Ex Parte Vijayarajan et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 27, 2016

12140278 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 27, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/140,278 06/17/2008 Rajesh VIJA Y ARAJAN
56436 7590 12/29/2016
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
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.
82233077 3205
EXAMINER
LEE, WILSON
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2155
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/29/2016 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.
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 RAJESH VIJA Y ARAJAN,
SRIVIDYA RAMANATHAN, and RAJAN! G. K.
Appeal2014-001297
Application 12/140,278
Technology Center 2100
Before KRISTEN L. DROESCH, NATHAN A. ENGELS, and
MONICA S. ULLAGADDI, Administrative Patent Judges.
ENGELS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1, 3-7, and 9-13. Claims 2, 8, and 14 are
canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We reverse.
Appeal2014-001297
Application 12/140,278
ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM
Claim 1, reproduced below with emphasis added, is illustrative of the
claimed subject matter:
1. A method of rotating a current log file, comprising:
associating a first file system data structure with a backup
log file, wherein the first file system data structure becomes no
longer associated with the current log file; and
associating a second file system data structure with the
current log file, wherein the second file system data structure
becomes no longer associated with the backup log file, wherein
a first pointer in the first file system data structure associated
with the current log file is swapped with a second pointer in the
second file system data structure associated with the backup log
file.
THE REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 5-7, and 11-13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
being anticipated by Cheng et al. (US 5,204,958; issued Apr. 20, 1993).
Claims 3, 4, 9, and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over the combined teachings of Cheng and The IBM
Dictionary of Computing, McGraw-Hill Inc. (1994) ("IBM").
ANALYSIS
Appellants contend Cheng does not disclose a method of rotating a
current log file "wherein a first pointer in the first file system data structure
associated with the current log file is swapped with a second pointer in the
second file system data structure associated with the backup log file," as
recited in claim 1. The Examiner finds Cheng discloses the disputed
limitation with its database indexing methodology in which newly created
indexed pointers are stored in one of two small balanced trees (SBT 148 and
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Appeal2014-001297
Application 12/140,278
SBT 150) and the role or definition of the two SB Ts is "swapped" during a
merger procedure. Final Act. 5; Ans. 3--4.
Appellants acknowledge that Cheng discloses "that for every record
stored in sequential file 130 there is an indexed pointer to it stored in one of
SBT 148 or SBT 150" (Reply Br. 7), but Appellants argue, and we agree,
that Cheng does not disclose swapping pointers between SBT-0 to SBT-1.
See Reply Br. 5-8. Specifically, Cheng states:
The reason that there are two SBTs in FIG. 3 is that
newly created indexed pointers are stored in one SBT 150,
while the other SBT 148 is being merged into the [large
balanced tree] LBT 132. Periodically, after SBT-1 148 has
been completely merged into the LBT 132 and its contents
deleted, the definitions of SBT-0 and SBT-1 are swapped (step
304). After this swap, all subsequently created indexed pointers
are stored in SBT-0 (which is empty right after the swap), and
the DBMS program 146 prepares to merge the contents of SBT-
1 into the LBT 132.
Cheng 7:38--47 (emphasis added); accord Cheng Fig. 4A; see Cheng 9:5-20
(disclosing an alternative embodiment with one SBT that marks indexed
pointers with a 0 before a first merger pass, a 1 before a second merger pass,
and continues "swapping" between 0 and 1 with each subsequent pass). In
other words, Cheng discloses alternating the role of SBT-0 and SBT-1 as the
current SBT to which indexed pointers are saved, but Cheng teaches deleting
the indexed pointers after each merger procedure, not swapping a first
pointer and a second pointer, as claimed.
Accordingly, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner erred in the
rejection of independent claim 1, and independent claim 7 which includes
equivalent limitations, as well as their respective dependent claims.
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Appeal2014-001297
Application 12/140,278
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner's rejection of claims 1, 3-7, and 9-13.
REVERSED
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