Ex Parte Maruyama

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 31, 2018

14240882 (P.T.A.B. May. 31, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
14/240,882 02/25/2014 Shin Maruyama
46345 7590 06/04/2018
AEON Law
506 2nd Ave
Suite 3000
Seattle, WA 98104
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
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
MORI-201600lp 5897
EXAMINER
PATEL, CHIRAG R
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2454
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/04/2018 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):
patents@aeonlaw.com
eofficeaction@appcoll.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SHIN MAR UY AMA 1
Appeal2017-011097
Application 14/240,882
Technology Center 2400
Before JAMES R. HUGHES, ERIC S. FRAHM, and
MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges.
McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
rejection of claims 1-10, which are all the claims pending in this application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is CO-CONV, Corp. Br.
3.
Appeal2017-011097
Application 14/240,882
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellant's application relates to a network boot system that boots an
operating system through a network. Spec. ,r 1. In particular, the system
reduces the need to access a network boot server from a client terminal by
caching a virtual disk containing the operating system in a local disk, and
using a read cache mechanism with generation management data to
generation-manage transitions to particular revisions of the virtual disk. See
Spec. ,r,r 3, 8. Claim 1 illustrates the appealed subject matter and reads as
follows:
1. A network boot system, comprising:
a client terminal that has a physical storage device,
a network boot server that provides a disk image as a
virtual disk, the disk image including an operating system (OS)
operating on the terminal, the virtual disk being segmented by a
plurality of regions, wherein
the operating system is provided with a read cache
mechanism that stores data read from the server in the
storage device of the terminal as cache data,
the read cache mechanism is provided with
generation management data for generation-managing a
transition of a revision that represents revise information
of the virtual disk, the generation management data only
indicating which region of the virtual disk has been
modified by the transition of the revision without holding
any information about content of data, and
the generation management data is divided for each
transition of revision and stored in the sever, and
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a copy of at least one division of the divided
generation management data is also stored in the storage
device.
The Examiner's Rejection
Claims 1-10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being
unpatentable over Sin-Ling Lam (US 2005/0125513 Al; Jun. 9, 2005) and
Nelson (US 6,857,057; Feb. 15, 2005).
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's obviousness rejection in light of
Appellant's contentions that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with
Appellant's contentions. Except as noted below, we adopt as our own: (1)
the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner regarding the obviousness
rejection in the Final Office Action from which this appeal is taken; and (2)
the reasons set forth by the Examiner regarding the obviousness rejection in
the Examiner's Answer in response to Appellant's Appeal Brief. We concur
with the Examiner's conclusions regarding the obviousness rejection. We
highlight the following additional points.
Claims 1-7
Regarding independent claim 1, Appellant contends Sin-Ling Lam
does not teach "the operating system is provided with a read cache
mechanism," where "the read cache mechanism is provided with generation
management data for generation-managing a transition of a revision that
represents revise information of the virtual disk." Br. 12-15. In particular,
Appellant asserts that the Examiner's cited portion of Sin-Ling Lam
describes the caching features of a virtual appliance transceiver that stores a
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Application 14/240,882
virtual appliance, instead of the caching features of the virtual appliance
itself. Br. 14. Accordingly, Appellant argues the Examiner has not shown
Sin-Ling Lam teaches "a virtual appliance having an operating system that
includes a 'read cache mechanism .... "' Id.
However, claim 1 does not recite that an operating system of a virtual
disk includes a read cache mechanism, but rather recites "the operating
system is provided with a read cache mechanism." (Emphasis added). Sin-
Ling Lam describes a system where a virtual appliance transceiver retrieves
virtual appliances from a repository over a network and runs them locally
(Sin-Ling Lam, ,r,r 61---63), where a virtual appliance "is the software state
that defines the behavior of a given platform, e.g., an x86 machine or a
specific operating system." Id. at ,r 59. Further, Sin-Ling Lam describes the
virtual appliance transceiver "caches locally all or parts of the virtual
appliances retrieved from the network repository" by dividing each virtual
appliance into non-overlapping blocks. Id. at ,r,r 91-93. Sin-Ling Lam
manages different versions of virtual appliances by making copies of blocks
as they are modified. See Id. at ,r 87; Figs. 7 and 8.
We find Sin-Ling Lam's caching different versions of a virtual
appliance in the virtual appliance transceiver meets the claim 1 limitations of
a virtual disk including an operating system, "wherein the operating system
is provided with a read cache mechanism" and "the read cache mechanism is
provided with generation management data for generation-managing a
transition of a revision that represents revise information of the virtual disk."
That is, Sin-Ling Lam's virtual appliance, which may include an operating
system, "is provided with a read cache mechanism" because Sin-Ling Lam's
virtual appliance makes use of the virtual transceiver's cache, for example,
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by having modified blocks representing different versions stored in the
cache. See Sin-Ling Lam ,r,r 87, 91-93. Again, nothing in claim 1 requires
the "read cache mechanism" be included in the operating system of the
virtual disk.
Appellant also contends Sin-Ling Lam does not teach "a read cache
mechanism that stores data read from the server in the storage device of the
terminal as cache data," as recited in claim 1, because Sin-Ling Lam's
virtual appliance transceiver stores data "within the virtual appliance
transceiver's internal caching mechanism (not in a physical storage device of
a host computer)." Br. 15. We disagree with Appellant because, as shown
in Figures 3-5a, the virtual appliance transceiver can be stored on a storage
device that is plugged into a computer. Sin-Ling Lam ,r 63. We find the
computer and storage device together meet the claim 1 limitation of "a client
terminal that has a physical storage device." Further, the virtual appliance
transceiver, which is stored on the storage device, retrieves virtual
appliances from a repository over a network and stores them in its cache
(Sin-Ling Lam, ,r,r 61, 91 ), which we find meets the claim 1 limitation of "a
read cache mechanism that stores data read from the server in the storage
device of the terminal as cache data."
Appellant contends the Examiner has merely made a conclusory
statement that the combination of Sin-Ling Lam with Nelson would have
been obvious, and that the combination would render Sin-Ling Lam
unsatisfactory for its intended purpose or change its principle of operation.
Br. 16-18. Appellant, however, has not specifically explained why the
Examiner's stated rationale for combining the references-"to quickly store
and access data" (Final Act. 3}-is insufficient. Moreover, Nelson's
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technique for taking a snapshot of a virtual storage volume, which is
comprised of pointers to addresses in physical storage volumes, and
modifying the pointers in the snapshot virtual storage volume as data in the
physical storage volumes change (see Nelson, col. 5, 1. 48---col. 6, 1. 21 ),
would have been applicable to Sin-Ling Lam for managing the versions of a
virtual appliance, because "if a technique has been used to improve one
device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would
improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious
unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill." KSR Int'! Co. v.
Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007).
We are also not persuaded by Appellant's argument that the
combination would have rendered Sin-Ling Lam unsatisfactory for its
intended purpose or change its principle of operation. Appellant asserts that
if the Examiner's combination were made Sin-Ling Lam's "caching protocol
would be unable to reduce data traffic while maintaining a virtual appliance
running on a host device by separating the state of virtual appliance into
three different kinds of disks according to their backup and update needs:
system, user, and ephemeral." Br. 18. However, while Sin-Ling Lam
describes separating the virtual appliance into system, user, and ephemeral
disks because only the user disk needs to be backed up (Sin-Ling Lam,
,r 182), Appellant has not persuasively explained why applying Nelson's
technique of taking snapshots of virtual storage volumes for managing
versions of a virtual appliance would interfere with backing up a portion of
Sin-Ling Lam's virtual appliance. Rather, these two techniques could be
implemented in parallel because Sin-Ling Lam describes the use of two
measures for reducing data traffic: "capturing differences of virtual
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appliance versions" and "separating the state of virtual appliances into three
different kinds of disks according to their backup and update needs." Id.
We are, therefore, not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting
independent claim 1, and dependent claims 2-5 not specifically argued
separately. Although Appellant nominally argues independent claims 6 and
7 separately, Appellant relies on the same arguments presented for claim 1.
See Br. 19-22. Thus, we are also not persuaded the Examiner erred in
rejecting independent claims 6 and 7 for the same reasons discussed above.
Claims 8-10
Regarding independent claim 8, Appellant contends Sin-Ling Lam
describes an update process, not a "boot procedure" as claimed. Br. 23.
However, Sin-Ling Lam describes a virtual appliance transceiver
implemented in a storage device as a bootable device. Sin-Ling Lam ,r 17.
Accordingly, when starting a virtual appliance, "[t]he VAT contacts the
repositories to see if there are any new versions of the virtual appliance
program disks being used. As a result, any new versions of program disk
published take effect on reboot." Sin-Ling Lam ,r 110. Therefore, Sin-Ling
Lam's caching techniques (see Sin-Ling Lam ,r,r 89-124) relate to a boot
procedure as claimed.
We are, therefore, not persuaded the Examiner erred in rejecting
independent claim 8, and dependent claims 9 and 10 not specifically argued
separately.
DECISION
We affirm the decision of the Examiner rejecting claims 1-10 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
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No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.50(±).
AFFIRMED
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