EMC IP Holding Company LLC

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Mar 24, 2022

2021000436 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 24, 2022)

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. 16/013,024 06/20/2018 David Meiri 111497.01 2845 80167 7590 03/24/2022 Ryan, Mason & Lewis, LLP 48 South Service Road Suite 100 Melville, NY 11747 EXAMINER GIROUARD, JANICE MARIE ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2138 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/24/2022 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): jbr@rml-law.com nyoffice@rml-law.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte DAVID MEIRI and ANTON KUCHEROV Appeal 2021-000436 Application 16/013,024 Technology Center 2100 Before MARC S. HOFF, JASON J. CHUNG, and JOYCE CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judges. CRAIG, 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 rejecting claims 1-20, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM IN PART. 1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a) (2019). Appellant identifies EMC IP Holding Company LLC, as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 1. Appeal 2021-000436 Application 16/013,024 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to content addressable storage systems that are configured for efficient storage of count-key-data tracks. See Spec. at 1. Claim 1, reproduced below, illustrates the claimed subject matter: 1. An apparatus comprising: a storage system comprising a plurality of storage devices and a storage controller; the storage controller comprising a processor coupled to a memory; the storage system being configured by the storage controller: to receive a plurality of data records in a count-key-data format; to separate count and key portions of the data records from remaining portions of the data records; to store the count and key portions of the data records in one designated page of a set of pages of a logical storage volume of the storage system; and to store the remaining portions of the data records in one or more other pages of the set of pages of the logical storage volume of the storage system. Appeal Br. 18 (Claims App.). REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Name Reference Date BANZHAF et al. (“Banzhaf”) US 2013/0054918 A1 Feb. 28, 2013 O’Brien et al. (“O’Brien”) US 5,247,638 Sept. 21, 1993 Wayne E. Fisher, An OS/360 BDAM Users Guide, IBM Corp., dated June 30, 1969 (“Fisher”) Appeal 2021-000436 Application 16/013,024 3 REJECTIONS Claims 1-5, 13, 15, 16, 18, and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) as anticipated by Banzhaf. Final Act. 2-13. Claims 6-9, 12, 17, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Banzhaf and Fisher. Final Act. 13-20. Claims 10, 11, and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Banzhaf and O’Brien. Final Act. 21-24. OPINION Anticipation Rejection of Claims 1-5, 13, 15, 16, 18, and 19 In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner found that Banzhaf discloses all of the recited limitations. Final Act. 3-4. Appellant contends the cited portions of Banzaf do not disclose to store the count and key portions of the data records in one designated page of a set of pages of a logical storage volume of the storage system; and to store the remaining portions of the data records in one or more other pages of the set of pages of the logical storage volume of the storage system, as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 4-7. Appellant argues that the cited portions of Banzaf disclose “one extended count key data (EKCD) record where a Count field 402, Key field 408 and Data Field 410 are stored in separate blocks.” Id. at 6 (citing Banzhaf Fig. 6). According to Appellant, “there is no disclosure in Banzhaf that count and key portions of data records should be stored in one designated page of a set of pages while remaining portions of the data records should be stored in other pages in the set of pages.” Appeal Br. 7. The Examiner found that Figure 6 and paragraphs 68 and 70 of Banzhaf disclose the disputed limitation. Final Act. 3-4. In the Answer, the Appeal 2021-000436 Application 16/013,024 4 Examiner further explained that the term “page” in claim 1 means “a contiguous set of storage space as measured by blocks” because “a block is an example of a page, as well as two or more blocks may be an example of a page.” Ans. 3. According to the Examiner, the first two blocks in Figure 6 of Banzhaf map to the “one designated page” in claim 1. See Final Act. 3-4; Ans. 4. The Examiner, however, did not explain how the blocks of data shown in Banzhaf Figure 6 map to the “one or more other pages” in claim 1. See id. (citing Banzhaf ¶ 70). The Examiner also found that Banzhaf discloses in an alternative embodiment that a storage controller may use a different scheme to record count and key fields in a more compact form. Final Act. 4. The Examiner found that Banzhaf’s disclosure of “a more compact form” means compressing the count and key fields into a single block. Final Act. 4 (citing Banzhaf ¶ 68); Ans. 7. According to the Examiner, “[t]his makes sense from a performance perspective, because count and key are infrequently used and the tradeoff of space versus computation requirements favor compacting data that is infrequently used.” Ans. 7. Based on the record before us, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner erred. “Anticipation requires the presence in a single prior art disclosure of all elements of a claimed invention arranged as in the claim.” Connell v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 722 F.2d 1542, 1548 (Fed. Cir. 1983). Although the Examiner found that Banzhaf discloses the contested limitation, we do not find any express or inherent description of the claim element “page” in the cited portions of Banzhaf relied by the Examiner for claim 1. We agree with the Examiner that the cited portions of Banzhaf disclose storing each of the count, key, and data fields in separate blocks. Appeal 2021-000436 Application 16/013,024 5 The Examiner, however, has not shown in sufficient detail that the cited portions of Banzhaf disclose storing the count and key portions of the data records in one designated page, and storing the remaining portions of the data records in one or more other pages, as claim 1 requires. Moreover, the Examiner provided insufficient support for the finding that Banzhaf’s disclosure of recording the count and key fields “in a more compact form” discloses that the two fields would be combined in one block. See Final Act. 4 (citing Banzhaf ¶ 68); Ans. 7. Accordingly, on this record, we reverse the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of claim 1, as well as the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of independent claims 15 and 18, which recite the contested limitation in commensurate form. We also reverse the Examiner’s anticipation rejections of dependent claims 2-5, 13, 16, and 19, which stand with the independent claims from which they depend. Obviousness Rejection of Claims 6-12, 14, 17, and 20 Claim 6 depends from claim 1, further reciting wherein the designated page comprises a plurality of entries for count and key portions of respective ones of the data records with each of the entries of the designated page comprising count and key portions for a given one of the data records and a pointer to a location of the remaining portion of the given one of the records in the one or more other pages of the set of pages. Appeal Br. 18-19 (Claims App.). Appellant argues that the Examiner erred by combining cited portions of Banzhaf and Fisher because the direct addressing used in Fisher is not compatible with the variable length data fields of Banzaf. Appeal Br. 12. Appeal 2021-000436 Application 16/013,024 6 We are not persuaded that the Examiner erred. The Examiner explained that Fisher allows for variable-length data fields, where the data length is specified by the length field of the “Count” field. See Ans. 16. The Examiner found that a direct addressing implementation of Fisher would simply use the same data length value in the data length specified in the “Count” field, which is the same technique that Banzhaf uses. Id. (citing Banzhaf ¶ 35). Appellant has not persuasively rebutted the Examiner’s findings. See Reply Br. 8. In particular, Appellant has not explained persuasively why using fixed counts in both references, as the Examiner proposed, would fail to cure the alleged incompatibility that Appellant raised in the Appeal Brief. For these reasons, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in finding that the cited portions of Banzaf and Fisher teach or suggest the recited limitations of claim 6. Claim 12 depends from claim 1 and further recites “wherein the storage system comprises a content addressable storage system.” Appeal Br. 19 (Claims App.). Appellant argues that Fisher does not teach or suggest “a content addressable storage system,” as claim 12 requires, because the cited portions of Fisher “all describe aspects of a direct access storage device (DASD) track scheme, where data is retrieved based on locations that are specified by keys.” Id. at 14. We are not persuaded that the Examiner erred. The Examiner found that the keys of Fisher are a DK “type” parameter in the READ/WRITE key that are used to extract data by an application and are an example of “content.” Ans. 19 (citing Fisher Fig. 3, p. 5, ll. 14-16). The Examiner found that Fisher teaches “a storage system where information is retrieved by its Appeal 2021-000436 Application 16/013,024 7 content not its location,” and an artisan of ordinary skill would recognize that looking up a record in a storage database via a key such as “SMITH” is an example of a content addressable storage system. Id. at 19-20. Appellant has not persuasively rebutted the Examiner’s findings. In particular, Appellant argues that Figure 3 of Fisher “shows direct addressing, where a key (SMITH) is used to map to a particular record number (623) where data is stored,” and thus “shows using the key as the means of selecting and retrieving a desired record from the data set using a table lookup.” Reply Br. 10. Appellant’s argument, however, does not address the Examiner’s finding that “SMITH” is specified in the READ/WRITE macro in Fisher to locate the “SMITH” record. See Ans. 18. Moreover, Appellant does not explain persuasively why using a lookup table precludes the system in Fisher from being a content addressable storage system. For these reasons, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in finding that the cited portions of Banzaf and Fisher teach or suggest the recited limitation of claim 12. Claim 10 depends from claim 1 and further recites “wherein the storage system is configured to perform a deduplication operation on the one or more other pages of the set of pages of the logical storage volume but not on the designated page of the set of pages.” Appeal Br. 19 (Claim App.). Appellant argues that “O’Brien is devoid of any reference to deduplication, and does not perform deduplication of any portion of data records.” Appeal Br. 15. We agree with Appellant that the portions of O’Brien cited by the Examiner perform compression, not deduplication. See O’Brien cols. 13:2- 7, 14:3-13, and 16:56-67. The Examiner’s interpretation of the term Appeal 2021-000436 Application 16/013,024 8 “deduplication” to mean “the replacement of multiple copies of data at variable levels of granularity in order to save storage space” is overly broad and unreasonable in the absence of a citation to Appellant’s Specification. See Ans. 20-21. Indeed, the Specification differentiates between the terms “deduplication” and “compression.” See, e.g., Spec. 1:13. The portions of O’Brien cited by the Examiner appear in a section entitle “Data Compression Capabilities.” O’Brien col. 12:48. For these reasons, on the record before us, we are we are persuaded that the Examiner erred in finding that the cited portions of Banzaf and O’Brien teach or suggest the recited limitation of claim 10. Claim 11 depends from claim 1 and further recites “wherein the storage system is configured to perform a compression operation on the one or more other pages of the set of pages of the logical storage volume but not on the designated page of the set of pages.” Appeal Br. 19 (Claims App.). Appellant argues that the cited portions of O’Brien perform compaction or compression of all data and do not teach compression of data pages to the exclusion of count and key data. Id. at 15-16. We are not persuaded that the Examiner erred. The Examiner found that O’Brien teaches that only the data fields are compressed. Ans. 23 (citing O’Brien col. 16:56-67). Appellant has not persuasively rebutted the Examiner’s findings, but merely repeats in the Reply Brief the argument that O’Brien “appears to describe compression of data records through compaction by deleting all gaps between fields in received count key data records.” Reply Br. 12 (citing O’Brien col. 14:3-13). Appeal 2021-000436 Application 16/013,024 9 For these reasons, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in finding that the cited portions of Banzaf and O’Brien teach or suggest the recited limitation of claim 11. Claim 14 depends from claim 1 and further recites wherein the storage system comprises a clustered storage system having a plurality of storage nodes each comprising a plurality of storage devices and wherein the storage controller is implemented in a distributed manner so as to comprise a plurality of distributed storage controller components implemented on respective ones of the storage nodes of the clustered storage system. Appeal Br. 19-20 (Claims App.). Appellant argues that O’Brien fails to disclose that a storage controller is implemented in a distributed manner so as to comprise a plurality of distributed storage controller components implemented on respective ones of the storage nodes of the clustered storage system, as recited in dependent claim 14. Id. at 16. We are not persuaded that the Examiner erred. Appellant’s argument is conclusory, merely reciting the claim limitation, the teachings of O’Brien, and stating that the two are not the same. Id. Rule 41.37 “require[s] 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.” In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011). Moreover, Appellant has not persuasively rebutted the Examiner’s finding that O’Brien teaches a storage control unit implemented in a distributed manner that includes a plurality of cluster controls-typically two cluster controls for redundancy purposes. Ans. 26 (citing O’Brien Fig. 1, col. 7:3- 4). Appeal 2021-000436 Application 16/013,024 10 For these reasons, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred in finding that the cited portions of Banzaf and O’Brien teach or suggest the recited limitation of claim 14. CONCLUSION On the record before us, we reverse the Examiner’s §§ 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) rejection of claims 1-5, 13, 15, 16, 18, and 19. On the record before us, we reverse the Examiner’s § 103 rejection of dependent claim 10. We affirm the Examiner’s § 103 rejections of dependent claims 6-9, 11, 12, 14, 17, and 20. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1-5, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19 102(a)(1), 102(a)(2) Banzhaf 1-5, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19 6-9, 12, 17, 20 103 Banzhaf, Fisher 6-9, 12, 17, 20 10, 11, 14 103 Banzhaf, O’Brien 11, 14 10 Overall Outcome 6-9, 11, 12, 14, 17, 20 1-5, 10, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19 AFFIRMED IN PART