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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Specification
Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Claim Objections
Claims 1-14 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In claim 1, line 1, “container cluster” should read “a container cluster” .
In claim 11, line 3, “container cluster” should read “a container cluster” .
Appropriate correction is required. Dependent claims are seen as having the same deficiencies, including claims 2-10 and 12-14.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claims 2-4, 12, and 16-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 2, 12, and 16 include the limitation “in response to an identifier of the container, an identifier of the virtual disk, and an identifier of the volume”. It is unclear whether this is an incomplete limitation requiring an additional step to be performed on the identifiers or if this limitation would be better expressed using the term “based on” instead of “in response to”.
Claims 3 and 17 include the limitation “in response to the volume name, the volume size, and a reference to a unit of the available space consumed by the volume”. It is unclear whether this is an incomplete limitation requiring an additional step to be performed on the identifiers or if this limitation would be better expressed using the term “based on” instead of “in response to”.
Claims 4 and 18 are also rejected as they depend from claims 3 and 17, respectively, and so are seen to contain the same deficiencies.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 5-11, and 13-14 are otherwise allowable if amended to overcome objections. Claims 15 and 19-20 are allowable over the prior art of record. No prior art was found to teach all of the limitations of claim 1 including particularly requesting, by the container volume driver, the container agent to retry the request to create the volume. Prior art references such as Mimatsu et al (U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2003/0204701; relevant paragraph 0078), Silvers et al (U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2005/0010620; relevant paragraph 0044), and Sivasubramanian et al (U.S. Patent No. 8,849,758; relevant Column 26, specifically lines 17-25) disclose retrying or repeating virtual volume allocations either automatically (Mimatsu, Sivasubramanian) or at a later point in time not directly linked to a failed request (Silvers). However, no prior art was found to teach, alone or in combination, the entirety of the limitations of claim 1 as written, and as such the claim is found allowable.
Claims 11 and 15 include the allowable limitations of claim 1, and as such are also found allowable.
Claims 5-10, 13-14, and 19-20 are found allowable by virtue of dependence on allowable claims 1, 11, and 15.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZAKARIA MOHAMMED BELKHAYAT whose telephone number is (571)270-0472. The examiner can normally be reached Monday thru Thursday 7:30AM-5:30PM EST.
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/ZAKARIA MOHAMMED BELKHAYAT/Examiner, Art Unit 2139
/REGINALD G BRAGDON/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2139
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