Ghosh, Rahul et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Nov 22, 2019

14839227 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Nov. 22, 2019)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
14/839,227 08/28/2015 Rahul Ghosh RSW920140137US2 6028
103765 7590 11/22/2019
IBM Corp-Rochester Drafting Center
1701 North Street Building 256-3
Department SHCB
Endicott, NY 13760
EXAMINER
SAYOC, KRISTOFFER L S
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2443
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/22/2019 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):
rocdrctr@us.ibm.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD

Ex parte RAHUL GHOSH and AARON J. QUIRK

Appeal 2019-000367
Application 14/839,227
Technology Center 2400

Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, SCOTT E. BAIN, and MICHAEL T. CYGAN,
Administrative Patent Judges.

CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 3, 4, and 6–8. Appeal Br. 13, 14
(Claims App.). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as
International Business Machines Corporation. Appeal Br. 3.
Appeal 2019–000367
Application 14/839,227

2
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to a computer program product for reducing
workloads of neighboring virtual machine tenants in a cloud environment
having shared storage. Abstract. Such workloads may be data intensive and
may require frequent writes to large databases, including logging activity.
Spec. ¶ 3. A computer may determine current input/output characteristics of
an application enabled on a virtual machine, select and offload logs based on
trends found in the input/output characteristics, and aggregate portions of the
logs that have been directed to separate file locations. Id. ¶ 5. Independent
claim 1 is illustrative, with limitations at issue italicized for emphasis:
1. A method to enhance tenant performance in a cloud
shared-storage environment, comprising:
determining current input/output characteristics of an
application enabled on a virtual machine;
predicting a future workload on a disk system associated
with the virtual machine using the input/output characteristics;
selecting and offloading logs based on trends found in the
input/output characteristics; and
aggregating portions of the logs that have been directed
to separate file locations to reconcile portions that may have
been separated, wherein aggregating portions of the logs
includes pulling the portions of the logs from remote locations
and relocating the portions back into original positions in the
virtual machine.
Dependent claims 3, 4, and 6–8 each incorporate the limitations of
claim 1. Claims 2 and 5 have been cancelled. Final Act. 1.
Appeal 2019–000367
Application 14/839,227

3
REFERENCES
Name Reference Date
Colgrove et al. (Colgrove) US 2013/0086006 A1 Apr. 4, 2013
Nirantar US 2014/0310709 A1 Oct. 16, 2014
Gladkikh et al. (Gladkikh) US 9,128,779 B1 Sep. 8, 2015
Filed July 31, 2014

REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 3, 4, and 6–8 are provisionally rejected on the ground of
nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1–4, 13, 15,
16, and 18–20 of copending Application number 14/562,457. Claims 1, 3, 4,
6, and 8 are rejected as being obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over Nirantar
in view of Gladkikh. Claim 7 is rejected as being obvious under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 over the combination of Nirantar, Gladkikh, and Colgrove.
ANALYSIS
A. Double Patenting
The Examiner has provisionally rejected claims 1, 3, 4, and 6–8 on the
ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims
1–4, 13, 15, 16, and 18–20 of U.S. Application number 14/562,457. Final
Rej. 5. Appellant has not contended that the Examiner erred in this
rejection. Due to its provisional nature, we do not reach the Examiner’s
provisional rejection of claims 1, 3, 4, and 6–8 on the ground of nonstatutory
double patenting. Ex parte Moncla, 95 U.S.P.Q.2d 1884 (BPAI 2010)
(precedential).
B. Obviousness
Claims 1, 3, 4, 6, and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
obvious over Nirantar in view of Gladkikh. With respect to claim 1, the
Appeal 2019–000367
Application 14/839,227

4
Examiner has determined that Nirantar teaches or suggests each limitation
except for the operational data being input/output characteristics, and for
monitoring the select and offload activity of logs to control a configuration
of a disk system, aggregating portions of the logs that have been directed to
separate file locations to reconcile portions that have been separated, and
pulling the portions of the logs from remote locations and relocating those
portions back into original positions in the virtual machine. The Examiner
finds each of these limitations to be taught or suggested by Gladkikh. Final
Act. 6–8.
Appellant first argues that the combination of Nirantar and Gladkikh
does not teach a cloud shared-storage medium and computer-usable code
stored on the cloud shared-storage medium that performs the recited
features. Appeal Br. 7; Reply Br. 5. The Examiner finds that Nirantar
teaches or suggest that feature through a virtual machine that receives
configuration data to establish a copy of a mobile application and execute
the copy of the mobile application. Final Act. 2. Appellant characterizes
Nirantar as “offloading applications from a mobile device to a cloud-based
virtual machine.” Appeal Br. 10.
We do not find Appellant’s argument persuasive, because claim 1
does not recite any limitation to a cloud shared-storage medium. To the
extent that Appellant argues that claim 1 recites a limitation to a cloud
shared-storage environment, we agree with the Examiner’s finding that
Nirantar teaches or suggests a cloud shared-storage environment that
performs the recited features. Appellant’s characterization of Nirantar as
merely offloading applications from a mobile device is not persuasive of
error in the Examiner’s finding, because Nirantar teaches the use of a cloud-
Appeal 2019–000367
Application 14/839,227

