DETAILED ACTION
This is in response to the reply filed on 11/06/2025. Claims 1-14 are pending in this Action.
Remark
In the response filed 11/06/2025, claims 1-14 have been amended, no claim has been cancelled, and no new claim has been added.
The applicant’s amendment regarding specification objection is accepted by the Examiner. Therefore, prior specification objection is withdrawn.
The applicant’s amendment regarding 35 USC 101 rejection is accepted by the Examiner. Therefore, prior 35 USC 101 rejection is withdrawn.
In response to double patenting rejection, the applicant responded that “[a]pplicant intends to file a terminal disclaimer in the subject application for U.S. Patent No. 11,232,103, once the claims are otherwise deemed allowable, which would render this rejection moot upon filing.” The Examiner notes that there were two double patenting rejections for two U.S. patents, the U.S. Patent No. 11,232,103 and U.S. Patent No. 12,099,055. Therefore, prior double patenting rejection is maintained.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 11/06/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
With respect to 35 USC 103 rejection:
Applicant argues:
Aggarwal, Sandler, and Hunter, when taken alone or in combination, fail to disclose or suggest all aspects recited in the subject claims. For example, amended independent claim 1 recites, in part, "just in time compile one or more compound operations into one or more compound functions; and perform one or more hash table lookups by executing the one or more compound functions for, at a time, a block of multiple records stored at the database." Aggarwal, Sandler, and Hunter, when taken alone or in combination, fail to disclose or suggest at least such aspects.
…. In particular, though Aggarwal discloses hash join using dimension tables, Aggarwal still only contemplates record at a time processing. For example, Aggarwal discloses "the smaller table (in our case the dimension table) is hashed first and then records from the larger table (in our case the fact staging table) are probed into the hash table." Aggarwal, paragraph [0046]. Aggarwal, however, fails to disclose or suggest at least "perform one or more hash table lookups by executing the one or more compound functions for, at a time, a block of multiple records stored at the database," as recited in amended independent claim 1. The record at a time processing of Aggarwal fails to disclose or suggest the block of multiple records at a time processing generally recited in amended independent claim 1.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
When construing claim terminology during prosecution before the Office, claims are to be given the broadest and reasonable interpretation consistent with the Specification, reading language of the claims in light of the Specification as it would be interpreted by one of the ordinary skill in the art. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). The Examiner is mindful, however, that limitations are not to be read into claims from the Specification. In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
Here, based on broadest and reasonable interpretation and without importing the limitation of specification in to the claim, the Examiner interprets “a block of multiple records” as a set of data items or collection of data. For instance, a row or tuple can include multiple data items.
As such, that Examiner contents that given the claim its broadest and reasonable interpretation, Aggarwal in at least Fig. 1-2 and para 11, 36, 42, 46, 49, and 53 discloses probing the hash table, caused by the execution of a function(s) during the compilation, for a data items or records such as a row/tuple including multiple data items.
Furthermore, Aggarwal in at least Fig. 1-2 and para 42, 46, 49, and 53 teaches that in a database system, a database engine executes a SQL query, it transforms (i.e. compiles) a join operation into source codes containing at least a corresponding instruction/function that is used to sequentially perform a hash table lookup operation that first, generates hash values and second, probes the hash table for the generated hash value. It would have obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art (of programming and writing source code) to include the step of generating a hash value and probing the hash table for the hash value in one “programing module” or a function to organize multiple tasks in one compound function.
Therefore, Aggarwal discloses or at least suggests the feature to “perform one or more hash table lookups by executing the one or more compound functions for, at a time, a block of multiple records stored at the database,” recited in at least amended claim 1.
The test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981).
The Examiner holds that given the claim its broadest and reasonable
interpretation, the combined teachings of Aggarwal and Sandler discloses the features of “just in time compile one or more compound operations into one or more compound functions; and perform one or more hash table lookups by executing the one or more compound functions for, at a time, a block of multiple records stored at the database" as recited in at least amended claim 1.
Therefore, based on above explanation and reasoning, the prior 35 USC 103 rejection of claims 1-14 are maintained.
Double Patenting
See prior non-final rejection for the double patenting rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-2, 6-9, and 13-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Aggarwal, US 2009/0281985 in view of Sandler et al., US 2003/0217033 (Sandler, hereafter).
Regarding claim 1,
Aggarwal discloses a database server system for hash table lookups comprising:
one or more memories; one or more processors coupled to the one or more memories and configured to perform(See Aggarwal: at least Fig. 1, Fig. 3, and para 68-69):
just in time compile one or more compound operations into one or more compound functions (See Aggarwal: at least Fig. 1-2 and para 42, 46, 49, and 53, in a database system, a database engine executes a SQL query, it transforms (i.e. compiles) a join operation into source codes containing at least a corresponding instruction/function that is used to sequentially perform a hash table lookup operation that first, generates hash values and second, probes the hash table for the generated hash value. It would have obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art (of programming and writing source code) to include the step of generating a hash value and probing the hash table for the hash value in one “programing module” or a function to organize multiple tasks in one compound function); and
perform one or more hash table lookups by executing the one or more compound functions for, at a time, a block of multiple records stored at the database (Note that based on broadest and reasonable interpretation, the Examiner interprets “a block of multiple records” as a set of data items or collection of data.
See Aggarwal: at least Fig. 1-2 and para 11, 36, 42, 46, 49, and 53, probing the hash table, caused by the execution of a function(s) during the compilation, for a data items or records such as a row/tuple including multiple data items.).
Although, Aggarwal discloses a database system performing operations, Aggarwal does not explicitly performing block oriented processing.
On the other hand, Sandler discloses a vectorized database performing block oriented processing (See Sandler: at least para 5 and 16). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to modify the teachings of Aggarwal with Sandler’s teaching in order to implement above function with reasonable expectation of success. The motivation for doing so would have been to allow high-performance data processing in real-time.
Regarding claim 2,
the combination of Aggarwal and Sandler discloses wherein the compound function includes a hash value computation and an initial lookup (See Aggarwal: at least Fig. 1-2 and para 42, 46, 49, and 53).
Regarding claim 6,
the combination of Aggarwal and Sandler discloses a store that stores the one or more compiled compound functions and allows reusing of the one or more compiled compound functions them by future tasks with equivalent hash-table structure (See Aggarwal: at least Fig. 3 and para 73-75).
Regarding claim 7,
the combination of Aggarwal and Sandler discloses wherein the database server system is a vectorized database system (See Sandler: at least para 5 and 16).
Regarding claims 8-9 and 13-14,
the scopes of the claims are substantially the same as claims 1-2 and 6-7 respectively, and are rejected on the same basis as set forth for the rejections of claims 1-2 and 6-7, respectively.
Claims 3-5 and 10-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Aggarwal, US 2009/0281985 in view of Sandler et al., US 2003/0217033 and further in view of Hunter et al., US 6,343,289 (Hunter, hereafter).
Regarding claim 3,
the combination of Aggarwal and Sandler discloses the compound function and
hash table. However, it does not explicitly teach a hash table record and an input record equality checking.
On the other hand, Hunter discloses a function that include a hash table and input record matching checking (See Hunter: at least Fig. 1, Fig. 3-5, and 6:56 through 7:9). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to modify the teachings of the combination of Aggarwal and Sandler with Hunter’s teaching in order to include in the one or more compound functions a hash table record and an input record equality checking with reasonable expectation of success. The motivation for doing so would have been to quickly locate entries or records of database.
Regarding claim 4,
the combination of Aggarwal, Sandler, and Hunter discloses where the one or more compound functions additionally perform the fetching of a next record in a hash table bucket-chain list for records in the block of multiple records that failed the input record equality checking (See Hunter: at least Fig. 1, Fig. 3-5, and 6:56 through 7:9).
Regarding claim 5,
the combination of Aggarwal, Sandler, and Hunter discloses wherein the one or
more compound functions additionally perform fetching of attribute values for records in the block of multiple records that passed the input record equality checking (See Hunter: at least Fig. 1, Fig. 3-5, and 6:56 through 7:9).
Regarding claims 10-12,
the scopes of the claims are substantially the same as claims 3-5, respectively, and are rejected on the same basis as set forth for the rejections of claims 3-5.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
Points of Contact
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HARES JAMI whose telephone number is (571)270-1291. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00a-5:00p.
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/Hares Jami/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2164
01/13/2026
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