Ex Parte Baptist et alDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 24, 201913920635 - (D) (P.T.A.B. May. 24, 2019) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/920,635 06/18/2013 89322 7590 05/29/2019 Garlick & Markison (IBM) 100 Congress A venue, Suite 2000 Austin, TX 78701 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Andrew Baptist 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. CS00443/END920l 65762US 14 4479 EXAMINER GUZMAN, JAVIER 0 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2446 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/29/2019 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): MMURDOCK@TEXASPATENTS.COM bpierotti@texaspatents.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ANDREW BAPTIST, WESLEY LEGGETTE and JASON K. RESCH 1 Appeal2018-004332 Application 13/920,635 Technology Center 2400 Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, JOHN A. JEFFERY, and JENNIFER L. McKEOWN, Administrative Patent Judges. NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Final Rejection of claims 1 through 16, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is International Business Machines. App. Br. 2. Appeal2018-004332 Application 13/920,635 INVENTION The invention is directed to a method for resolving performance issues in a distributed storage system which involves identifying a device contributing to the performance issue and issuing a message to the device which includes test information specific for the device to execute. Abstract. Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and is reproduced below. A method for execution by one or more processing modules of one or more requesting devices of a dispersed storage network (DSN), the method comprises: when a DSN performance issue is detected that will affect a data access request, identifying a distributed storage unit (SU) of a set of distributed SUs of the DSN potentially contributing to the DSN performance issue, wherein a requesting device of the DSN sends a set of messages regarding the data access request to the set of SU s; and for the SU: determining a potential performance issue of the SU based on how the SU is potentially contributing to the DSN performance issue; determining a performance test based on the potential performance issue; generating a message that includes a protocol header and a payload, wherein the protocol header includes an indication to identify the message as a test request message and the payload includes test information specific for the SU to execute the performance test; sending the message to the SU; receiving, from the SU, a response message that includes a response header and a response payload, wherein the response header includes an indication to identify the response message as a test response message and the response payload includes a specific test result data generated based on the test information; and 2 Appeal2018-004332 Application 13/920,635 determining, based on the specific test result data, whether the SU has the potential performance issue and is contributing to the DSN performance issue. REJECTION AT ISSUE2 The Examiner has rejected claims 1 through 16 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Yamamoto (US 2004/0049572 Al; Mar. 11, 2004), Chan (US 2005/0018611 Al; Jan. 27, 2005) and Byan (US 8,386,838 Bl; Feb. 26, 2013). Final Act. 4--12. ANALYSIS We have reviewed Appellants' arguments in the Briefs, the Examiner's rejection, and the Examiner's response to Appellants' arguments. Appellants' arguments have persuaded us of error in the Examiner's obviousness rejection. Appellants argue, on pages 5 through 8 of the Appeal Brief and pages 3 through 4 of the Reply Brief, that the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 1 and 9 is in error. The dispositive issue presented by these arguments is did the Examiner err in finding the combination Yamamoto, Chan, and Byan teach "determining a potential performance issue of the SU based on how the SU is potentially contributing to the DSN performance issue; determining a performance test based on the potential performance issue; generating a message ... [wherein] the payload includes test 2 Throughout this Decision, we refer to the Appeal Brief ("App. Br.") filed November 30, 2017, the Reply Brief ("Reply Br.") filed March 19, 2018, the Final Office Action ("Final Act.") mailed June 30, 2017, and the Examiner's Answer ("Ans.") mailed January 23, 2018. 3 Appeal2018-004332 Application 13/920,635 information specific for the SU to execute the performance test" as recited in claim 1 and similarly recited in independent claim 9. The Examiner's rejection cites to Yamamoto to teach the limitation directed to determining the potential performance issue. Final Act. 4 ( citing Yamamoto paragraph 6), Ans. 3 ( citing paragraphs 6, 31, and 56 through 61 ). Further, the Examiner cites Chan to teach the limitation directed to determining a performance test based upon the potential performance issue and generating a message that includes the test for the specific unit as is claimed. Final Act. 5---6 ( citing Chan paragraph 31 and 101 ), Ans. 4--5 ( citing Chan paragraphs 31 through 33 and 41 through 58 and 62). We disagree with the Examiner's findings that the combination of the references teaches the disputed limitations. Initially, we are not persuaded by Appellants' arguments that the Examiner erred in finding that Yamamoto teaches determining a performance issue and identifying a unit associated with the issue. The independent claims do not recite how the performance issue is detected, and thus are not limited to the detected issue being based upon the data access request, as argued by Appellants on page 4 of the Appeal Brief. However, we do not find the cited paragraphs of Chan teach determining a performance test based upon the determined potential performance issue, or that the test information is specific to the storage unit which is determined to be the potential performance issue. As stated by the Examiner, the cited paragraphs of Chan teach the tests are part of "a method for determining network utilization, response time, throughput characteristics, capacity, utilization, and performance of the networked system." Ans. 4. 4 Appeal2018-004332 Application 13/920,635 However, the Examiner has not shown that these tests are based upon a determined potential performance issue or that they are specific to storage units. Thus, we do not consider the Examiner to have shown that the references teach the limitations of each of the independent claims. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejection of claims 1 through 16. DECISION We reverse the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1 through 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation