Ex Parte Banerjee et alDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardJun 13, 201914510829 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jun. 13, 2019) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/510,829 10/09/2014 112792 7590 06/17/2019 Haynes and Boone, LLP (47415) Attn: IPDocketing 2323 Victory A venue, Suite 700 Dallas, TX 75219 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Arindam Banerjee 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. 47415.553US01 4268 EXAMINER WEI,JANE ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2131 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/17/2019 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): ipdocketing@haynesboone.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ARINDAM BANERJEE and DONALD R. HUMLICEK Appeal 2017-011823 Application 14/510,829 1 Technology Center 2100 Before HUNG H. BUI, MICHAEL M. BARRY, and DAVID J. CUTITTA II, Administrative Patent Judges. CUTITTA, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 1-21, all of the pending claims of the application. We have jurisdiction over this appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). Oral arguments were heard on June 10, 2019. A transcript of that hearing will be added to the record in due time. We REVERSE. 1 NetApp, Inc. ("Appellant") is the Applicant, as provided for under 37 C.F .R. § 1.46, and is also identified in the Appeal Brief as the real party in interest. See Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2017-011823 Application 14/510,829 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Invention According to Appellant, the invention relates to using dynamic "hashing techniques in networked storage systems." Spec. ,r 1. 2 Illustrative Claim Claims 1, 8, and 15 are independent claims. Claim 1 is illustrative and is reproduced below with the disputed limitation italicized: 1. A machine implemented method, comprising: analyzing a plurality of input/output (I/0) requests to determine a pattern indicating if the I/0 requests are random or sequential; and using the pattern for dynamically changing a first input to a second input for computing a hash index value by a hashing function that is used to index into a hashing data structure to look up a cache block to cache an I/0 request to read or write data; wherein for random 1/0 requests, a segment size is the first input to a hashing function to compute a first hash index value and for sequential 1/0 requests, a stripe size is used as the second input for computing a second hash index value. Appeal Br. 13. 2 This Decision refers to: (1) Appellant's Specification filed October 9, 2014 ("Spec."); (2) the Final Office Action ("Final Act.") mailed September 23, 2016; (3) the Appeal Brief ("Appeal Br.") filed April 14, 2017; (4) the Examiner's Answer ("Ans.") mailed August 11, 2017; and (5) the Reply Brief ("Reply Br.") filed September 27, 2017. 2 Appeal 2017-011823 Application 14/510,829 REJECTI0N3 Claims 1-21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) as being indefinite. Final Act. 5---6. Our review in this appeal is limited to the above rejection and the issues raised by Appellant. Arguments not made are waived. See 3 7 C.F .R. § 4I.37(c)(l)(iv). ANALYSIS The Examiner finds the limitation "wherein for random I/0 requests, a segment size is the first input to a hashing function to compute a first hash index value and for sequential I/0 requests, a stripe size is used as the second input for computing a second hash index value," as recited in claim 1 and similarly recited in claims 8 and 15, is indefinite under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b ). See Final Act. 2-3. Specifically, the Examiner determines claim 1 is indefinite because "[t]he relation of the segment is not clearly defined in the claims" and "[t]he terms 'segment' and 'stripe' are very broad terms." Final Act. 3. According to the Examiner, as known in the art, "a stripe can comprise segments or a segment can comprise stripes" and, as such, the terms "'[s]tripe' and 'segment' are interpreted to be the same herein." Id. Appellant argues the rejection is erroneous because the "specification describes the 'segment' and 'stripe' terms such that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have understood that stripes are written across a given number of physical disks and that these stripes are composed of segments that are stored on the different physical storage devices." Reply Br. 3. 3 The Examiner withdraws the rejection of claims 1-21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 in the Answer. See Ans. 3. 3 Appeal 2017-011823 Application 14/510,829 "The legal standard for definiteness is whether a claim reasonably apprises those of skill in the art of its scope." In re Warmerdam, 33 F.3d 1354, 1361 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (citation omitted). "'[A] claim is indefinite when it contains words or phrases whose meaning is unclear."' In re Packard, 751 F.3d 1307, 1310, 1314--15 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (citing Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) § 2173.05(e)). We agree with Appellant that, in view of the cited paragraphs of the Specification, the Examiner has not demonstrated that one skilled in the art would have found the disputed limitation unclear. Appellant's Specification discloses in part: The storage devices within a logical volume/file system are typically organized as one or more groups, wherein each group may be operated as a RAID. Most RAID implementations, e.g., a RAID-6 level implementation, enhance the reliability/integrity of data storage through the redundant writing of data "stripes" across a given number of physical disks in the RAID group, and the appropriate storing of parity information with respect to the striped data. In computer data storage, data striping is a technique of segmenting logically sequential data, such as a file, so that consecutive segments are stored on different physical storage devices. Striping is useful when a processing device requests data more quickly than a single storage device can provide it. By spreading segments across multiple devices which can be accessed concurrently, total data throughput is s increased. It is also a useful method for balancing I/0 load across an array of disks. In conjunction with this, a "stripe" herein may refer to a block of data in data striping. Spec. ,r 28 ( emphasis added). In view of paragraph 28 of the Specification, one skilled in the art would have understood data striping is a technique for dividing logically sequential data into segments so that consecutive segments of the stripe are stored on different physical storage devices. Thus, a stripe is made up of a 4 Appeal 2017-011823 Application 14/510,829 plurality of segments and, as such, cannot be broadly interpreted to be the same as a "segment." Accordingly, one skilled in the art would have been able to distinguish between stripes and segments, and would have understood, with a reasonable degree of clarity, the meaning of the terms "segment size" and "stripe size," as recited in claims 1, 8, and 15. In view of the above, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-21 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b). DECISION We reverse the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-21 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b). REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation