DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action, based on application 18/622,000 filed 29 March 2024, is filed in response to applicant’s amendment and remarks filed 18 May 2026. Claims 1-3, 5-10, 12-16, and 18-20 are currently pending and have been fully considered below.
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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s remarks, filed 18 May 2026 in response to the Office Action mailed 2 January 2026, have been fully considered below.
Claim Objections
The Office withdraws the previously issued objections in view of applicant’s amendment and remarks.
Claim Rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103
The applicant traverses the prior art rejection to the claims alleging cited prior art fails to disclose the predetermined code generation conditions as amended in the independent claims. The Office presents new grounds of rejection (in further view of KUMARASAMY) responsive to applicant’s amendment. The Office notes the claims, as presented, fail to recite any further use or action taken resulting from the determination of the satisfaction of the predetermined code generation condition.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 12, 15, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GOLDING (US PGPub 2005/0114596) in further view of KUMARASAMY et al (US PGPub 2013/0282662).
With respect to Claim 1, GOLDING discloses a method comprising:
receiving first data (¶[0031] – “a newly created one-block object”; Fig 3, Physical Object C);
storing a first copy of the first data on a first node (¶[0031] – the object … “is stored as two one-block physical objects C and C’ that are mirrors of each other … The two physical objects are stored on separate object storage devices”; Fig. 3, Physical Object C’ {analogous to ‘a first copy’});
storing a second copy of the first data on a plurality of second nodes by storing a first data fragment of the first data and a second data fragment of the first data on different second nodes (¶[0032] – “the invention converts C from being individually mirrored to an individual parity RAID 5 layout of a stripe width s by creating s+1 physical objects on separate object storage devices and copying data into the striped layout”; Fig 5 illustrates blocks C1 and C2 of physical object C placed in separate physical object storage devices 1 and 2, respectively);
determining that a predetermined code generation condition is satisfied (Fig 6, Step 63 – “Conversion trigger met?” => YES);
generating a code fragment based on the first data (Fig 6, Step 67 – “Convert A to parity RAID layout”; ¶[0035] – “Alternately, if the condition 64 on the size of the object is met, then the object is converted 67 to an individual parity layout. Specifically, one physical object is created on each of s+1 object storage devices, and the data in A is copied in such a way that it is striped over s of the physical objects. The parity of the stripes is computed {analogous to ‘generating a code fragment …”} and stored in the remaining physical object”); and
deleting the first copy of the first data from the first node (¶[0035] – “Finally, after the object has been converted, the mirrored object A’ is discarded”; Fig 6, Step 68 – “Discard A’”).
GOLDING may not explicitly disclose wherein the predetermined code generation condition is satisfied based on at least one of: a modification frequency associated with the first data; a proportion of the first data that has been modified during a predetermined time period; or an amount of time elapsed since a previous modification of the first data.
However, KUMARASAMY discloses wherein the predetermined code generation condition is satisfied based on at least one of: a modification frequency associated with the first data; a proportion of the first data that has been modified during a predetermined time period; or an amount of time elapsed since a previous modification of the first data (¶[0060] – “Metadata can include, without limitation, one or more of the following: … the last modified time (e.g. the time of the most recent modification of the data object, … a data object size (e.g. a number of bytes of data), … frequency of change (e.g. a period in which the data object is modified), … and aging information (e.g. a schedule, such as a time period, in which the data object is migrated to secondary or long term storage)”; ¶[0121] – “the storage manager database 146 comprises a relational database (e.g. an SQL database) for tracking {analogous to ‘determining’} metadata”).
GOLDING and KUMARASAMY are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor of managing the storage of data objects. Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of GOLDING and KUMARASAMY before him or her, to modify the decisional conversion trigger of GOLDING to include evaluating metadata as taught by KUMARASAMY. A motivation for doing so would have been to enable policy decisions to be based on a variety of historical or current criteria that may be used to determine which rules to apply to a particular data object, system component, or information management operations … as determined by its content and/or metadata (¶[0241-0250]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine GOLDING and KUMARASAMY to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claims.
With respect to Claim 8, GOLDING discloses a system comprising:
a processor (¶[0037] – “The system may incorporate computers, calculators, generators, storage units, converters, controllers, comparators, and other data generation, consolidation, and calculation devices arranged to perform the functions described above”); and
a memory device (¶[0037] – “The system may incorporate computers, calculators, generators, storage units, converters, controllers, comparators, and other data generation, consolidation, and calculation devices arranged to perform the functions described above”) storing program code structured to cause the processor to:
receive first data (¶[0031] – “a newly created one-block object”; Fig 3, Physical Object C);
store a first copy of the first data on a first node (¶[0031] – the object … “is stored as two one-block physical objects C and C’ that are mirrors of each other … The two physical objects are stored on separate object storage devices”; Fig. 3, Physical Object C’ {analogous to ‘a first copy’});
store a second copy of the first data on a plurality of second nodes by storing a first data fragment of the first data and a second data fragment of the first data on different second nodes (¶[0032] – “the invention converts C from being individually mirrored to an individual parity RAID 5 layout of a stripe width s by creating s+1 physical objects on separate object storage devices and copying data into the striped layout”; Fig 5 illustrates blocks C1 and C2 of physical object C placed in separate physical object storage devices 1 and 2, respectively);
determine that a predetermined code generation condition is satisfied (Fig 6, Step 63 – “Conversion trigger met?” => YES);
generate a code fragment based on the first data (Fig 6, Step 67 – “Convert A to parity RAID layout”; ¶[0035] – “Alternately, if the condition 64 on the size of the object is met, then the object is converted 67 to an individual parity layout. Specifically, one physical object is created on each of s+1 object storage devices, and the data in A is copied in such a way that it is striped over s of the physical objects. The parity of the stripes is computed {analogous to ‘generating a code fragment …”} and stored in the remaining physical object”); and
delete the first copy of the first data from the first node (¶[0035] – “Finally, after the object has been converted, the mirrored object A’ is discarded”; Fig 6, Step 68 – “Discard A’”).
GOLDING may not explicitly disclose wherein the predetermined code generation condition is satisfied based on at least one of: a modification frequency associated with the first data; a proportion of the first data that has been modified during a predetermined time period; or an amount of time elapsed since a previous modification of the first data.
However, KUMARASAMY discloses wherein the predetermined code generation condition is satisfied based on at least one of: a modification frequency associated with the first data; a proportion of the first data that has been modified during a predetermined time period; or an amount of time elapsed since a previous modification of the first data (¶[0060] – “Metadata can include, without limitation, one or more of the following: … the last modified time (e.g. the time of the most recent modification of the data object, … a data object size (e.g. a number of bytes of data), … frequency of change (e.g. a period in which the data object is modified), … and aging information (e.g. a schedule, such as a time period, in which the data object is migrated to secondary or long term storage)”; ¶[0121] – “the storage manager database 146 comprises a relational database (e.g. an SQL database) for tracking {analogous to ‘determining’} metadata”).
GOLDING and KUMARASAMY are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor of managing the storage of data objects. Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of GOLDING and KUMARASAMY before him or her, to modify the decisional conversion trigger of GOLDING to include evaluating metadata as taught by KUMARASAMY. A motivation for doing so would have been to enable policy decisions to be based on a variety of historical or current criteria that may be used to determine which rules to apply to a particular data object, system component, or information management operations … as determined by its content and/or metadata (¶[0241-0250]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine GOLDING and KUMARASAMY to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claims.
With respect to Claim 15, GOLDING discloses a computer-readable storage medium comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:
receive the first data (¶[0031] – “a newly created one-block object”; Fig 3, Physical Object C);
store a first copy of the first data on a third node (¶[0031] – the object … “is stored as two one-block physical objects C and C’ that are mirrors of each other … The two physical objects are stored on separate object storage devices”; Fig. 3, Physical Object C’ {analogous to ‘a first copy’});
store a second copy of the first data on the plurality of second nodes by storing a first data fragment of the first data and a second data fragment of the first data on different second nodes (¶[0032] – “the invention converts C from being individually mirrored to an individual parity RAID 5 layout of a stripe width s by creating s+1 physical objects on separate object storage devices and copying data into the striped layout”; Fig 5 illustrates blocks C1 and C2 of physical object C placed in separate physical object storage devices 1 and 2, respectively);
determine that the predetermined code generation condition is satisfied (Fig 6, Step 63 – “Conversion trigger met?” => YES);
generate a first code fragment based on the first data (Fig 6, Step 67 – “Convert A to parity RAID layout”; ¶[0035] – “Alternately, if the condition 64 on the size of the object is met, then the object is converted 67 to an individual parity layout. Specifically, one physical object is created on each of s+1 object storage devices, and the data in A is copied in such a way that it is striped over s of the physical objects. The parity of the stripes is computed {analogous to ‘generating a code fragment …”} and stored in the remaining physical object”);
store the first code fragment on the first node(¶[0035] – “The parity of the stripes is computed {analogous to ‘generating a code fragment …”} and stored in the remaining physical object”); and
delete the first copy of the first data (¶[0035] – “Finally, after the object has been converted, the mirrored object A’ is discarded”; Fig 6, Step 68 – “Discard A’”).
GOLDING may not explicitly disclose designate, prior to receiving first data, a first node as a code fragment node for storing code fragments and a plurality of second nodes as data fragment nodes for storing data fragments, and wherein the predetermined code generation condition is satisfied based on at least one of: a modification frequency associated with the first data; a proportion of the first data that has been modified during a predetermined time period; or an amount of time elapsed since a previous modification of the first data.
However, KUMARASAMY discloses wherein the predetermined code generation condition is satisfied based on at least one of: a modification frequency associated with the first data; a proportion of the first data that has been modified during a predetermined time period; or an amount of time elapsed since a previous modification of the first data (¶[0060] – “Metadata can include, without limitation, one or more of the following: … the last modified time (e.g. the time of the most recent modification of the data object, … a data object size (e.g. a number of bytes of data), … frequency of change (e.g. a period in which the data object is modified), … and aging information (e.g. a schedule, such as a time period, in which the data object is migrated to secondary or long term storage)”; ¶[0121] – “the storage manager database 146 comprises a relational database (e.g. an SQL database) for tracking {analogous to ‘determining’} metadata”).
GOLDING and KUMARASAMY are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor of managing the storage of data objects. Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of GOLDING and KUMARASAMY before him or her, to modify the decisional conversion trigger of GOLDING to include evaluating metadata as taught by KUMARASAMY. A motivation for doing so would have been to enable policy decisions to be based on a variety of historical or current criteria that may be used to determine which rules to apply to a particular data object, system component, or information management operations … as determined by its content and/or metadata (¶[0241-0250]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine GOLDING and KUMARASAMY to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claims.
GOLDING and KUMARASAMY may not explicitly disclose designate, prior to receiving first data, a first node as a code fragment node for storing code fragments and a plurality of second nodes as data fragment nodes for storing data fragments.
However, GOLDING states at ¶[0016] that “the invention provides a system for performing data redundancy comprising a set of object storage devices, a variably sized object in a first object storage device, a redundancy data management controller operable for duplicating the object, a second object storage device operable for temporarily storing the duplicated object” which at least suggests that data storage devices may be designated or purposed to store a particular type of data prior to storing the particular type of data.
As such, with the suggestions asserted by GOLDING, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have taken into consideration GOLDING’s explicit teachings and suggestions to have been able to modify GOLDING’s explicit teachings such that GOLDING’s storage devices are designated to store particular data prior to receiving the data including designating a first node for storing code fragments and second nodes for storing data fragments with a reasonable expectation of success. A motivation for doing so would be to keep similar types of data together for efficient organization of the particular types of data enabling faster accessing of the particular types of data since the particular types of data is limited to be stored in a particular location.
With respect to Claims 2 and 9, GOLDING and KUMARASAMY disclose the method/system of each respective parent claim.
GOLDING and KUMARASAMY may not explicitly disclose designating, prior to receiving the first data, the first node and a third node as code fragment nodes for storing code fragments; and designating, prior to receiving the first data, the plurality of second nodes as data fragment nodes for storing data fragments.
However, GOLDING states at ¶[0016] that “the invention provides a system for performing data redundancy comprising a set of object storage devices, a variably sized object in a first object storage device, a redundancy data management controller operable for duplicating the object, a second object storage device operable for temporarily storing the duplicated object” which at least suggests that data storage devices may be designated or purposed to store a particular type of data prior to storing the particular type of data.
As such, with the suggestions asserted by GOLDING, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have taken into consideration GOLDING’s explicit teachings and suggestions to have been able to modify GOLDING’s explicit teachings such that GOLDING’s storage devices are designated to store particular data prior to receiving the data including designating a first node for storing code fragments and second nodes for storing data fragments with a reasonable expectation of success. A motivation for doing so would be to keep similar types of data together for efficient organization of the particular types of data enabling faster accessing of the particular types of data since the particular types of data is limited to be stored in a particular location.
With respect to Claims 5, 12, and 18, the combination of GOLDING and KUMARASAMY disclose the method/system/medium of each respective parent claim.
GOLDING further discloses detecting, after generating the code fragment, an instruction that modifies the first data fragment; generating, while maintaining the first data fragment unchanged, a modified first data fragment by executing the instruction on the first data fragment (¶[0031] – “a newly created one-block object”; Fig 3, Physical Object C); storing a first copy of the modified first data fragment on the first node (¶[0031] – the object … “is stored as two one-block physical objects C and C’ that are mirrors of each other … The two physical objects are stored on separate object storage devices”; Fig. 3, Physical Object C’ {analogous to ‘a first copy’}); storing a second copy of the modified first data fragment on a second node of the plurality of second nodes storing the first data fragment (¶[0032] – “the invention converts C from being individually mirrored to an individual parity RAID 5 layout of a stripe width s by creating s+1 physical objects on separate object storage devices and copying data into the striped layout”; Fig 5 illustrates blocks C1 and C2 of physical object C placed in separate physical object storage devices 1 and 2, respectively); receiving a request for the first data fragment; and returning, as a response to the request, a copy of the modified first data fragment (¶[0034] – “reads and writes to the virtual object are processed by writing to both physical objects A and A’ and reading from A, A’, or both”).
Claim(s) 3, 10, and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GOLDING and KUMARASAMY as applied to respective parent claims above, and further in view of MA et al (US PGPub 2022/0179743).
With respect to Claims 3, 10, and 16, the combination of GOLDING and KUMARASAMY disclose the method/system/medium of each respective parent claim.
GOLDING and KUMARASAMY may not explicitly disclose wherein said generating a code fragment comprises: generating, based on the first data, a plurality of code fragments comprising a first code fragment and a second code fragment; storing, on the first node, the first code fragment; and storing, on a third node, the second code fragment.
However, MA discloses wherein said generating a code fragment comprises: generating, based on the first data, a plurality of code fragments comprising a first code fragment and a second code fragment; storing, on the first node, the first code fragment; and storing, on a third node, the second code fragment (Fig 3, Parity Values PA 310-2 and PB 310-1 are illustrated as being separately stored; ¶[0028] – “a parity value PA may correspond to node 110-1 and a parity value PB may correspond to node 110-2”; ¶[0027] – “two storage devices are used for storing the parity values”).
GOLDING, KUMARASAMY, and MA are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor of managing the storage of data objects. Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of GOLDING, KUMARASAMY, and MA before him or her, to modify the generating of a parity value {or ‘code fragment’} of the combination of GOLDING and KUMARASAMY to include generating two parity values as taught by MA. A motivation for doing so would have been to enable different nodes to perform parallel writes to different storage spaces in the same stripe in the RAID (Abstract). Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine GOLDING, KUMARASAMY, and MA to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claims.
Claim(s) 6, 7, 13, 14, 19, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GOLDING and KUMARASAMY as applied to respective parent claims above, and further in view of DEKONING (US Patent 6,275,898).
With respect to Claims 6, 13, and 19, GOLDING and KUMARASAMY disclose the method/system/medium of each respective parent claim.
GOLDING and KUMARASAMY may not explicitly disclose modifying, after generating the code fragment, the second copy of the first data; determining that a predetermined code deletion condition is satisfied based on a degree of modification associated with the second copy of the first data; generating a third copy of the first data based on the modified second copy of the first data stored on the plurality of second nodes; storing the third copy of the first data; and deleting the code fragment.
However, DEKONING discloses modifying, after generating the code fragment, the second copy of the first data; determining that a predetermined code deletion condition is satisfied based on a degree of modification associated with the second copy of the first data; generating a third copy of the first data based on the modified second copy of the first data stored on the plurality of second nodes; storing the third copy of the first data; and deleting the code fragment (Abstract – “Initially, each partition is configured and mapped to run as a RAID level 1 mirrored storage area. As performance and storage capacity needs as measured for each partition dictate, a partition of a LUN may be reconfigured to use a different RAID level (i.e., level 3 or 5) to reduce overhead storage needs at the cost of decreased write performance. A partition may later be returned to RAID level 1 as performance needs so indicate.”. Converting RAID5=>RAID1 may be performed using the reverse of the RAID1=>RAID5 process disclosed by GOLDING).
GOLDING, KUMARASAMY, and DEKONING are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor of managing the storage of data objects. Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of GOLDING, KUMARASAMY, and DEKONING before him or her, to modify the process of converting an object from RAID1 (copy) storage to RAID5 (parity) storage of the combination of GOLDING and KUMARASAMY to include reverting the conversion of the object back to RAID1 from RAID5 as taught by DEKONING. A motivation for doing so would have been to eliminate the performance penalty on write operations (Col 2, Lines 22-33). Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine GOLDING, KUMARASAMY, and MA to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claims.
With respect to Claims 7, 14, and 20, the combination of GOLDING, KUMARASAMY, and DEKONING disclose the method/system/medium of each respective parent claim.
KUMARASAMY further discloses wherein the predetermined code deletion condition is satisfied based on at least one of: a modification frequency associated with the second copy of the first data stored on the plurality of second nodes; a proportion of the second copy of the first data that has been modified since generating the code fragment; or a computational cost associated with generating the code fragment (¶[0060] – “Metadata can include, without limitation, one or more of the following: … the last modified time (e.g. the time of the most recent modification of the data object, … a data object size (e.g. a number of bytes of data), … frequency of change (e.g. a period in which the data object is modified), … and aging information (e.g. a schedule, such as a time period, in which the data object is migrated to secondary or long term storage)”; ¶[0241] – “policies can additionally specify or depend on a variety of historical or current criteria that may be used to determine which rules to apply to a particular object, system component, or information management operation”).
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ERIC T LOONAN whose telephone number is (571)272-6994. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8am-5pm.
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/ERIC T LOONAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2137
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