DETAILED ACTION
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 3/20/2026 has been entered.
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, 29, and 38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maddock (US 7,506,187) in view of Mukku et al (US 2020/0042618).
Regarding Claim 21, Maddock teaches a method comprising:
determining that data was lost at a virtual drive of a first tier of storage (first tier of storage corresponding to both RAIDs 20 and 30 of Fig. 1, and a read is performed at step 260 of Fig. 6B, and the read may be unsuccessful, indicating data is lost, at step 380 of Fig. 6B, also note the storage devices/drives may be “virtual storage devices [drives],” C11 L11-23); and
retrieving a replicated copy of the data stored in local storage of one or more other computing instances of the first tier that are different than a computing instance associated with the virtual drive (the computing instances corresponding to RAID-5 array 20 and RAID-0 array 30 of Fig. 1, and if data is lost due to an unsuccessful read at step 380 of Fig. 6B, a replicated copy of data is retrieved from the other computing instance/RAID, C9 L44-52)
However, the cited prior art does not explicitly teach a cloud-based storage system having a first 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.
Claim 29 is the storage system corresponding to the method of claim 21, 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.
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 Mukku et al (US 2020/0042618) 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 subsequent 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 subsequent 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 two 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 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, 24, 31-33, and 39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maddock (US 7,506,187) in view of Mukku et al (US 2020/0042618), Smaldone et al (US 10,133,508), and Kumarasamy et al (US 9,619,339).
Regarding Claim 23, the cited prior art teaches the method of claim 22, but does not explicitly teach determining that data is unavailable for retrieval from a second tier of cloud storage of the cloud based storage system, wherein the second tier is common storage for the plurality of cloud computing instances.
Kumarasamy teaches determining that data is unavailable for retrieval from a second tier of cloud storage of the cloud based storage system, wherein the second tier is common storage for the plurality of cloud computing instances (second tier corresponding to secondary storage devices 108, which is a cloud computing instance, C5 L56-67, and data is determined to be unavailable for retrieval at step 404 of Fig. 4).
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 determination of Kumarasamy in the cited prior art in order to ensure a proper backup copy of data is stored.
Regarding Claim 24, the cited prior art teaches the method of claim 23, wherein the first tier has one or more different performance characteristics than the second tier of cloud storage (C9 L23-33 of Kumarasamy).
Regarding Claim 31, the cited prior art teaches the storage system of claim 30, wherein the one or more of the plurality of cloud computing instances provides solid-state storage (“flash memory,” Paragraph 0049 of Mukku).
but does not explicitly teach:
determining that the data is unavailable for retrieval from a second tier of cloud storage of the cloud based storage system, wherein one or more of the plurality of cloud computing instances provides solid-state storage.
Kumarasamy teaches determining that data is unavailable for retrieval from a second tier of cloud storage of the cloud based storage system, wherein the second tier is common storage for the plurality of cloud computing instances (second tier corresponding to secondary storage devices 108, which is a cloud computing instance, C5 L56-67, and data is determined to be unavailable for retrieval at step 404 of Fig. 4).
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 determination of Kumarasamy in the cited prior art in order to ensure a proper backup copy of data is stored.
Regarding Claim 32 the cited prior art teaches the storage system of claim 31, wherein the second tier of cloud storage is common storage for the plurality of cloud computing instances (secondary storage is shown as common storage for primary storage on Fig. 1C of Kumarasamy).
Regarding Claim 33, the cited prior art teaches the storage system of claim 31, wherein the first tier of cloud storage has one or more different performance characteristics of the second tier of cloud storage (C9 L23-33 of Kumarasamy).
Claim 39, the cited prior art teaches the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 38, further comprising wherein the first tier of cloud storage has one or more different performance characteristics than the second tier of cloud storage (C9 L23-33 of Kumarasamy), but does not explicitly teach:
determining that the data is unavailable for retrieval from a second tier of cloud storage of the cloud based storage system.
Kumarasamy teaches determining that data is unavailable for retrieval from a second tier of cloud storage of the cloud based storage system, wherein the second tier is common storage for the plurality of cloud computing instances (second tier corresponding to secondary storage devices 108, which is a cloud computing instance, C5 L56-67, and data is determined to be unavailable for retrieval at step 404 of Fig. 4).
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 determination of Kumarasamy in the cited prior art in order to ensure a proper backup copy of data is stored.
Claims 26 and 35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maddock (US 7,506,187) in view of Mukku et al (US 2020/0042618), 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 two or more of the plurality of cloud computing instances are provided by different cloud services providers.
Karumbunathan teaches wherein two or more of the plurality of cloud computing instances are provided by different 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 two or more different 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/OBJECTIONS
Rejections - USC 112
Applicant's arguments/amendments with respect to claims 21-40 have been considered and have overcome the Examiner’s prior rejections and thus are withdrawn.
ARGUMENTS CONCERNING PRIOR ART REJECTIONS
Rejections - USC 102/103
Applicant’s argument that the cited prior art has been considered. The prior rejection has been withdrawn, yet the examiner maintains the cited prior art of Maddock in view Mukku teaches the independent claims as amended as noted in the rejections above.
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.
DIRECTION OF FUTURE CORRESPONDENCE
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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