DETAILED ACTION
The Examiner acknowledges the applicant's submission of the amendment dated 12/22/2025.
REJECTIONS NOT BASED ON PRIOR ART
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 21-40 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.
Claim 1 recites, in part, “determining that data was lost at a virtual drive of a first tier of cloud storage of a cloud based storage system and is unavailable for retrieval from a second tier of cloud storage of the cloud based storage system; and retrieving the data from one or more other virtual drives of the first tier that are different than the virtual drive.”
On page 7 of the remarks submitted 4/23/2025, Applicant points to Paragraph 0223 as providing support for the limitation of “determining that data was lost at a virtual drive of a first tier of cloud storage of a cloud based storage system and is unavailable for retrieval from a second tier of cloud storage of the cloud based storage system.” However, Paragraph 0223 merely recites “Detecting (702) that at least some portion of the block storage [first tier] of the cloud-based storage system has become unavailable may be carried out, for example, by detecting that one or more of the cloud computing instances that includes local storage has become unavailable, as described in greater detail below.” This describes only a single determination that data is unavailable/lost at a first tier of cloud storage of a cloud based storage system but is silent regarding data being unavailable for retrieval from a second tier of cloud storage of a cloud based storage system as recited by the claim.
In fact, the teachings of Fig. 7 appear to contradict the claim language of “determining that data…is unavailable for retrieval from a second tier of cloud storage of the cloud based storage system,” as data is received from object storage [second tier] at step 706 of Fig. 7, described on Paragraph 0225.
Further, claim 1 recites “retrieving the data from one or more other virtual drives of the first tier that are different than the virtual drive.” Applicant cites Paragraph 0227 for this limitation of the claim. However, this paragraph merely recites “lost data may be brought back into the block storage layer of the cloud-based storage system through a RAID rebuild.” This limitation teaches “retrieving the data using one or more other virtual drives of the first tier that are different than the virtual drive,” as the unavailable data may be rebuilt using the other drives, but does not teach retrieving the data itself from one or more other virtual drives of the first tier that are different than the virtual drive.
For the above reasons, claim 1 contains new matter. The other independent claims are rejected under similar rationale. The dependent claims inherit this rejection. Appropriate correction is required.
REJECTIONS BASED ON PRIOR ART
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.
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 21, 24, 29, 31, 33, 38, and 39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maddock (US 7,506,187) in view of Hung (US 7,366,852), Mukku et al (US 2020/0042618), Burkey (US 2006/0161752).
Regarding Claim 21, Maddock teaches a method comprising:
determining that data was lost at a drive of a first tier of storage and is unavailable for retrieval from a second tier of storage (see storage system of Fig. 1, with a first tier RAID-5 20 of Fig. 1 and second tier RAID-0 30 of Fig. 1, C7 L21-34, and for a read request, “the RAID controller translates 340 address information to one or more block addresses of one or more disk drives and issues a read request to the relevant disk drive (within either the first or second array),” C9 L31-43, thus the read may be for the first tier/RAID 5, which is lost if it cannot be retrieved at step 380 of Fig. 6B) is unable for retrieval from the second tier (an attempt is made to read data from the second tier at steps 380-410 of Fig. 6B, and there is a determination if the read is successful at step 410 of Fig. 6B).
However, though Maddock teaches reconstructing data (C9 L53-67), Maddock does not explicitly teach retrieving the data from one or more other virtual drives of the first tier that are different than the virtual drive.
Hung teaches, based on a read failure (step S311 of Fig. 3A), retrieving the data from one or more other virtual drives of the first tier that are different than the virtual drive (step S312 and S314 of Fig. 3A).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to have implemented the reconstructing (as taught by Hung) in the first/RAID-5 tier of the cited prior art in order to supply data to a requestor.
Further, the cited prior art does not explicitly teach a cloud-based storage system having a first tier and a second tier of cloud- based storage.
Mukku teaches a cloud-based storage system (system 4204 of Fig. 42) having a first tier (virtual disk 4210) and a second tier of cloud- based storage (object store 4206, and “the virtual disk 4210 may be higher priority storage in which segments with higher hit rates are stored relative to segments stored in the object store 4206,” Paragraph 0324).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to have implemented the tiers of Dayal in cloud-based storage so that a user requires less storage space locally.
Further, the cited prior art does not explicitly teach a virtual drive.
Burkey teaches a virtual drive (Paragraphs 0037-0038).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to have implemented the virtual drive of Burkey for the disks of the cited prior art in order to adjust performance as needed (Paragraph 0037-0038 of Burkey).
Regarding Claim 24, the cited prior art teaches the method of claim 21, wherein the first tier has one or more different performance characteristics than the second tier of cloud storage (the first tier, corresponding to a RAID 5, has more redundancy than the RAID 0/second tier, the performance characteristic corresponding to redundancy).
Claim 29 is the storage system corresponding to the method of claim 21, and is rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 31, the cited prior art teaches the cloud-based storage system of claim 29, wherein the one or more of the plurality of cloud computing instances provides solid-state storage (“flash memory,” Paragraph 0049 of Mukku).
Claim 33 is the storage system corresponding to the method of claim 24, and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 38 is the non-transitory computer readable medium corresponding to the method of claim 21, and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 39 is the non-transitory computer readable medium corresponding to the method of claim 24, and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claims 22, 25, 27, 28, 30, 34, 36, 37 and 40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maddock (US 7,506,187) in view of Hung (US 7,366,852), Mukku et al (US 2020/0042618), Burkey (US 2006/0161752), and Smaldone et al (US 10,133,508).
Regarding Claim 22, the cited prior art teaches he method of claim 21, but does not explicitly teach:
storing data associated with one or more storage operations at a cloud computing instance of a plurality of cloud computing instances of the first tier; and replicating the data to other cloud computing instances of the plurality of cloud computing instances.
Smaldone teaches storing data associated with one or more storage operations at a cloud computing instance (storage volume 186) of a plurality of cloud computing instances of the first tier (first tier corresponding to primary storage system 180 of Fig. 1, and data blocks are “utilized,” i.e., read and stored, by a host, C5 L56 – C6 L3);
and replicating the data to other cloud computing instances of the plurality of cloud computing instances (C5 L41-55).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to have implemented the cloud computing instance of Smaldone in the cited prior art in order to reduce the amount of storage space needed locally, and to provide a backup of data in case of failure.
Regarding Claim 25, the cited prior art teaches the method of claim 22, wherein one or more of the plurality of cloud computing instances are at distinct geographic regions (each data center is in a separate geographic region, C5 L20-40 of Smaldone).
Regarding Claim 27, the cited prior art teaches the method of claim 22, wherein one or more of the plurality of cloud computing instances of the first tier store a complete version of a dataset for a client application (the complete version corresponding to a “full backup,” C2 L39-67 of Smaldone).
Regarding Claim 28, the cited prior art teaches the method of claim 27, wherein the one or more plurality of cloud computing instances store a subset of a dataset for the client application (the subset corresponding to an “incremental backup,” C2 L39-67 of Smaldone).
Claim 30 is the storage system corresponding to the method of claim 22, and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 34 is the storage system corresponding to the method of claim 25, and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 36 is the storage system corresponding to the method of claim 27, and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 37 is the storage system corresponding to the method of claim 28, and is rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 40, the cited prior art teaches the method of claim 25, wherein distinct geographic regions correspond to a distinct availability zones for a particular cloud services provider (each data center is in a separate geographic region, C5 L20-40 of Smaldone, and therefore is in a distinct availability zone corresponding to its geographic location).
Claims 23 and 32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maddock (US 7,506,187) in view of Hung (US 7,366,852), Mukku et al (US 2020/0042618), Burkey (US 2006/0161752), Smaldone et al (US 10,133,508), and Gupta et al (US 2020/0036787).
Regarding Claim 23, the cited prior art teaches the method of claim 22, but does not explicitly teach wherein the second tier is common storage for the plurality of cloud computing instances.
Gupta teaches wherein the second tier is common storage for the plurality of cloud computing instances (see Fig. 2 of Gupta, where the second tier of object storage 130 is common storage for multiple cloud computing instances of distributed storage 120).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to have implemented the common storage of Gupta in the cited prior art in order to increase storage space.
Claim 32 is the computer program product corresponding to the method of claim 23, and is rejected under similar rationale.
Claims 26 and 35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maddock (US 7,506,187) in view of Hung (US 7,366,852), Burkey (US 2006/0161752), Smaldone et al (US 10,133,508), and Karumbunathan et al (US 2020/0159421).
Regarding Claim 26, the cited prior art teaches the method of claim 22, but does not explicitly teach wherein one or more of the plurality of cloud computing instances are provided by one or more distinct cloud services providers.
Karumbunathan teaches wherein one or more of the plurality of cloud computing instances are provided by one or more distinct cloud services providers (Paragraph 0107).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to have implemented the cloud computing environments to be provided by one or more distinct cloud services providers so that data may be stored reliably.
Claim 35 is the storage system corresponding to the method of claim 26, and is rejected under similar rationale.
ARGUMENTS CONCERNING NON- PRIOR ART REJECTIONS
Rejections - USC 112
Applicant’s argument that the claims as amended have overcome the examiner’s prior rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(a), first paragraph, has been considered but is not persuasive. A rejection remains under 35 U.S.C. 112, first paragraph as noted above.
RELEVANT ART CITED BY THE EXAMINER
The following prior art made of record and not relied upon is cited to establish the level of skill in the applicant's art and those arts considered reasonably pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See MPEP 707.05(c).
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. These references include:
Hetrick (US 7,149,846) teaches RAID Protected External Secondary Memory.
CLOSING COMMENTS
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
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):
CLAIMS REJECTED IN THE APPLICATION
Per the instant office action, claims 21-40 have been rejected in the application.
DIRECTION OF FUTURE CORRESPONDENCES
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Mark Giardino whose telephone number is (571) 270-3565 and can normally be reached on M-F 9:00-5:00- 5:30pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Mr. Jared Rutz can be reached on 571-272-5535. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
/MARK A GIARDINO JR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2135
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