Ex Parte Nicholas et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 21, 2018

14203488 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 21, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
14/203,488 03/10/2014 Andrew Nicholas
41505 7590 08/23/2018
Baker & Hostetler LLP (MICROSOFT CORPORATION)
CIRA CENTRE, 12TH FLOOR
2929 ARCH STREET
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19104-2891
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.
328694-US-CNT/l 04709.1044 3388
EXAMINER
KIM,DONGU
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2196
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/23/2018 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):
usdocket@microsoft.com
eofficemonitor@bakerlaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ANDREW NICHOLAS, RICHY AMPELL, JACOB OSHINS, and
RENE ANTONIO VEGA
Appeal2018-000090
Application 14/203 ,48 81
Technology Center 2100
Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., ERIC B. CHEN, and
SHARON PENICK, Administrative Patent Judges.
CHEN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of
claims 1-18. Claims 19 and 20 have been indicated to be allowable if
rewritten in independent form. (Final Act. 1 7.) We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm.
1 According to Appellants the real party in interest is Microsoft Technology
Licensing, LLC. (Br. 3.)
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Application 14/203,488
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants' invention relates to creating crash data in a virtualized
environment. (Abstract.)
1. A computer system, comprising:
a computing device; and
one or more memories having stored thereon computer readable
instructions that, upon execution by the computing device, cause the
system at least to:
load a controller emulator into resources of a virtual
machine operable on the computing device;
configure a communications bus to transmit crash data of
a guest operating system from the controller emulator to a
virtual machine monitor, the communications bus operative
without resources of the guest operating system;
receive crash data for the guest operating system of the
virtual machine, the crash data based at least in part on
processing by the controller emulator, the crash data received
through the communications bus; and
send the crash data to the virtual machine upon
determining that the guest operating system of the virtual
machine has resumed operation.
Claims 1-12 and 14--17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over Laor (US 2011/0231710 Al; Sept. 22, 2011) and Nakai
(US 2010/0083250 Al; Apr. 1, 2010).
Claims 13 and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over Laor, Nakai and Sakurai (US 2009/0144483 Al; June 4,
2009). 2
2 Appellants do not present any arguments with respect to the rejection of
dependent claims 13 and 18 under 35 U.S.C. §I03(a). Thus, any such
arguments are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 4I.37(c)(l)(iv).
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Application 14/203,488
ANALYSIS
We are unpersuaded by Appellants' arguments (Br. 7-10) that the
combination of Laor and Nakai would not have rendered obvious
independent claim 1, which includes the limitation "send the crash data to
the virtual machine upon determining that the guest operating system of the
virtual machine has resumed operation."
The Examiner found that the mechanism of Nakai for saving virtual
machine (VM) crash data, in which log unit 5122 saves the system
information in a dump and log analysis environment unit 523 after rebooting
guest OS 512, corresponds to the limitation "send the crash data to the
virtual machine upon determining that the guest operating system of the
virtual machine has resumed operation." (Final Act. 5---6.) The Examiner
further found that "[b ]oth Laor and Nakai disclose[] detection of a failure
within a VM, generating a crash file for the VM, storing the crash file and
analyzing the occurrence of the failure using the generated crash file"
(Ans. 5) and concluded that "[i]t would have been obvious ... to combine
teachings of Laor ... into teachings of Nakai ... because this would
enhance the teachings of Laor wherein by sending the crash data to the VM
allows user of the VM to collect the system information along with the crash
data for analysis" (Final Act. 6). We agree with the Examiner's findings and
conclusions.
Laor "relate[ s] to a mechanism for saving crash dump files of a virtual
machine (VM) on a designated disk." (i-f 1.) Figure 2 of Laor illustrates a
cluster of servers hosting virtual machines (VMs) (i-f 7), such that "[ u Jpon
occurrence of a crash event ... the hypervisor crash manager triggers special
non-maskable interrupt (NMI) to the VM and, in response, the OS running
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within the VM creates and sends a crash dump file detailing the crash event
to its designated crash dump storage location" (i-f 17).
Nakai relates to management of a virtual machine system. (i-f 2.)
Figure 7 of Nakai illustrates guest operating system (OS) 512, panic
monitoring and management unit 5 21, and dump unit 5 31. (i-f 19.)
Figure 8B of Nakai illustrates a process flowchart of system information
(system log) in the virtual machine. (i-f 18). In particular, Nakai explains
that "when a panic ( or various kind of failure) occurs in a guest OS 512, the
guest OS 512 stops" and "after detecting the occurrence of panic (T20), the
panic monitoring and management unit 521 reads out the content from a
memory unit 5121 of the guest OS 512 (T21), and stores the readout content
in a dump unit 531 on a real hardware 53." (i-f 19.) Nakai further explains
that "the panic monitoring and management unit 521 reboots the target guest
OS 512 in which the panic occurred (T23)" and "[a]fter the login, the log
collection operating unit 5123 collects the system information from the log
unit 5122 in step S45 according to an instruction of the user (T25), for
example, and saves the system information in a dump and log analysis
environment unit 523." (i-f 20.) Because Nakai explains that panic
monitoring and management unit 521 reboots the target guest OS 512 and
after the login, the log collection operating unit 5123 saves the system
information in a dump and log analysis environment unit 523, Nakai teaches
the limitation "send the crash data to the virtual machine upon determining
that the guest operating system of the virtual machine has resumed
operation."
A person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that
incorporating the process flow of Nakai, in which target guest OS 512 saves
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Application 14/203,488
the system information in the dump and log analysis environment unit 523,
with the virtual machine (VM) of Laor would improve Laor by providing the
VM with access to such crash dump files. See KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc.,
550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007) ("[I]f a technique has been used to improve one
device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would
improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious
unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill."). Further, combining
Nakai and Laor is nothing more than incorporating the known process flow
of Nakai, in which target guest OS 512 saves the system information in a
dump and log analysis environment unit 523, with the known virtual
machine (VM) of Laor, to yield predictable results. See id. Accordingly, we
agree with the Examiner (Final Act. 6) that modifying Laor to include the
process flow of Nakai would have been obvious.
Appellants argue that "[i]n Nakai's system, PMMU 521 is a
component of a virtual machine monitor ('VMM'), whereas guest 0/S 512
and its corresponding memory unit 5121 are both components of a VM" and
accordingly, "[i]fNakai's memory dump purportedly teaches the claimed
crash data, as the Office suggests, then Nakai's disclosure regarding a
PMMU acquiring the memory dump cannot teach or suggest the claimed
sending of crash data to a VM." (Br. 7.) Contrary to Appellants' arguments,
Nakai explains that "the panic monitoring and management unit 521 reads
out the content from a memory unit 5121 of the guest OS 512 (T21 ), and
stores the readout content in a dump unit 531 on a real hardware 53." (i-f 19.)
Moreover, the Examiner also cited to paragraph 20 of Nakai, which explains
that "[a]fter the login, the log collection operating unit 5123 collects the
system information from the log unit 5122 ... for example, and saves the
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Application 14/203,488
system information in a dump and log analysis environment unit 523."
(i-f 20.) Accordingly, Nakai teaches the limitation "send the crash data to the
virtual machine upon determining that the guest operating system of the
virtual machine has resumed operation."
Appellants further argue that "the Office's articulated reasons for
combining the cited references amount to circular reasoning that describes
the result of combining the cited references instead of reasoning with some
rational underpinning for making those combinations" (Br. 10) and such
"circular reasoning is evidence that the Office is relying on hindsight to
create the combination by relying upon the claimed features recited in
Appellant's claims for the motivation to combine the references, which is
not permissible" (id. 10-11 ). However, as discussed previously, the
combination of Nakai and Laor is based on the improvement of a similar
device in the same way as in the prior art, or in the alternative, by combining
known elements to achieve predictable results.
Thus, we agree with the Examiner that the combination of Nakai and
Laor would have rendered obvious independent claim 1, which includes the
limitation "send the crash data to the virtual machine upon determining that
the guest operating system of the virtual machine has resumed operation."
Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of independent claim 1 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a). Claims 2-12 depend from claim 1, and Appellants have
not presented any additional substantive arguments with respect to these
claims. (See Br. 9.) Therefore, we sustain the rejection of claims 2-12
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), for the same reasons discussed with respect to
independent claim 1.
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Application 14/203,488
Independent claim 14 recites limitations similar to those discussed
with respect to independent claim 1, and Appellants have not presented any
additional substantive arguments with respect to this claim. (See id.) We
sustain the rejection of claim 14, which depend from claims 15-17, for the
same reasons discussed with respect to claim 1.
DECISION
The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-18 is 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)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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