Ex Parte Basov et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 15, 2012

11341353 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 15, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte IVAN BASOV, CHRISTIAN J. CHUBA, STEPHAN A. FRIDELLA, UDAY K. GUPTA, XIAOYE JIANG, CHRISTOPHER STACEY, JIANNAN ZHENG and EYAL ZIMRAN ____________ Appeal 2010-004509 Application 11/341,353 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD, JR., ERIC S. FRAHM and ANDREW J. DILLON, Administrative Patent Judges. WHITEHEAD, JR., Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2010-004509 Application 11/341,353 2 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants are appealing claims 1-37. Appeal Brief 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) (2002). We affirm. Introduction “The present invention is directed to an interface, method and apparatus that enables bulk retrieval of file system object attributes for storage and use by an Information Manager.” Specification 6. Illustrative Claim 1. A method of collecting file system metadata including object attributes in response to a Bulk Attribute Retrieval (BAR) request includes the step of: decoding the BAR request to identify a file system tree; identifying file system objects associated with the file system tree; retrieving metadata including attributes of the identified file objects; and selectively storing the retrieved metadata including attributes of each identified object in a result file. Appeal 2010-004509 Application11/341,353 3 Rejections on Appeal1 Claims 1, 2, 14, 24, 30, 33, and 34 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §102(b) as being anticipated by Kain (U.S. Patent Number 6,119,118; issued September 12, 2000). Answer 3-7. Claims 5, 6, 15, 16, 25, 29, 31, and 35 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being unpatentable over Kain and Mazzitelli (U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2006/0026552; published February 2, 2006). Answer 7-12. Claims 3, 4, 9, 19, and 32 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being unpatentable over Kain and Amegadzie (U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2006/0212746 A1; published September 21, 2006). Answer 12-14. Claims 7, 8, 10-13, 17, 18, 20-23, and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being unpatentable over Kain and Corbett (U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2007/0101069 A1; published May 3, 2007. Answer 15-23. Claims 26, 28, 36, and 37 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as being unpatentable over Kain and Wu (U.S. Patent Number 6,981,114 B1; December 27, 2005). Answer 23-25. 1 The Examiner withdrew the 35 U.S.C. §101 rejection of claims 24 and 33. Answer 27. Appeal 2010-004509 Application11/341,353 4 Issue on Appeal Does Kain fail to teach the bulk retrieval of metadata attributes as disclosed in claim 1 and as similarly disclosed in independent claims 14, 24, 33, and 34? ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants’ conclusions. We concur with the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Answer in response to Appellants’ Appeal Brief. However, we highlight and address specific findings and arguments for emphasis as follows. Appellants argue that Kain’s objective is to “provide multi-instance, name-space and content extensible metadata for multiple format-specific filesystems” which is unrelated to the present invention’s objective to “enhance performance of metadata retrieval relative to a NAS crawl of the primary storage file system.” Appeal Brief 14, 15. Appellants cite several passages of Kain to support their arguments such as column 3, lines 48-49 wherein Appellants note that there is “no indication that one command returns attributes associated with multiple objects” and further, “there is no indication that one command returns multiple instances of the same attribute.” Appeal Brief 15. Appellants interpret Kain as disclosing an attribute retrieval procedure that accesses multiple different format values via different format agents for one attribute associated with one file object in response to a request Appeal 2010-004509 Application11/341,353 5 “whereas the present invention retrieves multiple attributes associated with multiple different file objects in response to a request.” Appeal Brief 16. However the Examiner finds that Kain does indicate that a single request is received for accessing metadata attributes from the metadata attributes store where the attributes are associated with objects and that it is a single command or request, that returns attributes associated with objects. Answer 26. The Examiner cites to Kain, column 4, lines 3-10 and column 9, lines 44-47 for support of his findings. Id. Further, Kain discloses: It is a further object of the present invention to provide interchangeability of file systems, so that a file system can be returned to the original machine for which it was intended to be used. According to the present invention, these objectives are met by a system and a method for handling requests from a client for accessing one or more values for attributes from at least one file system having an associated format containing specific attributes. Kain, column 3, lines 44-51. It is clear from the cited passage above that Kain’s objective is to enhance the performance of bulk metadata retrieval and further still, it is also clear that Kain does not set constraints, such as one attribute per one file object, as Appellants contend, because Kain states “one or more values for attributes from at least one file system” in column 3, lines 49-50. Therefore, we do not find that Kain limits one attribute with one file object because Kain discloses “at least one” meaning that multiple “file objects” are attainable. Appellants also contend that Kain’s “passage at column 26, line 60 through column 27, line 2 simply describes a filesystem object identifier Appeal 2010-004509 Application11/341,353 6 structure. Again, there is no tree form which an object is identified.” Appeal Brief 15. However, the Examiner disagrees and finds that Kain discloses: “‘Since directories can contain other directories, there can be a hierarchy of directories containing files on a volume. Directories may also be identified by a value which is unique within a volume’ (Kain Col: 6: lines 43-46).” Answer 26. Kain also discloses that “‘fig. 9e [sic] illustrates a file system object identifier structure according to one embodiment of the present invention.’ (Kain col. 26: line 60 - col. 27: line 2).” Answer 26. We agree with the Examiner’s findings and therefore we do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive for the reasons set forth above. Thus we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, as well as, independent claims 14, 24, and 33 not separately argued. Also, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of dependent claims 2-13, 15-23, 25-32 and 34-37 not separately argued. DECISION The rejection of claims 1-37 are affirmed. 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). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED tkl