VMware, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardMar 3, 2021

2019006697 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 3, 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. 14/482,105 09/10/2014 Jairam Choudhary C213 7301 152691 7590 03/03/2021 Setter Roche LLP 1860 Blake Street Suite 100 Denver, CO 80202 EXAMINER CHEUNG, EDDY ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2165 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/03/2021 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): ipadmin@vmware.com uspto@setterroche.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JAIRAM CHOUDHARY Appeal 2019-006697 Application 14/482,105 Technology Center 2100 Before ALLEN R. MACDONALD, JEREMY J. CURCURI, and AMBER L. HAGY, Administrative Patent Judges. HAGY, 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 1–7, 9–17, and 19–22, which are all of the pending claims. See Final Act. 1; Appeal Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as VMWare, Inc. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2019-006697 Application 14/482,105 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claimed invention relates to identifying an application in response to an attach triggering event, and attaching an application volume to a computing system, while filtering one or more applications from the application volume that are not the application identified in the attach triggering event. See Abstract. By way of background, Appellant’s Specification describes that installing applications on individual computing systems can be time consuming and a waste of valuable computing resources. Spec. ¶ 2. Appellant’s Specification describes that, instead of being directly installed on each computing system, applications may be installed ahead of time on “attachable storage volumes,” which may be attached to a computing system as needed. Id. Appellant’s Specification further notes that requiring a new volume for each application increases complication and burden on the system. Id. Appellant’s Specification describes a method and a system to attach an application to a computing system without requiring a separate volume for each application, wherein the system will identify an application to be executed and will filter one or more applications from the computing volume to prevent execution of applications other than the one identified. E.g., Spec. ¶¶ 14, 17–18. That is, “an application filter may be used to prevent the undesired applications from becoming available to the user, while the desired application is made available for execution.” Id. ¶ 17. Appeal 2019-006697 Application 14/482,105 3 Claims 1, 11, and 21 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative: 1. A method of attaching at least one application to a computing system, the method comprising: in a processing system, identifying an application attach triggering event for the computing system; identifying the at least one application based on the application attach triggering event; attaching an application volume to the computing system that contains the at least one application and one or more additional applications; and filtering one or more applications from the application volume that are not the at least one application to prevent execution of the one or more applications on the computing system, wherein filtering the one or more applications from the application volume that are not the at least one application comprises: in response to attaching the application volume, identifying application elements corresponding to the at least one application in the application volume, wherein the application elements make the at least one application executable on the computing system; and overlaying the application elements corresponding to the at least one application in a file system of the computing system to make the at least one application executable on the computing system from the application volume. Appeal Br. 12 (Claims App’x). Appeal 2019-006697 Application 14/482,105 4 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Name Reference Date Arbon2 US 7,254,682 B1 Aug. 7, 2007 Conover US 2012/0174096 A1 July 5, 2012 Appajodu US 8,301,686 B1 Oct. 30, 2012 Tsaur US 8,510,271 B1 Aug. 13, 2013 REJECTION Claims 1–7, 9–17, and 19–22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 1033 as obvious over the combination of Conover, Arbon, Tsaur, and Appajodu. Final Act. 4–31. OPINION We have considered Appellant’s arguments and contentions (Appeal Br. 6–10; Reply 1–3) in light of the Examiner’s findings and explanations (Final Act. 4–31; Ans. 3–9). For the reasons set forth below, we are not persuaded of Examiner error in the rejection of the pending claims, and we, therefore, sustain the Examiner’s rejection. Each of claims 1–7, 9–17, and 19–22 is rejected under the same ground of rejection. Final Act. 2. Appellant does not argue the patentability of any claim separately from independent claim 1, which is directed to a method. See Appeal Br. 7–10. Independent claims 11 and 21 are directed to a “computer apparatus” and to “non-transitory computer readable storage media,” respectively, and recite limitations corresponding to the disputed 2 All references are cited using the first-named inventor. 3 The Examiner’s rejection was issued under the provisions of Title 35 of the United States Code in effect after the effective date of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011. Final Act. 2. Appeal 2019-006697 Application 14/482,105 5 limitations of claim 1. Appeal Br. 14, 16 (Claims App’x). Thus, claims 2– 7, 9–17, and 19–22 stand or fall with claim 1. The Examiner relies on Conover as teaching or suggesting the limitations in claim 1 reciting “identifying an application attach triggering event . . . ,” “identifying the at least one application . . . ,” “attaching an application volume to the computing system . . . ,” and “overlaying the application elements . . . to make the at least one application executable on the computing system . . . .” Final Act. 4–6. In particular, the Examiner finds Conover teaches a “system configured to load applications to target virtual machines from storage volumes that are attached to a hypervisor.” Id. at 4 (citing Conover ¶ 10). The Examiner also finds Conover teaches a virtual machine (VM) agent responds to an attach-triggering event, and identifies volumes to be attached to a target virtual machine. Id. at 4–5 (citing Conover ¶¶ 16–17, Fig. 2). The selected volumes are then attached to a target virtual machine, and the operating system within the virtual machine can mount the file system contained on the application storage volume and access its contents, making the applications available to the virtual machine. Id. at 5 (citing Conover ¶¶ 17–20, Figs. 2, 3). Within each virtual machine, Conover’s VM agent can detect the presence of the new applications and automatically start the applications or notify the user that the applications are available for execution. Id. at 6 (citing Conover ¶¶ 37–38). The Examiner further finds, however, that Conover does not explicitly teach “filtering one or more applications from the application volume” that are not the selected application “to prevent execution” of the other applications. Id. at 6. For that limitation, the Examiner relies on Arbon in combination with Conover. Id. at 6–7. In particular, the Examiner finds Appeal 2019-006697 Application 14/482,105 6 Arbon teaches or suggests the claimed “filtering” by disclosing creating a “snapshot” image file from an existing storage volume, wherein the snapshot holds selected (“desired”) items (application files, folders, elements, etc.), without permanently deleting non-selected (“undesired”) items. Id. at 7 (citing Arbon, 5:1–22). The Examiner finds “placing desired items and removing undesired items from an image snapshot of an existing storage volume is a form of filtering as the snapshot is a reflection of the filtered content on the storage volume without deleting the items from the storage volume.” Id. (citing Arbon, Fig. 5, 4:34–50). The Examiner also finds Arbon teaches “attaching an application volume to the computing system that contains the at least one application and one or more additional applications,” by disclosing classifying items (like files and folders) that are stored in a storage volume to distinguish desired items from undesired items based on user input, enabling snapshotting of the storage volume, mounting a snapshot view of the storage volume, deleting undesired items from the mounted snapshot view, creating at least one image of the storage volume via the mounted snapshot view after deleting undesired items. Id. at 7–8 (citing Arbon, Fig. 5, 14:34–50). In that regard, the Examiner finds that “a snapshot view of a storage volume is itself a mountable volume.” Id. at 8. The Examiner additionally relies on Tsaur in combination with Conover for the limitation “in response to attaching the application volume, identifying application elements corresponding to the at least one application in the application volume.” Id. at 8–9 (citing Tsaur 1:48–58, 3:7–13). In that regard, the Examiner finds Conover teaches (see [0036]) an application broker can be contacted to request an application and the application broker Appeal 2019-006697 Application 14/482,105 7 can dynamically decide which application volumes contains the requested application. The application maps of Tsaur could be the process in which the application broker of Conover uses to decide which application volume[] contains the requested application and its related elements. Id. at 9. Finally, the Examiner additionally relies on Appajodu in combination with Arbon for the limitation “wherein the application elements make the at least one application executable on the computing system.” Id. at 10 (citing Appajodu, 10:31–36, 4:13–18; Arbon, 5:1–22). In that regard, the Examiner finds Appajodu discloses a data module that provides files, directories, and/or other data to an image creation module, further finding “[t]hese files, directories, and/or other data may provide for personalized settings, documents, images, registry entries, and any other resource or data that may be provided by the virtual machine image.” Id. at 10. The Examiner further finds “Arbon teaches . . . the use of snapshot images to provide desired items. The virtual machine images of Appajodu could be the snapshot images of Arbon.” Id. Appellant focuses its challenge on the Examiner’s findings regarding the “filtering” limitation of claim 1. See Appeal Br. 7–9; Reply Br. 2–3. In particular, Appellant argues the Examiner’s findings are deficient regarding what Appellant describes as the following requirements of claim 1: “(1) filtering the one or more applications ‘to prevent execution of the one or more applications on the computing system’ and (2) identifying application elements corresponding to the at least one application in response to attaching the application volume.” Appeal Br. 8–9. With regard to the requirement of preventing execution of one or more applications, Appellant contends “Arbon merely teaches that a Appeal 2019-006697 Application 14/482,105 8 snapshot on a computing system may not include specific data files, such as application files for an application, but fails to indicate that this operation deletes the files or otherwise prevents the execution of the application from its currently stored location on the computing system.” Id. Appellant further contends that because Arbon does not disclose that the undesired files are permanently deleted from the volume, the original files “stay available for execution on the computing system.” Id. That is, according to Appellant, “while Arbon may prevent files for an application from being duplicated to a snapshot, Arbon fails to indicate that the application may be prevented from execution from the original storage location from which the snapshot was generated.” Id. at 9 (emphasis added). We are not persuaded of Examiner error. As the Examiner finds, and we agree, Arbon teaches “filtering” by disclosing “making items not visible to the user so that the items are not selectable and thus not selectable by the user in the system.” Ans. 4 (emphases added). The Examiner also finds, and we agree, this teaching is in line with the disclosure in Appellant’s Specification regarding filtering. Id. (citing Spec. ¶¶ 21, 22, 29, 32, 33, 36, 39, 40, 45). For example, Appellant’s Specification describes that unwanted applications are not permanently deleted; rather, the filtering process includes “hiding and preventing access to unnecessary files by the user or other processes.” Id. ¶ 36. Arbon similarly discloses classifying items in a storage volume “as being either desired or undesired,” and hiding undesired items from the user. Arbon, 5:1–21. According to Arbon, items classified as “undesired” are excluded from the snapshot image, although they are not actually deleted. Id. at 1:59–61, 5:1–21. Appeal 2019-006697 Application 14/482,105 9 Appellant’s argument that the Examiner’s finding is in error because undesired files excluded from Arbon’s snapshot may still be executable from the original volume is unavailing. See Appeal Br. 8; Reply Br. 2–3. The Examiner’s finding is premised on combining Arbon’s disclosure of selective snapshotting into Conover’s data management system such that undesired files are not accessible to the user, and hence are not executable. See id.; see also Ans. 5, 8. As the Examiner finds, and we agree, “deleting undesired items (e.g. application files) from the mounted snapshot view would mean that the undesired items would not be visible and therefore not selectable by the user therefore preventing execution of the application.” Ans. 5. Appellant also argues that the Examiner’s findings are deficient with regard to the portion of the “filtering” limitation that requires “the application elements make the at least one application executable on the computing system.” Appeal Br. 9. Appellant acknowledges the Examiner’s reliance on Tsaur for that portion of the limitation, but contends Tsaur merely teaches an object map to define logical object addresses in a storage volume. Id. Appellant further argues “[n]either Arbon nor Tsaur teach identifying any application elements in response to attaching a volume, let alone identifying elements that make an application executable.” Id. Appellant’s argument does not persuade us of Examiner error. As the Examiner finds, and we agree, Tsaur . . . teaches a system that generates and stores an application map. The application map can describe locations of logical objects used by one or more applications. For each of the logical objects, the application map holds an object address that describes where the object can be found within a collection of storage volumes. The Examiner interprets logical objects Appeal 2019-006697 Application 14/482,105 10 used by an application as “elements specific to making an application executable” and an application map that describes locations of logical objects used by one or more applications as “identifying elements specific to making at least one application executable.” Therefore, Tsaur does teach “identify elements specific to making at least one application executable.” Ans. 8–9 (citing Tsaur, 3:7–13). Appellant has not rebutted these findings by the Examiner. For the above reasons, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claim 1, and we, therefore, sustain that rejection, along with the rejection of claims 2–7, 9–17, and 19–22, not argued separately. CONCLUSION The Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 1–7, 9–17, and 19–22 is sustained. DECISION SUMMARY Claims Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1–7, 9–17, 19–22 103 Conover, Arbon, Tsaur, Appajodu 1–7, 9–17, 19–22 TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED