Ex Parte Kosuru

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 17, 2017

13460072 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 17, 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.
13/460,072 04/30/2012 Ramakumar Kosuru 82963045 8166
56436 7590 04/19/2017
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
EXAMINER
ALLEN, BRITTANY N
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2169
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/19/2017 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):
hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com
chris. mania @ hpe. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte RAMAKUMAR KOSURU
Appeal 2016-007945
Application 13/460,0721
Technology Center 2100
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JAMES W. DEJMEK, and
SCOTT B. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judges.
HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1—20, which constitute all of the claims pending in this application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellant identifies Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Development, L.P. as the
real party in interest. App. Br. 3.
Appeal 2016-007945
Application 13/460,072
THE INVENTION
The disclosed invention is directed to indexing a skip list. Abstract.
Claim 1, reproduced below with the creating step emphasized, is
illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. A method, comprising:
receiving information regarding read and write operations
on a virtual memory configured to store data, wherein the virtual
memory is allocated in a plurality of pages;
inserting a node in a skip list having a plurality of levels,
wherein the node corresponds with a page of the plurality of
pages in the virtual memory ;
creating a new node at a lowest level in the skip list during
a write operation to a new page not represented in the skip list,
wherein the new node corresponds with the new page, and
wherein creating the new node includes incrementing the new
node to a higher level of the skip list as determined by comparing
a selected value with a preselected write probability, and
reading from the new page during a read operation,
wherein reading from the new page includes incrementing the
corresponding node to a higher level of the skip list as
determined by comparing a selected value with a preselected
read probability, wherein the read probability is not equal to the
write probability.
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence in rejecting the
claims on appeal is:
Funda Ergun et al., “Biased Skip Lists for Highly Skewed Access Patterns,”
in ALENEX 2001, LNCS 2153 216—229 (A.L. Buchsbaum and J. Snoeyink
eds., 2001) (hereinafter “Ergun”).
REFERENCES
Lubbers
Szendy
Soulard
US 5,659,739 Aug. 19, 1997
US 2003/0145186 Al July 31, 2003
US 2012/0136871 Al May 31, 2012
2
Appeal 2016-007945
Application 13/460,072
REJECTIONS
Claims 1—7, 12, 13, 15—20 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Soulard in view of Ergun and Szendy.
Final Act. 3—15.
Claims 8—11 and 14 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Soulard in view of Ergun, Szendy, and Lubbers.
Final Act. 16—18.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellant’s
arguments that the Examiner erred. In reaching this decision, we have
considered all evidence presented and all arguments made by Appellant. We
are persuaded by Appellant’s arguments that, based on the current record,
the Examiner erred.
Appellant argues the Examiner erred in finding Ergun teaches the
claimed creating step. App. Br. 9. Specifically, Appellant argues because
Ergun teaches incrementing an element in a skip list based on historical
access rates, Ergun does not teach or suggest “incrementing the new node to
a higher level of the skip list. . . upon creation of the new node . . . based on
comparing a selected value with a predicted write [probability]” as recited in
claim 1. Id at 10.
The Examiner finds Ergun teaches the creating step recited in claim 1.
Final Act. 4; Ans. 2-4. Specifically, the Examiner finds “[t]he historical
data is maintained after the node/key is inserted into the list, as a key "k" is
first given a rank of 1 upon insertion . . . and changed throughout is lifetime
3
Appeal 2016-007945
Application 13/460,072
based on its access.'” Ans. 3 (emphasis added) (citing Ergun 223 13, 217
12).
We are persuaded by Appellant’s argument as the Examiner has not
identified sufficient evidence or provided sufficient explanation as to how
Ergun teaches the creating step, as recited in claim 1. Specifically, the
Examiner has not provided sufficient evidence to show that Ergun teaches
incrementing a node upon its creation as opposed to incrementing a node
based on its historical data the develops over time based on its access. To
the contrary, the Examiner’s factual finding is premised on incrementing a
node over its “lifetime based on [historical] access.” Ans. 3. Accordingly,
based on the current record, and the specific sections of Ergun cited by the
Examiner, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner’s finding Ergun
teaches the creating step is in error because it is not supported by a
preponderance of the evidence. See In re Caveney, 761 F.2d 671, 674 (Fed.
Cir. 1985) (Examiner’s burden of proving non-patentability is by a
preponderance of the evidence); see also In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017
(CCPA 1967) (“The Patent Office has the initial duty of supplying the
factual basis for its rejection. It may not, because it may doubt that the
invention is patentable, resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions or
hindsight reconstruction to supply deficiencies in its factual basis.”).
Appellant raises additional issues in the Brief. We are persuaded of
error with regard to the identified issue discussed supra, which is dispositive
as to the rejection of all claims. Therefore, we do not reach the additional
issues.
Accordingly, we are constrained on this record to reverse the
Examiner’s rejection of claim 1, along with the rejection of independent
4
Appeal 2016-007945
Application 13/460,072
claims 12 and 18, which recite limitations commensurate in scope to the
disputed limitations discussed above, and dependent claims 2—7, 13, 15—17,
19, and 20.
Moreover, because the Examiner has not shown that Lubbers cures
the foregoing deficiencies regarding the rejection of the independent claims,
we will not sustain the obviousness rejection of dependent claims 8—10, 11,
and 14 for similar reasons.
DECISION
For the above reasons, we reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting
claims 1—20.
REVERSED
5