Ex Parte Woods et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 4, 2018

12243022 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 4, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
12/243,022 10/01/2008 Harold Woods
56436 7590 09/06/2018
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.
82238456 9559
EXAMINER
STRANGE, AARON N
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2448
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/06/2018 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):
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 HAROLD WOODS and MARCH ROBERT WATKINS 1
Appeal2017-009806
Application 12/243,022
Technology Center 2400
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, ROBERT E. NAPPI, and DENISE M.
POTHIER, Administrative Patent Judges.
NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the
Examiner's final rejection of claims 1 through 4, 7 through 11, 13 through
17, and 21 through 24. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Hewlett Packard
Enterprise Development LP. App. Br. 3.
Appeal2017-009806
Application 12/243,022
INVENTION
Appellants' disclosed invention is directed to a server-embedded
distributed storage system which presents at least one virtual disk to a client
computing device. The at least one virtual disk includes storage cells from
direct attached storage (DAS) devices of a plurality of separate servers for
high availability access to data stored on the at least one virtual disk.
Abstract. Claim 1 is representative of the invention and reproduced below.
1. A server-embedded distributed storage system
compnsmg:
a plurality of servers each having at least one direct
attached storage (DAS) device;
an internal storage controller in each of the plurality
of servers to manage the at least one DAS device, the
internal storage controllers in separate servers
interconnected to one another to use a storage device
interconnect, wherein the internal storage controllers in the
separate servers to each manage both an internal DAS
device and an external DAS device to use the storage device
interconnect and the internal storage controllers to use the
storage device interconnect to negotiate resources shared by
the internal storage controllers;
a virtual disk including a plurality of storage cells to
be selected from the DAS devices of the plurality servers,
the virtual disk managed by the interconnected internal
storage controllers between the separate servers to provide
high availability access to data stored on the DAS devices
by a plurality of client computing devices.
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Appeal2017-009806
Application 12/243,022
REJECTIONS AT ISSUE2
The Examiner has rejected claims 1 through 4, 10, 11, and 22 through
24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 being unpatentable over Svend Fr0nlund et al.,
F AB: enterprise storage systems on a shoestring, in Proceedings of HotOS
IX: The 9th Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems (2003)
("Fr0nlund") in view of Ishikawa et al. (US 7,502,955 issued Mar. 10, 2009
"Ishikawa"). Answer 2.
The Examiner has rejected claims 7 through 9 and 13 through 16
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 being unpatentable over Fr0nlund, Ishikawa and
Watkins et al. (US 6,886,032, issued Apr. 26, 2005 "Watkins"). Answer 2.
The Examiner has rejected claim 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 being
unpatentable over Fr0nlund, Ishikawa, Watkins and Official Notice. Answer
3.
The Examiner has rejected claim 21 under 3 5 U.S. C. § 103 being
unpatentable over Fr0nlund, Ishikawa and Lee (US 2006/0010351,
published Jan. 12, 2006). Answer 3.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed Appellants' arguments in the Briefs, the
Examiner's rejections, and the Examiner's response to Appellants'
arguments. Appellants' arguments have not persuaded us of error in the
Examiner's rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
2 Throughout this Decision we refer to the Appeal Brief filed October 24,
2016, Reply Brief filed July 10, 2017, Final Office Action mailed June 16,
2016, Appellants' Specification submitted October 1, 2008, and the
Examiner's Answer mailed May 11, 2017.
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Appeal2017-009806
Application 12/243,022
Independent claim 1.
Appellants argue on pages 8 through 11 of the Appeal Brief, and
pages 1 through 4 of the Reply Brief that the Examiner's obviousness
rejection is in error because the combination of Fr0nlund and Ishikawa does
not teach that the internal storage controllers use the interconnect to
negotiate resources shared by the controllers as claimed. Appellants argue
that Ishikawa, which the Examiner relies upon to teach this feature, teaches a
data bus, item 62, to interconnect controllers but does not teach it is used to
negotiate resources shared by the controllers. App. Br. 9. Appellants assert
that Ishikawa teaches the bus is used to transfer cache data but that
transferring cache data is not negotiating a shared resource. App. Br. 9.
Appellants further argue that "[ o ]ne of ordinary skill in the art would
understand that controllers using the storage device interconnect to negotiate
resources that are shared by the controllers would involve communication
between the controllers to coordinate with one another regarding the usage
of the shared resources by each of the controllers." Reply Br. 2.
The Examiner provides a comprehensive response on pages 3 through
7 of the Answer. In this response Examiner states:
Ishikawa discloses internal storage controllers 20 and 30,
each containing a data transfer control unit 23/33 and cache
memory 26/36. Ishikawa, 3:44-47 and 4:20-23. Ishikawa
further discloses the controllers are connected "via a data bus
62." Id. at 4:24-27. The controllers use the data bus to transfer
data "between them so that data written in one cache memory
26 can be duplicated in the other cache memory 36." Id. As a
result, cache memories 26 and 3 6, as well as the duplicated
cache data, are each resources "shared by the internal storage
controllers" and the storage device interconnect is used to
"negotiate" the resources since it is used to transmit the data
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Appeal2017-009806
Application 12/243,022
from the cache memory of one controller to the cache memory
of the other controller.
Answer 5. Further, the Examiner notes that Appellants' Specification
identifies memory as a type of shared resources. Answer 5 ( citing paragraph
16). Thus, the Examiner concludes that Ishikawa teaches negotiating shared
resources as recited in claim 1.
We concur with the Examiner's findings. Ishiawa's teaching that the
controllers are connected and transfer data between caches, is a teaching that
the caches (a type of memory) are shared by each controller. (See col. 4, 11.
24--27). Further, Appellants' Specification does not define what is meant by
negotiating, and as such is not limited to coordination of resources as argued
by Appellants on page 2 of the Reply Brief. Nonetheless, an ordinary skilled
artisan would understand that transfer of data via a bus between two caches,
requires coordination of the use of the two caches to preclude errors. Thus,
we concur with the Examiner that Ishiawa teaches negotiating a shared
resource ( cache memory) via the interconnect between the two controllers.
Accordingly, Appellants' arguments have not persuaded us of error in the
Examiner's rejection of independent claim 1, and we sustain this rejection of
claim 1 and claim 10 grouped with claim 1.
Appellants' arguments, on pages 11 through 13 of the Appeal Brief,
directed to the rejection of independent claim 22 and dependent claim 24
present us with the same issues as discussed above with respect to claim 1.
Additionally, Appellants argue that neither Fr0nlund, Ishikawa teach using
the interconnect to manage an internal and external DAS device as claimed.
Specifically Appellants assert that none of the passages in Ishikawa cited by
the Examiner teaches this limitation. App Br. 12.
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Application 12/243,022
The Examiner responds to this argument finding that Ishikawa teaches the
controllers manage the internal and External DAS devices as a RAID group,
that the control units 23 and 33 which, are connected to the data bus,
calculate parity. Further, the Examiner finds that parity data is inherently
distributed among RAID disks. Answer 8 (citing Chen). Based upon these
findings that the combination of the references teach using the interconnect
to manage an internal and external DAS device as claimed.
We concur with the Examiner's findings. We are not persuaded by
Appellants' augment, in the Reply Brief, fails to explain why
communicating parity data is made obvious by the teachings of Ishikawa.
Reply Br. 5. The Examiner has found, and Appellants' have not contested,
that the parity data is inherently distributed amongst the disks (internal and
external). Further, the cache, discussed above as being duplicated via the
data bus, is used in the writing of data to the storage apparatus item ( 40). See
Ishikawa col. 3, 1. 63 through col. 4, 1. 8. Accordingly, we similarly sustain
the Examiner's rejection of claims 22 and 24.
Appellants' arguments, on pages 13 and 14 of the Appeal Brief,
directed dependent claims 2, 3, 7 through 9, 13 through 17, 21, and 23,
assert the rejections of these claims are in error for the same reasons their
independent claims. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejections of
claims 2, 3, 7 through 9, 13 through 17, 21, and 23 for the same reasons as
independent claims 1, 10, 22, and 24.
The remaining claims 4 and 11 are not separately argued. We sustain
these claims for the reasons set forth related to the independent claims from
which these claims depend.
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Application 12/243,022
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 1 through 4, 7 through
11, 13 through 17, and 21 through 24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
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 )(iv). See
37 C.F.R. § 4I.50(f).
AFFIRMED
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