Intel Corporation

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 28, 2021

2020000850 (P.T.A.B. May. 28, 2021)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE 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 APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 15/157,043 05/17/2016 Jeffrey C. Sedayao P49323D 4901 75343 7590 05/28/2021 Hanley, Flight & Zimmerman, LLC (Intel) 150 S. Wacker Dr. Suite 2200 Chicago, IL 60606 EXAMINER JAMI, HARES ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2162 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/28/2021 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): docketing@hfzlaw.com jflight@hfzlaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JEFFREY C. SEDAYAO and SUDIP S. CHAHAL Appeal 2020-000850 Application 15/157,043 Technology Center 2100 Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD, JR., JASON V. MORGAN, and IRVIN E. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judges. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 2, 4–10, 12–18, and 20–25. See Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Intel Corporation. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2020-000850 Application 15/157,043 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to “adaptively striping data across multiple storage clouds.” Spec., Abstr. Claim 1, reproduced below with the disputed limitation emphasized, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A computing device for re-assembling a file from a plurality of file blocks striped across a plurality of storage clouds, the computing device comprising: a processor; a memory; a block location determination module to (i) determine whether location metadata corresponding to a first file block is stored in a local metadata storage of the computing device, (ii) determine whether location metadata corresponding to a second file block is stored in the local metadata storage of the computing device, (iii) determine that the location metadata corresponding to the first file block is not stored in the local metadata storage of the computing device, (iv) determine that the location metadata corresponding to the second file block is not stored in the local metadata storage of the computing device, (v) request the location metadata corresponding to the first file block from a cloud resource allocation server in response to the determination that the location metadata corresponding to the first file block is not stored in the local metadata storage of the computing device, (vi) request the location metadata corresponding to the second file block from the cloud resource allocation server in response to the determination that the location metadata corresponding to the second file block is not stored in the local metadata storage of the computing device, (vii) determine that a first cloud storage provider of a plurality of cloud storage providers is storing the first file block of a particular file to be re-assembled, and (viii) determine that a second cloud storage provider of a plurality of cloud storage providers is storing the second file block of the particular file to be re-assembled; a file re-assembly module to (i) request the first file block from the first cloud storage provider, and (ii) request the second file block from the second cloud storage provider; Appeal 2020-000850 Application 15/157,043 3 a communication module to (i) receive the first file block from the first cloud storage provider, and (ii) receive the second file block from the second cloud storage provider; and the file re- assembly module further to re-assemble the particular file to be re-assembled from the received first and second file blocks.. REFERENCES The Examiner relies on the following references: Name Reference Date Song US 2003/0065947 Al Apr. 3, 2003 Smith US 2008/0005509 A1 Jan. 3, 2008 Li US 2010/0161926 A1 June 24, 2010 Ranade US 2012/0089781 A1 Apr. 12, 2012 Chacko US 2013/0204849 A1 Aug. 8, 2013 REJECTIONS Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis 1, 2, 4–6, 10, 12–14, 18, 20–22 103(a) Chacko, Ranade 7, 15, 23 103(a) Chacko, Ranade, Song 8, 9, 16, 17, 24, 25 103(a) Chacko, Ranade, Li, Smith OPINION Because Appellant argues all claims based on claim 1 (Appeal Br. 8, 12), we select claim 1 as the representative claim, and, except for our ultimate conclusion, do not mention the remaining claims further. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv). At the outset, we note that Appellant’s amendment and response after the final action (see Response to Final Office Action, dated Feb. 20, 2019) incorporated the limitations of claim 4 into claim 1 (id. at 11 (“Applicant notes that the amended features of claim 1 incorporate the features of previous claim 4”)). The amendment was entered by the Examiner. Adv. Appeal 2020-000850 Application 15/157,043 4 Act. 1 (Mar. 11, 2019). Thus, we review the rejection of claim 1 as recited in the Examiner’s Answer (see Ans. 3–8) and consider Appellant’s arguments accordingly (Appeal Br. 9–12; Reply Br. 2–5). Appellant argues the Examiner errs because “Chacko fails to disclose retrieving location metadata from a remote server because Chacko explicitly teaches that all chunk locations are stored in a local metadata table.” Appeal Br. 9 (referring to Chacko ¶ 73 (“When a file recovery request arrives for a de-duplicated data, local metadata table is examined, all relevant information is retrieved such as all chunk needed to create this file, and all chunk location[s].”)). Appellant contends “any assertion by the examiner that Chacko teaches that the global metadata table is used in retrieving a file is plainly incorrect.” Id. at 10; see Reply Br. 9–11 (“Paragraph [0073] of Chacko does teach ‘updating the global metadata table,’ but that paragraph says nothing about retrieving data from a global metadata table. . . . [T]hat paragraph merely teaches that, when a file recovery request arrives, a ‘local metadata table is examined,’ without any reference to a global metadata table.”) Appellant overlooks that Chacko discloses “CSH [(cloud storage hypervisor)] will then look up its metadata [(i.e., for a file having chunks)], which are globally distributed across multiple cloud providers.” Chacko ¶ 73. This happens before “a file recovery request arrives for a de-duplicated data.” Id. This supports the Examiner’s finding that “Chacko discloses both retrieving information from a ‘local metadata table’ and storing and retrieving information [from] a metadata table that [is] globally distributed across multiple cloud providers.” See Final Act. 3; Ans. 4–5. We are not persuaded of Examiner error. Rather, contrary to Appellant’s argument that “all chunk locations are stored in a local metadata Appeal 2020-000850 Application 15/157,043 5 table” (Appeal Br. 9), we agree with the Examiner that Chacko discloses retrieving location metadata from a remote server because that happens before the de-duplicating described in paragraph 73. Chacko discloses retrieving information from a metadata table that is globally distributed across multiple cloud providers before all metadata is retrieved from the local metadata table. Chacko ¶ 73. Thus, Appellant’s arguments (Appeal Br. 9–12; Reply Br. 2–5) are unpersuasive of Examiner error. Appellant also argues there is no motivation to combine the teachings of Chacko and Ranade because “Chacko teaches that the local metadata table stores all of the metadata required to determine a chunk location [so] there would be no reason to modify Chacko to add a feature Chacko already has.” Reply Br. 5. This argument is unpersuasive of Examiner error because the Examiner relies on Ranade also for the determination features of claim 1. Ans. 3–8. Thus, Appellant’s argument does not persuasively rebut the Examiner’s reason for combining the references. The Examiner’s obviousness rejections are affirmed. Appeal 2020-000850 Application 15/157,043 6 DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 2, 4–6, 10, 12–14, 18, 20–22 103(a) Chacko, Ranade 1, 2, 4–6, 10, 12–14, 18, 20–22 7, 15, 23 103(a) Chacko, Ranade, Song 7, 15, 23 8, 9, 16, 17, 24, 25 103(a) Chacko, Ranade, Li, Smith 8, 9, 16, 17, 24, 25 Overall Outcome 1, 2, 4–10, 12–18, 20– 25 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). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(v). AFFIRMED