International Business Machines Corporation

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Apr 26, 2021

2020000581 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 26, 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.
15/099,756 04/15/2016 David A. Pease ARC920140025US2 3857
82531 7590 04/26/2021
Lieberman & Brandsdorfer, LLC
IBM - Austin
802 Still Creek Lane
Gaithersburg, MD 20878
EXAMINER
AYASH, MARWAN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2133
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/26/2021 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte DAVID A. PEASE, MOHIT SAXENA,
and PIN ZHOU
____________________

Appeal 2020-000581
Application 15/099,7561
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, MARC S. HOFF, and CARL L.
SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

HOFF, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a Final Rejection of
claims 1–19 and 21.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Appellant’s invention is a method and system for providing crash
consistency for para-virtual I/O caches through journaled filesystems. The
state of a filesystem is updated, including performing semantic journaling

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37
C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant states that the real party in interest is International
Business Machines Corporation. Appeal Br. 3.
2 Claim 20 has been cancelled.
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(writing one or more data blocks, logging metadata updates) in support of
the update. A cache flush request is received and classified, which provides
an order of commands for processing the request. An order of committed
writes is then processed, including enforcing the order of committed writes
to provide a consistent virtual disk image. Spec. ¶ 6.
Claim 1 is reproduced below:
1. A method comprising:
updating a state of a virtualized filesystem associated with
a para-virtual I/O system, including:
performing semantic journaling in support of the update,
the semantic journaling comprising writing one or more data
blocks and logging metadata updates to a journal before writing
a commit block to the journal;
receiving a cache flush request;
semantically classifying the received cache flush request
through selecting one of a plurality of semantic classifications
based on semantic information, wherein each semantic
classification provides an order of commands for processing the
received cache flush request:
converting the classification into an order of committed
writes;
processing the order of committed writes. including
enforcing the order of committed writes, wherein the
enforcement provides a consistent virtual disk image; and
returning the consistent virtual disk image provided
through enforcement of the order.

The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence is:
Name Reference Date
Wires US 2013/0282994 A1 Oct. 24, 2013
Talagala US 2014/0195564 A1 July 10, 2014
Ricardo Koller, Write Policies for Host-side Flash Caches, 11th USENIX
Conf. on File and Storage Techs. (FAST ’13), 45–58 (2013).

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Claims 1–19 and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Wires, Koller, and Talagala. Final Act. 2–3.
Throughout this decision, we make reference to the Appeal Brief
(“Appeal Br.,” filed May 12, 2019), the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed Nov.
4, 2019), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed Sept. 5, 2019) for
their respective details.

ISSUE
Does the combination of Wires, Talagala, and Koller teach or suggest
semantically classifying the received cache flush request through selecting
one of a plurality of semantic classifications based on semantic information?

ANALYSIS
Representative claim 1 recites, in pertinent part, “semantically
classifying the received cache flush request through selecting one of a
plurality of semantic classifications based on semantic information, wherein
each semantic classification provides an order of commands for processing
the received cache flush request.”
Appellant argues that the Examiner has ignored the limitation
concerning “selecting one of a plurality of semantic classifications based on
semantic information.” Reply Br. 2. Appellant’s argument is not persuasive.
Appellant argues that each of the references individually fails to teach the
argued limitation, which is not persuasive to show Examiner error in a
rejection based upon a combination of references. Appellant does not contest
the Examiner’s finding that Wires teaches the concept of semantic
classification. Ans. 8. We agree with the Examiner that Koller teaches write
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policies for host-side flash caches wherein a plurality of ordered write flush
policies are disclosed and investigated to determine the extent to which their
implementation improves memory system organization. Ans. 8; Koller
Abstract. We agree with the Examiner’s finding that Koller’s teaching of a
plurality of ordered write flush policies (e.g., ordered write-back, journaled
write-back) suggests that Wires may be modified to include a plurality of
semantic classifications, rather than just one. See Ans. 8; Koller p. 51 (Table
2).
Appellant contends that Wires does not teach or suggest different
semantic classifications of cache flush requests. Reply Br. 2. Appellant’s
argument is not persuasive because, as analyzed supra, the Examiner relies
on Koller, rather than Wires, for a teaching of plural classifications. Ans. 8.
Appellant next contends that Talagala does not teach or suggest either
“classifying the . . . cache flush request” or “selecting one of a plurality of
semantic classifications.” According to Appellant, like Wires, Talagala is
limited to a single cache flush mechanism associated with synchronous
writes for the identified file system. Reply Br. 3; Talagala ¶ 182. Appellant’s
contention is not persuasive because, as discussed supra, Wires and Koller,
rather than Talagala, are relied upon to teach the argued limitations. The
Examiner finds that Talagala teaches other, non-argued claim limitations:
performing semantic journaling in support of an update,
the semantic journaling comprising writing one or more data
blocks and logging metadata updates to a journal before writing
a commit block to the journal persistent data structures. . . .
[M]emory semantics are journaled in an ordered manner
wherein data is written and metadata is logged before a commit
operation is performed in order to keep the file system
consistent in the event of a crash/failure condition.

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Ans. 6–7; Talagala ¶¶ 68–72 (emphasis omitted).
Appellant argues that Koller teaches “write policies” but does not
teach or suggest that its write policies are in the form of semantic
classifications. Reply Br. 3. Appellant urges that “the Examiner only
provides a conclusory statement and does not provide any reasoning or
explanation for why the write ordering policies of Koller are the same as the
Appellant’s semantic classifications.” Reply Br. 4. Appellant’s argument is
not persuasive because, as discussed supra, the combination of references
suggests semantic classification where a plurality of different classifications
may be used. Ans. 8. Wires, rather than Koller, is relied upon for a teaching
of the concept of semantic classification. Koller teaches different write
ordering policies and teaches the tradeoffs in implementing the various
policies. Ans. 8; see Koller Fig. 11, p. 52. We find that, just as Appellant’s
classifiable cache flush commands are instructions for managing the data
stored in cache memory, Koller’s write policies are rules for managing data
storage in cache memory.
Appellant further argues that the Examiner has not explained why a
person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to
combine Wires, Talagala, and Koller to obtain the invention under appeal.
Reply Br. 5. Appellant’s argument is not persuasive. The Examiner has
restated the motivation to combine the references in the Answer. For
example, the Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to modify
Wires in view of Koller’s plural write policies “because [the resulting
combination] would be advantageous for maintaining data consistency while
reducing latency and improving memory throughput.” Ans. 9; Koller p. 48
(emphasis omitted). The Examiner concludes that it would have been
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obvious to perform semantic journaling in support of the update “because it
would be advantageous for building a robust memory system which would
be capable of surviving a crash/failure condition without losing data.” Ans.
10; Talagala ¶¶ 68–72 (emphasis omitted).
We conclude that the Examiner’s articulated reasoning in the rejection
possesses a rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness. In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006).
Because we agree with the Examiner that the combination of Wires,
Talagala, and Koller suggests all the limitations of independent claims 1, 8,
and 15, and the dependent claims are not separately argued, we sustain the
Examiner’s § 103 rejection of claims 1–19 and 21.

CONCLUSION
The combination of Wires, Talagala, and Koller suggests semantically
classifying the received cache flush request through selecting one of a
plurality of semantic classifications based on semantic information.
DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claim(s)
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/
Basis
Affirmed Reversed
1–19, 21 103 Wires, Koller,
Talagala
1–19, 21

ORDER
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–19 and 21 is affirmed.
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No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED