11648300 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 18, 2013)

Ex Parte Rusch

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 18, 2013

11648300 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 18, 2013)

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. 11/648,300 12/29/2006 Gert F. Rusch 6570P463 9624 45062 7590 12/19/2013 SAP/BSTZ BLAKELY SOKOLOFF TAYLOR & ZAFMAN 1279 Oakmead Parkway Sunnyvale, CA 94085-4040 EXAMINER GIRMA, ANTENEH B ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2157 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/19/2013 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 GERT F. RUSCH ____________ Appeal 2011-007458 Application 11/648,300 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, IRVIN E. BRANCH, and CATHERINE SHIANG, Administrative Patent Judges. RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of claims 1-6 and 8-20, which are all of the pending claims. Claim 7 has been canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Aug. 31, 2010), the Answer (mailed Nov. 9, 2010), and the Reply Brief (filed Jan. 3, 2011) for the respective details. Appeal 2011-007458 Application 11/648,300 2 Appellant’s Invention Appellant’s invention relates to the synchronization of shared data in a cluster of ranked repositories. Upon the issue of a change message indicating a change in shared data by a publisher repository, a subscriber repository receiving the change message determines whether the message is previously known to the subscriber repository. Based upon the determination that the change message is previously known to the subscriber repository or not previously known, the subscriber repository, respectively, terminates the change message, or republishes and sends the change message. See generally Abstract. Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed invention and reads as follows: 1. A method for synchronizing data in a cluster of repositories, comprising: receiving a change message at a first repository from a second repository in a cluster of ranked repositories, the change message indicating a change to a state of an object in the cluster, the change message having a unique identifier that uniquely identifies the change message in a change log of changes occurring within the cluster, wherein the unique identifier of the change message includes an indication of rank, the rank being equal to the rank of a repository that originated the change message, where higher ranking is favored if the change message indicates an object state conflict; determining at the first repository whether the change message has previously been received at the first repository by reading a value identifying the change message; and terminating the change message at the first repository in response to determining the change message has previously been received at the first repository; otherwise Appeal 2011-007458 Application 11/648,300 3 republishing the change message from the first repository to another repository in the cluster. The Examiner’s Rejection The Examiner’s Answer cites the following prior art references: Guturu US 6,581,075 B1 June 17, 2003 Nedimyer US 2005/0149615 A1 July 7, 2005 Claims 1-6 and 8-20, all of the appealed claims, stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Guturu in view of Nedimyer. ANALYSIS Appellant contends, with respect to the obviousness rejection of each of the appealed independent claims 1, 12, 17, and 19, that even if the applied Guturu and Nedimyer references where combined as proposed by the Examiner, the resultant combination would not satisfy all of the claimed requirements. Initially, Appellant contends that, while Guturu may terminate change messages based on the priority ranking of the message, there is no teaching or suggestion of terminating a change message based on whether the message has previously been received (claims 1 and 12), or is previously known (claims 17 and 19) to the receiving repository as claimed. App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 3-5. Appellant further contends that Nedimyer does not overcome the deficiency of Guturu because the cited paragraph [0035] portion, relied upon by the Examiner, merely teaches that, if a target resource has a modification time stamp later than the change message timestamp, the change message will not be processed because a resource modification already has been processed by a later generated message. According to Appellant, there is no Appeal 2011-007458 Application 11/648,300 4 determination in Nedimyer that the same change message already has been received at the target resource as claimed but, rather, only an indication that a change message is ignored if a different message already has been processed. App. Br. 8-9. We agree with Appellant as our interpretation of the disclosures of Guturu and Nedimyer coincide with that of Appellant.1 We note that in the “Response to Argument” section of the Answer, the Examiner directs attention to the column 4, lines 14-32 portion of Guturu as purportedly describing the claimed “previously received” or “previously known” change message termination feature. Ans. 12-13. We do not agree. We find that, while the cited portion of Guturu describes the determination of whether a record that is the subject of the update request exists in the database, we find no teaching or suggestion that a determination is made that the update request, i.e., the change message itself, previously has been received or is previously known as required by the claims. In view of the above discussion, because we are of the opinion that the proposed combination of references set forth by the Examiner does not support the obviousness rejection, we do not sustain the rejection of independent claims 1, 12, 17, and 19, or the rejection of claims 2-6, 8-11, 13-16, 18, and 20 dependent thereon. 1 Appellant has made additional arguments. We do not reach the merits of these arguments, as our agreement with Appellant as indicated in our discussion infra is dispositive of this appeal. Appeal 2011-007458 Application 11/648,300 5 CONCLUSION OF LAW Based on the analysis above, we conclude that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-6 and 8-20 for obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). DECISION The Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 1-6 and 8-20, all of the appealed claims, is reversed.2 REVERSED msc 2 We have decided the appeal before us. However, should there be further prosecution with respect to claims 12-16, the Examiner’s attention is directed to In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2007), Ex parte Mewherter, 107 USPQ2d 1857 (PTAB 2013) (precedential), and Subject Matter Eligibility of Computer Readable Media, 1351 Off. Gaz. Pat. Office 212 (Feb. 23, 2010); see also U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Interim Examination Instructions for Evaluating Subject Matter Eligibility Under 35 U.S.C. § 101, at 2 (Aug. 2009), available at http://www.uspto.gov/patents/law/comments/2009-08- 25_interim_101_instructions.pdf.