Ex Parte Nogueras et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 20, 201512135999 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 20, 2015) Copy Citation 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. 12/135,999 06/09/2008 Jorge R. Nogueras AUS920080498US1 4757 48916 7590 04/21/2015 Greg Goshorn, P.C. 9600 Escarpment Suite 745-9 AUSTIN, TX 78749 EXAMINER LEE, CHUN KUAN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2181 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/21/2015 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte JORGE R. NOGUERAS, MORGAN J. ROSAS, and JAMES Y. WANG ____________________ Appeal 2012-012104 Application 12/135,999 Technology Center 2100 ____________________ Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and ERIC S. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judges. DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2012-012104 Application 12/135,999 2 STATEMENT OF CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1– 23. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. The claims are directed to a hypervisor to I/O stack conduit in virtual real memory. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method for handling a request from a hypervisor in a computing system, comprising: receiving, at a virtual asynchronous services interface (VASI) from a hypervisor, a request directed to a service provider device; converting the request to a command data-link interface (CDLI) format; transmitting the CDLI formatted request to an operation- specific module; converting, by the operation-specific module, the CDLI formatted request to a command format corresponding to the service provider device; transmitting, by the operation-specific module, the service provider device formatted request to the service provider device; receiving a response from the service provider device at the operation-specific module; converting, by the operation-specific module, the response from the service provider device to the CDLI format; Appeal 2012-012104 Application 12/135,999 3 transmitting, by the operation-specific module, the CDLI formatted response to the VASI; converting the CDLI formatted response to a format corresponding to the hypervisor; and transmitting the hypervisor formatted response to the hypervisor. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Weber US 6,732,104 B1 May 4, 2004 Lach US 2009/0089464 A1 Apr. 2, 2009 Ali US 2009/0276785 A1 Nov. 5, 2009 REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: Claims 1–20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lach in view of Weber. Claims 21–23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lach in view of Weber as applied to claims 1, 8, and 15 above, and further in view of Ali. ANALYSIS Independent claims 1, 8, and 15 contain similar limitations drafted for different embodiments of the invention. We select independent claim 1 as illustrative of the claimed invention and address Appellants' arguments thereto. With respect to independent claim 1, Appellants contend: Appeal 2012-012104 Application 12/135,999 4 Lach enables multiple OSs to access multiple virtual I/Os by mapping and routing a particular OS to a corresponding virtual I/O module rather than converting requests into different command formats such as a "command data-link interface (CDLI) format" and a "command format corresponding to the service provider device," Weber does not address this issue because Weber's conversions are directed to conversions of transmission formats rather than commands, which are typically transmitted unchanged within a particular transmission format. In other words, the Final office, dated August 11, 2011, (F.O.A.) is mischaracterizing conversion of transmission protocols as conversion of commands. (App. Br. 15). The Examiner maintains that the Examiner: disagrees, and to further clarify the examiner's position; appellant is claiming conversion of command format to command format and not conversion of command protocol to command protocol, wherein Weber does teach/suggest conversion of command format to command format as the format of the command is converted while being transmitted from one of several protocols (InfiBand, SCSI, Fiber Channel or Ethernet) to the logical volume via stripping of header information. Furthermore, Weber does teach/suggest the command protocol is converted as the protocol conforming to either InfiBand, SCSI, Fiber Channel or Ethernet is converted in order to conform to the protocol of the logical volume, such that the logical volume can understand the received command. Additionally, appellant is not specifically claiming the example of the one particular capability that appellant's claimed subject matter can provide. In summary, by considering all words in appellant's claim for conversion of command format to command format, Weber does teach/suggest appellant's claimed limitations. (Ans. 16–17). From our review of the teachings of the Lach and Weber references, we find no express teaching of the conversion of a command Appeal 2012-012104 Application 12/135,999 5 format. Rather, we agree with Appellants that the references do not teach or suggest format conversion, but the references suggest merely a conversion of a command protocol or communication protocol to a different protocol via the header. We find the Examiner's interpretation of the stripping of a header to be unreasonable in light of the context within which the claimed invention must be reasonably construed. Moreover, the Examiner has not expressly addressed or shown that either of the two references teach or suggest the use of a CDLI formatted request to a different format converting, by the operation-specific module. Specifically, where the CDLI formatted request is converted to a command format corresponding to the service provider device with then a second converting step, by the operation specific module, the response from the service provider device to the CDLI format. Consequently, we find error in the Examiner’s conclusion of obviousness of independent claims 1, 8, and 15 and their respective dependent claims. CONCLUSION The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1–23 based upon obviousness. DECISION For the above reasons, the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1–23 are reversed. REVERSED dw Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation