Ex Parte Wu et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 9, 2016

12970039 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 9, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/970,039 12/16/2010
82515 7590 09/13/2016
Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C.
1100 New York Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20005
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Juan Wu
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.
1933.1500000 5339
EXAMINER
DWIVEDI, MARESH H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2168
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/13/2016 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):
mlee@skgf.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JUAN WU, MIHNEA ANDRE, HAIY AN DU, and
IAN SCOTT MACLEOD
Appeal2015-003098
Application 12/970,039
Technology Center 2100
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, CARLL. SILVERMAN, and
KAMRAN JIVANI, Administrative Patent Judges.
JIV ANI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants 1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner's final decision rejecting claims 1-21, which are all the claims
pending in the present application. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
1 Appellants identify Sybase, Inc. as the real party in interest. App. Br. 3.
Appeal2015-003098
Application 12/970,039
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The present application relates to improving database performance
and scalability. Spec. i-f 1.
Claim 1 is illustrative (disputed limitation emphasized):
1. A computer-implemented method to produce an improved
layout of a data grid in a database environment comprising:
capturing, by a computing device, a workload from a first
row-oriented database server and at least one client of the first
database server, the workload comprising a set of queries and
responses between the first database server and the at least one
client;
producing dependency and volume information for the
captured workload based on the set of queries and responses in
the captured workload;
generating a layout of one or more data fabrics within the
data grid in the database environment based on resource
constraints associated with the data grid and the produced
dependency and volume information associated with the
captured workload, wherein each fabric in the one or more data
fabrics comprises a plurality of cache nodes, and wherein each
cache node in the plurality of cache nodes is an m-memory
database server; and
storing the generated layout at the computing device.
The Rejection
Claims 1-21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Claussen,
"Scaling out Query Performance with Sybase IQ PlexQ" (Nov. 09, 2010)
and McKnight, "Choosing a DBMS for Data Warehousing" (2002).
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Appeal2015-003098
Application 12/970,039
ANALYSIS
The Examiner finds Claussen teaches or suggests all limitations of
claim 1, except for the database being row-oriented. Final Act. 6-7; Ans. 4.
The Examiner relies on McKnight as teaching a row-oriented database. Id.
The Examiner makes commensurate findings regarding independent claims
8 and 15, each of which recite a row-oriented database. Final Act. 3.
Appellants contend, inter alia, the Examiner errs in this rejection
because, "Combining Claussen with McKnight in the manner suggested by
the Examiner would necessarily destroy the purpose of Claussen and cause it
to be unsatisfactory for its intended purpose of gaining the advantages
provided by operating a column-oriented database structure." App Br. 10;
Reply Br. 4--5.
We agree with Appellants. Claussen states, "Sybase pioneered the
concept of column-oriented databases with its Sybase IQ product." Claussen
1. Clausen describes the Sybase IQ as unique because of its column-
oriented database, which allows for query processing techniques using
dynamic parallelism. Id. at 3--4. "Most traditional databases create a base
table of data, stored as sequential rows of contiguous columns. In Sybase
IQ, the columns of a table are stored separately from each other, and a row is
only a virtual entity, until it is constructed dynamically during the course of
running a query." Id. at 3.
McKnight similarly recognizes Sybase IQ "has several major
architectural differences from other relational database management
systems. The main difference is its physical orientation of data in columns
as opposed to rows. This allows it to perform very high selective
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Appeal2015-003098
Application 12/970,039
compression because all of a column's values are physically together."
McKnight 5. McKnight further recognizes advantages and disadvantages of
Sybase IQ's column-oriented solution as well as advantages and
disadvantages of "row-wise" solutions. Id. at 6-13.
Because the features of Sybase IQ described by Claussen and cited by
the Examiner are premised on Sybase IQ's column-oriented database, we
agree with Appellants that the Examiner's alternation of Sybase IQ to be
row-oriented would cause it to be unsatisfactory for its intended purpose of
gaining the advantages provided by using a column-oriented database. The
Examiner fails in the record before us to explain persuasively how an artisan
of ordinary skill would alter Sybase IQ to use a row-oriented database and
yet maintain the benefits identified in Claussen.
Accordingly, constrained by the record before us, we do not sustain
the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of independent claims 1, 8, and 15
nor of their dependent claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-21.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner's decisions rejecting claims 1-21.
REVERSED
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