Google LLC

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 30, 2021

2020005260 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 30, 2021)

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.
15/795,650 10/27/2017 Wangyuan Zhang 231441-416073 8331
101874 7590 09/30/2021
HONIGMAN LLP-GOOGLE
DOCKETING DEPARTMENT
650 TRADE CENTRE WAY
SUITE 200
KALAMAZOO, MI 49002-0402
EXAMINER
AHMED, ZUBAIR
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2132
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/30/2021 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):
google@honigman.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte WANGYUAN ZHANG, SANDEEP SINGHALD,
SANGHO YOON, GUANGDA LAI, ARASH BARATLOO,
ZHIFAN ZHANG, GAEL HATCHUE NJOUYEP, and
PRAMOD GAUD
Appeal 2020-005260
Application 15/795,650
Technology Center 2100
Before JEREMY J. CURCURI, GREGG I. ANDERSON, and
CHRISTA P. ZADO, Administrative Patent Judges.
CURCURI, 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 1–20. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Google LLC.
Appeal Br. 2.
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Application 15/795,650

2
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to “[p]acking objects by predicted lifespans in
cloud storage.” Spec., Title. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the
claimed subject matter:
1. A method comprising:
receiving, at data processing hardware, data objects, each
received data object uploaded by a respective client device
associated with a human user and associated with a respective
data bucket identifier that identifies a respective data bucket the
respective client device wants to hold the respective data object,
the respective data bucket identifier being specific to the
respective human user at a creation time of the respective data
bucket;
for each received data object, determining, by the data
processing hardware, a predicted lifespan of the respective data
object based on a historical object lifespan table associated with
the respective data bucket holding the respective data object,
the respective data bucket created by the respective client
device associated with the respective human user and the
historical object lifespan table indicating a creation time for
each past data object uploaded into the respective data bucket
and a deletion timestamp indicating a time for each past data
object that is deleted from the respective data bucket;
instantiating, by the data processing hardware, multiple
shard files, each shard file immutable to accept new data
objects once stored in a distributed storage system and having
an associated predicted lifespan range;
writing, by the data processing hardware, each data
object into a corresponding shard file having the associated
predicted lifespan range that includes the predicted lifespan of
the respective data object;
storing, by the data processing hardware, the shard files
in the distributed storage system;
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determining, by the data processing hardware, whether
any stored shard files satisfy a compaction criteria based on the
predicted lifespan range of each corresponding stored shard file;
and
for each stored shard files satisfying the compaction
criteria, compacting, by the data processing hardware, the
stored shard file by rewriting remaining data objects of the
stored shard file into a new shard file.
Appeal Br. 15, Claims App.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:
Name Reference Date
Sim-Tang US 2008/0256138 A1 Oct. 16, 2008
Bonvin US 2014/0136571 A1 May 15, 2014
Post US 8,738,882 B2 May 27, 2014
Balan US 2016/0132786 A1 May 12, 2016
Rao US 2016/0357450 A1 Dec. 8, 2016

REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 3–5, 9–11, 13–15, 19, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as obvious over Bonvin, Rao, and Sim-Tang. Final Act. 3–10.
Claims 2 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over
Bonvin, Rao, Sim-Tang, and Post. Final Act. 10–11.
Claims 6–8 and 16–18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious
over Bonvin, Rao, Sim-Tang, and Balan. Final Act. 11–13.
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OPINION
The Obviousness Rejection of Claims 1, 3–5, 9–11, 13–15, 19, and 20 over
Bonvin, Rao, and Sim-Tang
The Examiner finds Bonvin, Rao, and Sim-Tang teach all limitations
of claim 1. Final Act. 3–8. In particular, the Examiner finds Bonvin teaches
“for each received data object, determining . . . a predicted lifespan of the
respective data object based on a historical object lifespan table associated
with the respective data bucket holding the respective data object, the
respective data bucket created by the respective client device associated with
the respective human user” (claim 1) because Bonvin discloses a “row-key is
derived from the container name and the key.” Final Act. 4 (citing Bonvin
¶¶ 56, 91, 113, 115, Fig. 6); see also Ans. 4–5 (“[U]sing the row-key of an
object, which is derived from a container name and a key specified by a user
at the time of the creation of an object, the system of Bonvin determines the
most probable value of the lifetime of the object from a table depicted in
FIG. 6.”).
Among other arguments, Appellant presents the following principal
argument:
Bonvin does not teach “for each received data object, determining . . .
a predicted lifespan of the respective data object based on a historical object
lifespan table associated with the respective data bucket holding the
respective data object” (claim 1) because “Bonvin discloses predicting the
lifespan for a data object based on (1) explicit user input or (2) the class of
the object and statistics for the object class.” Appeal Br. 7 (citing Bonvin
¶¶ 85, 87–88, 91); see also Appeal Br. 8 (“Figure 6 is a table for a particular
class of objects.”), Reply Br. 2–4.
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We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues
identified by Appellant, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced
thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential).
Bonvin discloses:
An object belongs to a class of objects determined by its
metadata such as size or MIME type. The class of an object
C(obj) is derived using a simple hash of relevant metadata:

C(obj)=MD5(obj[mime]|discretize(obj[size]))

where discretize( ) is a function which rounds a number to
a close integer (e.g., the size of an object is rounded up to the
closest megabyte).
Bonvin ¶¶ 85–86. Bonvin further discloses “[f]or every class of object, the
system collects statistics regarding the resources used . . . and computes the
lifetime distribution of the class.” Bonvin ¶ 87. Bonvin further discloses
“[t]he lifetime distribution of the classes of objects stabilizes after a training
phase.” Bonvin ¶ 88. Thus, Bonvin teaches collecting statistics for the
various classes of objects, including lifetime distribution. Bonvin ¶¶ 85–87.
Bonvin discloses “the system uses the statistics collected for the class
of the object to determine the statistically best set of providers for this new
object.” Bonvin ¶ 91. Thus, Bonvin teaches utilizing the collected statistics
for the various classes of objects to determine the best set of (cloud storage)
providers for an object. Bonvin ¶ 91.
Bonvin discloses “[a]s depicted in FIG. 6, given row_key=C(obj), the
placement algorithm has access to the most probable values regarding the
resources that the new object obj will use and its lifetime.” Bonvin ¶ 91.
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Thus, in Fig. 6, Bonvin teaches predicting a lifetime of an object based on
the class of the object. Bonvin ¶ 91.
Because Bonvin teaches predicting a lifetime of an object based on
the class of the object, we determine Bonvin does not teach “for each
received data object, determining . . . a predicted lifespan of the respective
data object based on a historical object lifespan table associated with the
respective data bucket holding the respective data object” (claim 1
(emphasis added)). That is, we disagree with the Examiner’s determination
that Bonvin teaches predicting a lifetime of an object from a container name.
In making the rejection, the Examiner focuses on the row key
described in paragraph 115 of Bonvin. At paragraph 115, Bonvin discloses
“[a]s row key for writing the metadata, the system uses:

row_key=MD5(obj[container]|obj[key])

Bonvin ¶ 115. However, this is the row key used for the metadata as
depicted in Fig. 10. Bonvin ¶ 115, Fig. 10. This is different than the row key
used for the class statistics as depicted in Fig. 6. Bonvin ¶¶ 85–86,
(“C(obj)=MD5(obj[mime]|discretize(obj[size]))”), 91 (“row_key=C(obj)”).
We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1.
We also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 3–5, 9, and
10, which depend from claim 1.
Independent claim 11 recites “for each received data object,
determining a predicted lifespan of the respective data object based on a
historical object lifespan table associated with the respective data bucket
holding the respective data object.”
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We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 11.
We also do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 13–15, 19,
and 20, which depend from claim 11.

The Obviousness Rejection of Claims 2 and 12 over Bonvin, Rao, Sim-Tang,
and Post
The Examiner does not find Post cures the deficiency of Bonvin, Rao,
and Sim-Tang. See Final Act. 10–11; see also Ans. 8–9.
We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2 and
12.

The Obviousness Rejection of Claims 6–8 and 16–18 over Bonvin, Rao, Sim-
Tang, and Balan
The Examiner does not find Balan cures the deficiency of Bonvin,
Rao, and Sim-Tang. See Final Act. 11–13; see also Ans. 9.
We, therefore, do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 6–8
and 16–18.
CONCLUSION
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–20 is reversed.
DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claim(s)
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 3–5, 9–
11, 13–15,
19, 20
103 Bonvin, Rao, Sim-
Tang
1, 3–5, 9–
11, 13–15,
19, 20
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2, 12 103 Bonvin, Rao, Sim-
Tang, Post
2, 12
6–8, 16–18 103 Bonvin, Rao, Sim-
Tang, Balan
6–8, 16–18
Overall
Outcome
1–20

REVERSED