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 .
DETAILED ACTION
The instant detailed action is in response to Applicant's submission filed on 25 March 2026.
ALLOWABLE SUBJECT MATTER
Claim 35,37,39 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
REJECTIONS BASED ON PRIOR ART
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 1,3,6,8,10,13,15,17,20,34,36,38 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miller (US PG PUB No. 20180095667) in view of Lewis (US PG PUB No. 2013/0073519)
As per claim [1,8,15], one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing program instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform steps of:
migrating an extent from a first extent group to a second extent group (see Miller [0012]: “For example , the blocks migrated to the file could be represented by the single extent 8 – 11.”), wherein the extent is associated with the first extent group in a first metadata map (see Miller [0020]: “Storage controller 110 may maintain a volume to medium mapping table to map each volume to a single medium , and this medium is referred to as the volume ' s anchor medium .”); and
[Miller discloses generating metadata as part of a migration, where the migration may be virtual or physical (see Miller Miller [0015]).]
in response to migrating the extent:
generating a second metadata map separate from the first metadata map (see Miller FIG 3: 330 and [0021]: “In one embodiment , to associate the data blocks from SAN volume 142 with the NAS volume 146, virtual copy logic 140 may generate volume metadata for the NAS volume 146 including the block numbers of the data blocks to be included in the volume and the identified characteristics of the data blocks”); and
However, Miller does not expressly disclose but in the same field of endeavor Lewis discloses
adding a first mapping to the second metadata map, wherein the first mapping maps the extent to the second extent group in a second metadata map without updating the first metadata map (see Lewis [0119]).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Miller to further generate and update a second metadata map as taught by Lewis.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been for the benefit of improved deduplication (see Lewis FIG 8: 803 and [0115]).
Therefore it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the invention to use location independent source names and creating a mapping to the local extents as taught by Lewis for the benefit of improved deduplication to arrive at the invention as specified in the claims.
As per claim [3,10,17], the one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 1,
wherein the steps further comprise adding an entry to an extent group map that maps the extent to metadata associated with the second extent group (see Miller [0022]).
As per claim [6,13,20], the one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the steps further comprise:
obtaining an identifier of the extent from the first metadata map; based on the identifier of the extent, obtaining an identifier of the second extent group from the first mapping; and based on the identifier of the second extent group, determining a location associated with the extent on a physical storage device (see Miller [0022]).
As per claim [34, 36, 38], the one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 1,
wherein the steps further comprise removing the first mapping from the second metadata map in response to the denormalization criterion being met (see Miller [0226]).
[The namespace invalidation is taken as a denormalization criterion as recited in the claims (see Miller FIG 12: 1201 and [0221]).]
Claim 2,4-5,7,9,11-12,14,16,18-19,21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miller (US PG PUB No. 20180095667) in view of Lewis (US PG PUB No. 2013/0073519) as applied to claims 1, 8 and 15 above and further in view of Kenkre (US PG PUB No. 20170192712)
As per claim [2,9,16], the one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 1,
However, Miller does not expressly disclose but in the same field of endeavor Kenkre discloses
wherein an extent identifier of the extent is a key to the first mapping in the second metadata map (see Kenkre [0079]).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the invention to further modify Miller to manage access to the extent using metadata as taught by Kenkre.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been for the benefit of more efficient metadata (see Kenkre [0062]).
Therefore it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the invention to further modify Miller to comprise metadata as taught by Kenkre for the benefit of controlling metadata bloat to arrive at the invention as specified in the claims.
As per claim [4,11,18], the one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of
claim 1,
wherein the first metadata map comprises, for a first vblock, an identifier of the extent and an identifier of the first extent group (see Kenkre [0054])
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the invention to further modify Miller to manage access to the extent using metadata as taught by Kenkre.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been for the benefit of more efficient metadata (see Kenkre [0062]).
Therefore it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the invention to further modify Miller to comprise metadata as taught by Kenkre for the benefit of controlling metadata bloat to arrive at the invention as specified in the claims.
As per claim [5,12,19], the one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 1,
However, Miller does not expressly disclose but in the same field of endeavor Kenkre discloses
wherein the steps further comprise updating the first metadata map to refer to the second extent group in response to a denormalization criterion being met (see Kenkre FIG 7: 709 and [0060]).
[Kenkre discloses duplicating and deduplicating extents, where deduplicating causes updates to metadata (see e.g., Kenkre [0002]).]
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Kenkre to duplicate and deduplicate extents as taught by Kenkre.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been for the benefit of improving deduplication management (see Kenkre [0020]).
Therefore it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Kenkre to further deduplicate as taught by Kenkre for the benefit of improved deduplication management to arrive at the invention as specified in the claims.
As per claim [7,14,21], the one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the steps further comprise:
identifying of the one or more vblocks associated with the extent in the first metadata map (see [0011]: “The virtual copy logic may instruct the destination NAS volume to make this association by adding an indication of the identified blocks ( i . e . , virtual block numbers ) to volume metadata corresponding to the NAS volume .”); and
However, Miller does not expressly disclose but in the same field of endeavor discloses
updating the metadata associated with the identified one or more vblocks occurs in response to a denormalization criterion being met (see Kenkre FIG 7: 709 and [0060]).
[Kenkre discloses duplicating and deduplicating extents, where deduplicating causes updates to metadata (see e.g., Kenkre [0002]).]
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Kenkre to duplicate and deduplicate extents as taught by Kenkre.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been for the benefit of improving deduplication management (see Kenkre [0020]).
Therefore it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Kenkre to further deduplicate as taught by Kenkre for the benefit of improved deduplication management to arrive at the invention as specified in the claims.
RESPONSE TO ARGUMENTS
1st ARGUMENT:
Based on these mappings advanced by the Examiner, to teach or suggest the above limitations of amended claim 1, the volume metadata generated for the NAS volume in Miller would have to be added without updating the volume to medium mapping table. Importantly, Miller is silent in this regard. Instead, Miller explicitly teaches that the system may mark files as transferred in the old file system, which updates the source metadata to allow for the automatic forwarding of requests to the new file system. See Miller at paragraph [0015]. In view of these distinctions, Miller cannot be properly interpreted as teaching or suggesting the above limitations of amended claim 1.
Examiner notes Lewis is relied upon to teach the argued subject matter. Miller is silent with respect to how files may be marked as transferred in some embodiments. Lewis discloses a location independent naming scheme where a first mapping is added without updating a first metadata map for the benefit of improved deduplication.
2nd ARGUMENT:
Applicant submits that the combination of Miller and Kenkre fails to teach or
suggest the limitations of newly added claim 34. Based on the mappings advanced by the Examiner, to teach or suggest the above limitations of claim 34, Kenkre would have to disclose removing a mapping from a second metadata map in response to a denormalization criterion. Kenkre is silent in this regard. In view of these distinctions, Kenkre cannot be properly interpreted as teaching or suggesting the above limitations of new claim 34.
Examiner notes Lewis is relied upon to teach the argued subject matter. Lewis discloses rebuilding a partial map in response to a configuration changes (e.g., a denormalization criterion) which involves discarding data warehouse, which includes the first mapping.
CONCLUSION
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
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/KALPIT PARIKH/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2137
KALPIT . PARIKH
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2137
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