Ex Parte DeNeui et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 8, 2017

13852179 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 8, 2017)

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.
13/852,179 03/28/2013 Nathaniel S. DeNeui 83156491 2437
56436 7590
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
EXAMINER
DOAN, DUC T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2135
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/10/2017 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):
hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com
chris. mania @ hpe. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte NATHANIEL S. DeNEUI, TOD D. RUSHTON,
and JOSEPH DAVID BLACK
Appeal 2016-003710
Application 13/852,1791
Technology Center 2100
Before JEAN R. HOMERE, AARON W. MOORE, and
PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges.
HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—20, which constitute all of the
claims pending in this appeal. App. Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as Hewlett Packard
Development Company, LP. App. Br. 2.
Appeal 2016-003710
Application 13/852,179
Appellants ’ Invention
Appellants invented a redundant array of independent disks (RAID)
controller (102) that utilizes a dual purpose cache (108) contained therein to
perform both maintenance operations and host I/O operations
simultaneously. Spec. 110, Fig. 1. The dual purpose cache (108) can
receive instructions to read data from or write data to a particular location in
a disk drive of an array (104) to thereby rebuild a disk drive after a failure, to
rearrange the disk drives, or to calculate parity data while performing a
read/write instruction received from the host. Id. H 13, 19—21.
Illustrative Claim
Independent claim 1 is illustrative, and reads as follows:
1. A storage system, comprising:
an array of disk drives; and
a controller communicatively coupled to the array of disk
drives, the controller comprising a dual purpose cache for
storing data from the array of disk drives, the controller to use
the dual purpose cache to perform maintenance operations and
host input/output (I/O) operations simultaneously.
Prior Art Relied Upon
Maeda US 2009/0327801 A1 Dec. 31,2009
Rejections on Appeal
Claims 10-12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) or 35 U.S.C.
§112 (pre-AIA), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to
particularly point out the subject matter which Appellants regard as the
invention. Ans. 4.
Claims 1—20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Maeda. Ans. 5—10.
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Appeal 2016-003710
Application 13/852,179
ANALYSIS
We consider Appellants’ arguments seriatim, as they are presented in
the Appeal Brief, pages 4—12, and the Reply Brief, pages 1—5.2
35 U.S.C. § 112 Rejection
Appellants argue that because the scope of “a rebuild operation,” “a
transformation operation,” and “an initialization operation” as recited in
claims 10, 11, and 12, respectively, is clearly defined by Appellants’
Specification, the Examiner’s indefmiteness rejection is in error. App. Br.
6—7; Reply Br. 4—5 (citing Spec. 19-21). This argument is persuasive.
As noted by Appellants, the Specification describes “a rebuild
operation” as a “type of operation [that] can be used to recover data after a
disk drive failure occurs.” Spec. 119. Likewise, the Specification describes
“a transformation operation” as a type of operation wherein the “controller
alters the arrangement of the array of disk drives.” Id. 120. Additionally,
the Specification describes an “initialization operation” as an operation
wherein the “controller reads data in the array of disk drives to calculate
parity data.” Id. 121. We do not agree with the Examiner’s conclusion that
the scope of the cited claim terms is “not clear.” Ans. 4, 10. We concur
with Appellants that one of ordinary skill in the art having read the cited
portions of the Specification would have been apprised of the scope of the
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner, we
refer to the Appeal Brief (filed August 31, 2015), the Reply Brief (filed
February 24, 2016), and the Answer (mailed January 4, 2016) for their
respective details. We have considered in this Decision only those
arguments Appellants actually raised in the Briefs. Any other arguments
Appellants could have made but chose not to make in the Briefs are deemed
to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv) (2012).
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Application 13/852,179
cited limitations. App. Br. 6—7; Reply Br. 4—5. Accordingly, we do not
sustain the rejection of claims 10—12 as being indefinite.
35 U.S.C. § 103 Rejection
Regarding the rejection of claim 1, Appellants argue the Maeda does
not teach or suggest a controller that uses a dual purpose cache to perform
maintenance operations and I/O operations simultaneously. App. Br. 9;
Reply Br. 1. In particular, Appellants argue that although Maeda discloses a
cache, it is not a dual purpose cache. Rather, it is a cache memory that
performs a series of operations in a conventional manner. Id. According to
Appellants, Maeda discloses an I/O request handling section for processing
I/O requests, a rebuild process section for rebuilding from a faulty disk, and
a cache management section for managing the cache separately from the I/O
request handling section. App. Br. 9 flflf 36, 41 44). Therefore, Appellants
submit that the separate processes are performed by different entities within
the controller, and cannot be performed simultaneously by a single entity
(e.g., the dual purpose cache), as required by the claim. Id. at 10. These
arguments are not persuasive.
As correctly noted by the Examiner, Maeda discloses a multi-purpose
cache for supporting the rebuild process, I/O request handling, and
information management. Ans. 12—13 (citing Maeda 33—44, Fig. 1).
Further, as correctly noted by the Examiner, Maeda discloses that while the
rebuild process section 16 is performing the rebuild process, an I/O request
is inputted from the host. Id. at 14 (citing Maeda 142). In particular, Maeda
discloses that if the target area of the I/O request is determined to be the
same target area of the rebuild process, then the rebuild process section 16
may process both the rebuild process and the I/O request. Id. at 15 (citing
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Appeal 2016-003710
Application 13/852,179
Maeda 142). Maeda further discloses that “[i]f the target area of the I/O
request is not the target area of the rebuild process, then the I/O request
handling section 15 performs the ordinary I/O request handling as in
ordinary cases.” Id. at 14 (citing Maeda 142.) We note that the claim does
not require the maintenance operation and I/O operations be conducted in
the same area. In view of these teachings, we agree with the Examiner that
it would have been obvious for the rebuild process section to perform the
rebuild process and the I/O request simultaneously using the cache because
it would expedite the handling of such processes and thereby avoid
processing delays.
Regarding the rejection of claims 2—20, because Appellants reiterate
substantially the same arguments as those previously discussed for
patentability of claim 1 above, the cited claims fall therewith. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv).
DECISION
For the above reasons, we affirm the Examiner’s obviousness
rejection of claims 1—20. However, we reverse the Examiner’s
indefiniteness rejection of claims 10—12.
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)(1).
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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