Ex Parte Borthakur et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 15, 2017

13730698 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 15, 2017)

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.
13/730,698 12/28/2012 Dhrubajyoti Borthakur 060406-8016.US01 4120
107616 7590 08/17/2017
PERKINS COIE LLP - Facebook
P.O. BOX 1247
SEATTLE, WA 98111 -1247
EXAMINER
HOANG, KEN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2168
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/17/2017 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):
patentprocurement @perkinscoie. com
rsarathy@perkinscoie.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DHRUBAJYOTI BORTHAKUR,
NAGAVAMSI PONNEKANTI, and
JEFFREY ROTHSCHILD1
Appeal 2017-001747
Application 13/730,698
Technology Center 2100
Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, IRVIN E. BRANCH, and
JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judges.
BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims
1, 2, 5—11, and 14—20, which are all of the pending claims. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
1 The real party in interest is Facebook, Inc.
Appeal 2017-001747
Application 13/730,698
We affirm.
CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
According to Appellants, the claimed invention pertains to “data
storage with caching.” Spec. 11.
Claim 1, reproduced below with the disputed limitations emphasized,
is illustrative:
1. A computer-implemented method for storing data in a
database, comprising:
generating multiple levels of data according to how
recently the data have been updated, whereby most recently
updated data are assigned to a newest level;
storing at least some of the levels of data in a specified
storage tier of multiple storage tiers according to at least the
latency of the storage tiers;
splitting data stored in a specified storage level of the
specified storage tier into multiple data groups according to
access statistics of data, wherein a first data group of the data
groups includes data whose access statistics satisfy a criterion
and a second data group of the data groups includes data whose
access statistics do not satisfy the criterion, the specified storage
level including multiple data blocks, wherein each data block of
a set of the data blocks includes at least some of the data from
the first data group and at least some of the data from the second
data group, the data groups ranked into the levels according to
access frequencies, the splitting further including:
storing data having the highest access frequency
among the data groups to a particular data block in one of
the levels that contains data with the highest access
frequency;
during compaction, generating a first data by
extracting, from each data block of the set of the data
blocks, data that belongs to the first data group, and
storing the first data in one or more data blocks of the
specified storage level, wherein a specified data block of
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Application 13/730,698
the one or more data blocks includes a set of data records
whose access statistics satisfy the criterion;
receiving a request for a specified data record of the
set of data records; and
reading all of the set of data records into a low-
latency storage tier in response to the request for the
specified record.
REFERENCES AND REJECTIONS
Claims 19 and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being
directed to non-statutory subject matter. Final Act. 2—3.
Claim 1,2, 8—11, and 17—19 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Archak (US 2012/0072656
Al, published Mar. 22, 2012), Chatterjee (US 8,370,597 Bl, issued Feb. 5,
2013), and Stenstrom (US 8,046,538 Bl, issued Oct. 25, 2011). Final Act.
4—18
Claims 5 and 14 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over the combination of Archak, Chatterjee, Stenstrom, and
Stoutamire (US 7,299,318 B2, issued Nov. 20, 2007). Final Act. 18—21.
Claims 6, 7, 15, 16, and 20 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Archak, Chatterjee,
Stenstrom, andNucci (US 7,584,507 Bl; issued Sept. 1, 2009). Final Act.
21-29.
ANALYSIS
35 U.S.C. § 101 Rejection of claims 19 and 20
Because Appellants do not present arguments (see generally App. Br.
5—11; Reply Br. 2—6) with respect to the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 101
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Application 13/730,698
rejection of claims 19 and 20 (see Final Act. 2—3), we summarily affirm the
rejection.
35 U.S.C. § 103 Rejection of claims 1, 10, and 19
We have reviewed Appellants’ arguments with respect to claim 1 (see
App. Br. 6—9; Reply Br. 2—6) and find the arguments unpersuasive of error.
We adopt the Examiner’s findings and conclusion that claim 1 is
unpatentable over the combination of Archak, Chatterjee, and Stenstrom.
Final Act. 4—8; Ans. 2—6. We highlight the following for emphasis.
In general, Appellants’ arguments unpersuasively attack the
references individually. One cannot show nonobviousness by attacking
references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of
references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck
& Co., Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Specifically, for example, Appellants argue
“the action of storing CO through C3 contiguously with CO in
RAM” of Archak is not the same as “generating a first data by
extracting, from each data block of the set of the data blocks, data
that belongs to the first data group, and storing the first data in
one or more data blocks of the specified storage level” as claim
1 recites.
Reply Br. 4 (quoting the Examiner’s response (Ans. 3 4) to Appellants’
argument that Archak does not disclose “extracting” only “data whose
access statistics satisfy a criterion” and Chatterjee and Stenstrom do not cure
the deficiencies because they are “only configured to migrate single blocks
of data upward or downward one tier/level at a time” (App. Br. 6—8)).
Appellants’ reply to the Examiner’s answer is unpersuasive because it
overlooks that the Examiner’s rejection is based on the combined teachings
of the cited references. Ans. 4 (“the combination of the cited references
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Application 13/730,698
disclose ‘during compaction, generating a first data by extracting from each
data block of the set of data blocks data that belongs to the first data
group’”). Appellants do not persuasively rebut the Examiner’s findings with
respect to Chatterjee. See, e.g., Final Act. 7—8 (“Chatterjee, col. 7, line 38—
40, allocating data with high activity level to high tier”); Ans. 4 (“Chatterjee
teaches data being categorized into territories based on its characteristic for
data movement”).
Similarly, with respect to claim l’s “reading all of the set of data
records into a low-latency storage tier,” Appellants argue error because
“Archak describes a technique for moving individual keys between levels
(e.g., caches)” and “Chatterjee discusses copying a territory to an
appropriate tier.” Reply Br. 5—6. We do not find this to be a persuasive
rebuttal to the Examiner’s reasoning, which is based on “the combination of
Archak and Chatterjee.” Ans. 5—6. See also Final Act 8.
Appellants also argue error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1
because “the migration of territories between storage tiers in Chatterjee does
not teach or suggest ‘splitting data stored in a specified storage level of [a]
specified tier into multiple data groups . . .,’ as claim 1 recites.” Reply Br.
4. See App. Br. 8—9; Reply Br. 2-4. We do not find this to be a persuasive
rebuttal to the Examiner’s finding that “Chatterjee teaches the data being
grouped into multiple territories according to its characteristics; certain data
groups [territories] are demoted due to their lower score but others
[territories] stay in their current tier based on their higher relative score,”
which discloses the argued limitation. Ans. 2—3 (citing Chatterjee Fig. 3).
Accordingly, we are unpersuaded of error in the Examiner’s decision
to reject claim 1. We sustain the rejection of claim 1 and of claims 10 and
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19, which Appellants argue on the same basis. See App. Br. 6—9; Reply Br.
4.
Claims 5 and 14
Claim 5 depends from claim 1 and recites “storing separate data to a
particular data block in at least one of the tiers if the separate data are more
likely to be accessed together according to statistical analysis.” Claim 14
depends from claim 10 and includes a similar recitation.
The Examiner finds the combination of Archak, Chatterjee, and
Stenstrom discloses storing separate data to a particular data block in at least
one of the tiers but does not explicitly disclose that the storing decision is
based on whether the separate data are more likely to be accessed together
according to statistical analysis. Final Act. 18—19 (citing Archak, Fig. 3C).
The Examiner finds Stoutamire discloses that the storing decision is based
on whether the separate data are more likely to be accessed together
according to statistical analysis. Id. 19 (citing Stoutamire col. 2,11. 1—2, 41—
46, and 52—54 and Fig. 3C).
Appellants argue error in the Examiner’s rejection of claim 5 because
Stoutamire’s clustering data closer together in memory is not “storing
separate data to a particular data block,” according to claim 5. App. Br.
11.
Appellants’ argument is unpersuasive because the combination of
Archak, Chatterjee, and Stenstrom is cited for the limitation Appellants
argue, not Stoutamire. Final Act. 18—19.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 5 and of
claim 14, which Appellants argue on the same basis. See App. Br. 10—11.
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The Remaining Claims
Because Appellants do not separately argue the rejections of claims 2,
4—9, 11, 15—19, and 20 (see generally App. Br. 11, Reply Br. 6), we sustain
the Examiner’s rejection of these claims.
DECISION
In view of the foregoing, we affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject
claims 1, 2, 5—11, and 14—20
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)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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