Ex Parte Kumar et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 12, 2016

13677957 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 12, 2016)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
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APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/677,957 11/15/2012 Pashupati Kumar 112-0689US 7984
85197 7590 12/14/2016 EXAMINER
RrnoaHe
c/o Blank Rome LLP HO, BINH VAN
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Houston, TX 77002 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2163
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/14/2016 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.
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PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte PASHUPATI KUMAR, AMAR VUTUKURU, and
AMR SABAA
Appeal 2016-000362
Application 13/677,9571
Technology Center 2100
Before LARRY J. HUME, SCOTT B. HOWARD, and ALEX S. YAP,
Administrative Patent Judges.
HUME, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL2
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Final
Rejection of claims 1—43. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Brocade
Communications Systems, Inc. App. Br. 3.
2 Our decision relies upon Appellants' Appeal Brief ("App. Br.," filed
Apr. 29, 2015); Reply Brief ("Reply Br.," filed Oct. 7, 2015); Examiner's
Answer ("Ans.," mailed Aug. 13, 2015); Final Office Action ("Final Act.,"
mailed Jan. 29, 2015); and the original Specification ("Spec.," filed
Nov. 15,2012).
Appeal 2016-000362
Application 13/677,957
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Invention
Appellants' disclosed and claimed inventions relate "to the field of
computer networking, and in particular to techniques for sharing a dictionary
between deduplication engines in deduplication devices that support a shared
dictionary." Spec. 12 ("Technical Field").
Exemplary Claims
Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on
appeal (emphasis added to dispositive limitation):
1. A data deduplication engine (DDE), comprising:
a plurality of local area network (LAN) ports for
coupling to a LAN, the LAN including a data device and a
second DDE;
at least one wide area network (WAN) port for coupling
to a WAN, the WAN including a remote DDE; and
an engine coupled to the plurality of LAN ports and to
the at least one WAN port for receiving an input data stream
containing duplicates from the data device, providing an output
data stream containing duplicates to the data device, providing
references and segments to the remote DDE and receiving
references and segments from the remote DDE;
wherein upon receiving the input data stream from the
data device, the engine performs segmentation and fingerprint
processing on the input data stream to create a first segment and
a first fingerprint for the first segment; and
wherein the engine determines if the engine or the second
DDE owns the first fingerprint.
2
Appeal 2016-000362
Application 13/677,957
Prior Art
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art as evidence in
rejecting the claims on appeal:
Bandopadhyay US 2013/0086007 A1 Apr. 4, 2013
Preslan et al. ("Preslan") US 2013/0246366 A1 Sept. 19, 2013
Rejection on Appeal
Claims 1—43 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious
over the combination of Bandopadhyay and Preslan. Final Act. 2.
ISSUE
Appellants argue (App. Br. 8—13; Reply Br. 3—9) the Examiner's
rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over the
combination of Bandopadhyay and Preslan is in error. These contentions
present us with the following issue:
Did the Examiner err in finding the cited prior art combination teaches
or suggests a data deduplicating engine (DDE) wherein, inter alia, "the
engine determines if the engine or [a] second DDE owns the first
fingerprint," as recited in claim 1?
ANALYSIS
We agree with particular arguments advanced by Appellants with
respect to claims 1—43 for the specific reasons discussed below. We
highlight and address specific findings and arguments regarding claim 1 for
emphasis as follows.
3
Appeal 2016-000362
Application 13/677,957
Appellants contend claim 1 "requires the creation of a first fingerprint
for the first segment and also requires that the engine determine if the engine
or the second DDE owns the first fingerprint," and further argue the
Examiner erred because the combination of Bandopadhyay with Preslan,
particularly, Preslan, fails to teach or suggest this contested limitation. App.
Br. 9. Appellants disagree with the Examiner's findings because "Preslan
relates to a data-backup method which includes a deduplication protocol for
identifying new data that needs to be stored in a data-storage area . . . [and
identifying new data does not teach or suggest ownership of the
fingerprint." Id.
Appellants further argue:
[The Examiner] seems to suggest that because Preslan discusses
deduplication, having a DDE is implied. Even if that is the
case, there is still nothing in Preslan to suggest or teach the
concept of ownership of a fingerprint by one DDE. Preslan
simply fails to disclose one or more DDEs owning the
fingerprint. Accordingly, the limitation "wherein the engine
determines if the engine or the second DDE owns the first
fingerprint" is not taught by Preslan.
App. Br. 10-11.
We are persuaded by Appellants' argument that the determination of
whether data is "new" or "old" is not the same as determining the claimed
ownership3 of the fingerprint by a DDE.
Therefore, based upon the findings above, on this record, we are
persuaded of at least one error in the Examiner's reliance on the combined
teachings and suggestions of the cited prior art combination to teach or
3 We interpret "ownership" of a fingerprint by a particular DDE in light of
Appellants' Specification. See Spec. H 327—329.
4
Appeal 2016-000362
Application 13/677,957
suggest the dispositive limitation4 of claim 1, such that we find error in the
Examiner's resulting legal conclusion of obviousness. Therefore, we cannot
sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejection of independent claim 1.
For essentially the same reasons argued by Appellants discussed
above, we reverse the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 23 and 43,
which recite the disputed limitation in commensurate form. For the same
reasons, we also reverse the rejections of claims 2—22 and 24-42 that depend
from independent claims 1 and 23.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner erred with respect to the obviousness rejection of
claims 1—43 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the cited prior art combination of
record, and we do not sustain the rejection.
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1—43.
REVERSED
4 Although Appellants make additional arguments, we find the identified
issue to be dispositive of the Appeal, such that we need not reach the merits
of Appellants' other arguments. See App. Br. 11 et seq.
5