DELL SOFTWARE INC.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardAug 12, 20202019002108 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 12, 2020) Copy Citation 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. 14/178,158 02/11/2014 David McAleer 59961-P239US 4118 96061 7590 08/12/2020 Shackelford, Bowen, McKinley & Norton, LLP 9201 N. Central Expressway Fourth Floor Dallas, TX 75231 EXAMINER FAN, JOHN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2454 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/12/2020 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): dlovell@shackelford.law PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte DAVID McALEER and KELLY NOEL DYER Appeal 2019-002108 Application 14/178,158 Technology Center 2400 Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JASON V. MORGAN, and JEREMY J. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judges. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–20. Claims App. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Quest Software Inc. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2019-002108 Application 14/178,158 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to “managing clustered radio networks.” Spec. ¶ 1. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method comprising: on a monitoring system comprising computer hardware, maintaining hot-cluster data in a data store, the hot-cluster data comprising identification of at least one hot cluster; wherein the at least one hot cluster comprises at least one remote node that is redundantly served by two or more wireless access points that are each in communication with the monitoring system; selecting, by the monitoring system, a monitoring request for transmission to the at least one remote node; transmitting, by the monitoring system, the monitoring request to the two or more wireless access points as a passive request such that the monitoring request is subject to one or more conditions before being transmitted to the at least one remote node; and wherein, pursuant to the passive request, the monitoring system instructs the two or more wireless access points to: not forward the monitoring request to the at least one remote node until a control request intended for the at least one remote node is received from a control system that is communicably separate from the monitoring system; and upon receipt of the control request from the communicably separate control system, transmit the monitoring request and the control request to the at least one remote node together as a piggy-back request. Appeal 2019-002108 Application 14/178,158 3 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Name Reference Date Nguyen US 6,609,213 B1 Aug. 19, 2003 Abedi US 2009/0190541 A1 July 30, 2009 S. Byun & M. Hur, An index management using CHC-cluster for flash memory databases, 82 The Journal of Systems and Software, 825–35 (2009) (“Byun”). REJECTION Claims 1–20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over Abedi, Nguyen, and Byun. Final Act. 6–23. OPINION The Examiner finds Abedi, Nguyen, and Byun teach all limitations of claim 1. Final Act. 6–9. The Examiner finds Abedi teaches most limitations of claim 1. Final Act. 6–8. The Examiner finds Nguyen teaches selecting, by the monitoring system, a monitoring request for transmission to the at least one remote node [and] transmitting, by the monitoring system, the monitoring request to the two or more wireless access points as a passive request such that the monitoring request is subject to one or more conditions before being transmitted to the at least one remote node as recited in claim 1. Final Act. 8. The Examiner reasons it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills person in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Nguyen into Abedi for a system and method for recovering from a node failure in a computer clustered based network. One of the ordinary skills would have been motivated because it lets the cluster monitors the health of Appeal 2019-002108 Application 14/178,158 4 the stand-alone servers, subsequently, the cluster will be able to server its users, until the failing server is repaired or replaced in case there is node server failure in the clustered system. Final Act. 8–9 (citing Nguyen Abstract). The Examiner finds Byun teaches “the hot-cluster data comprising identification of at least one hot cluster” as recited in claim 1. Final Act. 9. The Examiner reasons it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skills person in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Byun into Abedi and Nguyen for a method to support portable and remote computer storage nodes. One of the ordinary skills would have been motivated because it improves index operation performance by compressing the index nodes and clustering the hot-cold segments. Final Act. 9 (citing Byun Abstract). Appellant presents the following principal arguments: [T]he Examiner attempts to combine various teachings regarding a “cluster” [(Abedi)] defined by levels of interference in a radio network, a “cluster” [(Nguyen)] that operates as a single unit for failover purposes, and a “cluster” [(Byun)] of flash memory, without ever acknowledging and addressing the references’ wildly different usages of the term “cluster.” Appeal Br. 6–7. [T]he Examiner purports to modify Abedi with Nguyen to facilitate “recovering from a node failure in a computer clustered based network” and so that “the cluster monitors the health of the stand-alone servers.” Abedi’s clusters, however, do not monitor “the health of the standalone servers,” do not operate as a single unified computing unit, and cannot serve as a “spare server” for a standalone server. Instead, Abedi’s clusters are an organization of radio entities or transceivers for spectrum allocation purposes that are merged and de-merged based on interference levels. Appeal Br. 8. Appeal 2019-002108 Application 14/178,158 5 “[T]he Examiner’s proposed modification in light of Byun requires that the cluster of Abedi in view of Nguyen be fundamentally transformed into some sort of flash memory so as to support ‘clustering the hot-cold segments’ as stated by the Examiner.” Appeal Br. 9–10. In response, the Examiner explains “[t]he motivation to combine the Nguyen and Abedi is based upon the fact they are all refer to the service clusters that are the collection of computer systems, servers or nodes.” Ans. 7. The Examiner further explains “[t]he motivation to combine Abedi, Nguyen and Byun is based upon the fact they are all refer to the clusters that are the collection of computer entities, such as segments, nodes, or servers, etc.” Ans. 8. We are persuaded the Examiner erred because the Examiner’s articulated reasoning as to why the claimed invention would have been obvious lacks a rational underpinning. We, therefore, do not concur in the Examiner’s conclusion of obviousness. Abedi discloses “[a]n interference mitigation method in a wireless network in which a plurality of nodes share an available frequency spectrum by performing wireless communication on sub-channels defined within the available spectrum. The nodes are grouped into clusters.” Abedi Abstract. Nguyen discloses “[a] system and method for recovering from a server failure in a computer network, wherein the network contains several stand-alone, non-clustered, servers, and a cluster, wherein a clustered server also serves as the spare server.” Nguyen Abstract. Byun discloses “[a]n index management using CHC-cluster for flash memory databases.” Byun, Title. Thus, we agree with Appellant that Abedi, Nguyen, and Byun use the term “cluster” in different ways. See Appeal Br. 6–8. Thus, without Appeal 2019-002108 Application 14/178,158 6 additional reasoning, grounded in hindsight, techniques used for a “cluster” in Nguyen or Byun are not readily-applicable to the different “cluster” of Abedi. Compare with KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007) (“[I]f a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill”). With respect to the Examiner’s reasoning to modify Abedi in light of Nugyen, the Examiner has not articulated how or why Abedi would have been modified such that one of Abedi’s clusters uses techniques from Nguyen and monitors the health of a stand-alone server, and serves the server’s users upon fail of the stand-alone server. See Final Act. 8–9; see also Ans. 7. Further, with respect to the Examiner’s reasoning to further modify Abedi in light of Byun, the Examiner has not articulated how or why Abedi would have been modified such that one of Abedi’s clusters uses techniques from Byun and “improves index operation performance by compressing the index nodes and clustering the hot-cold segments.” Final Act. 9; see also Ans. 8. We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. We also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2–10, which depend from claim 1. We also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 11 for the same reasons discussed with respect to claim 1. We also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 12–19, which depend from claim 11. Appeal 2019-002108 Application 14/178,158 7 We also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 20 for the same reasons discussed with respect to claim 1. CONCLUSION The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–20 is reversed. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § References Affirmed Reversed 1–20 103 Abedi, Nguyen Byun 1–20 REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation