Li Li et al.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardOct 31, 201913106751 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Oct. 31, 2019) Copy Citation 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. 13/106,751 05/12/2011 Li Li CN920100026US1 5974 75949 7590 10/31/2019 IBM CORPORATION C/O: Fabian Vancott 215 South State Street Suite 1200 Salt Lake City, UT 84111 EXAMINER SINGH, AMRESH ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2159 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/31/2019 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): patents@fabianvancott.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte LI LI, JU WEI SHI, RUI XIONG TIAN, and YI XIN ZHAO Appeal 2018-007915 Application 13/106,751 Technology Center 2100 Before JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, NABEEL U. KHAN, and PHILLIP A. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judges. BENNETT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant,1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 2, and 5–20. Claims 3 and 4 have been cancelled. 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 International Business Machines Corporation. App. Br. 1. Appeal 2018-007915 Application 13/106,751 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to garbage collection in an in-memory replication system. Spec., Title. Claim 1, reproduced below with the disputed limitation in italics, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method of garbage collection in a first node server of an in-memory replication system, comprising: in response to a garbage collection trigger in said first node server, determining whether identification information for a replicated data object eligible for garbage collection in said first node server has been received by said first node server from at least a second node server in said in-memory replication system, wherein the identification information comprises an address to the replicated data object stored in the first node server and copied from a source data object saved in the second node server; and determining that said identification information has been received from at least said second node server and performing garbage collection on said data object with said first node server without a mark operation having been performed on the replicated data object in said first node server; determining that said identification information for data objects eligible for garbage collection has not been received from at least said second node server and identifying a data object stored by said first node server that is eligible for garbage collection with said first node server and performing garbage collection on said data object identified with said first node server; and acquiring identification information for said data object identified with said first node server and transmitting said identification information to at least one other node server in said in-memory replication system that stores said data object. App. Br. 18 (Claims Appendix). Appeal 2018-007915 Application 13/106,751 3 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Barsness Oh Bennett US 2009/0112953 A1 US 2009/0119353 A1 US 2010/0325351 A1 Apr. 30, 2009 May 7, 2009 Dec. 23, 2010 REJECTIONS Claims 1, 2, 5–7, 10–16, 19, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Barsness and Bennett. Final Act. 2–7. Claims 8, 9, 17 and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Barsness, Bennett, and Oh. Final Act. 6, 7. ISSUE Has the Examiner erred in finding Bennett teaches or suggests “performing garbage collection on said data object with said first node server without a mark operation having been performed on the replicated data object in said first node server,” as recited in claim 1? ANALYSIS In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner finds that Barsness teaches most limitations, but does not teach “performing garbage collection on said data object with said first node server without a mark operation having been performed on the replicated data object in said first node server.” Final Act. 4. The Examiner introduces Bennett, finding that it teaches performing garbage collection without a mark operation. Final Act. 4 (citing Bennett ¶ 111, Figure 6). In so doing, the Examiner interprets the claim to allow a marking operation to be performed, and only requires that a specific type of marking operation not be performed. Ans. 3. Appeal 2018-007915 Application 13/106,751 4 Appellant argues Bennett is deficient because “when Bennett describes either deletion or reclamation of space, it is always referred to as being part of a garbage collection that, to one of ordinary skill in the art per Bennett and Appellant’s specification, would include a mark operation.” App. Br. 13. Appellant further argues the Examiner’s interpretation of the claim is flawed because the claimed recitation of “without a mark operation” excludes any garbage collection operation that marks a replicated data object. Reply Br. 5 (emphasis in original). We are persuaded by Appellant’s arguments. The limitation at issue recites “performing garbage collection on said data object with said first node server without a mark operation having been performed on the replicated data object in said first node server.” The Examiner interprets this limitation to encompass garbage collection with a mark operation, so long as some type of mark operation is not performed. This interpretation is unreasonably broad. Appellant’s Specification describes several instances where garbage collection is performed based on identification information received from other servers. See, e.g., Spec. ¶ 27 (“garbage collection is performed . . . on the data objects identified by the identification information received from other node servers”), ¶ 36 (“the data objects that are replications of the data objects that can be garbage-collected are garbage- collected by using the identification information received from the other node servers”). In each of these scenarios, there is no mark operation performed on the data objects. The Specification also makes specific reference to performing the garbage collection without a marking operation: When garbage collection in the second, third, and fourth node servers is triggered, these node servers determine that identification information of data objects that can be garbage- Appeal 2018-007915 Application 13/106,751 5 collected have been received from the first node server and directly release the memory space of the memory addresses of the data objects that can be garbage collected without performing the mark operation of garbage collection for those memory addresses. This saves computing resources and time overheads of the mark operation and improves efficiency of garbage collection in the in-memory replication system. Spec. ¶ 41 (reference numbers omitted). At no point does the Specification indicate that garbage collection is performed by using one type of mark operation to the exclusion of another type. When understood in light of the Specification, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner’s interpretation of the disputed limitation is unreasonably broad. Accordingly, we conclude that under its broadest reasonable construction in light of the Specification, “performing garbage collection on said data object with said first node server without a mark operation having been performed on the replicated data object in said first node server” requires that the garbage collection on the data object be performed without any mark operation being performed on the data object. Applying this definition, we also agree with Appellant that Bennett does not teach or suggest the disputed limitation. In particular, we agree with Appellant that Bennett always marks data objects prior to performing garbage collection on them. The cited portion of Bennett describes that there are two different marking operations that may be used to indicate a data block should be reclaimed—an X marking operation and an M marking operation. The M marking operation is used to identify memory blocks having a combination of live and dead pages. The X marking operation is used to identify memory blocks in which all of the pages are dead. Bennett ¶¶ 110–111. Bennett teaches that garbage collection may be performed first Appeal 2018-007915 Application 13/106,751 6 on the X marked blocks, and then, if necessary to reclaim additional memory, on the M marked blocks after the live pages have been moved to other blocks. Id. However, in no instance, does Bennett describe reclaiming memory blocks that have not been marked with either an M or an X. Thus, while Bennett teaches using two different types of mark operations in connection with garbage collection, there is no teaching that garbage collection occurs in the absence of any marking operation. Accordingly, we agree with Appellant that Bennett fails to teach or suggest the disputed limitation, and we do not sustain the rejection of claim 1 or of independent claims 10 and 19, which recite a similar limitation. For the same reasons we also do not sustain the rejections of dependent claims 2, 5–9, 11–18, and 20, which stand therewith. CONCLUSION The Examiner’s rejections are reversed. DECISION SUMMARY Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 2, 5–7, 10–16, 19, 20 103(a) Barsness, Bennett 1, 2, 5–7, 10–16, 19, 20 8, 9, 17, 18 103(a) Barsness, Bennett, Oh 8, 9, 17, 18 Overall Outcome 1, 2, 5–20 REVERSED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation