DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
The independent claims (Claims 1, 9, and 18) have been amended to describe “invoking a system call of an operating system of the client device against a file.” The originally filed specification does not include language to support generally claiming “system calls.” For at least these reasons the claims are considered to include new matter.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-4, 6-10, 12-15, 18, 20, and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wong et al. (US Patent No. 7,756,943 B1), hereinafter referred to as WONG.
Consider Claim 1,
WONG teaches an apparatus comprising:
a processor of a client device (WONG, e.g., Fig 1(14), CPUs), the processor configured to invoke a system call of an operating system of the client device against a file (WONG, e.g., Fig 6; Col 9:1+, page fault from the guest OS performed against a region of memory. The examiner notes that the applicant’s specification describes that a file may simply be a region of memory (SPEC ¶0041).);
wherein the operating system, in response to the system call, performs a memory map operation in which a portion of a virtual address space is mapped to at least a portion of the file (WONG, e.g., Fig 6(100); Col 9:49-64, create translation from guest virtual page to local memory page),
wherein the file is managed by a filesystem of the client device (WONG, e.g., Fig 6, application of the guest OS triggers a page fault. Page fault may be a guest page fault to be managed by the guest OS;Col 5:22-50, describes various ways in which the guest OS (of the client device) manages at least a portion of the file.) and backed by external primary memory, wherein the external primary memory comprises a memory external to the client device (WONG, e.g., Col 9:65+, guest physical address may be remote.), and wherein the file supports the system call (WONG, e.g., Col 9:30-36, guest OS maps a memory element of the remote file space.); and
wherein the external primary memory is accessed in response to a page fault upon the portion of the virtual address space (WONG, e.g., Fig 6(104), fetching page from remote computer (i.e., external primary memory access) occurs in response to a page fault (Fig 6:92).)
wherein the external primary memory is accessible by a virtualization instance through the virtual address space as primary memory for the virtualization instance and at least a portion of the external primary memory is allocable within the virtualization instance (WONG, e.g., Col 9:33, one of the guest operating systems performs allocation (i.e., makes external memory accessible); Fig 2, illustrates a Guest O/S operating within a VM (i.e., a virtualization instance).).
Consider Claim 2,
WONG further teaches wherein the external primary memory is accessible, by the apparatus, over a network via client-side memory access in which a communication interface of a memory appliance is configured to access the external primary memory (WONG, e.g., Fig 1(22); Col 3:11+, access remote memory using RDMA.).
Consider Claim 3,
WONG further teaches wherein the portion of the external primary memory is allocable within the virtualization instance in response to a request to allocate memory (WONG, e.g., Col 9:14+, page fault is considered analogous to a request to allocate memory.).
Consider Claim 4,
WONG further teaches wherein the external primary memory includes volatile memory (WONG, e.g., Col 4:9+, DRAM.).
Consider Claim 6,
WONG further teaches wherein the apparatus includes a server cluster comprising multiple physical servers (WONG, e.g., Fig 1(10A-10D);Col 2:49+, computer may be a server or one of the blades in a blade server.).
Consider Claim 7,
WONG further teaches wherein the apparatus is one of a plurality of physical servers included in a server cluster (WONG, e.g., Fig 1(10A-10D); Col 2:49+, computer may be a server or one of the blades in a blade server.), wherein the external primary memory accessible within the virtualization instance is larger than a total amount of local primary memory that is included in any single one of the physical servers (WONG, e.g., Fig 7; Col 10, local_data < local_data x (M-1); Fig 1, for M=4, local_data < local_data x 3.).
Consider Claim 8,
WONG further teaches wherein the apparatus further includes a memory, and wherein the processor is further configured to provide access to the memory included in the apparatus as a second external primary memory for a device that is external to the apparatus (WONG, e.g., Fig 1;Fig 6, each memory includes a remote page cache.).
Consider Claim 9,
WONG teaches a non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising computer executable instructions, the computer executable instructions executable by a processor of a client device (WONG, e.g., Fig 1(14), each client includes CPUs), the computer executable instructions comprising:
instructions executable to invoke a system call of an operating system of the client device against a file (WONG, e.g., Fig 6; Col 9:1+, page fault from the guest OS performed against a region of memory. The examiner notes that the applicant’s specification describes that a file may simply be a region of memory (SPEC ¶0041).), wherein the operating system, in response to the system call, performs a memory map operation in which a portion of a virtual address space is mapped to at least a portion of the file (WONG, e.g., Fig 6(100); Col 9:49-64, create translation from guest virtual page to local memory page), wherein the medium is accessed in response to a page fault upon the portion of the virtual address space (WONG, e.g., Fig 6(104), fetching page from remote computer (i.e., external primary memory access) occurs in response to a page fault (Fig 6:92).), wherein the medium is accessible by a virtualization instance through the virtual address space and is allocable within the virtualization instance (WONG, e.g., Col 9:33, one of the guest operating systems performs allocation (i.e., makes external memory accessible); Fig 2, illustrates a Guest O/S operating within a VM (i.e., a virtualization instance).).
Consider Claim 10,
WONG further teaches wherein the at least the portion of the file is backed by external primary memory (WONG, e.g., Col 9:65+, guest physical address may be remote.).
Consider Claim 12,
WONG further teaches wherein the virtualization instance includes a kernel (WONG, e.g., Fig 2, VM includes an OS. An OS necessarily includes a structure which may be considered to be a kernel.).
Consider Claim 13,
WONG further teaches wherein the system call of the operating system comprises mmap (WONG, e.g., Col 9:33+, guest OS allocates a new page and updates the translation tables. This is considered analogous to the claimed mmap function.).
Consider Claim 14,
WONG further teaches instructions executable to copy data from the file to a local primary memory in response to the page fault (WONG, e.g., Col 9:65+, if guest address is remote then copy the remote page to a local cache.).
Consider Claim 15,
WONG further teaches instructions executable to reclaim a portion of a local primary memory in which the at least the portion of the file is buffered, and to start a writeback of the portion of the local primary memory before the portion is reclaimed (WONG, e.g., Col 12:9+, write dirty data back to a home node before eviction.).
Consider Claim 18,
WONG teaches a method comprising:
invoking a system call of an operating system of a client device against a file (WONG, e.g., Fig 6; Col 9:1+, page fault from the guest OS performed against a region of memory. The examiner notes that the applicant’s specification describes that a file may simply be a region of memory (SPEC ¶0041).), wherein the operating system, in response to the system call, performs a memory map operation in which a portion of a virtual address space is mapped to at least a portion of the file (WONG, e.g., Fig 6(100); Col 9:49-64, create translation from guest virtual page to local memory page), wherein the file is managed by a filesystem of the client device (WONG, e.g., Fig 6, application of the guest OS triggers a page fault. Page fault may be a guest page fault to be managed by the guest OS;Col 5:22-50, describes various ways in which the guest OS (of the client device) manages at least a portion of the file.) and backed by external primary memory, wherein the external primary memory comprises a memory external to the client device (WONG, e.g., Col 9:65+, guest physical address may be remote.), and wherein the file supports the system call (WONG, e.g., Col 9:30-36, guest OS maps a memory element of the remote file space.), and wherein the external primary memory is accessed in response to a page fault upon the portion of the virtual address space (WONG, e.g., Fig 6(104), fetching page from remote computer (i.e., external primary memory access) occurs in response to a page fault (Fig 6:92).);and
allocating, within a virtualization instance, at least a portion of the external primary memory, wherein the external primary memory is accessible by the virtualization instance through the virtual address space as primary memory for the virtualization instance (WONG, e.g., Col 9:33, one of the guest operating systems performs allocation (i.e., makes external memory accessible); Fig 2, illustrates a Guest O/S operating within a VM (i.e., a virtualization instance).).
Consider Claim 20,
WONG further teaches wherein the virtualization instance includes a virtual machine, a container, a jail, or a zone (WONG, e.g., Fig 2).
Consider Claim 22,
WONG further teaches wherein an access to the external primary memory backing the file by at least one client device is controlled by an access control policy, the access control policy being based on at least one of: a current time; a current day; a current month; a current year; an identity of a communication interface used by the at least one client device for accessing the file; a location of the communication interface; an identity of the client device; a location of the client device; or an authentication mechanism comprising at least one of: a password, a key, or biometrics information (WONG, e.g., Col 10:37-50, describes node based permissions. A node corresponds to one or both of an identity of a client device (e.g., node ‘X’) or a location of the client device (e.g., stored at node ‘X’).).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 5 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WONG in view of Stabrawa et al. (US PGPub No. 2012/0221803 A1), hereinafter referred to as STABRAWA.
Consider Claim 5,
WONG teaches the apparatus of Claim 1, above, and additionally describes wherein memory includes non-volatile memory (WONG, e.g., Col 5:11+, each computer may include non-volatile storage.). However, WONG fails to expressly describe wherein the external primary memory includes non-volatile memory. STABRAWA discloses systems and methods for performing RDMA access to a remote storage element and is considered analogous prior art. STABRAWA does discloses that an external primary memory may include non-volatile memory (STABRAWA, e.g., ¶0021). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of WONG such that the memory element includes a non-volatile component because it protects against data loss in the event of a power disruption.
Consider Claim 11,
WONG teaches the computer readable storage medium of claim 9, above, and additionally describes wherein a backing store includes non-volatile memory (WONG, e.g., Col 5:11+, each computer may include non-volatile storage.). However, WONG fails to expressly describe wherein the file is backed by a solid-state storage device or any other non-volatile medium. STABRAWA discloses systems and methods for performing RDMA access to a remote storage element and is considered analogous prior art. STABRAWA does discloses that a file may be backed by a solid-state storage device or any other non-volatile medium (STABRAWA, e.g., ¶0021). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of WONG such that the memory element includes a non-volatile component because it protects against data loss in the event of a power disruption.
Claims 16, 17, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WONG in view of Beveridge et al. (US Patent No. 9,619,268 B2), hereinafter referred to as BEVERIDGE.
Consider Claim 16,
WONG teaches the computer readable storage medium of Claim 9, above, and additionally teaches wherein the segment of virtual memory is a primary memory for the virtualization instance (WONG, e.g., Fig 7, local memory is a primary memory for the VM.), the virtualization instance executes in a first process (WONG, e.g., Fig 2(22), VM may be considered a first process). Further, WONG discloses that the system may be configured such that resources of a node correspond to computing resources in a one:one, one:many, or many:one relationship (WONG, e.g., Col 6:62+) and that the guest operating system may collectively execute as a single instance that may execute on any node at any point in time (WONG, e.g., Col 5:14+), but fails to detail features related to setting up or distributing the instance(s) on multiple computers. As such, WONG does not appear to disclose wherein a computer readable storage medium further comprises instructions executable to perform a snapshot of the primary memory of the virtualization instance by: creating a forked process of the first process; and maintaining a first view of the primary memory of the virtualization instance for the first process and a second view of the primary memory of the virtualization instance for the forked process, wherein the snapshot of the primary memory of the virtualization instance is accessible through the first view of the primary memory or the second view of the primary memory. BEVERIDGE describes systems and methods for managing resource access in a distributed environment which hosts virtual machines and is considered analogous prior art. BEVERIDGE does disclose creating a forked process of the first process (BEVERIDGE, e.g., Abstract, discloses forking VMs.); and maintaining a first view of the primary memory of the virtualization instance for the first process and a second view of the primary memory of the virtualization instance for the forked process, wherein the snapshot of the primary memory of the virtualization instance is accessible through the first view of the primary memory or the second view of the primary memory (BEVERIDGE, e.g., Fig 4;Col 14:18+, child VM shares pages with parent and the child has no independent pages. In other words, the child VM and the parent VM have the same view of memory.). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention, to modify the system of WONG with at least the cited elements of BEVERIDGE because it achieves rapid suspend and resume functionality while eliminating most of the large I/O burden associated with traditional VM suspend/resume activities (BEVERIDGE, e.g., Col 2:64+).
Consider Claim 17,
WONG teaches the computer readable storage medium of claim 9, above, but fails to additionally describe instructions executable to perform a snapshot of primary memory of the virtualization instance, wherein a snapshot of the file is triggered in performance of the snapshot. BEVERIDGE describes systems and methods for managing resource access in a distributed environment which hosts virtual machines and is considered analogous prior art. BEVERIDGE does disclose perform a snapshot of primary memory of the virtualization instance, wherein a snapshot of a file is triggered in performance of the snapshot (BEVERIDGE, e.g., Fig 6:Col 17:10-54, suspend and store is considered analogous to a snapshot.). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of WONG to include the suspend and store (i.e., snapshot) functionality of BEVERIDGE because it achieves rapid suspend and resume functionality while eliminating most of the large I/O burden associated with traditional VM suspend/resume activities (BEVERIDGE, e.g., Col 2:64+).
Consider Claim 19,
WONG teaches the method of Claim 18, above, and additionally discloses that the system may be configured such that resources of a node correspond to computing resources in a one:one, one:many, or many:one relationship (WONG, e.g., Col 6:62+) and that the guest operating system may collectively execute as a single instance that may execute on any node at any point in time (WONG, e.g., Col 5:14+), but fails to detail
migrating the virtualization instance from a first physical machine to a second physical machine without copying data of the primary memory for the virtualization instance by accessing the data in the external primary memory within the virtualization instance from the second physical machine. BEVERIDGE describes systems and methods for managing resource access in a distributed environment which hosts virtual machines and is considered analogous prior art. BEVERIDGE does disclose migrating the virtualization instance from a first physical machine to a second physical machine without copying data of the primary memory for the virtualization instance by accessing the data in the external primary memory within the virtualization instance from the second physical machine (BEVERIDGE, e.g., Fig 4:Col 19:1+, migrate away from parent without the need for vMotion operations.). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention, to modify the system of WONG with at least the cited elements of BEVERIDGE because it achieves rapid suspend and resume functionality while eliminating most of the large I/O burden associated with traditional VM suspend/resume activities (BEVERIDGE, e.g., Col 2:64+).
Claim 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over WONG.
Consider Claim 21,
WONG teaches the method of Claim 18, above, but fails to teach wherein data is encrypted upon being written to the external primary memory. The examiner takes official notice of the fact that encrypting data was notoriously well-known in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of WONG such that data is encrypted upon being written to the external primary memory because it improves data security.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 06MAR2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
[A] Re: page fault and preceding system call
The applicant argues that the cited art fails to describe both the claimed page fault and a preceding system call for memory map operation. The examiner notes that although the applied references do not expressly use the term system call, the applied art does disclose mechanisms for accessing a memory system and thus are considered to be system calls (see, e.g., WONG:Fig 6). Further, the claims do not require that the system call necessarily precedes page fault processing. The claim describes that the external primary is accessed in response to a page fault and does not require that the claimed system call precedes the claimed page fault processing. However, the cited references are noted to disclose at least a subset of page fault processing in response to what is considered to be a system call (WONG, e.g., Fig 6). For at least these reasons the applicant’s arguments are not persuasive.
[B] Re: against a file
The applicant argues that the cited art fails to disclose taking the claimed actions against a file. The examiner agrees that the applied art fails to expressly describe performing an action against a file. However, upon further review of the applicant’s specification, the applicant specifically describes that a file may be a region of memory (SPEC ¶0041). Therefore, in view of the applicant’s description of a file as a region of memory, the prior art is determined to describe taking actions against a region of memory as described in the instant rejections, provided above.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Gary W Cygiel whose telephone number is (571)270-1170. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 11am-3pm PST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Arpan P Savla can be reached at (571) 272-1077. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Gary W. Cygiel/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2137
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