Ex Parte Balakrishnan et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 6, 2016

13525017 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 6, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/525,017 06/15/2012
50594 7590 09/08/2016
CRGOLAW
STEVEN M. GREENBERG
7900 Glades Road
SUITE 520
BOCA RATON, FL 33487
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Ganesh Balakrishnan
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.
RPS9201l0092US2
(142CON)
CONFIRMATION NO.
2997
EXAMINER
RANKIN, CANDICE A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2132
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/08/2016 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):
docketing@crgolaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte GANESH BALAKRISHNAN and ANIL KRISHNA
Appeal2015-004222
Application 13/525,017
Technology Center 2100
Before KRISTEN L. DROESCH, LINZY T. MCCARTNEY, and
NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) the Examiner's Final
Rejection of claims 1-3. 1 We have jurisdiction over the pending rejected
claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify International Business Machines Corporation as the
real party in interest. (App. Br. 2.)
Appeal2015-004222
Application 13/525,017
THE INVENTION
Appellants' disclosed and claimed invention is directed to flash
memory device write-access management among different virtual machines
(VMs) in a virtualized computing environment. (Abstract.) Claim 1,
reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal:
1. A flash memory device write-access management
method for different virtual machines (VMs) in a virtualized
computing environment, the method comprising:
computing a contemporaneous bandwidth of requests for
write operations for a flash memory device;
allocating a corresponding number of tokens to virtual
machines (VMs) in a virtualized computing environment
seeking write access to the flash memory device;
accepting write requests to the flash memory device from
VMs only when accompanied by a token; and,
repeating the computing, allocating and accepting after a
lapse of a predetermined time period.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner provisionally rejected claims 1-3 on the ground of
nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over
claims 4--9 of copending Application No. 13/339,685. (Final Act. 2-5.)2
This provisional rejection is not addressed in Appellants' briefs and is
therefore summarily affirmed.
The Examiner rejected claims 1-3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Jnagal et al. (US 7, 711, 789 B 1, issued May 4, 2010) and
Zhang et al. (US 8,291, 170 B 1, issued Oct. 16, 2012). (Final Act. 6-8.)
2 Application 13/339,685 issued as US 9,081,504 on July 14, 2015.
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Appeal2015-004222
Application 13/525,017
ISSUE ON APPEAL
Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following
issue: 3
Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Jnagal and
Zhang teaches or suggests the independent claim 1 limitation, "accepting
write requests to the flash memory device from VMs only when
accompanied by a token." (App. Br. 3---6.)
ANALYSIS
In finding Jnagal and Zhang teach or suggest the claim limitation at
issue, the Examiner relies on the disclosure in Jnagal of providing quality of
services (QoS) in the management of input/output (I/O) systems in virtual
I/O servers by intercepting storage area network write commands, and
allowing the commands if the originating application server has sufficient
tokens in an "hierarchal token bucket" to transmit the write data. (Final Act.
6-7; Jnagal Abstract, col. 10, 1. 54---col. 11, 1. 9.)
Appellants argue that determining whether there are sufficient tokens
in a bucket is not sufficient to teach or suggest the requirement, "accepting
write requests ... only when accompanied by a token." (App. Br. 6.) The
Examiner responds, "applicant's use of 'only when accompanied by a token'
3 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the findings of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Aug. 27, 2014); the Reply
Brief (filed Feb. 9, 2015); the Final Office Action (mailed Jan. 14, 2014);
and the Examiner's Answer (mailed Dec. 12, 2014) for the respective
details.
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Appeal2015-004222
Application 13/525,017
is synonymous with having a sufficient amount of tokens. Furthermore, the
tokens originate with the write command from the application server and
therefore accompany the write request." (Ans. 3.)
We are persuaded the Examiner errs. The tokens disclosed in Jnagal
do not originate with write commands, as the Examiner states, but rather are
periodically allocated by the system. (Jnagal col. 10, 11. 9-11.) The
Examiner does not explain how the use of tokens in Jnagal teaches or
suggests the claim requirement that the tokens accompany the write
requests. Therefore, on the record before us, we are constrained to find the
Examiner errs in rejecting independent claim 1.
CONCLUSIONS
For the reasons stated above, we do not sustain the obviousness
rejection of independent claim 1. We also do not sustain the obviousness
rejections of claims 2 and 3, which claims depend from claim 1.
As discussed above, we summarily affirm the provisional rejection of
claims 1-3 on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double
patenting.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's provisional rejection of claims 1-3 on the
ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting. Because we
have affirmed at least one ground of rejection with respect to each claim on
appeal, the Examiner's decision is affirmed. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(a)(l).
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Appeal2015-004222
Application 13/525,017
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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