Ex Parte Santos et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 27, 2016

13260261 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 27, 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.
13/260,261 09/24/2011 Cipriano A. Santos 82853898 1074
56436 7590 12/29/2016
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
EXAMINER
SWARTZ, STEPHEN S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3623
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/29/2016 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):
hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com
chris. mania @ hpe. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte CIPRIANO A. SANTOS, JERRY Z. SHAN,
MARIA T. GONZALEZ DIAZ, and SHAILENDRA K. JAIN
Appeal 2014-006158
Application 13/260,2611
Technology Center 3600
Before BIBHU R. MOHANTY, SHEILA F. McSHANE, and
AMEE A. SHAH, Administrative Patent Judges.
McSHANE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
The Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s final decision to reject claims 1—15. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Hewlett-Packard
Development Company, LP. Appeal Brief filed December 17, 2013,
hereafter “Appeal Br.,” 3.
Appeal 2014-006158
Application 13/260,261
BACKGROUND
The invention relates to a workforce plan associated with resource
data that can be used for planning. Specification, hereafter “Spec.,” 1 8. The
workforce plan can be used to assess demand fulfillment and resource
utilization. Id.
Representative method claim 1 is reproduced from page 14 of the
Appeal Brief (Claims App’x) as follows, with emphasis added to the
disputed limitations:
1. A method implemented on a computer, the method comprising:
receiving a resource data that includes data relating to
employee resources, and to a set of opportunities
representing demand for employee resources;
receiving, for a planning window, a worhforce plan
associated with the resource data, the worhforce plan
including a worhforce allocation plan to map employees to
jobs associated with at least one of the set of opportunities,
and a hiring plan to direct how many job offers and types of
job offers to make',
establishing, by a computer, a realization model configured
to simulate and predict effects of supply and demand
uncertainty on the resource data;
executing, by a computer, the realization model over a
given time period of the planning window;
transforming the resource data according to predictions of
the realization model, wherein the transforming includes
replacing selected data with predicted data; and
computing metrics configured to assess one or more of
demand fulfillment and resource utilization achieved by the
workforce plan under the realization model.
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Application 13/260,261
In a Final Rejection, the Examiner rejects claims 1—15 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Kosiba,2 Johnson,3 Santos,4 and Al-
Otaibi.5 Final Action, hereafter “Final Act.,” 5—17, mailed July 18, 2013,6
Answer, hereafter “Ans.,” 3, mailed February 27, 2014.
DISCUSSION
The Appellants present arguments using independent claim 1 as
representative, and based on common issues with the other independent
claims, that is, claims 14 and 15. See Appeal Br. 12. There are no
additional arguments presented for dependent claims 2—13, and they
therefore stand or fall with claim 1. Id.
The Examiner finds that Al-Otaibi teaches claim 1 ’s limitation of “a
workforce plan associated with the resource associated with at least one of
the set of opportunities, and hiring plan to direct how many job offers and
types of job offers to make,” stating that Al-Otaibi “teaches a workforce plan
associated with current resources including development plans (i.e. map
employees to future opportunities) and possible future job options, as well as
taking into account additional hiring (i.e. knowing how many jobs need to be
offered).” Final Act. 8 (citing Al-Otaibi 1:53—67, 2:1—24, 2:41—56, 14:50-
57).
2 US Patent 7,103,562 B2, issued September 5, 2006.
3 US Publication 2009/0119126 Al, published May 7, 2009.
4 US Publication 2008/0103868 Al, published May 1, 2008.
5 US Patent 7,672,861 B2, issued March 2, 2010.
6 In the Final Action, the Examiner rejected claims 1—13 under 35 U.S.C.
§101, and that rejection was withdrawn in the Answer. See Final Act. 3—5;
Ans. 4.
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Appeal 2014-006158
Application 13/260,261
The Appellants argue that neither Kosiba, Johnson, nor Santos
discloses the limitations of: 1) “a workforce allocation plan to map
employees to jobs associated with at least one of the set of opportunities;”
and 2) “a hiring plan to direct how many job offers and types of job offers to
make.” See Appeal Br. 9—10; Reply Brief, hereafter “Reply Br.” 2. The
Appellants contend that Al-Otaibi teaches “predicting a future number of
employees desired within the organization for a preselected period of time
responsive to the accessed human resource information to define a human
resource manning plan, assigning a plurality of employment development
activities to each of a plurality of participating employees,” but fails to teach
the claimed limitations. Appeal Br. 10—11. The Appellants also contrast the
claim limitations with Al-Otaibi’s disclosures “that only those recruits who
have unequivocally accepted offers for employment within a particular
department of the organization will be included in the year-end employee
numbers utilized in the ten-year manning plan. The department supervisor
for the employee group in which the recruits are positioned is responsible for
finalizing the year-end employee numbers and entering them into the
system.” Id. at 11 (citing Al-Otaibi 14:50—57).
In response, the Examiner affirms that Al-Otaibi is relied upon for
teaching the claim limitations at issue, and Kosiba, Johnson, or Santos are
not relied upon for the teachings of the limitations at issue. Ans. 4. The
Examiner finds that Al-Otaibi teaches human resource and planning that
allows quick changes in employee hiring needs that can be used in a hiring
plan to fill the needs of the organization (mapping needs to hiring
individuals). Id. at 5 (citing Al-Otaibi 1:55—67). The Examiner also finds
that Al-Otaibi’s teachings relating to the additional internal job (i.e. a new
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Application 13/260,261
set of opportunities), and the mapping of the employees to the jobs,
represent a hiring plain directing “how many job offers and the types of job
offers to make.” Id. at 5—6.
Upon consideration of the evidence on this record in light of the
arguments advanced by the Appellants, we find that the Appellants have not
identified reversible error in the Examiner’s determination that
representative claim 1 is obvious. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s
rejection of this claim for the reasons set forth in the Final Action and the
Answer. We add the following primarily for emphasis.
Al-Otaibi discloses programs and methods of “human resource
planning and development to allow an organization to tracking training and
development of existing employees and to plan for future employees hiring
needs within the organization.” Al-Otaibi 1:55—58 (emphasis added). It also
discloses “an embodiment of a system to enhance human resource planning
for an organization” with “a computer medium associated with the server
and having program code means responsive to preselected manning
assumptions and adapted to process human resource information from the
human resource database for predicting a future number of employees
desired within the organization for a preselected period of time to thereby
define a human resource manning plan. ” Id. at 2:1—2, 7—13 (emphasis
added).
There is no ipsissimis verbis test for determining whether a reference
discloses a claim element, i.e., identity of terminology is not required. See
In re Bond, 910 F.2d 831, 832 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (“it is unlikely that
independent specification writers will use identical language in describing
even identical embodiments of an invention.”). The question of obviousness
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Application 13/260,261
is not whether the prior art recites the exact words of the claim, but what a
person of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate from its teachings. See
KSRInt’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 421 (2007)). In light of the
broad nature of Al-Otaibi’s disclosures, we find there is sufficient support
for the Examiner’s related findings on obviousness as to the workforce
allocation plan that maps employees to jobs, and a hiring plans to direct job
offers under representative claim 1.
We therefore sustain the rejections of claims 1—15 under § 103.
SUMMARY
The rejection of claims 1—15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) 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).
AFFIRMED
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