Ex Parte Ryan et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 5, 2016

12822962 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 5, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/822,962 06/24/2010
26890 7590 02/09/2016
JAMES M, STOVER
TERADATA US, INC.
10000 INNOVATION DRIVE
DAYTON, OH 45342
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Thomas K. Ryan
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
20414 6864
EXAMINER
FAN, SHIOW-JY
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2168
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/09/2016 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
jam es.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 THOMAS K. RYAN, CARLL. CHRISTOFFERSON,
NEELESH V. BANSODE, VIVEK SHANDIL YA,
LATESH PANT, and MADHA VI CHANDRASHEKHAR
Appeal2014-000795
Application 12/822,962
Technology Center 2100
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, LINZY T. McCARTNEY, and
KAMRAN JIVANI, Administrative Patent Judges.
SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1-21. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants' invention relates to a method and apparatus for viewing
business critical master data in a hierarchical manner (Spec. i-f 11 ).
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Teradata US,
Incorporated (App. Br. 2).
Appeal2014-000795
Application 12/822,962
Exemplary claim l under appeal reads as follows (with the disputed
limitation in Italics):
1. A computer-implemented method for defining a
view of data in a computer system, comprising:
(a) executing a relational database management system
(RDBMS) that stores the data in the computer system, wherein:
(i) the RDBMS is part of a framework that is
configured to manage and view the data;
(ii) the data comprises master data that defines
and is used to model one or more definitions or views of
a business entity;
(iii) multiple systems define the same business
entity in differing data models; and
(iv) access to the master data is limited to one or
more workflow data processes of the framework;
(b) maintaining, as part of a process and the framework,
a series of business rules and the workflow data processes to
manage data, wherein the data resides in one or more RDBMS
tables and is hierarchical in nature;
( c) accepting user input that defines a hierarchy that is
projected onto the data, wherein the hierarchy comprises
parent-child relationships with no level consistency;
( d) storing the hierarchy as metadata in the RDBMS; and
( e) utilizing the hierarchy to drive a hierarchy viewer,
wherein the hierarchy viewer is used to graphically visualize,
manage, and manipulate the data in a hierarchical manner.
The Examiner rejected claims 1-21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Malloy (US 2004/0122844 Al; June 24, 2004) and Najmi
(US 2005/0004831 Al; Jan. 6, 2005). (See Ans. 5-33). 2
2 The Examiner has withdrawn the rejection of claims 1, 5, 8, 12, 15, and 19
on the ground of nonstatutory-type double patenting (see Ans. 4).
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Appeal2014-000795
Application 12/822,962
ANALYSIS
Regarding claim 1, the Examiner relies on Malloy as disclosing the
recited method steps except for elements (i}-(iv) of step (a), and further
relies on Najmi for disclosing those elements (Ans. 5-9). Appellants,
however, do not dispute the teachings ofNajmi and contend the cited
portions in paragraph 178 of Malloy do not teach or suggest "utilizing a user
defined hierarchical structure to drive a hierarchy viewer" or "a hierarchy
viewer that is used to graphically visualize, manage, and manipulate the data
(that is stored in an RDBMS) in a hierarchical manner" (App. Br. 16).
Appellants reason that the sample cube, as shown in Figure 20 of Malloy,
and its operation cannot be equated to a "hierarchy viewer" because:
Paragraph [0139] of Malloy describes a cube as "a very precise
definition of an OLAP cube that can be delivered using a single
SQL statement. Each cube is derived from a single cube model.
The cube facts and list of cube dimensions are subsets of those
in the referenced cube model. A cube view name is also
defined which represents the cube in the database. Cubes are
appropriate for tools and applications that do not use multiple
hierarchies because cube dimensions allow one cube hierarchy
per cube dimension."
(App. Br. 17 (citing Malloy i-f 139)).
The Examiner responds by pointing to paragraphs 68, 75, 94, 106, and
110 of Malloy as disclosing different aspects of multidimensional metadata
related to on-line analytical processing (OLAP) structural information (Ans.
4--6). The Examiner finds these cited passages disclose a user-defined
hierarchical structure to drive a hierarchy viewer (Ans. 6) and further relies
on Figures 19 and 20 of Malloy as disclosing a hierarchy viewer for
presenting the hierarchical metadata for graphically visualizing, managing,
and manipulating data (Ans. 8-9).
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Appeal2014-000795
Application 12/822,962
We are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments that the proposed
combination of Malloy with Najimi does not teach or suggest the dispute
method step (e). We agree with the Examiner's findings and conclusion that
the grid-based OLAP viewer cube of Malloy meets the disputed limitation
related to driving a hierarchy viewer that is used to graphically visualize,
manage, and manipulate the metadata. The disclosed cube is further
described in paragraphs 5 8---60 of Malloy as a Relational Database
Management System (RDBMS) that accesses multidimensional metadata
objects and presents the results in a user interface such that a user may
create, access, modify, or delete the objects. Therefore, the cube model
described in paragraphs 94 and 95, based on the metadata objects, further
defines a set of hierarchical relationships along different dimensions of the
cube. As such, contrary to Appellants' contention that a cube is not a
hierarchy because a cube is "a very precise definition of an OLAP cube"
(App. Br. 17; Reply Br. 4), the represented attributes in each dimension have
flexible hierarchies (see Malloy i-fi-175, 95).
For the above-stated reasons, we are not persuaded by Appellants'
arguments that the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Malloy and
Najmi teaches or suggests all the recited limitations of claim 1.
Accordingly, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claim 1,
independent claims 5, 8, 12, 15, and 19, as well as the remaining dependent
claims, which are not argued separately (see App. Br. 17-18).
DECISION
The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-21 is affirmed.
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Appeal2014-000795
Application 12/822,962
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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