Ex Parte Nelke et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 28, 2016

13407712 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 28, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/407,712 02/28/2012
46320 7590 09/30/2016
CRGOLAW
STEVEN M. GREENBERG
7900 Glades Road
SUITE 520
BOCA RATON, FL 33434
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Sebastian Nelke
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.
DE920100101US2
(694DIV)
2162
EXAMINER
CHOI, MICHELE C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2169
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/30/2016 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):
docketing@crgolaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SEBASTIAN NELKE, MARTIN OBERHOFER,
YANNICK SAILLET, and JENS SEIFERT
Appeal2015-004631
Application 13/407,712
Technology Center 2100
Before KAMRAN JIV ANI, JOHN D. HAMANN, and
MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges.
JIV ANI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner's final decisions rejecting claims 1--4, which are all the claims
pending in the present application. 2 We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
1 Appellants identify International Business Machines Corporation as the
real party in interest. App. Br. 2.
2 Claims 5-15 are cancelled. App. Br. 14.
Appeal2015-004631
Application 13/407,712
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The present application relates to data profiling within an enterprise
service bus coupling the source and target systems. Spec. i-f 1.
Claim 1 is illustrative (disputed limitations emphasized):
1. A method for in-memory cache data profiling, comprising:
receiving baseline data profiling results obtained during
extract transform load (ETL) from at least one source application
to at least one target application;
monitoring messages in an enterprise service bus (ESB) to
detect updates occurring in the at least one source application;
caching the detected updates;
determining in the ESB current data profiling results for
the cached detected updates; and,
triggering an action if a threshold disparity is detected
upon comparing the current data profiling results and the
baseline data profiling results, a threshold used in comparing the
current data profiling results and the baseline data profiling
results being defined in a schema.
The Rejections3
Claims 1--4 stand provisionally rejected for non-statutory obviousness
type double patenting over claims 5-8 of co-pending App. No. 12/983,044.
Claim 1 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as
indefinite.
3 Claims 3 and 4 further stand objected to due to a number of informalities.
Final Act. 2-3.
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Appeal2015-004631
Application 13/407,712
Claims 1--4 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Hyder
(US 2006/0229899 Al; Oct. 12, 2006), Appleyard (US 2008/0040672 Al;
Feb. 14, 2008), and Kass-Hout (US 2009/0319295 Al; Dec. 24, 2009).
ANALYSIS
Double Patenting
Claims 1--4 stand provisionally rejected on the ground of non-
statutory obviousness-type double patenting over claims 5-8 of co-pending
Application No. 12/983,044. Final Act. 4--7. Appellants fail to address this
provisional rejection. Arguments not made are considered waived. See 37
C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (2012).
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's provisional non-statutory
obviousness-type double patenting rejection of claims 1--4.
Indefiniteness
The Examiner rejects claim 1 as indefinite, finding the claimed
"monitoring messages in an enterprise service bus (ESB) to detect updates
occurring in the at least one source application" is amenable to two alternate
constructions, namely ( 1) "monitoring messages stored in an ESB to detect
updates in the at least one source application" or (2) "the operation of
monitoring of messages to be performed in an ESB to detect updates in the
at least one source application." Final Act. 8; Ans. 3--4.
Appellants contend, "the claimed limitation directed to the
'monitoring messages' is clear such that a person of ordinary skill in the art
could interpret the metes and bounds of the claim." App. Br. 4. We agree
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Application 13/407,712
with Appellants. The scope of claim 1 is clear: monitoring messages in an
enterprise service bus.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1
under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as indefinite.
Obviousness
Appellants contend the Examiner errs in rejecting claim 1 because, in
Hyder, "there is no ETL from which to obtain baseline data profiling
results." App. Br. 8. Appellants elaborate, the "Examiner tries to show that
Hyder teaches ETL by demonstrating that Hyder teaches extraction
(scraping data), transformation (cleansing), and loading .... The mere
presence of the acts of extraction, transformation, and load does not teach or
suggest that an actual ETL process is being preformed [sic]." Reply Br. 6-7.
Appellants further argue Hyder does not meet the claimed data profiling
results because "there is no analysis of value distributions as well as patterns
in data described in Hyder." Reply Br. 8; App. Br. 9. Finally, Appellants
assert, Appleyard's "request to fetch data is not equivalent to monitoring
messages to detect updates." App. Br. 12; Reply Br. 11.
We have considered Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief and
the Reply Brief, as well as the Examiner's Answer thereto. We are not
persuaded by Appellants' arguments for at least the following reasons.
First, Appellants fail to identify in the claim or the Specification, and
we are unable to find, a limiting definition of the claimed extraction,
transformation, and loading (ETL ). We apply the broadest reasonable
interpretation of claim terms, consistent with the specification, as would be
understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech
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Appeal2015-004631
Application 13/407,712
Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (citations omitted). Where, as
here, the Specification does not explicitly define a term, the term should be
given its ordinary meaning. In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321 (Fed. Cir. 1989).
We are not persuaded that the broadest reasonable interpretation of the
limitation at issue would preclude the Examiner's reading of the limitation
on Ryder's scraping data (extraction), cleansing (transformation), and
loading.
Second, Appellants fail to identify in the claim or the Specification,
and we are unable to find, a limiting definition of the claimed data profiling.
In the absence of an explicit definition, Appellants identify disclosure of
various applications of data profiling, some in which "data profiling
analyzes value distributions within a column ... as well as patterns in the
data" and others in which "data profiling can check if the values found
comply with certain constraints and business rules." Spec. i-f 4. We do not
read into the claim language exemplary, non-limiting statements from the
Specification. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1369 (Fed.
Cir. 2004). Therefore, we agree with the Examiner's finding that the
claimed data profiling reads on Ryder's teaching "the data cleanser task
manager 138 ensures that each scraped job description stored in the staging
database conforms to predetermined criteria." Ans. 6.
Third, the Examiner relies upon Appleyard as teaching or suggesting
the claimed monitoring messages to detect updates, finding:
Examiner interprets the requests sent to the ESB 530 to retrieve
the update information from the ESB 530 as the claimed
messages being monitored by the ESB 530 to detect updates
occurring in the at least one source application, i.e. to retrieve the
update information from the ESB 530, where the update
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Application 13/407,712
information was obtained from application data sources and
cached in the ESB 530.
Ans. 8.
Appellants contend, "a request to retrieve data is not equivalent to
monitoring messages," but fail to explain persuasively why the broadest
reasonable interpretation of the claimed monitoring messages would not
encompass Appleyard's fetching update information. Reply. Br. 11. Based
on the record before us, we agree with the Examiner that Appleyard' s
fetching update information meets the claimed monitoring messages in an
enterprise service bus (ESB) to detect updates occurring in the at least one
source application.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of
claim 1. Appellants advance no further arguments concerning dependent
claims 2--4. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103
rejection of these claims.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1--4 as obvious.
We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1--4 for non-
statutory obviousness-type double patenting over claims 5-8 of co-pending
Application No. 12/983,044.
We reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claim 1 as indefinite.
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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