Ex Parte WANG et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 31, 201814713698 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 31, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/713,698 05/15/2015 152569 7590 11/02/2018 Patterson & Sheridan, LLP - VMware 24 Greenway Plaza Suite 1600 Houston, TX 77046 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR WenguangWANG 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. C514 1609 EXAMINER CHOI, CHARLES J ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2133 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/02/2018 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): psdocketing@pattersonsheridan.com ipadmin@vmware.com vmware_admin@pattersonsheridan.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte WENGUANG WANG and YUNSHAN LU Appeal 2018-003187 Application 14/713,698 Technology Center 2100 Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., JEFFREY S. SMITH and JEREMY J. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judges. WHITEHEAD JR., Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants are appealing the final rejection of claims 1-3, 5-10, 12- 17, 19 and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a). Appeal Brief 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We affirm. Introduction The invention is directed to "[E]mbodiments of the present disclosure provide a modified bitmap scheme that uses an auxiliary tree data structure to more quickly allocate space. Embodiments include a tree of bitmap summary pages to manage the free space of a large scale storage system." Specification, paragraph 8. Appeal 2018-003187 Application 14/713, 698 Illustrative Claim 1. A method comprising: receiving an allocation request for a plurality of blocks from a storage system; searching a plurality of summary entries for a first summary entry indicating sufficient contiguous free storage blocks for the allocation request, wherein each of the summary entries corresponds to a respective bitmap page comprising a plurality of bits, each of the bits corresponding to a respective storage block and indicating whether the corresponding storage block is free, and wherein each of the summary entries comprises (i) a count of free storage blocks indicated by the corresponding bitmap page and (ii) an indication of a largest contiguous set of free storage blocks indicated by the corresponding bitmap page, the indication of the largest contiguous set of free storage blocks being distinct from the count of the free storage blocks; searching a first bitmap page corresponding to the first summary entry for a first plurality of contiguous free storage blocks for the allocation request; and transmitting an indication identifying the first plurality of contiguous free storage blocks to satisfy the allocation request. Rejections on Appeal Claims 1-3, 5-7, 9, 10, 12-14, 16, 17 and 19-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kim (US Patent Application Publication 2008/0104357 Al; published May 1, 2008), Casper (US Patent 2 Appeal 2018-003187 Application 14/713, 698 Application Publication 2010/0125583 Al; published May 20, 2010) and Lowe (US Patent 6,070,172; issued May 30, 2000). Final Action 2-7. Claims 8 and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103 as being unpatentable over Kim, Casper, Lowe and Brent (Efficient implementation of the first-fit strategy for dynamic storage allocation, July, 1989, ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS)). Final Action 8. ANALYSIS Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed August 25, 2017), the Reply Brief (filed January 30, 2018), the Answer (mailed December 6, 2017) and the Final Action (mailed April 12, 2017) for the respective details. 35 U.S.C. § 103 Rejection Appellants contend, "each of claims 1, 9, and 16 recites a plurality of summary entries, 'wherein each of the summary entries corresponds to a respective bitmap page comprising a plurality of bits, each of the bits corresponding to a respective storage block and indicating whether the corresponding storage block is free."' Appeal Brief 10. Appellants argue that the combination of Kim, Casper and Lowe does not disclose the claimed plurality of summary entries. Appeal Brief 8. The Examiner finds Kim discloses, "searching a plurality of summary entries for a first summary entry indicating sufficient [ ... J free storage blocks for the allocation request." Final Action 2 ( citing Kim, paragraph 48). The Examiner further finds, "Casper's second layer or branch 230, combined with entries (groups of free blocks in a particular 3 Appeal 2018-003187 Application 14/713, 698 storage area) of the free block list from Kim teaches the summary entry. Casper's bitmap in the lower layer 210 teaches the bitmap pages that correspond to each summary entry." Final Action 3. The Examiner states, "Lowe is relied upon to teach finding the largest contiguous free blocks in a file system state/mapping (which also indicates whether a block is free or not) in a storage medium." Answer 4. The Examiner determines: Lowe's teaching of finding the largest contiguous free blocks in a storage medium, is applied to Kim's teaching of plurality of summary entries, where each entries includes indication of number of free blocks available to be allocated, and Casper's teaching of entries having corresponding bitmap page where a hierarchical storage scheme is used so bitmaps or tables can be quickly searched. Accordingly, the combination of Kim, Casper and Lowe teaches the claimed "summary entries comprises ... an indication of a largest contiguous set of free storage blocks indicated by the corresponding bitmap page, the indication of the largest contiguous set of free storage blocks being distinct from the count of the free storage blocks." Answer 5. Appellants argue: Lowe does not disclose anything regarding summary entries for bitmap pages that are separate from the bitmap pages, nor does Lowe disclose that the summary entry specifically comprises an indication of a largest contiguous set of free storage blocks indicated by the corresponding bitmap page. There is no disclosure in Lowe of any specific indicator/indication in a summary entry of the largest contiguous set of free storage blocks in a bitmap page. Appeal Brief 10-11. We agree with Appellants, Lowe does not disclose anything regarding summary entries for bitmap pages however the Examiner did not rely upon Lowe to disclose anything regarding summary entries for bitmap pages. See Answer 4--5; Final Action 4; see also Appeal Brief 10-11. Appellants 4 Appeal 2018-003187 Application 14/713, 698 contend, "However, Appellants disagree that Lowe even teaches a numerical count of largest contiguous free blocks in a file system as it just states that a file system has contiguous free blocks, not storage of any numerical count." Appeal Brief 11. Lowe discloses: [C]ontiguous blocks are highly valued in a file system, because performance is optimized if a file is stored in contiguous blocks. In the example, file B stored in file system IA comprises five contiguous blocks, located at blocks 6-10. The largest contiguous free space in file system IA is two blocks, one of which is found at blocks 4-5. On the other hand, the largest contiguous free space in file system 1 G is five blocks, located at blocks 11-15. In order to store a file in contiguous blocks, a sufficient number of contiguous free blocks in the free space must be found. Lowe, column 1, lines 35--44 ( emphasis added). Accordingly, we do not find Appellants arguments persuasive because it is evident that Lowe is concerned with identifying the largest contiguous free blocks in order to optimize performance in a file system. Appellants further argues: Even if for sake of argument Kim teaches summary entries, and Casper teaches bitmap pages where a hierarchical storage scheme is used, and Lowe teaches the idea of finding the largest contiguous free blocks in a storage medium, the combination does not teach an "indication of a largest contiguous set of free storage blocks indicated by the corresponding bitmap page" in a summary entry corresponding to the bitmap page. Reply Brief 3. Appellants contends: Rather the combination [ of Kim, Casper and Lowe] at best would teach a summary entry not including an "indication of a largest contiguous set of free storage blocks indicated by the corresponding bitmap page" along with bitmap pages where a hierarchical storage scheme is used, and where at times the largest contiguous free blocks in a storage medium are found. 5 Appeal 2018-003187 Application 14/713, 698 Reply Brief 3. We do not find Appellants' contentions persuasive. Casper discloses, "One embodiment is a method that uses a hierarchical bitmap tree in a storage system to store where available and unavailable memory space exists. Bitmap blocks are retrieved from the hierarchical bitmap tree to locate the available memory." Casper, Abstract. Appellants' Specification discloses, "[E]mbodiments of the present disclosure provide a modified bitmap scheme that uses an auxiliary tree data structure to more quickly allocate space." Specification, paragraph 8. "As our precedents make clear, however, the analysis need not seek out precise teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ." KSR Int'! v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398,418 (2007). Further, the Examiner supports the motivations to combine the references with articulated reasoning with rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness. See KSR Int'! v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398,418 (2007), see also Final Action 3--4. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner obviousness rejection of claims 1-3, 5-7, 9, 10, 12-14, 16, 17 and 19-20, argued together. See Appeal Brief 11. We also sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejection of claims 8 and 15, argued separately but without distinction. See Appeal Brief 11-12. DECISION The Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections of claims 1-3, 5-10, 12-17, 19 and 20 are affirmed. 6 Appeal 2018-003187 Application 14/713, 698 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 ). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(v). AFFIRMED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation