Ex Parte Jones et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 21, 2016

13170165 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 21, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/170, 165
78650 7590
Nelson and Nelson
775 High Ridge Drive
Alpine, UT 84004
06/27/2011
06/23/2016
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Carl E. Jones
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.
TUC920110020US 1 3243
EXAMINER
NAMAZI, MEHDI
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2139
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/23/2016 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):
dan@nnpatentlaw.com
alexis@nnpatentlaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte CARL E. JONES and SUBHOJIT ROY
Appeal2015-000749
Application 13/170,165
Technology Center 2100
Before BRUCE R. WINSOR, KEVIN C. TROCK, and
AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges.
MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2015-000749
Application 13/170,165
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 11-24. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
THE INVENTION
The application is directed to a computer program product and
apparatus "for preserving data availability and I/O performance when
creating a virtual RAID volume." (Abstract.) Claim 11, reproduced below,
is illustrative:
11. A computer program product for preserving data availa-
bility and I/O performance when creating a virtual RAID vol-
ume, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory
computer-readable storage medium having computer-usable pro-
gram code embodied therein, the computer-usable program code
compnsmg:
computer-usable program code to expose a set ofbackend vir-
tual volumes, wherein the backend virtual volumes are imple-
mented on a set of physical storage devices residing on a storage
system;
computer-usable program code to enable selection of the set
of backend virtual volumes to create a virtual RAID volume hav-
ing a selected RAID level; and
computer-usable program code to provide verification that the
backend virtual volumes will be implemented on the physical
storage devices in a way that preserves data availability and I/O
performance associated with the selected RAID level.
1 Appellants identify International Business Machines Corporation as the
real party in interest. (See App. Br. 2.)
2
Appeal2015-000749
Application 13/170,165
THE REFERENCE AND THE REJECTION
Claims 11-24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated
by Tim Warden, Storage Pooling, Thin Provisioning And Over Subscription
(http://www.las-solanas.com/storage_virtualization/thin_provisioning.php),
updated July 3, 2010. (See Final Act. 3-6.2)
ANALYSIS
Anticipation
Claim 11 is directed to a computer program product "for preserving
data availability and I/O performance when creating a virtual RAID
volume." The claimed product includes code to "expose a set of backend
virtual volumes ... implemented on a set of physical storage devices
residing on a storage system," "enable selection of the set ofbackend virtual
volumes to create a virtual RAID volume having a selected RAID level,"
and "provide verification that the backend virtual volumes will be
implemented on the physical storage devices in a way that preserves data
availability and I/O performance associated with the selected RAID level."
Claim 21 is an apparatus version of claim 11.
According to the Specification, the invention is intended to address
the problem that, for example, on-demand allocation of physical storage to a
virtual RAID volume could "defeat the very purpose of creating [a] three-
2 The rejection is under pre-AIA Section 102(e), which can raise a bar in the
case of an earlier patent application or patent. (See Final Act. 3.) As the
only cited reference, Warden, is a white paper, Section 102(e) does not
apply. Because Appellants have not raised this issue, however, we will treat
the rejection as though it were made under Section 102(a), the distinction
being immaterial in any event given our decision to reverse.
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Appeal2015-000749
Application 13/170,165
way striped [RAID] volume" or "reduc[e] or eliminat[e] the data availability
characteristic that [a] mirrored virtual RAID volume was intended to create,"
because data written to the virtual RAID volume may not be written to the
physical storage as would be required to ensure the benefits of the chosen
RAID level. (See Spec. i-fi-13-5.)
The Warden reference is a white paper that provides an overview of
storage pooling, thin provisioning, and over subscription. The reference
explains that in storage pooling, "the disks - whether physical or logical-
can be aggregated into pools from which the logical volumes are allocated."
(Warden 1.) The reference further explains that thin provisioning
"improve[ es] storage utilization by only allocating to a volume the physical
storage required to hold its data," assuming that "until an application writes
a particular block or group of blocks in a virtual volume, there is no need to
allocate the physical space to accommodate those blocks." (Id.) "Over
subscription" is the practice of using thin provisioning to provision more
storage than is physically available in the pool, the idea being that a given
volume may not use all the space it has been allocated. (Id. at 2.)
The Examiner finds that Warden discloses the claimed "enabl[ing]
selection of the set ofbackend virtual volumes to create a virtual RAID
volume having a selected RAID level" and "provid[ing] verification that the
backend virtual volumes will be implemented on the physical storage
devices in a way that preserves data availability and I/O performance
associated with the selected RAID level" at pages 1-3, which describe thin
provisioning and "wherein by determining the size of data requirements,
allocating additional capacity for each of the volumes table 1 shows the
current size of data and sizes of the volumes will be created." (Final Act. 4.)
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Appeal2015-000749
Application 13/170,165
We do not agree. Pages 1-3 of the reference simply describe
examples of (a) storage without thin provisioning, (b) thin provisioning
without pooling, and ( c) thin provisioning with pooling, the author's point
being that example (c) can avoid (at least temporarily) the purchase of
additional physical storage. The discussion does not include virtual RAID
volumes, the problem addressed in the instant Specification, or the claimed
solution of "verif[ying] that the backend virtual volumes will be
implemented on the physical storage devices in a way that preserves data
availability and I/O performance associated with the selected RAID level."
While Warden does mention "RAID," it does so in the context of
describing the physical storage, not virtual RAID volumes. 3 Moreover, even
if Warden did discuss virtual RAID volumes, it does not describe the
claimed verification.
The Examiner states that "specification paragraph 0041 indicates that
the verification is allocating different physical disks or using disk pools as
way of providing verification." (Final Act. 4; see Ans. 6.) That is not
accurate. The verification is ensuring that the allocation is done in a way
3 See, e.g., Warden 1 ("For instance, the logical volume may be remapped to
a particular set of blocks on several physical disks that comprise a 'partition'
in a RAID-5 group."); id. at 2 ("We will not concern ourselves with the
specific composition of the storage - the type of disks or the RAID groups
employed."); id. at 4 ("Since our Thin-Provisioned volumes are based on a
virtual geometry and not on any particular physical disk structure or RAID
group, we can easily add more disks or LUNs to the storage pool without
modification to those volumes and without informing their associated
application servers."); id. at 6 ("The typical scenario involves setting up a
test SANmelody server that may have a few small drives in a RAID group,
with which they make a LUN of maybe 270GB of storage.").
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Appeal2015-000749
Application 13/170,165
that "preserves the data availability and l/O performance associated with the
selected RAID level," not simply allocating itself. Warden does not describe
such verification.
In the Answer, the Examiner states for the first time that "the phrase
'in a way that preserves data availability and I/O performance associated
with a selected RAID level' is an intended benefit and does not further limit
the claim." (Ans. 6.) We agree with Appellants that this is not "an intended
benefit," as it is a substantive aspect of the affirmative "verifying" step.
For these reasons, we do not sustain the Section 102 rejections of
claims 11-24.
DECISION
The rejections of claims 11-24 are reversed.
REVERSED
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