Ex Parte Yadappanavar et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 31, 201612973781 (P.T.A.B. May. 31, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. 12/973,781 36378 7590 VMWARE, INC, DARRYL SMITH FILING DATE 12/20/2010 06/02/2016 3401 Hillview Ave. PALO ALTO, CA 94304 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Krishna Y AD APP ANA VAR 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. A517 2449 EXAMINER GMAHL, NA VNEET K ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2166 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 06/02/2016 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): ipteam@vmware.com ipadmin@vmware.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte KRISHNA Y ADAPP ANA VAR AND SATY AM B. V AGHANI Appeal2014-007233 Application 12/973,781 Technology Center 2100 Before DEBRA K. STEPHENS, KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, and JOHN R. KENNY, Administrative Patent Judges. KENNY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of claims 1-23, which constitute all claims pending in the application. (Final Act. l; App. Br. 21.) We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm-in-part. INVENTION Appellants' disclosed invention relates to a method of compressing data within a file system. (Spec. i-f 3.) Claim 1 is exemplary and reads as follows: Appeal2014-007233 Application 12/973,781 1. A method of storing compressed data within a file system comprising: identifying a first block of data within the file system that should be compressed; compressing the first block of data according to a first compression type; allocating a first sub-block within the file system for storing the compressed first block of data; and storing the compressed first block of data within the first sub-block, wherein the first block of data is associated with a file, and a reference to the first block of data is stored within a file descriptor of the file and a size of the first sub-block is smaller than a size of the first block. REFERENCE The Examiner relies on the following prior art reference: Dye et al. US 6,879,266 Bl Apr. 12, 2005 REJECTION Claims 1-23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Dye. (Final Act. 4.) 2 Appeal2014-007233 Application 12/973,781 Claims 1-4 and 7-23 ANALYSIS We adopt the Examiner's findings and conclusions for claims 1--4 and 7-23 and add the following primarily for emphasis. (Final Act. 2-11; Ans. 2-5 and 8-11.) For these claims, most of Appellants' arguments are based on the contention that the memory module disclosed in Dye is not a file system. For example, Appellants argue that Dye fails to teach "allocation of a first sub-block within the file system for storing a compressed first block of data," as recited in claim 1, because Dye allocates data blocks in memory, rather than data blocks or sub-blocks in a file system. (App. Br. 7-10; Reply Br. 2-3.) Appellants further argue that Dye does not teach "identifying a first block of data within a file system that should be compressed," as recited in claim 1, because Dye identifies blocks in memory rather than in a file system. (App. Br. 11-12; Reply Br. 3--4.) Appellants further argue that Dye does not teach the limitation added by claim 10 because Dye is directed solely to compressing memory blocks, not compressing data within a file system. (App. Br. 12-14; Reply Br. 4--5.) As another example, Appellants contend that the cited passages of Dye fail to teach a file descriptor as recited in claim 19 because those passages are directed to system memory. (App. Br. 15-16; Reply Br. 5-7.) As a further example, Appellants argue that Dye fails to teach file attributes as recited in claim 23 since the allocation of memory blocks is not the same as the allocation of blocks in a file system. (App. Br. 19-20; Reply Br. 10.) The Examiner, however, sets forth the basis for finding Dye's memory system is a file system. (Ans. 4 ("thereby being within a file system, file system defined by the disclosure of the instant application as 3 Appeal2014-007233 Application 12/973,781 blocks and sub-blocks which are units of storage.")) Appellants do not address or rebut that finding or its basis. (App. Br. 7-10; Reply Br. 2-3.) Therefore, we are not persuaded that Dye fails to teach a file system, and we are not persuaded by the arguments premised on that contention. Based on the Examiner's findings and rationale, we sustain the rejection of claims 1--4 and 7-23. Claim 5 We also adopt the Examiner's findings and rationale for claim 5. (Final Act. 6; Ans. 6-7.) We add the following primarily for emphasis. Appellants argue that Dye fails to disclose an inode associated with a file as recited in claim 5. (App. Br. 16-18; Reply Br. 7-8.) In support of this argument, Appellants repeat their contention, addressed above, that Dye fails to disclose a file and a file system. (App. Br. 16-18; Reply Br. 7-8.) In addition, Appellants argue that the tag bit in Dye is not the recited inode because the tag bit is stored in the compressed data, not separately, and the recited inode must be stored separately from its associated data. (App. Br. 17; Reply Br. 8.) Appellants, however, do not provide any persuasive arguments or evidence demonstrating that claim 5 requires that the recited inode be stored separately from its associated data. (App. Br. 16-18; Reply Br. 7-8.) The language of claim 5 and base claim 4 set forth no such requirement: 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the file descriptor is an inode associated with the file. 5. The method of claim 4, further comprising: after storing the compressed first block of data within the first sub-block, updating the inode to remove the reference to 4 Appeal2014-007233 Application 12/973,781 the first block of data from the inode and to insert a reference to the first sub-block into the inode as well as a compression bit indicating the first compression type. The Specification further does not define explicitly an inode or more specifically, define an inode as requiring separate storage from its associated data. The Specification merely describes: A file inode associated with a file within a file system, according to an embodiment of the invention, comprises one or more file attributes, a set of block references, where each block reference is associated with a different block within a data storage unit (DSU) that stores a portion of the file, and a set of sub-block references, where each sub-block reference is associated with a different sub-block within the DSU that stores a portion of the file. (Spec. i-f 4.) Accordingly, we are not persuaded that claim 5 requires that the inode be stored separately from its associated data, and we sustain the rejection of claim 5. Claim 6 Appellants argue that Dye fails to teach that "the first block of data is identified based on a frequency of input/output operations performed on the first block of data" as recited in claim 6. (App. Br. 18-19; Reply Br. 8-10.) The Examiner cites several disclosures in Dye for this limitation, including the disclosure that Dye's main memory compression increases the effective size of the memory thereby reducing disk requests (at Dye 4:4--14), and the disclosure of reordering segments in a block so the segments that are most likely to be accessed in the future, for example, the most recently used segments, are located at the front of the block (at Dye 8: 14--35). (Ans. 7-8; see also Final Action 6, citing Dye 22:36-62.) We agree with Appellants 5 Appeal2014-007233 Application 12/973,781 that these disclosures do not satisfy the limitation. That more data can be stored in the main memory due to compression, does not identify a first block of data. (Reply Br. 8-9.) Similarly, reordering segments based on which ones were most recently used does not identify a first block of data, by the frequency of input/output operations because the most recently used segments may not be the most frequently accessed. (Reply Br. 9.) Whether this reordering of segments were those most likely to be used in the future or most recently used are placed in the front of the block would suggest the disputed limitation is not before us because the rejection is for anticipation, not obviousness. Accordingly, we are constrained to reverse the rejection of claim 6. DECISION We affirm the rejection of claims 1-5 and 7-23. We reverse the rejection of claim 6. 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). AFFIRMED-IN-PART 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation