Ex Parte Pace

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 16, 2018

13861312 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 16, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/861,312 04/11/2013
87334 7590 04/18/2018
IBM END IPLA W (GLF)
c/o Garg Law Firm, PLLC
4521 Copper Mountain Lane
Richardson, TX 75082
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Richard Grove Pace
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.
END920l30077US1 2687
EXAMINER
MATIN, TASNIMA
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2135
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/18/2018 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):
uspto@garglaw.com
dpandya@garglaw.com
garglaw@gmail.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte RICHARD GROVE PACE
Appeal2017-009586
Application 13/861,312
Technology Center 2100
Before CARLA M. KRIVAK, MICHAEL J. STRAUSS, and
KARA L. SZPONDOWSKI, Administrative Patent Judges.
STRAUSS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2017-009586
Application 13/861,312
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1-20, which constitute all the claims pending in
this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
THE INVENTION
Appellant describes the invention as directed to migrating data across
storages with dissimilar allocation sizes. Spec., Title. Claim 1, reproduced
below, is representative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method for migrating data across storages with
dissimilar allocation sizes, the method comprising:
determining, by a processor at a first data processing
system, a minimum allocation unit size used for allocating space
to a data at a source data storage device;
computing, by a processor at a first data processing
system, a number of first minimum allocation units of a first
minimum allocation unit size at a target data storage device,
wherein the number of first minimum allocation units is
completely occupied by a portion of the data;
computing, by a processor at a first data processing
system, an amount of data left over after excluding the portion of
the data from the data;
migrating, by a processor at a first data processing system,
the portion of the data to the number of first minimum allocation
units at the target; and
migrating, by a processor at a first data processing system,
the amount of data left over to a second number of second
minimum allocation units of a second minimum allocation unit
size at the target.
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Application 13/861,312
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Saito
Usami
Y ata et al. ("Y ata")
Martin et al. ("Martin")
US 2007 /0088666 Al
US 2010/0115222 Al
US 2011/0246740 Al
US 8,364,858 Bl
REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:
Apr. 19, 2007
May 6, 2010
Oct. 6, 2011
Jan.29,2013
Claims 1---6, 8-16, and 18-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Usami, Yata, and Saito. Final Act. 2-9.
Claims 7 and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Usami, Yata, Saito, and Martin. Final Act. 9-10.
ANALYSIS
Appellant's arguments are unpersuasive of Examiner error. We adopt
as our own ( 1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the
action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 2-13, Ans. 4--12) and (2)
the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in response
to Appellant's Appeal Brief (Ans. 12-15) and concur with the conclusions
reached by the Examiner. We highlight the following for emphasis.
Appellant contends U sami' s teaching of storage devices having
different page sizes does not require "that all page sizes be different," and
therefore, fails to teach or suggest first and second numbers of respective
first and second minimum allocation units of respective minimum allocation
unit sizes as recited by claim 1. App. Br. 13. The Examiner responds
"[ w ]hile there is recitation in the claims of a first and second size, there is no
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Appeal2017-009586
Application 13/861,312
requirement or limitation dictating that the first and second sizes [have] to be
different." Ans. 13. Nevertheless, the Examiner finds Usami's discloses a
minimum allocation unit "page" in both a source and target pool and that
"[a] size of a real page is different depending on a type of a pool" teaches or
suggests the argued differing minimum allocation unit sizes. Id. The
Examiner further directs attention to U sami' s Figures 5 and 7 for disclosing
different real page sizes in each pool when, for example, migrating data
from pool 3 to pool 1. Ans. 13-14.
During examination, claims are given their broadest reasonable
interpretation consistent with the specification. See In re Am. A cad. of Sci.
Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). "Construing claims broadly
during prosecution is not unfair to the applicant ... because the applicant
has the opportunity to amend the claims to obtain more precise claim
coverage." Id
Appellant's argument are unpersuasive of Examiner error. Claim 1
does not recite and Appellant has not explained why a proper interpretation
requires either (i) the first and second minimum allocation unit sizes differ
or (ii) the recited "a number of first minimum allocation units" and "a
second number of second minimum allocation units" be different values.
The only mention of relative allocation sizes in the claim appears in the
preamble of claim 1 reciting "[a] method for migrating data across storages
with dissimilar allocation sizes." Such language appearing in the preamble
alone is merely a statement of intended use and is not limiting. See Pitney
Bowes, Inc. v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 182 F.3d 1298, 1305 (Fed. Cir. 1999).
Furthermore, the language appearing in the body of claim 1 recites first and
second minimum allocation unit sizes rather than the more generalized
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Appeal2017-009586
Application 13/861,312
allocation sizes of "storages" recited in the preamble. The differing
language further makes it unclear whether there is a requirement for the
minimum allocation unit sizes be different.
Notwithstanding our agreement with the Examiner's interpretation,
we further agree with the Examiner in finding U sami' s pages of differing
sizes teaches or suggests the argued different first and second minimum
allocations unit sizes. Ans. 13. Furthermore, U sami' s migration of data
between and among virtual memory and pools having different size pages
(U sami Figs. 5-9) teaches data occupying different numbers of pages
depending on the respective page size, thereby teaching different numbers of
minimum allocation units, contrary to Appellant's argument.
Appellant further contends Yata' s migration of candidate pairs to a
destination pool and placement of pages fails to teach or suggest the second
number of second minimum allocation units of a second minimum allocation
unit size at the target as recited by claim 1. App. Br. 13. Appellant argues
Yata discloses "absolutely nothing that pertains to a (second) allocation unit
size, a (second) minimum allocation units, or a (second) number of
minimum allocation units, much less these aspects as different from the
alleged similar (first) aspects in Usami." App. Br. 14. The Examiner
responds by finding
Yata teaches data migration and calculating remainder of data
(Fig.27 element SP2703; Para 277-278 "Subsequently, the page
placement decision unit 315 refers to the virtual
volume/page/pool/storage tier correspondence table 701 and
creates a list of the remaining pages") and any page in
destination pool is considered second minimum allocation unit
(para 5 "The hierarchical pool configuration technique
partitions storage areas of virtual volumes into specified size
called 'pages'["]Para 12).
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Appeal2017-009586
Application 13/861,312
Ans. 13.
Appellant's contention is unpersuasive of Examiner error. We instead
agree with the Examiner in finding Yata's partitioning of storage areas into
specified sizes (i.e., pages) teaches or suggests a second allocation unit size.
We also disagree the rejection is deficient because, according to
Appellant, "there is an absolute lack of support in the combination why [the]
page in Yata is different from the page in Usami, which is alleged to be the
first minimum allocation unit of claim 1." App. Br. 15. As explained above,
there is no requirement for the first and second minimum allocation unit
sizes of claim 1 (i.e., the prior art pages) to be different sizes. See also Ans.
13-14. Furthermore, as also discussed above, we agree with the Examiner
in finding U sami teaches different page sizes. Id. Therefore, Appellant's
argument that the pages of the prior art fail to teach or suggest "two distinct
minimum allocation units of two distinct minimum allocation unit sizes, and
in two different numbers or quantities, in the manner of claim 1" (App. Br.
15) is also unpersuasive. To the extent Appellant argues the units of
allocation (i.e., the units used to measure data storage capacity) must also be
different, such argument is not commensurate in scope with claim 1 and is
further inconsistent with the examples presented in the Specification in
which both source and target minimum allocation unit sizes are expressed in
units of cylinders. See, e.g., Spec. i-fi-1 24--25.
For the reasons discussed above, we are unpersuaded of Examiner
error. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of independent claim 1 and, for
the same reasons, independent claims 11 and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
together with the rejections of dependent claims 2---6, 8-10, 12-16, 18, and
20 which are not argued separately.
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Appeal2017-009586
Application 13/861,312
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-20 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a).
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). See 37
C.F.R. § 41.50(±).
AFFIRMED
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