HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT LP

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 30, 2020

2019003990 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 30, 2020)

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.
14/571,643 12/16/2014 Thomas A. Phelan 90737902 9542
56436 7590 09/30/2020
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
EXAMINER
VU, TUAN A
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2193
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/30/2020 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):
chris.mania@hpe.com
hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________________

Ex parte THOMAS A. PHELAN, MICHAEL J. MORETTI, JOEL
BAXTER, and GUNASEELAN LAKSHMINARAYANAN
____________________

Appeal 2019-003990
Application No. 14/571,6431
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before MARC S. HOFF, JOHN D. HAMANN, and
STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges.

HOFF, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a Final Rejection of
claims 1–4, 6–14, and 16–21.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
Appellants’ invention is a system and method for facilitating serving
of data requests based on quality of service assigned to processing jobs. The
method includes identifying a plurality of data requests from a plurality of

1 Appellants state that the real party in interest is Bluedata Software, Inc.
Appeal Br. 2.
2 Claims 5 and 15 have been cancelled.
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Application No. 14/571,643

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processing jobs, prioritizing the data requests based on a quality of service
assessed to each of the plurality of jobs, and assigning cache memory in the
computer system to each of the plurality of data requests based on the
prioritization. Abstract.
Claim 1 is reproduced below:
A method of prioritizing data requests in a host
computing system executing a plurality of virtual machines,
the method comprising:
identifying, in a cache service executing on the host
computing system and shared by the plurality of virtual
machines, a plurality of data requests from a plurality of large
scale data processing framework (LSPF) jobs that are each
executing on two or more virtual machines in the plurality of
virtual machines;
in the cache service, prioritizing the plurality of data
requests based on a quality of service assessed to each of the
plurality of LSPF jobs; and
in the cache service, assigning cache memory of the host
computing system to each of the plurality of data requests based
on the prioritization, wherein the cache memory comprises
shared memory locations accessible on the host computing
system by the plurality of LSPF jobs.
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Application No. 14/571,643

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The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence is:
Name Reference Date
Amiri US Pat. Pub. 2004/0230753 A1 Nov. 18, 2004
Illikkal US Pat. Pub. 2008/0250415 A1 Oct. 9, 2008
Iyer US Pat. Pub. 2009/0172315 A1 July 2, 2009
Chambliss US Pat. Pub. 2013/0074087 A1 Mar. 21, 2013
Yang US Pat. Pub. 2014/0156965 A1 June 5, 2014
Nishtala US Pat. Pub. 2014/0195770 A1 July 10, 2014
Yeager US Pat. Pub. 2014/0195686 A1 July 10, 2014
Quimbey US Pat. Pub. 2015/0143053 A1 May 21, 2015
Jing Zhang et al., A Distributed Cache for Hadoop Distributed File
System in Real-time Cloud Services, ACM/IEEE 13th International
Conference on Grid Computing (2012) (“Zhang”)

Claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8–10, 12–14, and 17–21 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Nishtala, Illikkal, Yeager, Iyer,
Quimbey, and Zhang.
Claims 3 and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Nishtala, Illikkal, Yeager, Iyer, Quimbey, Zhang, Amiri,
and Yang.
Claims 7 and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Nishtala, Illikkal, Yeager, Iyer, Quimbey, Zhang, and
Chambliss.
Throughout this decision, we make reference to the Appeal Brief
(“App. Br.,” filed Dec. 20, 2018), the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed
April 26, 2019), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed Feb. 26, 2019)
for their respective details.
ISSUE
Does the combination of Nishtala, Iyer, Yeager, Iyer, Quimbey, and
Zhang teach or suggest identifying a plurality of data requests from a
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plurality of large scale data processing framework jobs that are each
executing on two or more virtual machines?
ANALYSIS
Claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8–10, 12–14, and 17–21
Independent claims 1, 9, and 18 each recite, in pertinent part,
identifying a plurality of data requests from a plurality of large scale data
processing framework (LSPF) jobs that are each executing on two or more
virtual machines.
The Examiner finds that Nishtala teaches this limitation. Final Act. 4.
Nishtala teaches a serial attached storage (SAS) drive system including a
plurality of servers 110. Nishtala teaches that a server may be a virtual
machine configured to perform server operations, and/or that a server “may
be configured to host any number of virtual machines.” Nishtala ¶ 23.
We find that the Examiner erred. The Examiner does not identify
teaching in Nishtala of any job(s) that are each executing on two or more
virtual machines. See Reply Br. 2. The Examiner does not identify teaching
in Nishtala of large scale data processing framework (LSPF) jobs executing
on the system. See Reply Br. 3.
To the extent the Examiner finds that Zhang teaches identifying data
requests from a plurality of jobs that are each executing on two or more
virtual machines, we have reviewed Zhang and we find that Zhang also does
not teach this limitation of the claimed invention.
Thus, we find that the Examiner’s combination of Nishtala, Illikkal,
Yeager, Iyer, Quimbey, and Zhang fails to teach or suggest all the
limitations of the invention recited in claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 8–10, 12–14, and 17–
21. We do not sustain the Examiner’s § 103 rejection of these claims.
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Application No. 14/571,643

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Claims 3 and 11
Claims 3 and 11 depend from independent claims 1 and 9,
respectively, whose rejection we do not sustain, supra. The Examiner does
not provide evidence that Amiri or Yang remedy the deficiencies of the
combination of references asserted against claims 1 and 9. Accordingly, we
do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 3 and 11, for the reasons
expressed supra with respect to claims 1 and 9.
Claims 7 and 16
Claims 7 and 16 depend from independent claims 1 and 9,
respectively, whose rejection we do not sustain, supra. The Examiner does
not provide evidence that Chambliss remedies the deficiencies of the
combination of references asserted against claims 1 and 9. Accordingly, we
do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 7 and 16, for the reasons
expressed supra with respect to claims 1 and 9.

CONCLUSION
The combination of Nishtala, Illikkal, Yeager, Iyer, Quimbey, and
Zhang does not teach or suggest identifying a plurality of data requests from
a plurality of large scale data processing framework jobs that are each
executing on two or more virtual machines.
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Application No. 14/571,643

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DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C.
§
Reference(s)/
Basis
Affirmed Reversed
1, 2, 4, 6, 8–
10, 12–14,
17–21
103 Nishtala, Illikkal,
Yeager, Iyer,
Quimbey, Zhang
1, 2, 4, 6, 8–
10, 12–14,
17–21
3, 11 103 Nishtala, Illikkal,
Yeager, Iyer,
Quimbey, Zhang,
Amiri, Yang
3, 11
7, 16 103 Nishtala, Illikkal,
Yeager, Iyer,
Quimbey, Zhang,
Chambliss
7, 16
Overall
Outcome

1–4, 6–14,
16–21

ORDER
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–4, 6–14, and 16–21 is
reversed.

REVERSED