Ex Parte Lee

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Sep 10, 2002

08958844 (B.P.A.I. Sep. 10, 2002)

-1-
The opinion in support of the decision being entered
today was not written for publication and is not
binding precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 22
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
________________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
________________
Ex parte BYUNG-JOON LEE
________________
Appeal No. 2001-1573
Application 08/958,844
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HEARD: AUGUST 14, 2002
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Before KRASS, LALL and SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judges.
LALL, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-9, all pending claims in
this application.
According to Appellant (brief at pages 3 and 4), the
invention relates to a magnetic disk drive and, in particular, to
a method for improving the performance of a read cache for a hard
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disk drive. More specifically, the read cache method of the
invention produces an increase in the data transfer rate between
the disk drive and a host computer by effectively using a
transfer data storage region of the disk drive and without the
use of additional hardware relative to conventional techniques.
The following claim further illustrates the invention.
1. A method for improving performance of a read cache of a
disk drive, comprising:
a data transmission process for reading corresponding data
from a disk in response to a data read command of a host
computer, temporarily storing said corresponding data in a
constant unit storage region of a data transmission storage
device, and transmitting said corresponding data to said host
computer;
a first read cache process for reading, from said disk,
first data corresponding in size to said constant unit storage
region and taken from a series of data after said corresponding
data, and storing said first data in said constant unit storage
region; and
a second read cache process for reading, from said disk,
second data corresponding in size to a multiple of said constant
unit storage regions and taken from a series of data after said
first data, and storing said second data in all other constant
unit storage regions of said data transmission storage device.
The Examiner relies on the following references:
Ng 5,623,608 Apr. 22, 1997
Claims 1-9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e} as being
anticipated by Ng.
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Rather than repeat the arguments of Appellant and the
Examiner, we make reference to the brief (Paper No. 15), the
reply brief (Paper No. 17) and the Examiner’s answer
(Paper No. 16) for the respective details thereof.
OPINION
We have considered the rejections advanced by the Examiner
and the supporting arguments. We have, likewise, reviewed the
Appellant’s arguments set forth in the briefs. We reverse.
Before entering into the analysis of the rejections, we note
below the guidelines for the rejection under
35 U.S.C. § 102.
A prior art reference anticipates the subject of a claim
when the reference discloses every feature of the claimed
invention, either explicitly or inherently (see Hazani v. Int'l
Trade Comm'n, 126 F.3d 1473, 1477, 44 USPQ2d 1358, 1361 (Fed.
Cir. 1997) and RCA Corp. v. Applied Digital Data Sys., Inc., 730
F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984)).
At the outset, we note the wide groupings of the claims at
page 2 of the reply brief, which generally agrees with the
grouping and the arguments presented in the brief, where claims 1
and 5, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9 are elected to be argued
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separately. In any event, the grouping is not critical to our
decision.
Considering independent claim 1 from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1 though 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) at pages
3-9 of the Examiner’s answer, we note that the Examiner has given
a detailed analysis of his position.
After reviewing Appellant’s arguments and the Examiner’s
response to those arguments, we are persuaded by Appellant that
Ng is directed to a different type of system to read and write to
the memory. Column 4, lines 35-53 of Ng state that the invention
of Ng exploits both circular and non-circular buffer management
techniques by using an adaptive technique that dynamically
adjusts the buffer management rules responsive to the access
pattern of the incoming data access requests “DARs”. The method
of Ng establishes an access pattern detection standard that
distinguishes between a sequential access pattern (SAP) wherein
the incoming DARs specify data blocks in consecutive storage
order, and a non-sequential access pattern (NAP) wherein the
incoming DARs do not specify data blocks in consecutive storage
order. In Ng, the individual buffer memory segments are
independently switched between circular overwrite mode (COM) and
block overwrite mode (BOM) responsive to the detection of the SAP
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or NAP, respectively. Further Ng discloses that an incoming DAR
is considered to be sequential if the requested data block medium
storage address is contiguous to the medium storage address of
the immediately previous requested data block. We find that the
thrust of the invention in Ng is to detect the pattern of the
incoming data access requests, and depending upon the nature of
the request, the data is either supplied in a sequential manner
(BOM) or in a circular or non-sequential manner (COM).
We do not find, and the Examiner has not pointed out in his
rejection or in his response to the arguments, where, in Ng, the
recited limitations of “first data corresponding in size to said
constant unit storage region and taken from a series of data
after said correspond data, and storing said first data in said
constant unit storage region (Claim 1, lines 7-9)” is found. In
contrast, in Ng the data request is coming at a rate which is not
responsive to the size of the constant unit of the storage.
Considering independent claim 3, after reviewing Examiner’s
rejection Appellant’s arguments and Examiner’s response to the
arguments, we again do not find, neither has the Examiner pointed
out, where Ng discloses the recited limitations of “temporarily
storing said corresponding data in a partial region of said unit
storage region of said data transmission storage device (Claim 3,
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lines 5 and 6)”, which limitation is related to the preamble “a
data read command of host computer is less than a unit storage
region of a data transmission storage device within a disk drive”
(Claim 3, lines 2 and 3). Therefore we do not sustain the
rejection of claim 3.
Considering the last independent claim i.e. claim 6, we do
not find in the Examiner’s analysis where the Ng reference
discloses a teaching dealing with the limitation of “second data
comprising all data not included in said first data and taken
from said corresponding data, and storing said second data in a
partial region of said unit storage region” (Claim 6, lines 8-
10), which is related to the recitation in the preamble, “a data
read command of a host computer is larger than a unit storage
region of a data transmission storage device within a disk drive”
(Claim 6, lines 2 and 3). In our view, Ng does not get involved
with the reading/writing data in any partial region.
Furthermore, Ng does not disclose making a request where the DAR
is larger than a unit storage region. Therefore, we do not
sustain the anticipation rejection of claim 6 over Ng.
Since Ng does not anticipate the limitation of each of the
independent claims 1, 3 and 6, Ng cannot anticipate the dependent
claims.
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In conclusion, we do not sustain the rejection of claims 1
through 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 102.
REVERSED
ERROL A. KRASS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
PARSHOTAM S. LALL ) BOARD OF PATENT
Administrative Patent Judge ) APPEALS AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
MAHSHID D. SAADAT )
Administrative Patent Judge )
psl/ki
Appeal No. 2001-1571
Application 08/958,844
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