Pure Storage, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Aug 26, 2020

14454537 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Aug. 26, 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.
14/454,537 08/07/2014 John D. Davis P70479 1220US.1 4904
120626 7590 08/26/2020
WOMBLE BOND DICKINSON (US) LLP/Pure Storage
Attn: IP Docketing
PO Box 7037
Atlanta, GA 30357-0037
EXAMINER
KNAPP, JUSTIN R
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2112
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/26/2020 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):
ipdocketing@wbd-us.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JOHN D. DAVIS,
JOHN HAYES, ZHANGXI TAN, HARI KANNAN, and
NENAD MILADINOVIC
Appeal 2019-003585
Application 14/454,537
Technology Center 2100
Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, DAVID J. CUTITTA II, and
MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges.
ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1–20, which are all of the claims pending in the
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies Pure Storage as the real party in
interest. Appeal Br. 1.
Appeal 2019-003585
Application 14/454,537

2
TECHNOLOGY
The application relates to “adjustable error correction in a storage
cluster.” Spec. Abstract.
ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM
Claim 1 is illustrative and reproduced below with certain limitations at
issue emphasized:
1. A method for adjustable error correction, comprising:
determining health of a plurality of storage nodes in a
storage cluster, wherein a plurality of authorities is located within
the plurality of storage nodes, each authority owning a range of
user data, and wherein two authorities of the plurality of
authorities are located within a first storage node of the plurality
of storage nodes;
adjusting a variable read time supported by one or more
flash dies in nonvolatile memory of the storage cluster to increase
read reliability, based on the health of the plurality of storage
nodes; and
adjusting, by one or more authorities of the two
authorities, erasure coding based on the health of the plurality of
storage nodes.
REFERENCES
The Examiner relies on the following prior art references:
Name Number / Title Date
Colgrove US 2012/0079318 A1 Mar. 29, 2012
Smith US 2003/0037299 A1 Feb. 20, 2003
Solaris Solaris Volume Manager Administration
Guide, Chapter 4, “Multi-Owner Disk Set
Concepts”
2010
Suzuki US 2013/0238836 A1 Sept. 12, 2013
Yoon US 2009/0144598 A1 June 4, 2009
Appeal 2019-003585
Application 14/454,537

3
REJECTIONS
The Examiner makes the following rejections:
Claims Statute Basis Final Act.
1–20 § 112(a) Written description 2
1, 3–7, 9, 10, 12,
13, 15–17, 19, 20
§ 103 Colgrove, Solaris, Suzuki 4
2, 11, 18 § 103 Colgrove, Solaris, Suzuki, Yoon 10
8, 14 § 103 Colgrove, Solaris, Suzuki, Smith 11
ISSUES
1. Did the Examiner err in finding the limitation “adjusting, by
one or more authorities of the two authorities, erasure coding,” as recited in
claim 1, lacks sufficient written description support?
2. Did the Examiner err in finding Solaris teaches or suggests
“each authority owning a range of user data” and “two authorities of the
plurality of authorities are located within a first storage node of the plurality
of storage nodes,” as recited in claim 1?
ANALYSIS
§ 112(a): Written Description
Claim 1 recites “adjusting, by one or more authorities of the two
authorities, erasure coding.” The issue is whether the Specification supports
adjusting by authorities or whether it merely discloses authorities “assist” in
the process.
In particular, the Specification discloses:
Authorities 168 control how and where data is stored in the non-
volatile solid-state storages 152 in some embodiments. This
control assists in determining which type of erasure coding
scheme is applied to the data . . . .
Spec. ¶ 25 (emphasis added).
Appeal 2019-003585
Application 14/454,537

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Based on this disclosure, Appellant argues that “the authorities play a
causative role in controlling, setting and adjusting erasure coding.” Appeal
Br. 5. “The premise that one operator performs an action with the assistance
of another operator does not deny the other operator a causative role in
performing the action, but instead reinforces the causative role each operator
has in performing the action.” Id. at 6.
However, we agree with the Examiner that the Specification discloses
“[a]uthorities 168 . . . are implemented . . . for example as lists or other data
structures stored in memory.” Spec. ¶ 25. “In other words, ‘authorities’ are
just a format for a collection of data” and “[d]ata, in general, cannot ‘adjust’
anything by itself let alone ‘adjust erasure coding’ as claimed.” Ans. 4.
Contrary to Appellant’s analogy, this is not an instance where a team
of operators “adjusts” such that each member of the team can be said to
“adjust.” Here, a “list” or “other data structure” is not itself an operator but
rather merely a tool that “assists” the operator (e.g., a list that the operator
refers to). Id.; see also Spec. ¶ 50 (“Fig. 7 is a flow diagram . . . . Actions of
the method can be performed by a processor, such as the CPU of a storage
node or the controller of a non-volatile solid-state storage. . . . Erasure
coding is set based on the health of the flash memory, in an action 704.”).
Thus, we agree with the Examiner that the application’s disclosure
fails to reasonably convey that the inventor had possession of the claims as
presently written as of the effective filing date. Ariad Pharms., Inc. v. Eli
Lilly & Co., 598 F.3d 1336, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (en banc).
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s § 112(a) rejection of claim 1,
and claims 2–20, which Appellant argues are patentable for similar reasons.
See Appeal Br. 9; 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv).
Appeal 2019-003585
Application 14/454,537

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§ 103: Obviousness
Claim 1 recites “each authority owning a range of user data” and “two
authorities of the plurality of authorities are located within a first storage
node of the plurality of storage nodes.”
The Examiner states, “the Examiner was not attempting to assert
Official Notice but rather make a general statement ‘authorities’, i.e. lists or
other data structures . . . are well-known. As proof of this, the Solaris art
was implemented as a secondary reference . . . .” Ans. 4 (emphasis omitted).
In Solaris, “the multiple boxes of programming code” “represent[]
‘authorities’, i.e. data structures, (e.g. ‘multi-owner’ seen in the code boxes)
that ‘own’ ranges of data (represented by ‘nodeone’ or ‘nodetwo’, for
example, in the code boxes[)].” Id.
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that “[o]wnership of a
disk set is not the same as ownership of a range of data.” Appeal Br. 11.
Although the Specification may give examples of a “range of user data”
being measured in smaller units (e.g., “inode numbers” or “segment
numbers”), the broadest reasonable interpretation of “a range of user data” is
not limited to such examples. E.g., Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303,
1323 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc) (“[A]lthough the specification often
describes very specific embodiments of the invention, we have repeatedly
warned against confining the claims to those embodiments.”).
Nevertheless, we are persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the
Examiner fails to sufficiently explain how authorities are taught or suggested
by Solaris’ nodes or owners of multi-owner disk sets. Appeal Br. 11.
Solaris discloses that “[e]ach multi-owner disk set is associated with a list of
nodes” and “[t]hese nodes share ownership of the disk set.” Solaris 1.
Appeal 2019-003585
Application 14/454,537

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Solaris further discloses, “Nodes are the physical machines that are part of a
Sun Cluster system.” Id. Solaris’ nodes cannot be the claimed “authorities”
because that would fail to meet the limitation “two authorities [i.e., Solaris’
nodes] . . . are located within a first storage node.” The Examiner states that
“the code represents ‘authorities,’” but the Examiner fails to explain
sufficiently how there are “two authorities [i.e., codes]” or whether those
two codes “are located within a first storage node.”
The Examiner does not rely upon the additional references Yoon or
Smith to cure the deficiencies discussed above.
Accordingly, given the record before use, we are constrained to
reverse the Examiner’s § 103 rejections of claims 1–20.
OUTCOME
The following table summarizes the outcome of each rejection:
Claims
Rejected
35
U.S.C. §
Reference(s) /
Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–20 112(a) Written description 1–20
1, 3–7, 9, 10,
12, 13, 15–
17, 19, 20
103 Colgrove, Solaris,
Suzuki
1, 3–7, 9, 10,
12, 13, 15–17,
19, 20
2, 11, 18 103 Colgrove, Solaris,
Suzuki, Yoon
2, 11, 18
8, 14 103 Colgrove, Solaris,
Suzuki, Smith
8, 14
OVERALL 1–20
TIME TO RESPOND
No time for taking subsequent action in connection with this appeal
may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.36(a)(1)(iv).
AFFIRMED