Office Action Predictor
Application No. 18/227,738

Application Management Based on Replication Performance of a Storage System

Final Rejection §103
Filed
Jul 28, 2023
Examiner
WU, YICUN
Art Unit
2153
Tech Center
2100 — Computer Architecture & Software
Assignee
Pure Storage, INC.
OA Round
2 (Final)
81%
Grant Probability
Favorable
3-4
OA Rounds
3y 3m
To Grant
91%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

81%
Career Allow Rate
485 granted / 597 resolved
Without
With
+10.0%
Interview Lift
avg trend
3y 3m
Avg Prosecution
17 pending
614
Total Applications
career history

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
11.5%
-28.5% vs TC avg
§103
47.5%
+7.5% vs TC avg
§102
26.3%
-13.7% vs TC avg
§112
3.7%
-36.3% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data

Office Action

§103
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 . III. DETAILED ACTION Claims 1-20 are presented for examination. Applicant argued: “ Tahara fails to disclose "determining, by a multi-site storage system” and “Tahara is a single database system”. Examiner response: “distributed computing environment across multiple data centers” is considered to be “a multi-site storage system”. 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 of this title, 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. This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention. Claims 1-4, 6, 8-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent No. 20190197173 to Tahara et al. in view of Dye et al. US 12079203. As to claim 1, Tahara discloses a method comprising: determining, by a multi-site storage system configured to provide storage to an application, replication metrics associated with replicating data ([0034]) between sites of the multi-site storage system (multiple data centers [0018] [0054]); determining, by the multi-site storage system (fig. 6) based on the replication metrics- (metric [0034]), a replication lag threshold value (threshold [0034] [0035]); and providing, by the multi-site storage system, the replication lag threshold value to the application (threshold [0034] [0035]). Tahara does not teach via an application programming interface (API) exposed by the multi-site storage system and in response to an API call from the application. Dye teaches via an application programming interface (API) exposed by the multi-site storage system and in response to an API call from the application. (col. 6, lines 64-67). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to have modified Tahara by the teaching of Dye to include via an application programming interface (API) exposed by the multi-site storage system and in response to an API call from the application with the motivation to better serve customers as taught by Dye (col. 1 lines 35-45). As to claim 2, Tahara as modified teaches a method of claim 1, wherein the replication metrics comprise one or more of a recovery point object (RPO) associated with the application, a replication mode identifier, a replication backlog of accumulated updates (a data object for versioning updates to the data object Tahara [0023]), a storage class service level agreement (SLA), or a site-to-site replication link characteristic (Tahara [0034]). As to claim 3, Tahara as modified teaches a method of claim 1, wherein the replication metrics comprise one or more of a network bandwidth, a physical distance between the sites, a file size, a latency measurement, a transmission rate, a resource usage level, or metadata overhead associated with the multi-site storage system. (Dye col. 10 , lines 50-65). As to claim 4, Tahara as modified teaches a method of claim 3, wherein wherein determining the replication lag threshold value comprises: identifying historical patterns among the replication metrics (Tahara [0095]); and using the historical patterns to determine the replication lag threshold value (Tahara [0018]). As to claim 6, Tahara as modified teaches a method of claim 1, further comprising: setting, by the application based on the replication lag threshold value, a configuration parameter for the application (Tahara [0034]). As to claim 7, Tahara as modified teaches a method of claim 1, wherein the multi-site storage system: provides storage services comprising replication (Tahara [004]); and exposes the API to provide access to the replication lag threshold value by any authorized application. (the request is authorized to access the particular database table Dye col. 11, lines 6-25). As to claim 8, Tahara as modified teaches a method of claim 1, wherein the performance data comprises a maximum replication lag value during a predetermined time period. (a maximum linger timeout Tahara [0034]). As to claim 9, Tahara as modified teaches a method of claim 1, wherein the performance data comprises one or more of a network bandwidth, a physical distance, an average data size, or an average metadata overhead (distance Tahara [0052]). As to claim 10, Tahara as modified teaches a method of claim 1, wherein the providing the replication lag threshold value occurs during a testing phase for the application. (threshold Tahara [0018]). As to claim 11, Tahara discloses a method of claim 1, wherein the application comprises a data analytics platform configured to store data within the multi-site storage system (Tahara fig. 1). 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 of this title, 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. This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention. Claims 5, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent No. 20190197173 to Tahara et al. in view of Dye et al. US 12079203 further in view of Seguy et al. US 20210089210. As to claim 5, the teachings of Tahara have been discussed above, Tahara dose not teach machine learning model. Seguy teaches machine learning model. ([0030]). It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to have modified Tahara by the teaching of Seguy to include machine learning model with the motivation to provides a number of benefits, including allowing users to quickly reconfigure their available computing resources in response to the changing demands of their enterprise, and enabling the cloud service provider to automatically scale provided computing service resources based on usage, traffic, or other operational needs as taught by Seguy ( [0002] ). As to claims 12-20, the limitations of these claims have been noted in the rejection above. They are therefore rejected as set forth above. Conclusion THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL, 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). Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Yicun Wu whose telephone number is 571-272-4087. The examiner can normally be reached on 8:00 am to 4:30 pm, Monday -Friday. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Kavita Stanley, can be reached on (571) 571-272-8352. The fax phone numbers for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned are 571-273-8300. Any inquiry of a general nature or relating to the status of this application or proceeding should be directed to the receptionist whose telephone number is 571-272-2100. 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 PAIR system: "http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair" Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) 866-217-9197 (toll-free) If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. Yicun Wu Patent Examiner Technology Center 2100 /YICUN WU/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2153
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Prosecution Timeline

Jul 28, 2023
Application Filed
Sep 20, 2025
Non-Final Rejection — §103
Dec 23, 2025
Examiner Interview Summary
Dec 23, 2025
Applicant Interview (Telephonic)
Dec 23, 2025
Response Filed
Jan 10, 2026
Final Rejection — §103
Mar 30, 2026
Request for Continued Examination
Apr 05, 2026
Response after Non-Final Action

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Prosecution Projections

3-4
Expected OA Rounds
81%
Grant Probability
91%
With Interview (+10.0%)
3y 3m
Median Time to Grant
Moderate
PTA Risk
Based on 597 resolved cases by this examiner