Appeal 2007-1341
Application 09/894,065
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants' invention relates to the grouping of devices based on
attributes in a data processing system. (Specification 1:7-13; Abstract.) In
the words of the Appellants:
The present invention provides a method,
apparatus, and computer implemented instructions
for allowing flexible extensions to a grouping
process. The mechanism of the present invention
allows defining meta-data, which describes which
attribute may be searched and which attributes
may be returned. . . .
The mechanism of the present invention
allows the dynamic addition of new attributes.
With this mechanism, new programs may become
suppliers of grouping data, which increases the
value of both of the new programs and the overall
system.
The meta-data in these examples is common
to all suppliers of data, making it possible to create
new higher order groups by performing operations
against multiple groups at a time. For example, a
user could obtain a group of all machines that are
e-mail servers, and a group of all machines that
have a low-bandwidth network connection. The
user can then intersect these two groups, and
determine the machines that require a connection
upgrade before the latest e-mail server software is
installed on them. This combines information
gathered from an inventory application, which
machines are e-mail servers, with information
gathered from a network discovery application,
which machines have low-bandwidth connections.
. . .
The mechanism of the present invention
allows services to “advertise” attributes that may
be used to generate groups. This feature allows
any type of service, even those that are unknown,
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