5
based server to perform the operations of traffic management, content
caching, resource conservation, and facilitating mobile application
offloading between mobile devices. Nirantar ¶¶ 32, 37, 41. Accordingly,
we are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that Nirantar fails to teach or
suggest a cloud shared-storage medium having computer-usable code stored
thereon that performs the recited features.
Appellant next argues that a person of ordinary skill in the art would
not have had a reason to combine the references because of the “substantial
deficiencies” of Nirantar. Appeal Br. 10. We are not persuaded by
Appellant that the Examiner has erred. The test for obviousness is “what the
combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of
ordinary skill in the art.” In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981); In
re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091 (Fed. Cir. 1986). The Examiner finds that
the references would have suggested to a person of ordinary skill combining
Nirantar and Gladkikh “for the purpose of synchronizing supplemental job
information between multiple machines, thereby ensur[ing] that the root
cause of performance problem of primary and secondary machines is
quickly diagnosed.” Final Act. 8. (citing Gladkikh 12:1–17). We find the
Examiner’s rationale is supported by the record, Gladkikh 12:1–17, and the
Examiner has provided “articulated reasoning with some rational
underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness.” KSR Int'l Co.
v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). Moreover, Appellant has
provided no evidence or reasoning to rebut the Examiner’s findings.
Accordingly, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred.
Appellant next argues that Nirantar teaches operational data, but not
input/output characteristics. Appeal Br. 10. However, one cannot show
Appeal 2019–000367
Application 14/839,227

6
nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejection is
based on combinations of references. In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413 (CCPA
1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091 (Fed. Cir. 1986). The Examiner,
however, relied on Gladkikh as teaching the claimed input/output
characteristics (Final Act. 7–8). Accordingly, Appellant’s argument
regarding Nirantar does not persuade us of error.
Appellant next argues that the combination of Nirantar and Gladkikh
does not teach or disclose aggregating portions of logs to reconcile separated
portions, and pulling portions of logs and relocating those portions back into
original positions in the virtual machine. Appeal Br. 10–11; Reply Br. 7.
Specifically, Appellant argues that Gladkikh’s action of synchronizing
distributed tasks from multiple remote and local data stores does not teach or
suggest those limitations of distributing logs. Appeal Br. 11 (citing
Gladkikh 2:13–26, 6:38–52), Reply Br. 7.
We are not persuaded. Contrary to Appellant’s argument, the
Examiner has not solely relied upon Gladkikh’s teaching of task distribution,
but instead relies on other teachings of Gladkikh relating to log distribution.
Ans. 11. The Examiner finds that Gladkikh teaches distributed logs in a data
store, in which the data store exists at separate locations and is synchronized.
Id. (citing Gladkikh Fig. 1, 2:13–26, 4:60–67, 5:1–2, 6:38–52). The
Examiner’s findings are supported by Gladkikh, which teaches aggregating
machine-generated data, such as logs, from sources such as servers, and
using distributed tasks to perform synchronizing data from a secondary data
store to a primary data store. Gladkikh 3:9–21, 5:1–2, 9:6–13. Accordingly,
we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of
claim 1, and we sustain that rejection. Appellant relies upon the same
Appeal 2019–000367
Application 14/839,227

7
arguments for claims 3, 4, 6, and 8; however, because those claims are
rejected under the same grounds, they stand or fall with claim 1, and we
consequently sustain the Examiner’s rejection of those claims.
With respect to dependent claim 7, the Examiner’s rejection relies
upon the base combination of Nirantar and Gladkikh, further in view of
Colgrove. However, Appellant relies upon the same arguments against the
rejection of claim 7 as for claim 1. Reply Br. 8. Accordingly, for the same
reasons as discussed above with respect to Appellant’s arguments against the
rejection of claim 1, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s
rejection of claim 7.
CONCLUSION
For the above-described reasons, we affirm Examiner’s obviousness
rejections of claims 1, 3, 4, and 6–8. We do not reach the Examiner’s
provisional nonstatutory rejection of claims 1, 3, 4, and 6–8.
DECISION SUMMARY
In summary,
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § References/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 3, 4, 6–8 Provisional
Obviousness-type
Double
Patenting2

1, 3, 4, 6, 8 103 Nirantar,
Gladkikh
1, 3, 4, 6, 8
7 103 Nirantar,
Gladkikh,
Colgrove
7

2 As explained above, we do not reach this rejection per Ex parte Moncla, 95
U.S.P.Q.2d 1884 (BPAI 2010) (precedential).
Appeal 2019–000367
Application 14/839,227

8
Overall
Outcome
1, 3, 4, 6–8

TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE
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.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED