DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
RESPONSE TO AMENDMENT
Claim rejections based on prior art
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 01/30/2026 has been entered.
Applicant’s arguments filed on 01/30/2026 with respect to claims 1-20 have been fully considered but are moot in view of new interpretation of the cited refence due to the most recent amendment.
OBJECTIONS TO THE CLAIMS
Claim 7 is objected to as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which applicant regards as the invention.
As per claim 7, claim language “wherein corresponding data transfer capacities represent a maximum amounts of data that are concurrently associated with corresponding paths of the plurality of paths” seems to be grammatically confusing due to the phrase ‘a maximum amounts’. Correction is needed.
REJECTIONS BASED ON PRIOR ART
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 person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(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.
1. Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Padia et al. (US pub. # 2012/0284424), hereinafter, “Padia”.
At the outset, Applicant is reminded that claims subject to examination will be given their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the supporting disclosure. In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054-55, 44 USPQ2d 1023,1027-28 (Fed. Cir. 1997). With this in mind, the discussion will focus on how the terms and relationships between the terms in the claims are met by the references.
2. As per claims 1, 8 and 15, Padia discloses a method comprising: receiving an input/output (I/O) operation to be serviced by a storage device (storage system 130 of fig. 1) (see paragraph 0027, which discloses “described embodiments provide a method for storage area network (SAN) multi-pathing, comprising: having options of sending an I/O request to a first SAN type and sending an I/O request to a second SAN type, wherein the first SAN type has a higher I/O per second performance characteristic than the second SAN type; receiving an I/O request”); determining whether an amount of data associated with the I/O operation satisfies a threshold (see paragraph 0027, which discloses “and determining the length of the I/O request”); in response to determining that the amount of data satisfies the threshold, identifying corresponding data transfer capacities (a first threshold length for a first path and a second threshold length for a second path, as discloses in paragraph 0027) for a plurality of paths to the storage device that are available for transmitting data to the storage device (see paragraph 0027, which discloses different threshold lengths for different paths; for example, paragraph 0027, discloses “if the length is below a threshold length, sending the I/O request to the first SAN type; if the length is above a threshold length, sending the I/O request to the second SAN type”); and selecting a path of the plurality of paths for transmitting the I/O operation to the storage device having an available data transfer capacity that is greater than the amount of data associated with the I/O operation (see paragraph 0027 which disclose transmitting the I/O request to, via the first path, type since the threshold length of the first path, type is greater than the length of the I/O request).
3. As per claims 2, 9, and 16, Padia discloses “The method of claim 1” [See rejection to claim 1 above] wherein the amount of data associated with the I/O operation comprises the amount of data to be transferred when executing the I/O operation (see paragraphs 0037 and 0040).
4. As per claims 3, 10 and 17, Padia discloses further comprising: determining, for the plurality of paths, whether a sum of the amount of data to be transferred when executing the I/O operation and a cumulative amount of data to be transferred by I/O operations pending on the path is greater than a data transfer maximum associated with the path; and responsive to determining, for the plurality of paths, that the sum of the amount of data to be transferred when executing the I/O operation and the cumulative amount of data to be transferred by I/O operations pending on the path is greater than the data transfer maximum associated with the path, delaying a selection of the path (see paragraph 0030).
5. As per claims 4, 11 and 18, Padia discloses further comprising: determining that the amount of data associated with the I/O operation is less than a determined size; and responsive to determining that the amount of data associated with the I/O operation is less than the determined size, selecting the path for transmitting the I/O operation to the storage device in dependence upon a number of I/O operations pending on the path (see claims 9 and 10 of Padia).
6. As per claims 5, 12 and 19, Padia discloses further comprising: modifying, for one or more of the plurality of paths, the data transfer maximum associated with the path; determining path performance for an amount of time after the data transfer maximum associated with the path was modified; and responsive to determining that path performance does not meet a threshold, reverting the data transfer maximum associated with the path to a previous state (see paragraph 0030).
7. As per claims 6, 13 and 20, Padia discloses further comprising: responsive to determining that path performance does meet the threshold, modifying the data transfer maximum associated with the path (see paragraph 0030).
8. As per claim 7, Padia discloses wherein corresponding data transfer capacities represent a maximum amounts of data that are concurrently associated with corresponding paths of the plurality of paths (see paragraphs 0027 and 0030).
9. As per claim 14, Padia discloses wherein path is utilized to service I/O operations of a particular type between a host and the storage device (see fig. 1).
CLOSING COMMENTS
CONCLUSION
a. STATUS OF CLAIMS IN THE APPLICATION
The following is a summary of the treatment and status of all claims in the
application as recommended by M.P.E.P. 707.07(i):
a (1) CLAIMS REJECTED IN THE APPLICATION
Per the instant office action, claims 1-20 have received a first action on the merits and are subject of a first action non-final.
b. DIRECTION OF FUTURE CORRESPONDENCES
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the
Examiner should be directed to Ernest Unelus whose telephone number is (571) 272-
8596. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Friday 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
IMPORTANT NOTE
If attempts to reach the above noted Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner's supervisor, Mr. Idriss Alrobaye, can be reached at the following telephone number: Area Code (571) 270-1023.
The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PMR system, see her//pair-direct.uspto.gov.
Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217- 91 97 (toll-free).
/Ernest Unelus/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2181
Prosecution Insights