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 15, 2015) 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. 11/624,253 01/18/2007 Ramesh Natarajan YOR920060598US1 6278 48150 7590 01/15/2015 MCGINN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW GROUP, PLLC 8321 OLD COURTHOUSE ROAD SUITE 200 VIENNA, VA 22182-3817 EXAMINER DAO, TUAN C. ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2194 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/15/2015 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte RAMESH NATARAJAN, THOMAS PHAN, and SATOKI MITSUMORI ____________ Appeal 2012-010161 Application 11/624,253 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, and JESSICA C. KAISER, Administrative Patent Judges. KAISER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1–20. 1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 Appellants state they are appealing the rejections for claims 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 14–17, 19, and 20. (App. Br. 2.) However, Appellants’ Notice of Appeal list all claims 1–20, and Appellants also request the Board to “remove all rejections of claims 1–20.” (App. Br. 18.) We shall therefore treat this appeal as including all claims, i.e., claims 1–20. Appeal 2012-010161 Application 11/624,253 2 INVENTION Appellants’ application relates to middleware components that support the execution of computational applications on a high-performance computing platform. (See Abstr.) Exemplary claim 1 under appeal reads as follows: 1. A computer system, comprising: a high performance computing (HPC) platform comprising a plurality of processors for executing parallel processings; and a set of middleware components, as executed by at least one processor in said computer system, providing a capability for inputting to the high performance computing platform a synchronization and a scheduling of individual data transfer and computing tasks on the high performance computing platform, wherein the set of middleware components comprises: a job scheduler that receives a job submission description file that encodes various steps in an application workflow, based on extending a JSDL (job submission description language) schema; and a data-staging gateway which automates a data extraction and migration for an HPC application from remote data sources, using specifications in the job submission description file, so as to control an execution of data format conversions and access protocols to automatically extract data from a remote data source and to store the extracted data in a file system associated with the HPC platform, in a format defined by the job submission description file. Appeal 2012-010161 Application 11/624,253 3 REJECTIONS ON APPEAL 2 The Examiner has rejected claims 1–4, 6–9, 14–17, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Ryan (US 2007/0180451 A1; published Aug. 2, 2007) and Ali Anjomshoaa et al., Job Submission Description Language (JSDL) Specification, Version 1.0 (Nov. 2005), currently available at http://www.ogf.org/documents/GFD.56.pdf (last visited Dec. 22, 2014) (hereinafter, “Anjomshoaa”). (Ans. 5.) The Examiner has rejected claims 5 and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Ryan, Anjomshoaa, and Bernardin (US 2003/0191795 A1; published Oct. 9, 2003). (Ans. 16.) The Examiner has rejected claims 10–12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Ryan, Anjomshoaa, and Powers (US 2006/0080389 A1; published Apr. 13, 2006). (Ans. 17.) The Examiner has rejected claim 13 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Ryan, Anjomshoaa, and Holovacs (US 2006/0236347 A1; published Oct. 19, 2006). (Ans. 18.) ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner erred. 2 Appellants’ arguments as to claims 2–20 either turn on their arguments as to claim 1 or consist only of attorney argument and conclusory statements. Attorney arguments and conclusory statements that are unsupported by factual evidence are entitled to little probative value. See In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011); cf. In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1997). Therefore, because no separate arguments for patentability are presented in connection with claims 2–20, we decide the appeal of the rejections of claims 1–20 based on claim 1 alone and, except for our ultimate decision, claims 2–20 are not further addressed herein. Appeal 2012-010161 Application 11/624,253 4 Appellants contend that neither Ryan nor Anjomshoaa discloses “a data-staging gateway which automates a data extraction and migration for an HPC [high performance computing] application from remote data sources,” as recited in claim 1. Specifically, Appellants contend that neither reference discloses “extraction of data from remote data sources.” (App. Br. 8–9, 14.) As an initial matter, we agree with the Examiner (Ans. 23) that a “remote data source” includes any data source which is not located in the same device/computer with the HPC application. In re Hyatt, 211 F.3d 1367, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (disputed claim terms are construed in accordance with the broadest reasonable interpretation during patent prosecution). Appellants’ Specification does not provide a definition of the disputed remote data source nor is the Examiner’s interpretation inconsistent with the broadest reasonable interpretation of the phrase. Therefore, Appellants’ arguments based on a requirement that data sources 15–17 be accessible through a network are not persuasive of error. (See App. Br. 9, 14–15.) The Examiner finds Anjomshoaa teaches “automatically staging and transferring data from Source to Target.” (Ans. 7, 21–22 (citing Anjomshoaa, Figs. 1 and 2, pgs. 5–6, 15, and 37–39).) The Examiner also finds Ryan teaches one or more client applications communicate with the distributed computing system through a network. (Ans. 23 (citing Ryan, Figs. 1 and 2, ¶¶ 25, 28, and 30–34).) Further, the Examiner finds the data extracted in Ryan includes jobs, tasks, and work submitted by the client application. (Id.) Based on the broadest reasonable interpretation of “remote data source,” we agree with the Examiner’s findings that both references teach the disputed limitation. Appeal 2012-010161 Application 11/624,253 5 Next, Appellants contend that “a job scheduler that receives a job submission description file that encodes various steps in an application workflow, based on extending a JSDL (job submission description language) schema,” as recited in claim 1, requires “modifications to the standard JSDL specification, as explained in lines 4–17 of page 9 of the specification of the present application.” (App. Br. 12.) We agree with the Examiner, however, that the specific modifications to the JSDL specification discussed in the specification and argued by Appellants are not recited in claim 1. (Ans. 27.) We further observe that Anjomshoaa teaches that “JSDL 1.0 is an extensible specification” and teaches ways of extending it. (See Anjomshoaa, 6, 44, 45.) Finally, to the extent that Appellants contend that the references do not teach using the gateway “so that the HPC core does not waste time on latency due to such remote source data retrievals” (App. Br. 14), we agree with the Examiner that such a limitation is not included in claim 1. (Ans. 34.) We also observe that the Examiner, rather than relying on hindsight (see App. Br. 15), has articulated a reason with rational underpinning for combining the references at issue (Ans. 8), which Appellants have not substantively addressed. KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). Therefore, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. DECISION The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1–20 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) is affirmed. Appeal 2012-010161 Application 11/624,253 6 No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED kis Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation