Ex Parte Pascucci

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 19, 2016

12466488 (P.T.A.B. May. 19, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/466,488 05/15/2009
96227 7590 05/23/2016
Bell & Manning, LLC
2801 West Beltline Highway
Ste. 210
Madison, WI 53713
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Valerio Pascucci
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.
00800-0026 5968
EXAMINER
DWIVEDI, MARESH H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2168
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/23/2016 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):
docketing@bellmanning.com
mmanning@bellmanning.com
pporembski@bellmanning.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte VALERIO P ASCUCCI 1
Appeal2014-006976
Application 12/466,488
Technology Center 2100
Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, AMBER L. HAGY, and
MICHAEL M. BARRY, Administrative Patent Judges.
BARRY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1-8 and 10-20, which are all pending claims. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We reverse.
1 Appellant identifies Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC as the
real party in interest. Br. 3.
Appeal2014-006976
Application 12/466,488
Introduction
Appellant's Specification discusses issues with the state of the art for
processing large images. i-f 2 ("Background"). Appellant explains the
"performance of most algorithms does not scale well in the transition from
the in-core to the out-of-core processing conditions" and the "performance
degradation is due to the high frequency of input/output operations that may
start dominating the overall running time. Thus, because of the large data
set sizes, enhancing, manipulating, and/ or compositing the images or
otherwise analyzing the data is computationally expensive." Id. Claim 1 is
representative ( dispositive limitation emphasized):
1. A system comprising:
a processor; and
a non-transitory computer-readable medium operably
coupled to the processor, the computer-readable medium having
instructions stored thereon that, when executed by the
processor, cause the system to
order an array of image data in a hierarchical z-order in
the computer-readable medium;
create data blocks from the array ordered based on the
hierarchical z-order;
create data files containing a predetermined number of
successive data blocks from the created data blocks;
create a directory structure in a file system of a second
computing device based on the hierarchical z-order, wherein
each directory level of the directory structure is named using
a hierarchical z-order address represented as a string; and
store the created data files in the created directory
structure based on the hierarchical z-order.
Br. 23 (Claims App'x).
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Appeal2014-006976
Application 12/466,488
Rejections2
Claims 1-8, 10, and 16-19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious over Valerio Pascucci et al., Global Static Indexingfor Real-time
Exploration of Very Large Regular Grids, Association for Computing
Machinery (ACM) 2001 (ACM 1-58113-293-X/Ol/001 l) ("Pascucci") and
Sawdon et al. (US 2009/0043978 Al; Feb 12, 2009) ("Sawdon"). Final Act.
2-15.
Claims 11-15 stand rejected under§ 103(a) over Pascucci, Sawdon,
and Pandey et al. (US 2008/0144079 Al; June 19, 2008). Final Act. 15-20.
ANALYSIS
Appellant argues the Examiner errs in rejecting independent claim 1
because Pascucci does not disclose "using a hierarchical z-order address
represented as a string." Br. 10-11. Appellant argues that i-f 3 of Pascucci,
cited by Examiner, does not disclose "a string" as used in context of the
claims because the string in Pascucci is a "'series of' bits" rather than a
computer data format. Id.
Appellant further argues the combination of references does not
disclose "wherein each directory level of the directory structure is named
using a hierarchical z-order address represented as a string," as recited in
claim 1. Appellant argues the references do not "indicate that the same
naming methodology is used to name directories and file names and to
identify the location of the device blocks where the file data is stored." Br.
14. Finally, Appellant argues that the Examiner's stated "rationale for
2 Per the Advisory Action dated Sept. 25, 2013 (p. 2), the Examiner
withdrew the rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § l 12(b) (Final Act. 6).
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Appeal2014-006976
Application 12/466,488
obviousness [i.e., the rationale for combining Sawdon and Pascucci] is
without merit." Id.
The Examiner responds that the z-order addresses disclosed by
Pascucci "can clearly [be used] as a 'labeling' value (aka a 'string') in the
naming mechanism of the files and/or directories." Ans. 3. Moreover, the
Examiner responds, "Sawdon [] explicitly states that any name can be
given to files and/or directories." Id. at 3--4 (emphasis omitted). Thus, the
"z-order address of Pascucci can be used as a 'String' value to be provided
as the name (which can be any value according to Sawdon) to a file and/or
directory." Id. (emphasis omitted). Finally, the Examiner states that the
motivation to combine Pascucci and Sawdon would be to "improve[] upon
[the] file system by using ... [a] naming structure for accessing the data
through the file system," which is the same benefit that Appellant argues for
why the invention is unique. Id. at 5.
With respect to the scope and content of Pascucci and Sawdon, we are
persuaded that "a series of bits" can be a "string" under the broadest
reasonable interpretation of "string." We are not persuaded, however, that
the combination of references teaches or suggests "wherein each directory
level of the directory structure is named using a hierarchical z-order address
represented as a string," as recited in the claims.
Sawdon i-f 58 discloses that "directories can impose a hierarchical
naming structure over the files in the file system in which the root of the
hierarchy is the root directory of the file system. . . . A file is capable of
having more than one directory entry, and thus more than one name, for the
user to access it." Even if we assume that this explicitly discloses that "any
name can be given to files and/or directories," as the Examiner asserts,
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Appeal2014-006976
Application 12/466,488
simply disclosing that any name can be given to files and/or directories does
not disclose the specific naming requirement "wherein each directory level
of the directory structure is named using a hierarchical z-order address
represented as a string," as claimed by Appellant. The Examiner fails to
provide any rationale why it would be obvious, in light of the teachings of
Pascucci and Sawdon, to name each directory level of the directory structure
using a hierarchical z-order address represented as a string. Accordingly, on
the record before us, we conclude that the Examiner has not set out a prima
facie case for obviousness of claim 1 and do not sustain its rejection.
Independent claims 2 and 3 also recite a version of the dispositive
limitation. See Br. 23-24. The Examiner rejects them for the same reasons
as for claim 1. See Final Act. 2-8. For the same reasons as for claim 1, we
do not sustain the rejection of claims 2 and 3. Because we do not sustain the
rejection of any independent claim, we also do not sustain the rejection of
the dependent claims, viz., claims 4--8 and 10-20.
DECISION
For the reasons above, we reverse the Examiner's rejection of claims
1-8 and 10-20.
REVERSED
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