Ex Parte Dar et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 25, 2018

13267208 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 25, 2018)

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.
13/267,208 10/06/2011 Itay Dar 016295.4294 4196
31625 7590 01/29/2018
BAKER BOTTS L.L.P.
PATENT DEPARTMENT
98 SAN JACINTO BLVD., SUITE 1500
AUSTIN, TX 78701-4039
EXAMINER
FILIPCZYK, MARCIN R
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2158
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/29/2018 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):
juli.luong@BakerBotts.com
tracy. engberg @ bakerbott s. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ITAY DAR and JACOB CHERIAN
Appeal 2017-003714
Application 13/267,208
Technology Center 2100
Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, JON M. JURGOVAN, and
MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges.
MacDONALD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2017-003714
Application 13/267,208
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1—9, which constitute all the claims pending in this application. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
Representative Claim
Representative claim 4 under appeal reads as follows (emphasis
added):
4. A method for enumerating inodes, comprising:
locating a plurality of inode files associated with a file system;
identifying one or more inodes within the plurality of inode
files, each of the one or more inodes including a pointer to a first
physical address representing a location of data of a file;
for each of the one or more inodes, determining a physical
address range representing a location of the inode, the physical
address range including a second physical address and an offset,
creating a list including, for each of the one or more inodes, the
physical address range representing the location of the inode; and
sorting the list based on the physical address range for each of
the one or more inodes.
Rejection on Appeal
The Examiner rejected claims 1—9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Kaplan et al. (US 8,341,130 B2; iss.
Dec. 25, 2012) and LaBerge (US 2011/0004630 Al; iss. Jan. 6, 2011).1
1 As to this rejection, our decision as to the rejection of claim 4 is
determinative. Therefore, except for our ultimate decision, the rejection of
claims 1—3 and 5—9 is not discussed further herein.
2
Appeal 2017-003714
Application 13/267,208
Issues on Appeal
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 4 as being obvious?
PRINCIPLES OF LAW
During examination, “claims ... are to be given their broadest
reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification, and . . . claim
language should be read in light of the specification as it would be
interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art.” In re Bond, 910 F.2d 831,
833 (Fed. Cir. 1990); In re Bass, 314 F.3d 575, 577 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (“[T]he
PTO must apply the broadest reasonable meaning to the claim language,
taking into account any definitions presented in the specification.”); In re
Cortright, 165 F.3d 1353, 1358 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (“Although the PTO must
give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation, this interpretation must
be consistent with the one that those skilled in the art would reach.”).
Although we apply the broadest reasonable interpretation during
examination, “[ajbove all, the broadest reasonable interpretation must be
reasonable in light of the claims and specification.” PPC Broadband, Inc. v.
Corning Optical Commc’ns RF, LLC, 815 F.3d 747, 755 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
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Appeal 2017-003714
Application 13/267,208
ANALYSIS2
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’
arguments that the Examiner has erred.
A
The Examiner finds Kaplan discloses “a file system,” “locating]
inode files associated with the file system,” and “identifying] one or more
inodes within the plurality of inode files.” Final Act. 3 (emphasis omitted).
Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 4 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because
[i]n making the rejection, the Examiner conflates an inode, which
stores file attributes and data pointers for a single file or directory
in the file system, with an inode file, which contains an array of
inodes.
App. Br. 9.
Kaplan . . . expressly and repeatedly states that only one inode
file containing a single inode array is present in the system.
App. Br. 12 (emphasis omitted).
[T]he Examiner appears to disregard the elements of [the claim],
which recite locating “a plurality of inode files” and identifying
“one or more inodes within the plurality of inode files.” Thus,
multiple inode files are located, and inodes within any of those
multiple inode files may be identified for processing, regardless
of the number of inodes actually identified in the end.
App. Br. 12—13 (emphasis omitted).
The Examiner responds:
The pending claims comprise locating a plurality of inode
files and identifying inode(s) within the plurality of inode files.
The disclosure or claims, however do not teach how an inode file
2 The contentions discussed herein are determinative as to the rejection on
appeal.
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Application 13/267,208
is located or identified from the “plurality of inode files”. It
appears that the appellant is referring to inode files to account for
all the inodes in a file system, even referring to an inode as a file
inode (see paragraph 40 above). Nowhere does the disclosure
teach a plurality of inode files organized or stored in a single or
plural file system enabling searching or identifying inode file(s)
from a plurality of inode files using a keywor[d], attribute or any
identifier to distinguish between the plural inode files. Instead,
inodes are organized and traversed, where the invention focuses
on determining physical address range representing location of
relevant inodes (fig. 4B, instant publication).
As such, Examiner interprets inode files claimed as an
inode file structure comprising inodes representing files and
directories in a file system (fig. 2, instant publication). Similarly
Kaplan teaches inode file(s) structure comprising inodes
representing files and directories in a file system (fig. 2, Kaplan).
Ans. 5 (emphasis added).
