Ex Parte GUMMARAJU et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 10, 2018

14062723 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 10, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 14/062,723 10/24/2013 152569 7590 10/12/2018 Patterson & Sheridan, LLP - VMware 24 Greenway Plaza Suite 1600 Houston, TX 77046 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Jayanth GUMMARAJU 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. B436 6710 EXAMINER SKHOUN, HICHAM ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2155 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/12/2018 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): psdocketing@pattersonsheridan.com ipadmin@vmware.com vmware_admin@pattersonsheridan.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JAY ANTH GUMMARAJU, YUNSHAN LU and RAZV AN CHEVERESAN Appeal2018-000489 Application 14/062,723 Technology Center 2100 Before JOHN A. EV ANS, LARRY J. HUME, and STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants 1 seek our review under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b ). We reverse. 1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as VMware, Inc. App. Br. 3. Appeal2018-000489 Application 14/062,723 STATEMENT OF THE CASE The Invention According to the Specification, the invention concerns a "distributed computing application within a virtualized computing environment for a plurality of tenants." Spec. ,r 2. 2 The Specification explains that (1) an "application may be executed using multiple compute clusters and ... multiple instances of [a] distributed filesystem" and (2) "[ d]ata nodes executing as virtual machines (VMs) for test and development deployments can be linked clones of data nodes executing as VMs for a production deployment to reduce duplicated data and provide a shared storage space." Id. Abstract. Exemplary Claim Independent claim 1 exemplifies the claims at issue and reads as follows: 1. A method for executing a distributed computing application within a virtualized computing environment for a plurality of tenants, the method comprising: instantiating a first plurality of virtual machines (VMs) on a plurality of hosts, wherein each of the first plurality of VMs is configured as a data-only node of a first distributed file system, and has a virtual disk; storing an input data set in the first distributed file system by storing the input data set in a plurality of data blocks of the virtual disks of the first plurality of VMs; 2 This decision uses the following abbreviations: "Spec." for the Specification, filed October 24, 2013; "Final Act." for the Final Office Action, mailed September 6, 2016; "App. Br." for the Appeal Brief, filed June 6, 2017; "Ans." for the Examiner's Answer, mailed August 21, 2017; and "Reply Br." for the Reply Brief, filed October 18, 2017. 2 Appeal2018-000489 Application 14/062,723 instantiating a second plurality of VMs on the plurality of hosts, wherein each of the second plurality of VMs is configured as a data-only node of a second distributed file system storing the same input data set, and comprises a linked clone that references a virtual disk of a corresponding VM in the first plurality of VMs; and instantiating a third plurality of VMs, wherein each of the third plurality of VMs is configured as a compute-only node, the compute-only nodes including a first set of compute-only nodes that are configured to process the input data set in the first distributed file system for a first tenant and to process the input data set in the second distributed file system for a second tenant. App. Br. 12 (Claims App.). The Prior Art Supporting the Rejection on Appeal As evidence of unpatentability, the Examiner relies on the following prior art: Nightingale et al. ("Nightingale") Du et al. ("Du") US 2011/0258290 Al US 2013/0227558 Al The Rejection on Appeal Oct. 20, 2011 Aug. 29, 2013 Claims 1-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103 as unpatentable over Du and Nightingale. Final Act. 2-11. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the rejection of claims 1-20 in light of Appellants' arguments that the Examiner erred. Based on the record before us and for the reasons explained below, we concur with Appellants' contentions that the Examiner erred in finding that the cited portions of Du teach or suggest compute-only nodes configured according to independent claims 1, 10, and 18. 3 Appeal2018-000489 Application 14/062,723 Specifically, Appellants assert that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 10, and 18 because Du does not teach or suggest the following limitation in each claim: "a first set of compute-only nodes that are configured to process the input data set in the first distributed file system for a first tenant and to process the input data set in the second distributed file system for a second tenant." See App. Br. 8-10; Reply Br. 2-6. Appellants contend: (1) Du "teaches only a single distributed file system that stores an input data set"; and (2) Du's other distributed file system "merely stores results of the distributed data processing-it does not store the claimed input data set that is processed by compute-only nodes." App. Br. 8-9; see Reply Br. 2--4. Further, Appellants urge that nothing in Du "teaches [the] processing of an input data set in HDFS [a "first distributed file system"] is for a first tenant and [the] processing of an input data set in VMFS [a "second distributed file system"] is for a second tenant." App. Br. 9; see Reply Br. 4--6. Based on Du paragraphs 4, 16, 22, and 29, the Examiner finds that "Du tecahes [sic] a second distributed file system that stores an input data set." Ans. 4--5 (citing Du ,r,r 4, 16, 22, 29); see Final Act. 4--5. Further, the Examiner finds that Du "teaches the multi-tenancy environement [sic]." Ans. 7 (citing Du ,r,r 16, 27, 51); see Final Act. 4--5. Based on the record before us, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner has not adequately explained how the cited portions of Du teach or suggest "a first set of compute-only nodes that are configured to process the input data set in the first distributed file system for a first tenant and to process the input data set in the second distributed file system for a second tenant" as required by each independent claim. Du discloses that the HDFS 4 Appeal2018-000489 Application 14/062,723 (a "first distributed file system") stores an input data set but the VMFS (a "second distributed file system") stores the "data processing output," e.g., "results." Du ,r,r 1, 4, 22, 27-29, 38, Fig. 3 ("Results 365"). Each independent claim requires the "same" input data set in different distributed file systems, and the Examiner has not satisfactorily shown how Du teaches or suggests that feature. Also, while Du discloses a "multi-tenant environment" with computing resources "shared among multiple users," the cited portions of Du do not tie or otherwise associate different tenants or users to different distributed file systems. See, e.g., id. ,r,r 16, 27, 51. Thus, the Examiner has not satisfactorily shown how Du teaches or suggests processing the data "in the first distributed file system for a first tenant" and "in the second distributed file system for a second tenant." Because the Examiner erred in finding that the cited portions of Du teach or suggest compute-only nodes configured according to claims 1, 10, and 18, we do not sustain theÂ§ 103 rejection of the independent claims. Claims 2-9 depend directly or indirectly from claim 1; claims 11-17 depend directly or indirectly from claim 1 O; claims 19 and 20 depend directly from claim 18. For the reasons discussed regarding the independent claims, we do not sustain theÂ§ 103 rejection of these dependent claims. DECISION We reverse the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-20. REVERSED 5