Ex Parte Retlich

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jun 28, 2012

10953170 (B.P.A.I. Jun. 28, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte KEVIN A. RETLICH
____________

Appeal 2010-003536
Application 10/953,170
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JEAN R. HOMERE, and
THU A. DANG, Administrative Patent Judges.

DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2010-003536
Application 10/953,170

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims
1-6, 8-10, and 12-19. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
The claims are directed to providing a graphical interface for
computer system information. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of
the claimed subject matter:
1. A computer program product, tangibly stored on a
machine readable medium, comprising an operating system, the
operating system causing one or more machines to perform
operations comprising:

expanding an expandable multi-level component tree
graphic, the expandable component tree graphic comprising a
plurality of parent icons and a plurality of child icons, wherein
the child icons at lowest levels in the tree correspond to system
components whereas icons at all levels higher than the child
icons at the lowest level correspond to groupings of system
components, and wherein the plurality of parent icons are
expandable to reveal respective child icons and at least one of
the plurality of child icons is associated with a computer
resource;

changing a plurality of dynamic component graphics
associated with the plurality of parent icons and the plurality of
child icons, wherein a set of related dynamic component
graphics in the plurality of dynamic component graphics are
adapted to change, based on changes relating to a status of the
computer resource, to graphics mapped to parameters in a
database of characteristics of the computer resource; and

configuring a configurable sorting system to pass a
dynamic component graphic feature up the expandable
component tree graphic from the at least one of the plurality of
child icons to at least one of the plurality of parent icons based
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on a configuration of the sorting system, wherein the
configurable sorting system is adapted to pass a first dynamic
graphic up the expandable component tree to a second dynamic
graphic associated with a related parent icon by replacing the
second dynamic graphic with the first dynamic graphic.

REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Ivan

Pignault
US 6,832,271 B1

WO 03/075117 A2
Dec. 14, 2004
(filed May 23, 2002)

Sept. 12, 2003

Miller, “Sams Teach Yourself More Windows 98 in 24 Hours” (1998).
Lemay, “Sams Teach Yourself Perl in 21 Days” (1999).

REJECTIONS
Claims 1-3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12-14, and 16-19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Pignault, Ivan, and Lemay.
Claims 4, 10, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Pignault, Ivan, Lemay, and Miller.
Claims 1 and 13 are provisionally rejected under the judicially-created
doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over
claims 1, 15, and 22 of co-pending Application No. 10/954,128.

Appeal 2010-003536
Application 10/953,170

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ANALYSIS
The Obviousness Rejections
Claims 1-3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12-14, and 16-19
Appellant contends that
Lemay is silent as to generating the original file, i.e., source,
from which data may be extracted. Accordingly, Lemay may
not be read as teaching the source of the data, i.e., parameters
in a database of characteristics of the computer resource, but
rather only to reading of data from that source.

(App. Br. 9). Appellant further contends that “even if the prior art
were to be read as teaching parameters in a database of characteristics of the
computer resource, the prior art of record still would fail to teach graphics
mapped to parameters in a database of characteristics of the computer
resource” (App. Br. 10). We disagree.
Regarding claim 1, the Examiner finds that Pignault and Ivan
collectively disclose “the use of dynamic graphics which change based on a
changing parameter related to a characteristic of the computer resource”
(Ans. 13). One of ordinary skill in the art would have understood that in
order for the combination of Pignault and Ivan to provide dynamic graphics
that change based on the status of a computer resource, there must be some
mapping of each graphic to the characteristic of the resource it represents
(see Ans. 13). Accordingly, the Examiner finds that Pignault and Ivan
disclose all the features of claim 1 except for a database (see Ans. 5-8, 13).
The Examiner’s reliance on Lemay’s extracting data from an external file is
thus solely for disclosing the claimed database (see Ans. 8, 13-14).
Appellant has not explained why, in view of Lemay, it would not have been
obvious to store information regarding the computer resource characteristics
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in an external file, i.e., a database, and extract this information to perform
the graphic mapping in the combination of Pignault and Ivan. Further, we
note that claim 1 does not recite any features regarding generating an
original file or regarding the source of any data, and thus Appellant’s
arguments (App. Br. 9) directed to these features are not persuasive (see
Ans. 14).
Appellant also argues, for the first time in the Reply Brief, that
[t]here simply appears to be no reason to make the suggested
modification or combination, and, even if there were a reason
for the alleged combination, there is simply no indication that
adding report generating capability to the teachings of Pignault
and Ivan would teach all elements of independent claims 1 and
13.

(Reply Br. 4). However, Appellant does not specifically explain the alleged
shortcoming of the Examiner’s stated reason for combining the references
(see Ans. 8, 13-14). Further, Appellant has not shown error in the
Examiner’s finding that Pignault, Ivan, and Lemay collectively disclose all
the recited limitations of claim 1, as discussed above.
We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claim 1, and claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12-14, and 16-19 not separately argued.

Claims 4, 10, and 15
Appellant makes no new arguments regarding claims 4, 10, and 15
(see App. Br. 11), and thus we affirm the rejection of these claims for the
reasons discussed above.

Appeal 2010-003536
Application 10/953,170

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The Obviousness-Type Double Patenting Rejection
Appellant does not contest the obviousness-type double patenting
rejection of claims 1 and 13 (see App. Br. 5-6). We therefore affirm the
obviousness-type double patenting rejection pro forma.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1-6, 8-10, and 12-19
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1 and 13 under the
judicially-created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting.

DECISION
For the above reasons, we affirm the rejections of claims 1-6, 8-10,
and 12-19.
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). See 37
C.F.R. § 41.50(f).

AFFIRMED

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