Ex Parte Marzinski et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 28, 2013

11218567 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 28, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte BENJAMIN ELLIOTT MARZINSKI and DANIEL RAYMOND
PHILLIPS
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Appeal 2010-0072881
Application 11/218,567
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before JEAN R. HOMERE, JASON V. MORGAN, and ERIC B.CHEN,
Administrative Patent Judges.

HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 The real party in interest is Red Hat, Inc. (App. Br. 3.)

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1-26. (App. Br. 3.) We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Appellants’ Invention
Appellants invented a method and system for managing a plurality of
data blocks contained within a storage device. Upon receiving a request to
modify a data block, metadata associated therewith is written in a data block
that is not shared by an origin and a snapshot thereof before making the
requested modification. (Abstract, Fig. 2.)

Illustrative Claim
Independent claim 1 further illustrates the invention as follows:

1. A computer assisted method of organizing a data structure
for managing a computer storage device that contains a plurality of
blocks, the method comprising:

(a) initializing entries of the data structure to indicate that the
blocks are shared between an origin and one or more snapshots;

(b) receiving a first request to modify a first portion of the
storage device;

(c) identifying a first chunk that contains the first portion to be
modified, wherein the first chunk includes at least one block;

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(d) writing first metadata into an entry of the data structure to
indicate that the first chunk is unshared; and

(e) allowing, after act (d), the first chunk to be modified.

Prior Art Relied Upon
The Examiner relied upon the following prior art as evidence of
unpatentability:
Bixby US 2005/0065986 A1 Mar. 24, 2005
Rajan US 2006/0179261 A1 Aug. 10, 2006
(filed Apr. 11, 2003)
Darcy US 7,124,249 B1 Oct. 17, 2006
(filed Oct. 1, 2003)

Soules et al., Metadata Efficiency in Versioning File Systems,
Proceedings of Fast ’03: 2nd Usenix Conference on File and Storage
Technologies (2003).

Rejections on Appeal
The Examiner rejected the claims on appeal as follows:
1. Claims 1, 6, 8, 11, 12, 15, 16, 19, 23, and 26 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Rajan.
2. Claims 2, 9, 10, 13, 14, 20, 24, and 25 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of
Rajan and Bixbey.
3. Claims 3-5, 17, 18, 21, and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Rajan and
Soules.
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4. Claim 7 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Rajan and Darcy.
ANALYSIS
We consider Appellants’ arguments seriatim as they are presented in
the principal Brief, pages 10-15.
Dispositive Issue: Have Appellants shown that the Examiner erred in
finding that Rajan describes writing metadata into a data structure entry
indicating that a requested data chunk is not shared between an origin and a
snapshot, as recited claim 1?
Appellants argue that Rajan does not describe the disputed limitations
emphasized above. (App. Br. 10-15.) In particular, Appellants argue that
even though Rajan discloses storing metadata in a data block of a storage
medium block, Rajan does not indicate that the data block is unshared
between an origin and a snapshot. (App. Br. 12-14.)
In response, the Examiner finds that Rajan’s disclosure of writing all
modified data including newly allocated metadata exclusively in areas of a
writable virtual disk (vdisk) not shared with a read-only snapshot file
describes the disputed limitations, as claimed. (Ans. 14-15.)
On the record before us, we agree with the Examiner’s finding of
anticipation. Rajan discloses a plurality of writable, read-only snapshots of
an active file operating on a storage system (900) including a vdisk layer
(920) containing a plurality of blocks (922), some of which containing
horizontal lines indicating the data therein is backed up in a separate
snapshot file (934) of a snapshot layer (930). (Para. [0072], Fig. 9.)
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Subsequent modifications including newly allocated metadata that are
written with hash marks to data blocks in the vdisk indicating that the data
therein is unshared with the snapshot file until the next backup operation. In
other words, Rajan discloses that unmodified data blocks marked with
horizontal lines are shared between vdisk and the snapshot, whereas
modified including newly allocated metadata blocks marked with hashed
lines remain unshared between the two areas of the storage device. (Para.
[0073], [0077]-[0079].) We find that because the disclosed newly allocated
metadata is written only in a vdisk data block that is not yet shared with the
snapshot file ¶ [0013], Rajan describes writing the metadata into an entry in
data structure that is not shared with the snapshot file. We are therefore
satisfied that Rajan’s disclosure describes the disputed limitations. It
follows that Appellants have not shown error in the Examiner’s rejection of
claim 1 as being anticipated by Rajan.
Because Appellants reiterate for claims 2-26 the arguments presented
for patentability of claim 1 above, and we find no discrepancies in Rajan for
the other references to cure, claims 2-26 fall together with claim 1 as set
forth above. See 37 C.F.R. § 1.37(c)(1)(vii).

DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1-26 as set forth
above.

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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).

AFFIRMED

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