Ex Parte Adkins et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 27, 201613100332 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 27, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 13/100,332 05/04/2011 Janet E. Adkins 50170 7590 10/28/2016 IBM CORP. (WIP) c/o WALDER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW, P.C. 17304 PRESTON ROAD SUITE 200 DALLAS, TX 75252 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. A US9201100l8US1 2685 EXAMINER WILLIS, AMANDA LYNN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2158 MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE 10/28/2016 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 JANET E. ADKINS, DAVID J. CRAFT, THOMAS S. MATHEWS, and FRANKL. NICHOLS III Appeal2014-009845 Application 13/100,332 Technology Center 2100 Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, and MICHAEL M. BARRY, Administrative Patent Judges. KRIVAK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 10-13 and 15-30. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. Appeal2014-009845 Application 13/100,332 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants' invention is directed to "mechanisms for importing pre- existing data of a prior storage solution into a storage pool for use with a new storage solution" (Spec. i-f 1 ). Independent claim 10, reproduced below, is exemplary of the subject matter on appeal. 10. A system, comprising: a storage management system; and a first storage system comprising one or more first data storage devices storing data created using the storage management system, wherein the storage management system is configured to: integrate one or more second data storage devices storing pre-existing data created using a previous storage management system into the first storage system in-place without modification of the pre-existing data stored on the one or more second data storage devices; create metadata for the pre-existing data based on a linear progression of data in the pre-existing data, wherein the metadata specifies location information for locating portions of data in the pre-existing data of the one or more data storage devices based on an assumption of a linear progression of data in the pre-existing data; execute read access requests targeting the pre- existing data using the created metadata; and execute write access requests targeting the pre- existing data by redirecting the write access requests to a copy of the pre-existing data created in another storage location, wherein the metadata that is created has a configuration, corresponding to the storage management system used to manage storage devices of the first storage system, that is a different configuration from metadata used by an original storage management system when creating the pre-existing data in a second storage system different from the first storage system. 2 Appeal2014-009845 Application 13/100,332 REFERENCES and REJECTIONS Claims 10-13 and 15-18 stand provisionally rejected on the ground of non-statutory, obviousness-type double-patenting over claims 1--4 and 6-9 of co-pending application 13/449,860 in view of Leroux (US 2009/0193063 Al; July 30, 2009) (Final Act. 2-7). The Examiner rejected claims 10, 11, 13, 15, 19-25, and 27-29 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Leroux, Watanabe (2007/0260840 Al; Nov. 8, 2007) and Winter (US 5,778,414; July 7, 1998) (Final Act. 7-22). The Examiner rejected claims 12, 16-18, 20, 26, and 30 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based upon the teachings of Leroux, Watanabe, Winter, and Murase (US 2010/0082765 Al; Apr. 1, 2010) (Final Act. 22-26). ANALYSIS Provisional Non-Statutory Obviousness-type Double-Patenting We decline to rule on the provisional obviousness-type double- patenting rejection at this time (see Ex parte Moncla, 95 USPQ2d 1884 (BPAI 2010) (precedential)). Rejections under 35 U.S.C § 103 The Examiner finds neither Leroux nor Watanabe teach or suggest the creation of metadata for pre-existing data based on a linear progression of data in the pre-existing data as recited in claim 10, and relies on the combination of Leroux and Winter for this limitation (Final Act. 8, 10). Appellants contend, contrary to the Examiner's findings, that although Winter discloses a linear progression, Winter's teachings are directed "to a memory map for purposes of processing data frames received, i.e. putting the 3 Appeal2014-009845 Application 13/100,332 header of the frame in a first memory and the payload of a frame in a second memory. The memory map of Winter is not used for mapping logical volumes to physical addresses of a storage subsystem" by creating new metadata for the pre-existing data based on a linear progression of data in the pre-existing data as claimed (App. Br. 16; see also id. at 14--15). We agree. Appellants' claimed invention requires creating new metadata in the storage system to allow accessing pre-existing data stored on the one or more storage devices (see App. Br. 14--15). The "new metadata is created using the acceptable configuration of the storage system, however in order to do this, the system assumes that the pre-existing data in the one or more storage devices that are integrated into the system utilize a linear progression of data on the data storage devices" (Reply Br. 7; see also App. Br. 14--15). Appellants contend Winter's teaching of processing streams of data sent over a network connection using a memory interleaver is inapposite to the teachings of Leroux (Reply Br. 8). We agree. Winter discloses a memory map in which a linear address space stores part of a data frame in a first memory and part in a second memory (see Figure 6; col. 4, 1. 62 to col. 5, 1. 14). In other words, Winter merely teaches the well-known technique of a memory map having a linear progression of addresses for storing a stream of data. We agree with Appellants that Winter's teachings are unrelated to creating metadata for pre-existing data as claimed (Reply Br. 8). Thus, we agree with Appellants the Examiner is merely picking and choosing language in the various references in a piecemeal manner that inappropriately disregards the actual teachings in the references (Reply Br. 10; App 7). 4 Appeal2014-009845 Application 13/100,332 On this record, therefore, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 10, 20, 23, and 24, and dependent claims 11, 13, 15, 19, 21, 22, 25, and 27-29 argued therewith (App. Br. 21), and dependent claims 12, 16-18, 26, and 30 dependent therefrom, which we note the Examiner did not address in the Answer. DECISION We do not reach a decision regarding the Examiner's provisional rejection of claims 10-13 and 15-30 on the ground of non-statutory, obviousness-type double-patenting. The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 10-13 and 15-30 as obvious under 35 U.S. C. § 103 is reversed. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation
