Ex Parte Reysa et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 15, 201712422701 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 15, 2017) 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. 12/422,701 04/13/2009 John Richard Reysa AUS920080829US1 7195 77351 7590 11/15/2017 IBM CORP. (AUS) C/O THE LAW OFFICE OF JAMES BAUDINO, PLLC 2313 ROOSEVELT DRIVE SUITE A ARLINGTON, TX 76016 EXAMINER LINDLOF, JOHN M ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2183 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/15/2017 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 JOHN RICHARD REYSA, BRYAN RONALD HUNT, STEPHEN McCANTS, TIERNEY BRUCE McCAUGHRIN, and BRIAN LEE KOZITZA Appeal 2016-007135 Application 12/422,701 Technology Center 2100 Before THU A. DANG, III, ERIC S. FRAHM, and JAMES W. DEJMEK, Administrative Patent Judges. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2016-007135 Application 12/422,701 STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Final Rejection of claims 1 and 3—22. Claim 2 has been canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. Claims 1, 14, 20, and 22, reproduced below, are representative of the subject matter on appeal (emphasis added): 1. A system comprising: at least one server operable to: receive workloads from clients, the workloads represented in an n-level tree hierarchy, where n represents an integer; and execute a work management processing module for submitting the workloads represented in the n-level tree hierarchy to a batch processing system, the work management processing module operable to: validate individual workloads, the workloads comprising at least one parent workload comprising at least one child workload; determine a number of workloads to select; select a set of valid workloads to be processed; and submit the set of valid workloads to the batch processing system, the batch processing system comprising a plurality of computing resources; and wherein ratios of jobs are allocated to each at least one parent workload of the n-level tree hierarchy, the ratios are allocated to peers of child workloads under respective parent workloads, and in response to invalidation of jobs of a child workload under one parent workload, a ratio allocated to the invalidated jobs of the child workload is reallocated to child workload peers under the one parent workload. 14. A computer implemented method comprising: receiving workloads from clients at a server for submission to a batch processing system, the workloads represented in an n-level tree hierarchy, where n represents an integer; 2 Appeal 2016-007135 Application 12/422,701 validating individual workloads with a work management processing module executed at the server, the workloads comprising at least one parent workload, the at least one parent workload comprising at least one child workload, wherein validating individual workloads comprises determining whether the workloads have a number of failures exceeding a threshold value; receiving a high priority workload within one parent workload', reassigning computing resources associated with child peer workloads under the one parent workload to the high priority workload; determining a number of workloads to select with the work management processing module; selecting a set of valid workloads to be processed with the work management processing module; and submitting as directed by the work management processing module the set of valid workloads to the batch processing system, the batch processing system coupled to a plurality of computing resources. 20. A computer implemented method comprising: processing workloads received from a work management processing module executed at a server and represented in an n- level tree hierarchy, where n represents an integer, with a batch processing system, the batch processing system communicatively coupling to a plurality of computing resources, the workloads comprising at least one parent workload, the at least one parent workload comprising at least one child workload; identifying parent workloads and related child workloads submitted to the plurality of computing resources by the batch processing system having greater than a ratio of jobs assigned to the parent workloads and related child workloads; and killing jobs based on an arbitrary portion recovery algorithm executed by a workload management system. 3 Appeal 2016-007135 Application 12/422,701 22. A computer implemented method comprising: processing workloads received from a work management processing module executed at a server and represented in an n- level tree hierarchy, where n represents an integer, with a batch processing system, the batch processing system communicatively coupling to a plurality of computing resources, the workloads comprising at least one parent workload, the at least one parent workload comprising at least one child workload; and halting processing within a first parent workload when a number of failures associated with child workloads within the first parent workload exceed a threshold value; and reallocating computing resources to workloads that are peers of the first parent workload, the workloads that are peers of the first parent workload located within a first branch of the n-level tree hierarchy, the reallocating does not negatively impact an allocation of computing resources within a second parent workload, the second parent workload within a second branch of the n-level tree hierarchy. We have reviewed Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief (App. Br. 6—27) and the Reply Brief (Reply Br. 2—17) that the Examiner’s rejections of: (1) claims 1, 3—13, and 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Tang, et al. (US 2008/0062886 Al; published Mar. 13, 2008), Laithwaite, et al. (US 2007/0021998 Al; published Jan. 25, 2007), and EunJoung Byun, et al .Scheduling Scheme based on Dedication Rate in Volunteer Computing Environment, IEEE, Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing (ISPDC ’05), 1—8 (2005) (hereinafter, “Byun”) (Final Act. 2—7); (2) claims 14—16, 18—20, and 22 as being unpatentable over Tang and Laithwaite (Final Act. 7—9); and 4 Appeal 2016-007135 Application 12/422,701 (3) claim 17 as being unpatentable over Tang, Laithwaite, and Katla, et al. (US 2005/0050480 Al; published Mar. 3, 2005) (Final Act. 9-10) are in error, and the Examiner’s response to Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief (Ans. 3—8). With regard to claim 1, although we agree with the Examiner that Tang (Fig. 2) teaches or suggests an n-level tree hierarchy, where n represents an integer (see Ans. 3—4), based on the record before us, we cannot agree with the Examiner (Ans. 3—7) that one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of Appellants’ invention would (i) consider Tang’s data flow rates to be the equivalent of ratios of jobs allocated; and/or (ii) have found it obvious to combine Byun with Tang and Laithwaite “so that in response to invalidation of jobs of a child workload under one parent workload, a ratio allocated to the invalidated jobs of the child workload is reallocated to child workload peers under the one parent workload” (Ans. 5), as recited in claim 1. And, notably, the Examiner admits that Byun does not teach or suggest “reallocating a ratio allocated to the invalidated jobs to a peer” (Ans. 4—5). In view of the foregoing, we agree with Appellants’ contentions that (i) Tang’s data flow rates are not the same as the ratios of jobs allocated to parent workloads and peers of child workloads under a parent workload recited in claim 1; and (ii) Byun’s reallocation of jobs to a peer node “does not equate to reallocating a ratio allocated to the invalidated jobs to a peer” (App. Br. 9) (italicized emphasis added). With regard to claim 21, we agree with Appellants’ contention (App. Br. 21—22) that none of the cited portions of the applied references disclose reallocating computing resources “without impacting an allocation of computing resources within a second parent workload” as claimed. 5 Appeal 2016-007135 Application 12/422,701 With regard to claim 14, we agree with Appellants’ contention (App. Br. 16—17) that the portion of Laithwaite relied by the Examiner fails to teach or suggest reassigning resources upon receiving a high priority workload as claimed. The portions of Laithwaite relied upon by the Examiner (Ans. 5—6) as disclosing this feature (Laithwaite H 51, 52) are silent in this regard. With regard to claim 20, we agree with Appellants’ contention (App. Br. 23—25) that the portion of Laithwaite relied by the Examiner fails to disclose using an arbitrary portion recovery algorithm for killing jobs as claimed. The portion of Laithwaite relied upon by the Examiner (Ans. 6) as disclosing this feature (Laithwaite 174) merely describes canceling tasks using a module, and does not teach or suggest killing jobs using an arbitrary portion recovery algorithm as claimed. With regard to claim 22, we agree with Appellants’ contention (App. Br. 25) that none of the portions the applied references relied by the Examiner disclose “the reallocating does not negatively impact an allocation of computing resources within a second parent workload” as claimed. The Examiner’s speculation (Ans. 7) that Byun’s teaching (Byun Section 1) of allocating resources somehow meet the disputed limitation is unsupported. Based on the foregoing, we find that the Examiner has not properly established factual determinations and articulated reasoning with a rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness for claims 1,14, 20-22, resulting in a failure to establish prima facie obviousness. As a result, we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 1 and 21 over Tang, Laithwaite, and Byun, as well as claims 3—13, which depend from claim 1. For similar reasons, we also do not sustain the 6 Appeal 2016-007135 Application 12/422,701 Examiner’s obviousness rejections of (i) claims 14, 20, and 22 over the combination of Tang and Laithwaite; (ii) claim 17 over the combination of Tang, Laithwaite, and Katla for the same reasons as provided supra, with respect to claim 14 from which claim 17 ultimately depends; and (iii) claims 15, 16, 18, and 19, which depend from claim 14, over the combination of Tang and Laithwaite. CONCLUSION The Examiner erred in rejecting (1) claims 1, 3—13, and 21 over the combination of Tang, Laithwaite, and Byun; (2) claims 14—16, 18—20, and 22 over the combination of Tang and Laithwaite; and (3) claim 17 over the combination of Tang, Laithwaite, and Katla. DECISION We reverse the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1 and 3—22. REVERSED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation