DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. Claims 1–16 are pending for examination in the response filed on 06/16/2026. Claims 17–20 are WITHDRAWN.
Drawings
3. The drawings were received on 02/28/2024 (in the filings). These drawings are acceptable.
Double Patenting
4. The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the claims at issue are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The USPTO internet Web site contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit http://www.uspto.gov/forms/. The filing date of the application will determine what form should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/file/efs/guidance/eTD-info-I.jsp.
5. Claims 1–16 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1–------18 of U.S. Patent No. 12,277,033 B2 (“’033 Patent”) and further in view of Kumar et al., US 2025/0147925 A1 (“Kumar”), as applied in rejecting claim 1 below, since the claims, if allowed, would improperly extend the “right to exclude” already granted in the patent.
6. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct (nonobvious) from each other, because at least some of the subject matter claimed in the instant application is already fully disclosed in the ’033 Patent..
For purposes of illustration, a table has been constructed below to compare the two independent method claims.
Instant Application No. 18/590,276
Issued ’033 Patent
1. A computer-implemented method of dynamically scheduling restore jobs in a data protection system, the method comprising:
receiving data from one or more restore clients for restoration of data from a storage target in accordance with a defined restore policy;
determining a data change rate of the data, as expressed as a number of bytes changed per unit of time; receiving, from the storage target, an indication of a current load condition of the storage target; and
modifying, if the current load condition exceeds a threshold value, the restore policy to delay or redirect the transmission of restore data to the storage target to prevent an overload of the storage target.
1. A computer-implemented method of dynamically scheduling backup jobs in a data protection system, the method comprising:
receiving data from a plurality of backup clients for storage in a storage target in accordance with a defined backup policy; determining a respective data change rate of the data from each backup client, as expressed as a number of bytes changed per unit of time, to produce a data change metric;
generating, in a core engine, a peak activity signal using the data change metric; monitoring an activity spike status and target session limit signals from the storage target;
receiving, from the storage target, an indication of a current load condition of the storage target; and
using the peak activity signal to generate a signal to redirect transmission of the data to an alternate storage target if the current load condition exceeds a threshold value to prevent an overload of the storage target due to a spike in data change rates for the plurality of backup clients, wherein the alternate storage target that is not presently prone to the overload condition, or that comprises a higher performance or higher availability storage device.
The Examiner notes that ’033 Patent is directed to dynamically scheduling backup jobs in a data protection system.
Moreover, Kumar teaches or suggests “dynamically scheduling restore jobs” (¶¶ 189–191, as applied in rejecting claim 1 below). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Kumar so as to provide for the restoration of backups..
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.
7. Claims 9 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
a. Specifically, the following term(s) and/or phrase(s) in the claim language is/are indefinite.
i. As to claims 9 and 16, the term “the saveset” lacks explicit antecedent basis.
The Examiner will construe this limitation as “training a model using historical data of restore operations … to establish past data change metrics ….”
b. Appropriate corrections are therefore required
Examiner’s Remarks
8. Examiner refers to and explicitly cites particular pages, sections, figures, paragraphs or columns and lines in the references as applied to Applicant’s claims to the extent practicable to streamline prosecution.
Although the cited portions of the references are representative of the best teachings in the art and are applied to meet the specific limitations of the claims, other uncited but related teachings of the references may be equally applicable as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses to the rejections, the Applicant fully considers not only the cited portions of the references, but also the references in their entirety, as potentially teaching, suggesting or rendering obvious all or one or more aspects of the claimed invention.
Abbreviations
9. Where appropriate, the following abbreviations will be used when referencing Applicant’s submissions and specific teachings of the reference(s):
i. figure / figures: Fig. / Figs.
ii. column / columns: Col. / Cols.
iii. page / pages: p. / pp.
References Cited
10. (A) Kumar et al., US 2025/0147925 A1 (“Kumar”).
(B) Fossen, US 2018/0293021 A1 (“Fossen”).
(C) Telang et al., US 8,918,536 B1 (“Telang”).
(D) Wigmore et al., US 2016/0378349 A (“Wigmore”).
(E) Mada et al., US 12,009,974 B1 (“Mada”).
(F) Brenner et al., US 2021/0406131 A1 (“Brenner”).
Notice re prior art available under both pre-AIA and AIA
11. 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 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.
A.
12. Claims 1–7, 12–13 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (A) Kumar in view of (B) Fossen and (C) Telang.
See “References Cited” section, above, for full citations of references.
13. Regarding claim 1, (A) Kumar teaches/suggests the invention substantially as claimed, including:
“A computer-implemented method of dynamically scheduling restore jobs in a data protection system, the method comprising:
receiving data from one or more restore clients for restoration of data from a storage target in accordance with a defined restore policy”
(¶ 189: a restore operation can be initiated involving one or more of secondary copies 116A, 116B, and 116C. A restore operation logically takes a selected secondary copy 116, reverses the effects of the secondary copy operation that created it, and stores the restored data to primary storage where a client computing device 102 may properly access it as primary data;
¶ 190: Storage manager 140 will then instruct media agent 144A and an appropriate data agent 142 on the target client computing device 102 to restore secondary copy 116A to primary storage device 104. A media agent may be selected for use in the restore operation based on a load balancing algorithm, an availability based algorithm, or other criteria;
¶ 191: Upon receipt, file system data agent 142A and email data agent 142B may unpack ( e.g., restore from a backup format to the native application format) the data in backup copy 116A and restore the unpackaged data to primary storage device 104. In general, secondary copies 116 may be restored to the same volume or folder in primary storage device 104 from which the secondary copy was derived; to another storage location or client computing device 102; to shared storage, etc.).
Kumar does not explicitly teach “receiving, from the storage target, an indication of a current load condition of the storage target; and
modifying, if the current load condition exceeds a threshold value, the restore policy to delay or redirect the transmission of restore data to the storage target to prevent an overload of the storage target.”
(B) Fossen, in the context Kumar’s teachings, however teaches or suggests implementing:
receiving, from the storage target, an indication of a current load condition of the storage target;
modifying, if the current load condition exceeds a threshold value, the restore policy to delay or redirect the transmission of restore data to the storage target to prevent an overload of the storage target.”
(¶ 69: in response to an indication that the data storage source or the data storage destination is reaching or experiencing an overload condition, the operator elements may be commanded to backoff or reduce their data transfer activity in respect to same. Similarly, in response to an indication that a size limit of the temporary data storage media is to be exceeded, download activity thereto may be reduced … These numbers may be configured with respect to various limitations such as bandwidth limitations and size limitations of the temporary data storage media, in order to balance a plurality of constraints and/or objectives;
¶ 70: if a user has paid for or authorized transfer of a predetermined amount of data or a predetermined amount of data per unit time, then the operator elements may be adjusted so that the predetermined amount is not exceeded. A monitoring process may be configured to monitor amounts of data transferred and/or rates of data transfer and to halt or reduce data transfer if the amounts or rates are exceeded).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of (B) Fossen with those of (A) Kumar to throttle or reduce data transfer to primary storage based on storage conditions. The motivation or advantage to do so is to optimize data transfer speed, improve performance, reliability, error avoidance of storage devices.
Kumar and Fossen do not explicitly teach “determining a data change rate of the data, as expressed as a number of bytes changed per unit of time.”
(C) Telang, in the context Kumar and Fossen’s teachings, however teaches or suggests implementing:
“determining a data change rate of the data, as expressed as a number of bytes changed per unit of time”
(Col. 3, lines 33–38: the backup software 116 and the network throttling module 122 cooperate to optimize computer network bandwidth usage in order to prevent congestion where one or more backup process data transfer operations are regulated (i.e., throttled) based on a current network load and/or network connection;
Col. 4, lines 5–16: the network throttling module 122 employs the calculation module 120 to compute the available bandwidth as well as a data transfer rate (i.e., a statistic indicating a current bandwidth usage). Generally, the data transfer rate refers to an amount ( e.g., bytes per second) of the available bandwidth that is currently being used by the client 102 to perform one or more data operations;
Col. 5, line 57 to Col. 6,line 4: if the data transfer rate significantly exceeds the permissible bandwidth usage, a “sleep” time period may be determined that decreases the data transfer rate).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of (C) Telang with those of (A) Kumar and (B) Fossen to determine change in bandwidth (data transfer rate) of storage connections performing the restore. The motivation or advantage to do so is to avoid network congestions (e.g. by regulating or throttling data transfers).
14. Regarding claim 2, Kumar, Fossen, and Telang teach or suggest:
“wherein the restore policy dictates datasets, restore clients, storage targets, special handling requirements, data processing operations, and storage parameters for the restore jobs”
(Kumar, ¶ 103: management database 146 may comprise data needed to kick off secondary copy operations ( e.g., storage policies, schedule policies, etc.), status and reporting information about completed jobs (e.g., status and error reports on yesterday's backup jobs), and additional information sufficient to enable restore and disaster recovery operations;
¶ 101: Database 146 may include a management index 150 ( or “index 150”) or other data structure(s) that may store: logical associations between components of the system; user preferences and/or profiles ( e.g., preferences regarding encryption, compression, or deduplication of primary data or secondary copies;
(the Examiner notes: encryption, compression may be construed as special handling requirements and data processing operations)
… preferences regarding the scheduling, type, or other aspects of secondary copy or other operations; mappings of particular information management users or user accounts to certain computing devices or other components, etc.; management tasks; media containerization; other useful data; and/or any combination thereof. For example, storage manager 140 may use index 150 to track logical associations between media agents 144 and secondary storage devices 108 and/or movement of data to/from secondary storage devices 108. For instance, index 150 may store data associating a client computing device 102 with a particular media agent 144 and/or secondary storage device 108, as specified in an information management policy 148;
(the Examiner notes: these information may be construed as datasets, restore clients, storage targets);
¶ 102: Generally, an information management policy 148 can include a stored data structure or other information source that specifies parameters ( e.g., criteria and rules) associated with storage management or other information management operations. Storage manager 140 can process an information management policy 148 and/or index 150 and, based on the results, identify an information management operation to perform, identify the appropriate components in system 100 to be involved in the operation (e.g., client computing devices 102 and corresponding data agents 142, secondary storage computing devices 106 and corresponding media agents 144, etc.), establish connections to those components and/or between those components, and/or instruct and control those components to carry out the operation. In this manner, system 100 can translate stored information into coordinated activity among the various computing devices in system 100;
¶ 154: One type of information management policy 148 is a “storage policy.” According to certain embodiments, a storage policy generally comprises a data structure or other information source that defines ( or includes information sufficient to determine) a set of preferences or other criteria for performing information management operations. Storage policies can include one or more of the following: (1) what data will be associated with the storage policy, e.g., subclient; (2) a destination to which the data will be stored; (3) datapath information specifying how the data will be communicated to the destination; ( 4) the type of secondary copy operation to be performed; and ( 5) retention information specifying how long the data will be retained at the destination;
(the Examiner notes: these information may be construed as datasets, restore clients, storage targets and storage parameters);
¶ 155: A storage policy can define where data is stored by specifying a target or destination storage device ( or group of storage devices);
¶ 156: For instance, the storage policy may specify network pathways and components to utilize when moving the data to the destination storage device(s). In some embodiments, the storage policy specifies one or more media agents 144 for conveying data associated with the storage policy between the source and destination. A storage policy can also specify the type(s) of associated operations, such as backup, archive, snapshot, auxiliary copy, or the like. Furthermore, retention parameters can specify how long the resulting secondary copies 116 will be kept (e.g., a number of days, months, years, etc.), perhaps depending on organizational needs and/or compliance criteria;
¶ 158: information management policy 148 is a “scheduling policy,” which specifies when and how often to perform operations. Scheduling parameters may specify with what frequency ( e.g., hourly, weekly, daily, event-based, etc.) or under what triggering conditions secondary copy or other information management operations are to take place;
Fossen, ¶ 70: if a user has paid for or authorized transfer of a predetermined amount of data or a predetermined amount of data per unit time, then the operator elements may be adjusted so that the predetermined amount is not exceeded. A monitoring process may be configured to monitor amounts of data transferred and/or rates of data transfer and to halt or reduce data transfer if the amounts or rates are exceeded;
Telang, Col. 4, lines 5–16: the network throttling module 122 employs the calculation module 120 to compute the available bandwidth as well as a data transfer rate (i.e., a statistic indicating a current bandwidth usage). Generally, the data transfer rate refers to an amount ( e.g., bytes per second) of the available bandwidth that is currently being used by the client 102 to perform one or more data operations).
15. Regarding claim 3, Fossen and Telang teaches or suggests:
“wherein the overload condition comprises at least one of: an amount of data transmitted to the storage target in excess of its storage capacity, transmission of data at an excessive rate compared to an ingress rate of the storage target, or an excessive number of input/output operations to the storage target”
(Fossen, ¶ 69: in response to an indication that the data storage source or the data storage destination is reaching or experiencing an overload condition, the operator elements may be commanded to backoff or reduce their data transfer activity in respect to same. Similarly, in response to an indication that a size limit of the temporary data storage media is to be exceeded, download activity thereto may be reduced … These numbers may be configured with respect to various limitations such as bandwidth limitations and size limitations of the temporary data storage media, in order to balance a plurality of constraints and/or objectives;
¶ 70: if a user has paid for or authorized transfer of a predetermined amount of data or a predetermined amount of data per unit time, then the operator elements may be adjusted so that the predetermined amount is not exceeded. A monitoring process may be configured to monitor amounts of data transferred and/or rates of data transfer and to halt or reduce data transfer if the amounts or rates are exceeded;
Telang, Col. 3, lines 33–38: the backup software 116 and the network throttling module 122 cooperate to optimize computer network bandwidth usage in order to prevent congestion where one or more backup process data transfer operations are regulated (i.e., throttled) based on a current network load and/or network connection;
Col. 4, lines 5–16: the network throttling module 122 employs the calculation module 120 to compute the available bandwidth as well as a data transfer rate (i.e., a statistic indicating a current bandwidth usage). Generally, the data transfer rate refers to an amount ( e.g., bytes per second) of the available bandwidth that is currently being used by the client 102 to perform one or more data operations;
Col. 5, line 57 to Col. 6,line 4: if the data transfer rate significantly exceeds the permissible bandwidth usage, a “sleep” time period may be determined that decreases the data transfer rate).
16. Regarding claim 4, Kumar teaches or suggests:
“wherein the policy is generated by a policy level controller (PLC) that manages storage targets and their attributes for best usage as storage resources in the system, and defines various operational parameters”
(¶ 84: Storage manager 140 is a centralized storage and/or information manager that is configured to perform certain control functions and also to store certain critical information about system 100-hence storage manager 140 is said to manage system 100;
¶ 85: The storage manager 140 generally initiates, performs, coordinates, and/or controls storage and other information management operations performed by system 100, e.g., to protect and control primary data 112 and secondary copies 116 … In this manner, storage manager 140 manages the operation of various hardware and software components in system 100. In certain embodiments, control information originates from storage manager 140 and status as well as index reporting is transmitted to storage manager 140 by the managed components …
Control information can generally include parameters and instructions for carrying out information management operations, such as, without limitation, instructions to perform a task associated with an operation, timing information specifying when to initiate a task, data path information specifying what components to communicate with or access in carrying out an operation, and the like;
See ¶¶ 101–103, as applied in rejecting claim 2 above).
17. Regarding claim 5, Kumar teaches or suggests:
“wherein the operational parameters are selected from the group consisting of: storage unit types, storage unit names, quotas, limits (hard/soft), authentication credentials, tokens, and security mechanisms”
(¶ 84: Storage manager 140 is a centralized storage and/or information manager that is configured to perform certain control functions and also to store certain critical information about system 100-hence storage manager 140 is said to manage system 100;
¶ 85: The storage manager 140 generally initiates, performs, coordinates, and/or controls storage and other information management operations performed by system 100, e.g., to protect and control primary data 112 and secondary copies 116 … In this manner, storage manager 140 manages the operation of various hardware and software components in system 100. In certain embodiments, control information originates from storage manager 140 and status as well as index reporting is transmitted to storage manager 140 by the managed components …
Control information can generally include parameters and instructions for carrying out information management operations, such as, without limitation, instructions to perform a task associated with an operation, timing information specifying when to initiate a task, data path information specifying what components to communicate with or access in carrying out an operation, and the like;
¶ 149: system 100 may also determine whether a metric or other indication satisfies particular storage criteria sufficient to perform an action. For example, a storage policy or other definition might indicate that a storage manager 140 should initiate a particular action if a storage metric or other indication drops below or otherwise fails to satisfy specified criteria such as a threshold of data protection;
¶ 155: a particular destination storage device(s) or other parameter of the storage policy may be determined based on characteristics associated with the data involved in a particular secondary copy operation, device availability (e.g., availability of a secondary storage device 108 or a media agent 144), network status and conditions (e.g., identified bottlenecks), user credentials, and the like;
¶¶ 161–169: information management policies 148 may specify: schedules or other timing information, e.g., specifying when and/or how often to perform information management operations; the type of secondary copy 116 and/or copy format (e.g., snapshot, backup, archive, HSM, etc.); a location or a class or quality of storage for storing secondary copies 116 (e.g., one or more particular secondary storage devices 108); preferences regarding whether and how to encrypt, compress, deduplicate, or otherwise modify or transform secondary copies 116).
18. Regarding claim 6, Kumar and Fossen teach or suggest:
“PLC communicates with a scheduling engine to control a core engine that provides wait or stop signals to the restore client to delay or suspend the transmission of the restore data”
(Kumar, ¶ 84: Storage manager 140 is a centralized storage and/or information manager that is configured to perform certain control functions and also to store certain critical information about system 100-hence storage manager 140 is said to manage system 100;
¶ 85: The storage manager 140 generally initiates, performs, coordinates, and/or controls storage and other information management operations performed by system 100, e.g., to protect and control primary data 112 and secondary copies 116 … In this manner, storage manager 140 manages the operation of various hardware and software components in system 100. In certain embodiments, control information originates from storage manager 140 and status as well as index reporting is transmitted to storage manager 140 by the managed components …
¶ 148: In some configurations having a hierarchy of storage operation cells, a master storage manager 140 may track the status of subordinate cells, such as the status of jobs, system components, system resources, and other items, by communicating with storage managers 140 (or other components) in the respective storage operation cells;
¶ 118: As described, certain functions of system 100 can be distributed amongst various physical and/or logical components. For instance, one or more of storage manager 140, data agents 142, and media agents 144 may operate on computing devices that are physically separate from one another;
¶ 278: the above-recited components, steps, blocks, operations, messages, requests, queries, and/or instructions are differently arranged, sequenced, sub-divided, organized, and/or combined;
the Examiner notes: Kumar broadly teaches using a distributed or hierarchical architectures wherein the disclosed components, steps, blocks, operations of the information management system, including the Storage manager 140, may be combined, divided, re-organized and/or re-sequenced, into different distributed components or operations, such that one master storage manager may control other “intermediary” storage managers, data agents, and/or media agent;
Fossen, ¶ 69 and ¶ 70, teaching halt or reduce data transfer if a transfer amounts or rates are exceeded, as applied in rejecting claim 1 above).
19. Regarding claim 7, Kumar and Fossen teach or suggest:
“wherein the indication from the storage target comprises at least one of a target session limit signal, or an activity spike status signal of the storage target”
(Kumar, ¶ 160: If a client computing device 102 exceeds a quota, a budget for the client computing device 102 (or associated department) may be adjusted accordingly or an alert may trigger;
Fossen, ¶ 69 and ¶ 70, teaching halt or reduce data transfer if a transfer amounts or rates are exceeded, as applied in rejecting claim 1 above).
20. Regarding claim 12, it is the corresponding system claim reciting similar limitations of commensurate scope as the method of claim 1. Therefore, it is rejected on the same basis as claim 1 above, including the following rationale:
Kumar teaches or suggests:
“hardware-based policy level controller coordinating a scheduling engine and policy engine implementing a policy … a component determining … and a processor-based core engine functionally coupled to the scheduling engine”
(¶ 280: one or more first hardware processors and non-transitory computer-readable memory including computer programming instructions, which, when executed by the one or more first hardware processors, configure the first computing device to perform operations;
¶ 289: instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, specially-equipped computer;
See Kumar, ¶¶ 84, 85, 118, 148, and 278, as applied in rejecting claim 6 above, in which Kumar broadly teaches using a distributed or hierarchical architectures wherein the disclosed components, steps, blocks, operations of the information management system, including the Storage manager 140, may be combined, divided, re-organized and/or re-sequenced, into different distributed components or operations, such that one master storage manager may control other “intermediary” storage managers, data agents, and/or media agent).
21. Regarding claim 13, it is the corresponding system claim reciting similar limitations of commensurate scope as the method of claim 2. Therefore, it is rejected on the same basis as claim 2 above.
22. Regarding claim 15, it is the corresponding system claim reciting similar limitations of commensurate scope as the method of claim 5. Therefore, it is rejected on the same basis as claim 5 above.
B.
23. Claims 8 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (A) Kumar in view of (B) Fossen and (C) Telang, as applied to claims 1 and 13 above, and further in view of (D) Wigmore.
24. Regarding claim 8, Kumar, Fossen, and Telang do not teach “redirect comprises
a change of storage target to a different storage target not presently prone to the overload condition, or that comprises a higher performance or higher availability storage device.”
(D) Wigmore, however teaches or suggests implementing:
“redirect comprises a change of storage target to a different storage target not presently prone to the overload condition, or that comprises a higher performance or higher availability storage device.”
(¶ 27: In some embodiments, the storage system, on indication of the smaller high performance memory being full, redirects the write request to an alternate high performance memory (e.g., a backup storage unit input buffer) associated with a backup system (e.g., a deduplication storage unit … redirected writes are temporarily stored in the alternate high performance memory and when space is available in the smaller high performance memory, the redirected writes are transferred back to the smaller high performance memory).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of (D) Wigmore with those of (A) Kumar, (B) Fossen, and (C) Telang to redirect restored data to an alternate or backup server. The motivation or advantage to do so is to minimize storage pressure (overload) on the primary storage device.
25. Regarding claim 14, it is the corresponding system claim reciting similar limitations of commensurate scope as the method of claims 3 and 8, in combination. Therefore, it is rejected on the same basis as claims 3 and 8 above.
C.
26. Claims 9 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (A) Kumar in view of (B) Fossen and (C) Telang, as applied to claim 1 and 15 above, and further in view of (E) Mada.
27. Regarding claim 9, Kumar teaches or suggests “restore operations involving the restore client and the storage target”
(¶ 189: a restore operation can be initiated involving one or more of secondary copies 116A, 116B, and 116C. A restore operation logically takes a selected secondary copy 116, reverses the effects of the secondary copy operation that created it, and stores the restored data to primary storage where a client computing device 102 may properly access it as primary data;
¶ 190: Storage manager 140 will then instruct media agent 144A and an appropriate data agent 142 on the target client computing device 102 to restore secondary copy 116A to primary storage device 104. A media agent may be selected for use in the restore operation based on a load balancing algorithm, an availability based algorithm, or other criteria;
¶ 191: Upon receipt, file system data agent 142A and email data agent 142B may unpack ( e.g., restore from a backup format to the native application format) the data in backup copy 116A and restore the unpackaged data to primary storage device 104. In general, secondary copies 116 may be restored to the same volume or folder in primary storage device 104 from which the secondary copy was derived; to another storage location or client computing device 102; to shared storage, etc.).
Kumar, Fossen, and Telang do not teach “training a model using historical data of restore operations of the saveset to establish past data change metrics for corresponding restore operations …”
(E) Mada, in the context of Kumar, Fossen, and Telang’s teachings, however teaches or suggests implementing:
“training a model using historical data of restore operations of the saveset to establish past data change metrics for corresponding restore operations …”
(Col. 2, lines 28–42: Techniques described enable the use of historical data -- including parameters from performance logs of computing resources, such as processing capacity, utilization, failure rate, processing bandwidth, among others -- to train a machine learning model and to use the trained machine learning model to optimize one or more communication networks. By optimizing the computing resources of a communication network, the techniques described in this document, compared to traditional techniques, can help reduce power consumption in the sector, reduce data or voice request failures or blackouts, reduce latency, enable low-latency applications of the communication network, increase lifespan of computing elements, among others;
Col. 4, lines 10–17: the performance logs 116a and 116b include data indicating capacity for central processing unit (CPU) of one or more components, usage utilization, free space memory utilization, among others. The performance logs 116a and 116b can include data indicating performance of one or more computing clusters of the computing resources).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of (E) Mada with those of (A) Kumar, (B) Fossen, and (C) Telang to train a learning model of cluster and network performances using monitored resource usages of previous operations. The motivation or advantage to do so is preemptively predict, adjust and optimize resources (e.g. allocations) for performing future restore operations.
28. Regarding claim 16, it is the corresponding system claim reciting similar limitations of commensurate scope as the method of claims 7 and 9, in combination. Therefore, it is rejected on the same basis as claims 7 and 9 above.
D.
29. Claims 10 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (A) Kumar in view of (B) Fossen and (C) Telang, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of (F) Brenner.
30. Regarding claim 10, Kumar, Fossen, and Telang do not teach “wherein the network comprises a PowerProtect Data Domain deduplication backup system.”
(F) Brenner, in the context of Kumar, Fossen, and Telang’s teachings, however teaches or suggests implementing:
“wherein the network comprises a PowerProtect Data Domain deduplication backup system”
(¶ 85: perform the backup and save the results to protection storage (e.g., Dell EMC's PowerProtect Data Domain);
¶ 57: The purpose of the backup function 318 is to copy the local configuration file from the network device onto protection storage. The method of transporting the configuration file will vary depending on the protection storage. For example, if the protection storage is Data Domain, DPND might use DDBoost. If the protection storage is object storage from AWS, DPND might use an S3 library, and so on. The protection storage might offer unique capabilities like deduplication, encryption, and/or compression and DPND may use those capabilities).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of (F) Brenner with those of (A) Kumar, (B) Fossen, and (C) Telang to implement the backup using PowerProtect Data Domain protection storage. The motivation or advantage to do so is provide for the data protection of networking devices.
31. Regarding claim 11, Kumar teaches or suggests:
“wherein the network comprises a Kubernetes-based cluster network running containerized applications to generate the restore data”
(¶ 230: any computing device described herein is deployed as a compute resource of the cloud computing environment (e.g., a virtual machine instance, a pod in a Kubernetes cluster or in another application orchestrator, etc.).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
(a) Balcha et al., US 2024/0028488 A1, teaching continuously restoring applications.
(b) Liu et al., US 2016/0202923 A1, teaching backing up and restoring an application running across multiple virtual machines.
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/BENJAMIN C WU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2195
August 27, 2026
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