Ex Parte Sedlar

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Apr 9, 2008

09571060 (B.P.A.I. Apr. 9, 2008)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte ERIC SEDLAR
____________

Appeal 2008-0124
Application 09/571,060
Technology Center 2100
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Decided: April 9, 2008
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Before LANCE LEONARD BARRY, JAY P. LUCAS, and STEPHEN C.
SIU, Administrative Patent Judges.

SIU, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
Final Rejection of claims 2, 3, 6-8, 10, 11, and 14-16. We have jurisdiction
under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm.
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A. INVENTION
The invention at issue involves processing a request for a file
associated with a file identifier (Spec. 7). In particular, a user can design a
query that specifies the selection criteria for files that are to belong to a
directory (id. 40). Child files of stored query directories are determined on-
the-fly, so a listing of the child files will always reflect the current state of
the database (id. 43).

B. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM
Claim 2, which further illustrates the invention, follows:
2. A method for responding to file requests received through a file
system interface, the method comprising the steps of:
establishing an association between a file identifier and a query;
receiving through said file system interface a request for a listing of
files within a directory associated with said file identifier;
in response to said request, performing the steps of:
executing said query to generate a set of data;
generating contents of said directory by determining which files
are within said directory based on said set of data; and
providing said listing of files within said directory through said
file system interface.

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C. REJECTIONS
Claims 2, 3, 6-8, 10, 11, and 14-16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent No. 6,029,160 (“Cabrera”)
and U.S. Patent No. 6,185,574 (“Howard”).

II. CLAIM GROUPING
“When multiple claims subject to the same ground of rejection are
argued as a group by appellant, the Board may select a single claim
from the group of claims that are argued together to decide the appeal
with respect to the group of claims as to the ground of rejection on the
basis of the selected claim alone. Notwithstanding any other
provision of this paragraph, the failure of appellant to separately argue
claims which appellant has grouped together shall constitute a waiver
of any argument that the Board must consider the patentability of any
grouped claim separately.” 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2002).1

Appellant argues claims 2, 3, 6-8, 10, 11, and 14-16 as a group (App.
Br. 5-8). We select claim 2 as the sole claim on which to decide the appeal
of the group.

III. ANALYSIS
As set forth above, we select claim 2 as the sole claim on which to
decide the appeal of the group. “Rather than reiterate the positions of parties

1 We cite to the version of the Code of Federal Regulations in effect at the
time of the Appeal Brief. The current version includes the same rules.

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in toto, we focus on the issue therebetween.” Ex Parte Filatov, No. 2006-
1160, 2007 WL 1317144, at *2 (BPAI 2007).
Appellant argues that while “Cabrera discloses ‘executing a query to
generate a set of data’” (App. Br. 7), Howard does not disclose “generating
contents of said directory by determining which files are within said
directory based on said set of data” (id.).
We do not find an explicit definition of the term “directory” in the
Specification. In the absence of such a definition, we adopt the ordinary
meaning of “directory” to include a group of computer files. Chef America,
Inc. v. Lamb-Weston, Inc., 358 F.3d 1371, 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (“Ordinary,
simple English words whose meaning is clear and unquestionable, absent
any indication that their use in a particular context changes their meaning,
are construed to mean exactly what they say”). Cabrera discloses executing
a query such as “an SQL SELECT statement to search on the database in the
database storage 16” (col. 5, ll. 41-43), which “returns its results, which
include one or more server/filename references as normal column data in the
efr data structure” (col. 5, ll. 44-46). Also, “[f]or a SELECT call, the storage
component 101 retrieves the database record from the database . . . based on
query compilation” (col. 8, ll. 62-64).
Hence, Cabrera discloses executing a query such as a SELECT
statement and returning a “set of data” such as database records or files and
information pertaining to a group of computer files (i.e., files within a
“directory” that are retrieved from the SELECT call). By executing the
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SELECT call, Cabrera determines which files to include in the “directory”
(list of files returned by the SELECT call). This determination is based on
the files satisfying the search criteria from the SELECT call (i.e., the “set of
data”).
Howard further supports the Cabrera disclosure by disclosing that a
directory system stores “all of the files on the computer system” (col. 8, l.
14). Therefore, we find that Cabrera discloses executing a query to generate
a resulting “set of data,” based on the resulting “set of data,” determining
which files to include in a group of computer files of the results set and
generating contents of the group of computer files result set (i.e.,
“directory”), while Howard provides additional disclosure demonstrating
that it was known in the art that computer files can be stored in a “directory
system.”
It follows that Appellant has failed to demonstrate that the Examiner
erred in rejecting claim 2. Therefore, we affirm the rejection of claim 2 and
of claims 3, 6-8, 10, 11, and 14-16, which fall therewith.

IV. ORDER
In summary, the rejection of claims 2, 3, 6-8, 10, 11, and 14-16 under
§ 103(a) is affirmed.

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No time for taking any action connected with this appeal may be
extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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