Ex Parte Roberts et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 21, 2016

13414768 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 21, 2016)

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.
13/414,768 03/08/2012 Gary Roberts 20784.U01 2560
26890 7590 12/23/2016
TA1UFS M STOVFR
EXAMINER
TERADATA US, INC. HUANG, MIRANDA M
10000 INNOVATION DRIVE
DAYTON, OH 45342 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2157
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/23/2016 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):
michelle.boldman @ teradata. com
j ames. stover @ teradata.com
td.uspto@outlook.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte GARY ROBERTS, GUILIAN WANG, and
FREDERICK KAUFMANN
Appeal 2015-001778
Application 13/414,768
Technology Center 2100
Before ERIC S. FRAHM, KRISTEN L. DROESCH, and
MONICA S. ULLAGADDI, Administrative Patent Judges.
FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2015-001778
Application 13/414,768
STATEMENT OF CASE
Introduction
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of
claims 1—21. Claims 1, 8, and 15 are independent and have similar scope,
and each recite a method, system, and computer-readable medium for
performing a method for compressing character data using a selected
encoding table, respectively. The heart of Appellants’ disclosed and claimed
invention is a method for compression of character data as shown in Figure 6
and described from page 8, line 11 through page 10, line 4 of the
Specification, and is performed within a database system 100 by a database
management system such as server computer 104 (Fig. 1; Spec. 4:8—24)
using “software routines” (Spec. 10:16—23). We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Exemplary Claims
Exemplary independent claim 1 and dependent claims 2 and 5 under
appeal, with emphases added, read as follows:
1. A method for compressing data, the method
comprising the steps of:
maintaining within a computer system a plurality of
encoding tables corresponding to a plurality of alphabets',
receiving, by said computing system, uncompressed data,
said uncompressed data comprising character data having one
of said plurality of alphabets;
determining, by said computing system, an encoding
table for said character data;
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Application 13/414,768
selecting, by said computing system, an encoding table
from said plurality of encoding tables, said selected encoding
table corresponding to the alphabet of said character data; and
compressing, by said computing system, said character
data using said selected encoding table to provide compressed
character data.
2. The method for compressing data in accordance with
claim 1, wherein:
said alphabets include a numeric alphabet, an uppercase
letter alphabet, and a lowercase letter alphabet; and
said encoding tables include an encoding table for
compressing said numeric alphabet, an encoding table for
compressing said uppercase letter alphabet, and an encoding
table for compressing said lowercase letter alphabet.
5. The method for compressing data in accordance with
claim 1, wherein:
the compressed data includes a table ID value identifying
the encoding table selected to compress said character data, and
a stop code value indicating the end of compressed character
data.
Examiner’s Rejections
(1) The Examiner rejected claims 1, 3, 4, 6—8, 10, 11, 13—15, 17,
18, 20, and 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Okada (US
5,889,481; Mar. 30, 1999). Final Act. 4-7.
(2) The Examiner rejected claims 2, 5, 9, 12, 16, and 19 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Okada and
Fagan et al. (US 4,991,094; Feb. 5, 1991). Final Act. 8—10.
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Appeal 2015-001778
Application 13/414,768
Appellants ’ Contentions1
Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b) over Okada because Okada fails to disclose plural
encoding tables as recited in claim 1 (Br. 6—9).
Appellants further contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims
2 and 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the combination of Okada and Fagan
because Fagan’s character categories and classification tables are not
equivalent to the encoding tables recited in claim 2, and Fagan fails to
disclose the table ID value recited in claim 5 (Br. 9-12).
Notably, Appellants have not filed a Reply Brief or otherwise
responded to the Examiner’s response to Appellants’ arguments in the
Appeal Brief (see Ans. 3—5), including the Examiner’s new reliance upon
column 19, lines 14 to 15 of Okada as teaching the recited table ID value
(see Ans. 5; see generally Okada, col. 19,11. 13—17).
1 Appellants present arguments as to independent claims 1, 8, and 15 as a
group (Br. 6—9); to claims 2, 9, and 16 as a group (Br. 10—11); and to claims
5, 12, and 19 as a group (Br. 11—12). As to dependent claims 3, 4, 6, 7, 10,
11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, and 21, Appellants rely on the arguments presented as
to corresponding independent claims 1, 8, and 15 from which these claims
respectively and ultimately depend (Br. 9). Claims 1, 8, and 15 are
independent and have similar scope, are all drawn to method/apparatus for
performing a method for compressing character data using a selected
encoding table, respectively. We select claim 1 as representative of the
group of claims rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) (claims 1,3,4, 6—8, 10,
11, 13—15, 17, 18, 20, and 21); claim 2 as representative of the group of
claims 2, 9, and 16; and claim 5 as representative of the group of claims 5,
12, and 19. Accordingly, our analysis in the decision that follows will only
address the merits of the anticipation rejection of representative claim 1, and
the obviousness rejections of representative claims 2 and 5.
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Appeal 2015-001778
Application 13/414,768
Issues on Appeal
Based on Appellants’ arguments in the Brief (Br. 6—12), the following
issues are presented on appeal:
(1) Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 1,3,4, 6—8, 10, 11, IS­
IS, 17, 18, 20, and 21 as being anticipated by Okada because Okada fails to
disclose plural encoding tables as recited in representative claim 1?
(2) Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 2 as being obvious over
the combination of Okada and Fagan because Fagan fails to disclose
encoding tables as recited in representative claim 2?
(3) Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 5 as being obvious over
the combination of Okada and Fagan because Fagan fails to disclose a table
ID value as recited in representative claim 5?
ANAFYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections (Final Act. 4—10) in light
of Appellants’ contentions in the Appeal Brief (Br. 6—9) that the Examiner
has erred, as well as the Examiner’s response to Appellants’ arguments
(Ans. 3—5). We disagree with Appellants’ arguments and sustain the
Examiner’s rejections.
With regard to representative claims 1, 2, and 5, we adopt as our own
(1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from
which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 4—5, 8—9), and (2) the reasons set forth
by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellants’
Appeal Brief (see Ans. 3—5). We concur with the conclusions reached by
the Examiner.
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Application 13/414,768
We agree with the Examiner’s findings concerning representative
claim 1 with respect to Okada (Final Act. 4—5; Ans. 3—4). Okada discloses
(i) compressing language strings by encoding the character strings using a
character code system called Unicode which exists in two dimensions, and
has rows and columns that are numbered, i.e., tables (col. 4,11. 60—65; col. 5,
11. 1—10); (ii) using “dictionary memories” for each language being
compressed (col. 12,11. 54—60); and (iii) ID codes and code ID information
174 for each language (col. 19,11. 13—17). We, therefore, sustain the
Examiner’s rejection of representative claim 1 because Okada discloses the
disputed claim limitation, namely plural encoding tables.
We further agree with the Examiner’s findings concerning remaining
representative claims 2 and 5 with respect to Fagan (Final Act. 8—9; Ans. 4—
5). Fagan teaches categories (see col. 3,11. 50-61) which contain lower
and/or upper case characters, as well as at least two tables (Table 1 at top of
col. 5 and Table 2 at the top of col. 12) that list codes for the categories (i.e.,
encoding tables). In addition, Okada teaches using plural encoding tables as
discussed supra with respect to claim 1. Finally, we agree with the
Examiner (Final Act. 8—9) that it would have been obvious to combine
Okada and Fagan to increase efficiency in compressing language (as in
Okada) by breaking the encoding scheme up into separate tables for
uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and numbers (as taught by Fagan). We,
therefore, sustain the Examiner’s rejection of representative claims 2 and 5
because Fagan teaches the disputed claim limitations.
In view of the foregoing, we sustain the Examiner’s rejections of (i)
claim 1 as being anticipated by Okada, and (ii) claims 2 and 5 as being
obvious over the combination of Okada and Fagan.
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CONCLUSIONS
(1) The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1,3,4, 6—8, 10, 11,
13—15, 17, 18, 20, and 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) because Okada discloses
the limitation of representative claim 1 at issue.
(2) The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 2, 5, 9, 12, 16, and
19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the combination of Okada and Fagan
because Fagan teaches the disputed limitations of representative claims 2
and 5 at issue.
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—21 are affirmed.
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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