MAHANKALI, SRIDHAR

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 9, 2021

2019004922 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 9, 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.
14/129,927 12/27/2013 SRIDHAR MAHANKALI P54722 9338
75343 7590 03/09/2021
Hanley, Flight & Zimmerman, LLC (Intel)
150 S. Wacker Dr. Suite 2200
Chicago, IL 60606
EXAMINER
JAHNIGE, CAROLINE H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2451
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/09/2021 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):
docketing@hfzlaw.com
jflight@hfzlaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SRIDHAR MAHANKALI
Appeal 2019-004922
Application 14/129,927
Technology Center 2400
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, BEVERLY A. FRANKLIN, and
MAHSHID D. SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judges.
DIXON, 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 26, 29–32, 36, 39–43, and 46–49. See
Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42 (2018). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Intel
Corporation. Appeal Br. 3.
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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claims are directed to a mechanism for facilitating dynamic
storage management for mobile computing devices and dynamically
allocating portions of the space at the local storage based on the context-
aware data and results of the monitoring of the space. The dynamic
allocation may include providing a first portion of the space to a first content
by moving a second content from the local storage to one or more remote
storage devices. Abstract. Claim 26, reproduced below, is illustrative of the
claimed subject matter:
26. An apparatus comprising:
a processing device coupled to memory, the processing
device to facilitate:
context-aware detection and management logic to detect
context-aware data relating to a user associated with a computing
device;
predictability logic to evaluate the detected context-aware
data related to the user including at least one of user-provided
contexts and changing activities associated with the user,
wherein the predictability logic is further to predict future usage
behavior of the computing device based on evaluation of the
context-aware data related to the user; and
storage allocation logic to monitor available local space at
a local storage of the computing device and remote space at one
or more remote storage devices, wherein the storage allocation
logic is further to dynamically allocate one or more portions of
the local and remote spaces based on the predicted future usage
behavior such that a first content is stored at a first portion of the
local space, wherein the first portion is available to store the first
content by moving a second content from the first portion of the
local storage to the one or more remote storage devices.
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REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is:
Name Reference Date
Friedman US 2012/0141092 A1 June 7, 2012
Nakrani US 2013/0029652 A1 Jan. 31, 2013
Clausen US 2015/0026415 A1 Jan. 22, 2015

REJECTIONS
Claims 26, 29, 31, 32, 36, 39, 41, 42, 43, 46, 48, and 49 stand rejected
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Clausen in view of
Nakrani. Final Act. 3.
Claims 30, 40, and 47 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Clausen and Nakrani in view of Friedman. Final Act. 12.

OPINION
Independent claims 26, 36, and 43
With respect to independent claims 26, 36, and 43, Appellant does not
set forth the separate arguments for patentability, and we select independent
claim 26 as the representative claim for the group. Appeal Br. 7. See
37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv). As a result, claims 36 and 43 will stand or fall
with representative independent claim 26. Arguments which Appellant
could have made but did not make in the Briefs are deemed to be
waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
Appellant argues that Clausen and Nakrani do not teach the claimed
limitation “dynamically allocating one or more portions of the local and
remote spaces based on the predicted future usage behavior such that a first
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content is stored at a first portion of the local space, wherein the first portion
is available to store the first content by moving a second content from the
first portion of the local storage to the one or more remote storage devices.”
Appeal Br. 7–8. Appellant further argues that the Specification identifies a
number of benefits and advantages of dynamically allocating of one or more
portions of local and remote spaces based on predicted future usage
behavior. Appeal Br. 9. Appellant further argues that the Clausen reference
fails to disclose or suggest dynamically allocating one or more portions of
the local and remote spaces based on the predicted future usage behavior.
Appeal Br. 9–10. Appellant also contends that Clausen discloses pre-
loading contents into a cache, and Clausen discloses a user “selects one or
more applications that he wishes to load automatically in memory or start
running in the background according to circumstances.” Appeal Br. 10 (see
Clausen ¶ 38). Appellant additionally contends that Clausen is unrelated to
allocating or moving content to any remote storage based on predicted future
usage behavior, and Clausen lacks any disclosure of moving content from
local storage - i.e., cache - to remote storage. Appeal Br. 10. We note that
the Examiner relied upon the Nakrani reference for this feature. Final Act. 5
Appellant further contends that the Nakrani reference fails to cure the
deficiency of the Clausen reference, and there is no disclosure or suggestion
in Nakrani of the object for an application being stored in local memory by
moving another object to extended memory. Appeal Br. 10–11.
Appellant also contends that the Nakrani reference not only fails to
disclose or suggest moving an object from local memory by moving another
object to extended memory, but fails to show allocating of the local or
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extended memory based on the predicted future usage behavior. Appeal Br.
11.
Appellant finally contends that one of ordinary skill would not have
been motivated to combine the Clausen and the Nakrani references. Appeal
Br. 11.
In the Reply Brief, Appellant further contends that the combination of
Clausen and Nakrani does not teach or suggest the claimed
dynamically allocate one or more portions of the local and
remote spaces based on the predicted future usage behavior such
that a first content is stored at a first portion of the local space,
wherein the first portion is available to store the first content by
moving a second content from the first portion of the local
storage to the one or more remote storage devices.
Reply Br. 4 (bolding omitted).
Appellant merely summarizes the claim language and makes a naked
assertion that the prior art does not teach the limitation. That is insufficient
to raise an argument that the Examiner erred. See In re Lovin, 652 F.3d
1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (Rule 41.37 requires “more substantive
arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation of the claim elements and
a naked assertion that the corresponding elements were not found in the
prior art.”); see also 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (“A statement which merely
points out what a claim recites will not be considered an argument for
separate patentability of the claim.”). Because Appellant has not identified
any specific errors in the Examiner’s findings, “the Board will not, as a
general matter, unilaterally review those uncontested aspects of the
rejection.” Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010)
(precedential).
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We find Appellant’s arguments to be unpersuasive because Appellant
generally repeats the language of the claim and contends that the claims
include optimizing local space in view of predictive usage behavior as
disclosed in the Specification. Appeal Br. 9. But, Appellant’s claim
language does not specifically recite “fully optimized” or “intelligently
moving.”
Arguments must be commensurate in scope with the actual claim
language. In re Self, 671 F.2d 1344, 1348 (CCPA 1982); see In re Hiniker
Co., 150 F.3d 1362, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (“[The] proffered facts . . . are not
commensurate with the claim scope and are therefore unpersuasive.”).
The Examiner relies upon the Clausen reference and identifies that the
Clausen reference and teaches and suggests predictability based upon the use
of a user’s calendar. Ans. 3–4 citing Clausen ¶¶ 49, 54. We further note
that Appellant Specification at page 7 similarly discloses use of a calendar
for predicting future usage behavior. See also Appeal Br. 8. As a result, we
find Appellant’s general argument regarding predictability does not show
error in the Examiner’s factual findings or conclusion of obviousness.
We disagree with Appellant. As found by the Examiner, the Nakrani
reference discloses checking to see if there is sufficient local extended
memory and if not, Nakrani moves large portions of data objects to remote
storage and automatically write back any persistent data objects from local
extended memory to remote data-storage facilities when application
programs terminate. See Nakrani ¶¶ 47, 48, and 49, Figures 16 and 17.
Final Act. 5; Ans. 4.
Appellant further contends that there is no underlying teaching
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or suggestion in Nakrani, individually or in combination with Clausen, of
moving a data object from local extended memory to a remote storage based
on predicted future usage behavior. Reply Br. 5.
We disagree with Appellant, as discussed above. In combination, the
Clausen reference teaches preloading applications and data and Nakrani
teaches how cache memory operates for maintaining the global data as data
is processed in the local memory and written back into the main or remote
memory or offloaded to create sufficient space thereby redistributing data.
Appellant submits that one or ordinary skill would not have been
motivated to combine Nakrani with Clausen because neither Nakrani nor
Clausen teach offloading content from internal memory to external memory
to make room of other content in the internal memory let alone based on
predicted future usage behavior, and Appellant contends that the Examiner
relies on impermissible hindsight to modify Clausen in view of Nakrani in
alleging obviousness over claims 26, 36, and 43. Appeal Br. 11; Reply Br.
11.
We find Appellant’s argument to be unpersuasive because Appellant’s
argument does not address the Examiner’s stated motivation for the
combination (Final Act. 5), and Appellant does not consider the teachings of
Clausen regarding predicting based upon a calendar event and the teachings
of the Nakrani reference regarding dumping or offloading internal memory
to remote locations to make space for additional content at the local
memory. As a result Appellant’s argument is a general argument for
patentability which we find to be unpersuasive of error in the Examiner’s
underlying factual findings or ultimate conclusion of obviousness of
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representative independent claim 26 and independent claims 36 and 43 not
separately argued.

Dependent claims 29, 31, 32, 39, 41, 42, 46, 48, and 49
Appellant relies upon the arguments advanced with respect to
independent claims 26, 36, and 43 for the respective dependent claims.
Appeal Br. 11–12.
Because we found no error in the Examiner’s factual findings or
conclusion of obviousness for representative independent claim 26, we
similarly find no error in the Examiner’s obviousness determination of the
dependent claims.

Dependent claims 30, 40, and 47
Appellant relies upon the arguments advanced with respect to
independent claims 26, 36, and 43 for the respective dependent claims.
Appeal Br. 12. Because we found no error in the Examiner’s factual
findings or conclusion of obviousness for representative independent claim
26, we similarly find no error in the Examiner’s obviousness determination
of the dependent claims
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CONCLUSION

The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 26, 29–32, 36, 39–43, and
46–49 is AFFIRMED.
DECISION SUMMARY
Claim(s)
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
26, 29, 31,
32, 36, 39,
41, 42, 43,
46, 48, 49
103 Clausen, Nakrani 26, 29, 31,
32, 36, 39,
41, 42, 43,
46, 48, 49

30, 40, 47 103 Clausen, Nakrani,
Friedman
30, 40, 47
Overall
Outcome
26, 29–32,
36, 39–43,
46–49

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