First, the Examiner concludes that the broadest reasonable
interpretation of the claimed “a plurality of inode files” is “an inode file
structure comprising inodes representing files and directories in a file
system.” Ans. 5. We disagree. We conclude the Examiner does not set
forth sufficient basis for this broad interpretation of the claimed “a plurality
of inode files.” Although the Examiner refers to portions of Appellants’
Specification to support this conclusion (Ans. 2—5), we conclude that an
objective observer skilled in the art reading these portions would not reach
the Examiner’s interpretation. The Examiner references paragraph 40 of
Appellants’ Specification at pages 3^4 of the Answer. Although on a single
occasion in paragraph 40 Appellants refer to inode 236 as “inode file 236,”
we deem this to be a typographical error as on all other occasions, the
reference is to “inode 236” (Spec. 40), and similarly “inode 232” and “inode
234” (id.). Also, the Examiner references paragraph 42 of Appellants’
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Specification at page 5 of the Answer and highlights the following sentence:
“In addition, although one inode file 250 is shown, system 200 may have
any number of inodes and/or inode files.” However, the sentence
highlighted by the Examiner is clear that “although one inode file is shown”
there may be “any number of. . . inode files.” This contradicts the
Examiner’s reading of “a plurality of inode files” as requiring only one
inode file.
Second, as to the Examiner’s conclusion that “[njowhere does the
disclosure teach a plurality of inode files organized or stored in a single or
plural file system” (Ans. 5), we disagree. Appellants’ Specification refers to
such “inode files” (plural) at pages 6, 15, and 18. Examiner’s response
(Ans. 5) appears to raise a question as to whether the claimed invention, as
argued by Appellants, is supported by the disclosure. In such instances, a
written description rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112 may be appropriate.
However, although we consider the entire written description in construing
the claims, any rejection under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and 103 must remain
directed to the invention as claimed, not an invention disclosed but not
claimed.
We conclude, consistent with Appellants’ argument, there is
insufficient articulated reasoning to support the Examiner’s findings.
Therefore, we conclude that there is insufficient articulated reasoning to
support the Examiner’s final conclusion that claim 4 would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of Appellants’
invention.
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Application 13/267,208
B
The Examiner finds Kaplan discloses “one or more inodes including a
pointer to a first physical address representing a location of data of a file
(fig. 2, items 112, 200, 215 and 220,. . .)” (Final Act. 3 (emphasis omitted))
and “for each of the one or more inodes, determin[ing] an address range
representing a location of the inode, the address range including a second
address and an offset (col. 5, lines 24-37,. . .)” (Final Act. 4).
Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 4 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because
[t]he Examiner . . . appears to identify data pointer 215 as the
recited first physical address (see Final Office Action, page 3,
citing fig. 2, item 215), while simultaneously citing the passage
describing data pointer 215 as teaching the recited second
physical address (see Final Office action, page 4, citing col. 5,
lines 24-37). Thus, the Examiner appears to improperly identify
data pointer 215 as both the claimed first and second physical
addresses. (Final Office Action, pages 3-4). Even if the data
pointer 215 of Kaplan can be equated to a first physical address,
which Applicants do not concede, Kaplan does not disclose a
separate “second physical address” as recited by Claim[ 4],
App. Br. 14 (emphasis omitted).
Alternatively, the Examiner asserts that LaBerge remedies
the deficiencies of Kaplan because it teaches “a filesystem
wherein location and length of range of directory blocks on disk
are determined using directory extents and inodes including
address offset” and that “[t]he inode numbers thus comprise a
physical address range ‘range of directory blocks.’” (Final
Office Action, p. 4). .. .
As an initial matter, the Examiner appears to misinterpret
the claims by stating that “the address is a physical address range
representing a location of the inode and offset.” However, the
Claims do not indicate that the physical address is a physical
address range; instead, the Claims recite that the “physical
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Application 13/267,208
address range” includes “a second physical address,” among
other elements.
App. Br. 15 (emphasis omitted).
In addition, LaBerge does not disclose, teach or suggest
determining a physical address range representing a location of
an inode. . . . Instead, as Applicants have previously explained,
the cited passages of LaBerge discuss the locations of directory
extents, which identify the “locations and length of a contiguous
range of directory blocks on disk.”
App. Br. 16 (emphasis omitted).
The Examiner responds by repeating the findings of the Final Action
(Ans. 10) and quoting paragraph 42 of LaBerge (Ans. 11). The Examiner
then concludes:
Taken together, Kaplan teaches an inode (220) comprising
at least one address (215) pointing to a first physical location
(300) representing a location of data of a file (fig. 2, items 220,
215 and 300, Kaplan). Kaplan in view of LaBerge, add to
Kaplan’s inode a physical address range including a second
physical address and an offset (“this list contains a starting disk
offset (i.e., a physical location) and a length”, par. 42,
LaBerge[]).
Ans. 11.
We agree with Appellants that there is insufficient articulated
reasoning to support the Examiner’s findings as to paragraphs 39 and 42 of
LaBerge that
LaBerge teaches a filesystem wherein location and length of
range of directory blocks on disk are determined using directory
extents and inodes including physical address offset (figs. 2B, 3
and pars. 39 and 42, LaBerge). The inode numbers thus comprise
a physical address range “range of directory blocks”.
Final Act. 4. Therefore, we conclude that there is insufficient articulated
reasoning to support the Examiner’s final conclusion that claim 4 would
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Application 13/267,208
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of
Appellants’ invention. Put another way, the Examiner’s conclusion of
obviousness is not supported by sufficient fact findings (that is, a rational
underpinning) on the record.3
CONCLUSIONS
(1) Appellants have established that the Examiner erred in rejecting
claims 1—9 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
(2) On this record, these claims have not been shown to be
unpatentable.
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—9 is reversed.
REVERSED
3 Should there be further prosecution of the claims on appeal, we direct the
Examiner’s attention to paragraph 29 of LaBerge. This paragraph may be
relevant to creating a list and sorting the list based on a physical address as
recited in Appellants’ claims.
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