Ex Parte Dumitru et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 29, 201612104979 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 29, 2016) Copy Citation 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. 12/104,979 04/17/2008 Douglas Dumitru EasyCo - 110 4838 97110 7590 01/03/2017 RavmonH Van Dvke EXAMINER V an Dyke Law Washington Square, P.O. Box 65302 SIMONETTI, NICHOLAS J 1050 Connecticut Avenue NW Washington, DC 20035 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2137 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/03/2017 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): Vandyke @ acm. org ray @ray Vandyke, com vandykelaw @ aol.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte DOUGLAS DUMITRU and SAMUEL J. ANDERSON Appeal 2016-001977 Application 12/104,9791 Technology Center 2100 Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, JOHN P. PINKERTON, and GARTH D. BAER, Administrative Patent Judges. PINKERTON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1—14 and 21—30. Claims 15—20 were previously withdrawn from consideration by the Examiner. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 The real parties in interest identified by Appellants are the inventors, Douglas Dumitru and Samuel J. Anderson. Appeal Br. 3. Appeal 2016-001977 Application 12/104,979 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellants’ described and claimed invention relates generally to “optimizing access to block storage devices.” Spec. 1,11. 11—12.2 Claim 1 is representative and reads as follows (with the disputed limitations emphasized)'. 1. A method of fast data storage on a block storage device, comprising: determining if a write block is empty based on state data about the write block, wherein the state data is associated with an entry in a lookup table for the write block; writing new data and associated meta data to the empty write block, tracking a location of the new data; and wherein said writing of said new data and said meta data is done linearly across the write block. Appeal Br. 40 (Claims App.). Rejections on Appeal Claims 1, 2, 5—7, 21, 22, 26, and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Gorobets et al. (US 2003/0165076 Bl; published Sept. 4, 2003) (“Gorobets”). Claims 3 and 8—14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gorobets, in view of Rand (US 2004/0002999 Al; published Jan. 1, 2004) (“Rand”). 2 Our Decision refers to the Final Office Action (mailed Feb. 21, 2013, “Final Act.”), Appellants’ Appeal Brief (filed Dec. 23, 2013, “Appeal Br.”), the Examiner’s Answer (mailed Dec. 5, 2014, “Ans.”), and the original Specification (filed Apr. 17, 2008, “Spec.”). 2 Appeal 2016-001977 Application 12/104,979 Claim 4 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gorobets, in view of Sinclair (US 2007/0033374 Al; published Feb. 8, 2007) (“Sinclair”). Claims 23—25 and 28—31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Gorobets, in view of Rodriguez-Rivera (US 7,299,384 Bl; issued Nov. 20, 2007) (“Rodriguez-Rivera”). ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief (see App. Br. 10-39) and are not persuaded that the Examiner has erred. Unless otherwise noted, we adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Office Action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 2—27) and in the Examiner’s Answer (Ans. 2—33), and we concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. For emphasis, we consider and highlight specific arguments as presented in the Appeal Brief. Rejection of Claims 1, 2, 5—7, 21, 22, 26, and 27 under § 102(e) Appellants argue Gorobets’s erase block fails to teach the claimed “write block,” because Gorobets’s erase block only has 16 kilobytes (KB) of total data storage size, whereas the claimed “write block” can be “hundreds of megabytes in size.” Appeal Br. 15—16. We do not find this argument persuasive. We agree with the Examiner that Appellants’ specification describes an embodiment where the claimed “write block” is designed to match a natural write unit of a storage device hardware, such as Gorobets’s erase block. See Ans. 3; see also Spec. col. 9,11. 31—33. Further, we agree with the Examiner the argued feature of a “write block” being “hundreds of megabytes in size,” is not recited in independent claim 1. See Ans. 3. 3 Appeal 2016-001977 Application 12/104,979 Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184 (Fed. Cir. 1993). We have considered Appellants’ other arguments regarding patentability of independent claim 1 (see Appeal Br. 16—21), and we do not find them persuasive for the reasons provided by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer. See Ans. 4—12. We have also considered Appellants’ separate arguments regarding patentability of claims 2, 5—7, 21, 22, 26, and 27 (see Appeal Br. 21—26), and we also do not find them persuasive for the reasons provided by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer. See Ans. 12— 21. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1, 5, 21, and 26, and dependent claims 2, 6—7, 22, and 27. Rejection of Claims 3 and 8—14 under § 103(a) Appellants argue the combination of Gorobets and Rand fails to teach or suggest “populating a memory at the physical address with data representing empty data,” as recited in claim 3. See Appeal Br. 29. More specifically, Appellants argue “[i]t would ... be meaningless in the context of Gorobets to express empty space in the metadata because the metadata cannot be used to express both a physical address, and a virtualized address for null data,” and “[i]t is only possible to express such data in a logical structure which surrounds multiple sectors such as the [claimed] invention.” Id. Appellants additionally argue Rand fails to teach storing data in a compressed fashion, and instead, merely discusses moving less data between computers by virtualizing blocks. See id. We do not find these arguments persuasive. We agree with the Examiner that the argued feature of “a logical structure that surrounds 4 Appeal 2016-001977 Application 12/104,979 multiple sectors” is not recited in claim 3. See Ans. 21—22. We further agree with the Examiner that Rand teaches a block state (i.e., “state data”) that identifies an allocated block containing all zeros (i.e., “empty data”), and that Rand further teaches retrieving the empty data from a backup system and writing the empty data to the block based on the state data. See Ans. 23; see also Rand 128. We have considered Appellants’ other arguments regarding patentability of claim 3 (see Appeal Br. 29-30), and we do not find them persuasive for the reasons provided by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer. See Ans. 22—23. Appellants separately argue the combination of Gorobets and Rand fails to teach or suggest “writing a portion of the new data and a count into a portion of said associated meta data . . . wherein the written portion and the count are configured to decompress into the new data,” as recited in independent claim 9. See Appeal Br. 30-31. More specifically, Appellants argue “the Gorobets design is intended to cause the writing of ‘sectors’ as the smallest unit of storage write of compressed data,” “the compression of the data within a sector leads to no benefit as the data compressed will still only be storable in a 512 byte storage canister,” and “[w]hen compressing data in a block device . . . one must think about compressing it from a larger unit of storage, such as . . . 4KB blocks . .. into a multiple of a smaller modulus such as a 512 byte sector.” Id. Appellants further argue Rand does not discuss compressing as a technique, but instead discusses the use of check sums to determine if backup data is already present. See Appeal Br. 31. We also do not find these arguments persuasive. We agree with the Examiner that even assuming arguendo that Appellants are correct that 5 Appeal 2016-001977 Application 12/104,979 Gorobets’s compressed data will only be storable in a 512 byte storage canister, such a data compression scheme as taught by the cited prior art would still be beneficial in reducing the amount of time necessary to write the compressed data and transfer the compressed data. See Ans. 24—25. We also agree with the Examiner that the argued feature of “compressing [data] from a larger unit of storage . . . into a multiple of a smaller modulus” is not recited in independent claim 9. See Ans. 25. We further agree with the Examiner that Rand teaches storing a block state (i.e., “written portion”) indicative of a data block having a common pattern which can be recreated by a backup system (i.e., “configured to decompress into the new data”), where representing the data block as a block state is a form of compression. See Ans. 26. We have also considered Appellants’ separate arguments regarding patentability of claims 8 and 11—14 (see Appeal Br. 30-32), and we also do not find them persuasive for the reasons provided by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer. See Ans. 24—27. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 9 and 11, and dependent claims 3, 8, 10, and 12-14. Rejection of Claim 4 under § 103(a) Appellants argue Sinclair fails to teach linear data writes, as “Sinclair deliberately employs non-linearity, doing partial writes to blocks and then later filling up unused but erased space in these.” Appeal Br. 34. We do not find this argument persuasive. We agree with the Examiner that Sinclair teaches linearly writing overhead metadata in a continuous manner along with data. See Ans. 27—28. We further agree with the Examiner that the argued feature of “linearity” is not recited in claim 4. See Ans. 28. 6 Appeal 2016-001977 Application 12/104,979 We have considered Appellants’ other arguments regarding patentability of claim 4 (see Appeal Br. 33—35), and we do not find them persuasive for the reasons provided by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer. See Ans. 27—30. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 4. Rejection of Claims 23—25 and 28—30 under § 103(a) Appellants argue Rodriguez-Rivera’s header and footer structure serves only a stylized presentation purpose, whereas the order of the “front and back portion” in the claimed invention serves a specific purpose. See Appeal Br. 36—37. We do not find this argument persuasive. We agree with the Examiner that the argued feature of a “purpose” of the header and footer structure is merely an intended use that is not recited in claim 23, and that Appellants do not identify any structural differences between Rodriguez- Rivera’s header and footer and the claimed “front and back portion” of the metadata. See Ans. 30—31. We have considered Appellants’ other arguments regarding patentability of claim 23 (see Appeal Br. 36—37), and we do not find them persuasive for the reasons provided by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer. See Ans. 31. We have also considered Appellants’ separate arguments regarding patentability of claims 24, 25 and 28—30 (see Appeal Br. 37), and we also do not find them persuasive for the reasons provided by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer. See Ans. 32. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 23—25 and 28—30. 7 Appeal 2016-001977 Application 12/104,979 DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 5—7, 21, 22, 26, and 27 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e). We affirm the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 3, 4, 8—14, 23—25, and 28-31 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). 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 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation