Ex Parte RowleyDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 12, 201311713905 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 12, 2013) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE 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. 11/713,905 02/28/2007 Peter Rowley P057 2938 14400 7590 11/12/2013 Patent Docket Administrator LOWENSTEIN SANDLER LLP 65 Livingston Avenue Roseland, NJ 07068 EXAMINER NGUYEN, CAM LINH T ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2161 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/12/2013 PAPERPAPER 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 PETER ROWLEY ____________ Appeal 2011-002239 Application 11/713,905 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, JEFFREY S. SMITH, and JOHNNY A. KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judges. SMITH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-002239 Application 11/713,905 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-24, which are all the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Representative Claim 1. A method comprising: receiving an event indicator; generating, by a lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) director server, a log entry in a form of an (LDAP) entry in response to the event indicator; and storing the LDAP entry in an LDAP repository. Prior Art Shih US 6,615,223 B1 Sep. 2, 2003 Examiner’s Rejections Claims 1-24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Shih. ANALYSIS Section 102 rejection of claims 1, 3, 7-16, and 21-24 Appellant contend that Shih does not disclose “generating . . . a log entry in a form of an (LDAP) entry in response to the event indicator” as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 7-11. According to Appellant, a log entry in a Appeal 2011-002239 Application 11/713,905 3 schema independent canonical format does not describe an LDAP entry, because an LDAP entry requires a schema. App. Br. 9-11; Reply Br. 2-4. To support this argument, Appellant relies on evidence from Wikipedia (App. Br. 10), which we find unpersuasive. Appellant has not provided a definition of “LDAP entry” in Appellant’s Specification that excludes the log entry made to a change log at an LDAP site described by Shih in column 9 lines 16-26. Further, the “log entry in a form of an (LDAP) entry” recited in claim 1 does not affect any steps recited in the method of claim 1. The “log entry in a form of an (LDAP) entry” is merely a non-functional description of data. The scope of claim 1 encompasses “generating . . . [data].” Therefore, the “log entry in a form of an (LDAP) entry” that is generated in claim 1 does not distinguish the claim from the prior art in terms of patentability. See In re Ngai, 367 F.3d 1336, 1339 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Cf. In re Gulack, 703 F.2d 1381, 1385 (Fed. Cir. 1983). See also Ex parte Nehls, 88 USPQ2d 1883, 1887-90 (BPAI 2008) (precedential). We adopt the Examiner’s findings of fact made in the Final Rejection and Examiner’s Answer. We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We sustain the rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Appellant presents arguments for the patentability of claims 11 and 15 (App. Br. 11) similar to those presented for claim 1, which we find unpersuasive. Appellant does not present arguments for separate patentability of claims 3, 7-10, 12-14, 16, and 21-24 which fall with claim 1. Appeal 2011-002239 Application 11/713,905 4 Section 102 rejection of claims 2 and 16 Appellant contends that Shih does not describe “storing a log entry parameter as an attribute of the LDAP entry” as recited in claim 2. App. Br. 12-13; Reply Br. 4-5. We disagree for the reasons given by the Examiner in the Final Rejection and the Examiner’s Answer. We also find that the term “log entry parameter as an attribute of the LDAP entry” is non-functional descriptive material that does not distinguish the claim from the prior art. We sustain the rejection of claim 2 under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Appellant does not present arguments for separate patentability of claim 16 which falls with claim 1. Section 102 rejection of claims 4 and 18 Appellant contends that Shih does not describe “applying an LDAP operation to the log entry” as recited in claim 4. App. Br. 13-14; Reply Br. 5. We disagree for the reasons given by the Examiner in the Final Rejection and Examiner’s Answer. We sustain the rejection of claims 4 and 18 under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Section 102 rejection of claims 5 and 19 Appellant contends that Shih does not describe “indexing a log containing the log entry” as recited in claim 5. App. Br. 14; Reply Br. 5-6. We disagree for the reasons given by the Examiner in the Final Rejection and Examiner’s Answer. We sustain the rejection of claims 5 and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Appeal 2011-002239 Application 11/713,905 5 Section 102 rejection of claims 6 and 20 Appellant contends that Shih does not describe “organizing log entries into an LDAP entry hierarchy” as recited in claim 6. App. Br. 14-15. We disagree for the reasons given by the Examiner in the Final Rejection and Examiner’s Answer. We sustain the rejection of claims 6 and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102. DECISION The rejection of claims 1-24 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Shih is 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). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED gvw Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation