Ex Parte Umamageswaran et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 26, 201812691146 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 26, 2018) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR 12/691,146 01/21/2010 Kothanda Umamageswaran 42425 7590 12/28/2018 HICKMAN PALERMO BECKER BINGHAM/ORACLE 1 Almaden Boulevard Floor 12 SAN JOSE, CA 95113 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. 50277-3757 9185 EXAMINER VERBRUGGE, KEVIN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2132 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/28/2018 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): usdocket@h35g.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte KOTHANDA UMAMAGESWARAN, JUAN R. LOAIZA, UMESH PANCHAKSHARAIAH, ALEXANDER TSUKERMAN, TIMOTHY L. SHETLER, BHARAT C.V. BADDEPUDI, BORIS ERLIKHMAN, KIRAN B. GOY AL, NILESH CHOUDHURY, SUSY FAN, POOJAN KUMAR, SELCUK AY A, and SUE-KYOUNG LEE Appeal2017-004634 Application 12/691,146 1 Technology Center 2100 Before DANIEL N. FISHMAN, NATHAN A. ENGELS, and NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges. ENGELS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of claims 1- 20 and 22-36. Claim 21 is canceled. The Board decided a previous Appeal 1 Appellants identify Oracle International Corporation as the real party in interest. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal2017-004634 Application 12/691,146 relating to the present Application with a Decision dated September 29, 2015. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm-in-part. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM According to the Specification, "[t]he present invention relates to caching data and, more specifically, to selectively reading data from cache and primary storage." Spec. ,r 8. Claims 1, 5, 8, 17, 22, 31, and 32 are independent claims. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed invention. 1. A method comprising: during a period in which an intermediate cache is already storing a second set of items and a particular cache is not storing the second set of items: receiving at a storage system, from a software application executing in a computer system that includes volatile memory, at least a portion of which is used as the particular cache, one or more first I/0 requests; wherein the one or more first I/0 requests are I/0 requests to retrieve items involved in a scan operation that targets data that resides on persistent primary storage managed by the storage system; wherein the intermediate cache, managed by the storage system, is logically positioned between the volatile memory of the computer system and the persistent primary storage; wherein the scan operation requires a first set of items and the second set of items; and in response to the one or more first I/0 requests, the storage system performing the steps of: issuing one or more second I/0 requests to the intermediate cache, managed by the storage system, for the second set of items required by the operation; and 2 Appeal2017-004634 Application 12/691,146 providing the first set of items required by the operation from the persistent primary storage, and the second set of items required by the operation from the intermediate cache managed by the storage system; wherein the storage system only issues the one or more second I/0 requests to the intermediate cache for the second set of items after determining that the intermediate cache is not overloaded. THE REJECTIONS Claims 1-11, 22-25, and 32-36 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable in view of Mark et al. (US 2006/0271740 Al; Nov. 30, 2006) and Gaither et al (US 2008/0104329 Al; May 1, 2008). Claims 12-16 and 26-30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable in view of Mark, Gaither, and Blumenau et al. (US 2003/0115324 Al; June 19, 2003). Claims 17-20 and 31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable in view of Liu et al. (US 2004/0117441 Al; June 17, 2004), Gaither, and Blumenau. ANALYSIS Claim 1 The Examiner finds that Mark teaches each step of claim 1 except that Mark does not teach "scan operations per se" or considering the load on an intermediate cache prior to issuing an I/0 request to the intermediate cache, as required by the last "wherein" clause of claim 1. Final Act. 3--4. The Examiner finds Gaither teaches methods for bypassing an overloaded cache and issuing requests to a cache after determining that the cache is not 3 Appeal2017-004634 Application 12/691,146 overloaded. Final Act. 4--5 (citing Gaither ,r,r 17-20, Fig. 3). Further, the Examiner finds Gaither teaches that bypassing a cache when it is overloaded may improve the speed of data retrieval such that a person of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine its teachings with those of Mark, and the Examiner concludes a person of ordinary skill would have found it obvious to implement the teachings of Gaither with Mark's system to improve data retrieval speeds. Final Act. 5-6 ( citing Gaither ,r 28). Appellants acknowledge that Mark teaches components arranged similar to those relevant to claim 1 (Appeal Br. 11) and that Gaither teaches bypassing a cache when the cache is overloaded (Appeal Br. 16). However, Appellants argue that Mark teaches how conventional storage systems manage their caches while the arrangement and context of Gaither' s system and methods are fundamentally different than the claimed method which involves retrieving data from persistent primary storage when an intermediate cache is overloaded. Appeal Br. 11-16. Specifically, Appellants argue Gaither's system and methods involve managing a cache between a processor and volatile memory that is on the same machine as the processor such that Gaither' s teachings are limited to data retrieved from memory through hardwired circuitry that can provide data access speeds much greater than those provided by the persistent memory in Mark's system. Appeal Br. 13-15; Reply Br. 5. Appellants contend Gaither's caching architecture (between a processor and its main memory) "requires a hardwired solution" to achieve the speeds required by its cache application, and Appellants further contend such a solution requires speeds that "are orders of magnitude" different from the slower speeds required by Mark's cache application in a storage system. Appeal Br. 14--15. 4 Appeal2017-004634 Application 12/691,146 We agree with the Examiner that claim 1 would have been obvious in view of Mark combined with Gaither' s general teachings of improved data access speeds from bypassing an overloaded cache. Contrary to Appellants' arguments, the Examiner's proposed combination does not require bodily incorporation of Gaither's system (a hardwired, high speed, cache controller) with Mark's and instead relies on Gaither for its general teachings regarding bypassing an overloaded cache. Among other things, Gaither teaches that "[g]enerally, once the cache activity information or statistics reach some predetermined level, the control module 314 may deduce that an overload condition of the cache memory 308 does or will exist, and that one or more incoming requests should bypass the cache memory 308 at that point." Gaither ,r 20; accord id. ,r 2 ( describing different types of processor workloads and cache designs; recognizing that an overloaded cache can lengthen memory access latency and become a hindrance to a computer system's performance). Further, contrary to Appellants' arguments that "there is no reason one skilled in the art would conclude that 'if the [intermediate] cache is overloaded, it would be faster to get the data from the disk directly"' (Reply Br. 3), Appellants' Specification states just that: "When cache 406 is overloaded, it is more efficient to retrieve items from primary storage on disk 112 even though the items are cached in storage-side intermediate cache 406." Spec. ,r 96; see Appeal Br. 3 (citing ,r,r 96, 97, 103 as support for the disputed limitation). Appellants' Specification does not describe a technological advance or otherwise provide technical details that would not have been available to a person of ordinary skill reading Gaither and Mark. To the contrary, the lack of such details in Appellants' Specification 5 Appeal2017-004634 Application 12/691,146 evidences that a person of ordinary skill would in fact have understood the benefits of bypassing an overloaded cache to retrieve items from persistent storage to implement the teachings of Gaither with the system of Mark. See In re Epstein, 32 F.3d 1559, 1568 (Fed. Cir. 1994) ("the Board's observation that appellant did not provide the type of detail in his specification that he now argues is necessary in prior art references supports the Board's finding that one skilled in the art would have known how to implement the features of the references and would have concluded that the reference disclosures would have been enabling"). Accordingly, we disagree with Appellants and are unpersuaded that the Examiner erred in the rejection of independent claim 1. Claims 2 and 3 For dependent claims 2 and 3, Appellants rely on the same arguments advanced for claim 1. Appeal Br. 18-19. For the same reasons discussed above, we are unpersuaded that the Examiner erred in the rejection of claims 2 and 3. Claim 4 Dependent claim 4 depends from claim 1 and additionally recites "wherein the first set of items are retrieved from primary storage concurrently with the second set of items being retrieved from the intermediate cache." The Examiner finds, and we agree, that the benefits of retrieving two items concurrently, as opposed to serially, was within the knowledge of a person of ordinary skill at the time of Appellants' invention 6 Appeal2017-004634 Application 12/691,146 and suggested by Gaither to yield the predictable result of reducing the time required to retrieve both items. Final Act. 7; see Ans. 6. In addition to the arguments advanced for claim 1, Appellants argue that Gaither' s descriptions of the needs to improve speeds does not teach or suggest concurrently retrieving items from both an intermediate cache and a primary storage. Appeal Br. 19. Responding to the Examiner's finding that concurrent retrieval was not novel, Appellants argue that "[t]he inventive concept [ of claim 4] is in developing the technology to make the concurrent performance occur." Reply Br. 5; see Appeal Br. 19 ( citing Spec. ,r,r 110- 115 a support for the claimed concurrent retrieval). Contrary to Appellants' arguments, though, Appellants' Specification does not provide details of or reflect an inventive technological development that makes concurrent performance occur. Cf Spec. ,r,r 110-113 ( describing without detail "[ t ]he ability to concurrently scan from both the intermediate cache 406 ... and the hard disk"). As cited by the Examiner, Gaither teaches or at least reasonably suggests concurrent retrieval of items with its teachings that, for example, "memory requests for data within a certain range are serviced by the cache memory 308, while others bypass the cache memory ... directly to the main memory." Gaither ,r,r 27-28 (additionally describing multiprocessor systems such as a symmetric multi-processor system). Gaither explains that in "bypass mode," the cache controller reduces the workload of the cache memory so that performance does not decrease below a performance level associated with a system not implementing a cache, at least suggesting that the cache continues to process read requests from its queue while at the same time, other memory requests bypass the cache. Gaither ,r 28. 7 Appeal2017-004634 Application 12/691,146 Accordingly, we are unpersuaded that the Examiner erred in the rejection of claim 4. Claims 5-11 For each of independent claims 5 and 8 and dependent claims 6, 7, and 9-11 ( dependent from claims 5 and 8, respectively), Appellants rely on the same arguments advanced for claim 1. Appeal Br. 20-21. For the same reasons discussed above, we are unpersuaded that the Examiner erred in the rejection of claims 5-11. Claims 12-16 Dependent claim 12 depends indirectly on claim 8 and requires that the storage system applies filter criteria provided by the database server to items involved in the scan operation. Dependent claims 13-16 depend from claim 8 and require using certain factors to determine whether to service an I/0 request with a copy of a requested item that resides in intermediate. For claim 13, the factor is an identity of the user for whom the I/0 request was submitted. For claim 14, the factor is an identity of a service that submitted the I/0 request. For claim 15, the factor is an indication of a consumer group to which the I/0 request maps. And for claim 16, the factor is whether the I/0 request is associated with an offloader filter provided by the database server to the storage system. In addition to Mark and Gaither, the Examiner cites Blumenau for its disclosures of the use of filter criteria. Final Act. 7-9. Specifically, the Examiner finds that Blumenau discloses use of a host device ID to determine whether to service a request as part of a system intended to prevent 8 Appeal2017-004634 Application 12/691,146 unauthorized access to certain information. Final Act. 8-9; Ans. 8. Appellants argue that Blumenau teaches using the device ID to determine whose requests will be served, not for filtering the requested data before sending the data to the database server. Reply Br. 6-7; see Appeal Br. 21- 22. Although we agree with the Examiner that applying filter criteria is generally known, we agree with Appellants that Blumenau does not teach or suggest applying filter criteria "to items involved in the scan operation," as claimed. Consistent with the plain language of claim 12, Appellants' Specification explains that requests to retrieve items are often accompanied by filter criteria and that only items satisfying the filter criteria are needed to satisfy the request. Spec. ,r,r 106-107. In contrast, the cited portions of Blumenau relate to using a host ID to "selectively service the host's requests" by determining whether the requested data is accessible to the host or if the request should be denied. Blumenau ,r 34. In other words, Blumenau teaches using the host ID to filter requests; Blumenau does not teach applying "host ID" as a filter criteria to items involved in the scan operation ( e.g., to filter a set of data and to only return the data that satisfies the "host ID" criteria). Accordingly, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner erred in the rejection of claim 12. We similarly agree with Appellants that Blumenau's disclosures of using a host ID to selectively service the host's requests do not teach or reasonably suggest using the factors required in claims 13-16 to determine whether to bypass a cache. See Appeal Br. 22-23. Contrary to the Examiner's reasoning that Blumenau teaches using the host ID to prioritize users (Ans. 9-10), Blumenau teaches using the host ID to allow or deny 9 Appeal2017-004634 Application 12/691,146 access to data, not as part of a determination regarding bypassing a cache to retrieve the data from a persistent storage based on the host ID or similar factors, as claimed. Accordingly, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner erred in the rejection of claims 13-16. Claims 17-20 Independent claim 1 7 recites a method that includes the steps of receiving an I/0 request for an item that resides on primary storage but not in an intermediate cache and, in response, storing a copy of the item in the intermediate cache responsive to (a) "an identity of the user for whom the I/0 request was submitted belonging to a particular set of user identities," (b) "an identity of a service that submitted the I/0 request belonging to a particular set of service identities," or ( c) "an indication of a consumer group to which the I/0 request maps indicating that the consumer group belongs to a particular set of service groups." The Examiner finds that Liu teaches or suggests the storing step of claim 17 with its disclosures of a "data-aware cache" system that determines whether to store data in a cache "based on data access characteristics, state of the cache or other factors." Final Act. 12-15 (quoting Liu ,r 108). Further, the Examiner states that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art "to use the identity of the user, for example, in the determination of whether to cache certain data because the identity of the user (host) could instantly indicate the privilege level of the host or the priority of the host." Ans. 11-12. Although we agree with the Examiner that Liu generally teaches determining whether to store data to a cache based on policies set by users 10 Appeal2017-004634 Application 12/691,146 relating to the type of data requested, the state of the cache, and the state of other I/0 components, and "other factors" (see Liu ,r,r 5-7, 64, 108), Liu does not teach using factors such as the identity of the user, service, or group requesting the data. Notably, referring to the recited factors as "logical characteristics," Appellants' Specification distinguishes the claimed factors from "physical characteristics" such as the location of the data targeted or the amount of data involved in the I/0 request. Spec. ,r 55. Liu's identification of factors such as the type of data requested (Liu ,r 5) and other characteristics about the data itself (Liu's claim 13) may suggest such "physical characteristics," but the record lacks evidence of using logical factors such as those recited in claims 1 7 in the determination of whether to store data in an intermediate cache when it is being retrieved from persistent storage (see Appeal Br. 27-28). On the record before us, we agree with Appellants that the record lacks evidence to support the Examiner's findings and conclusions that the recited factors would have been obvious in view of the combination of Liu, Gaither, and Blumenau. See In re Van Os, 844 F.3d 1359, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (finding conclusory statements regarding what would have been obvious are inadequate to support the conclusion of obviousness). Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent claim 17, nor the rejection of claims 18-20 which depend from claim 17. Claims 22-25 For independent claim 22, Appellants rely on the same arguments advanced for claim 8, which are the same arguments advanced for claim 1. Appeal Br. 30. Similarly, for each of dependent claims 23-25 (dependent 11 Appeal2017-004634 Application 12/691,146 from claim 22), Appellants rely on the arguments advanced for claim 22. Accordingly, for the same reasons discussed above regarding claim 1, we are unpersuaded that the Examiner erred in the rejection of claims 22-25. Claims 26-30 Dependent claims 26-30, dependent directly or indirectly from claim 22, include limitations substantially similar to those of claims 12-16 discussed above, and Appellants rely on the same arguments advanced for claims 12-16. Appeal Br. 31-22. For the same reasons discussed above regarding claims 12-16, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejections of claims 2 6-3 0. Claim 31 For independent claim 31, Appellants rely on the same arguments advanced regarding claim 17. Appeal Br. 32. For the reasons discussed above regarding claim 17, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 31. Claim 32 Appellants state that independent claim 32 mirrors claim 1 in relevant part, and Appellants rely on the same arguments advanced regarding claim 1. Appeal Br. 32. For the reasons discussed above regarding claim 1, we are unpersuaded that the Examiner erred in the rejection of claim 32. 12 Appeal2017-004634 Application 12/691,146 Claim 33 Claim 33 depends from claim 1, and Appellants rely on the same arguments advanced regarding claim 1. Appeal Br. 32-33. For the reasons discussed above regarding claim 1, we are unpersuaded that the Examiner erred in the rejection of claim 33. Claim 34 Appellants do not separately address claim 36, which depends from claim 5. For the reasons discussed above regarding claim 5, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 36. Claim 35 Claim 35 depends from claim 9, which depends from claim 8, and Appellants rely on the same arguments advanced regarding claim 1. Appeal Br. 33. For the reasons discussed above regarding claim 1, we are unpersuaded that the Examiner erred in the rejection of claim 35. Claim 36 Appellants do not separately address claim 36, which depends indirectly from claim 22. For the reasons discussed above regarding claim 22, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 36. DECISION We affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 1-11, 22-25, and 32- 36. We reverse the Examiner's rejections of claims 12-20 and 26-31. 13 Appeal2017-004634 Application 12/691,146 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-IN-PART 14 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation