FINAL REJECTION
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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-5, 7-12 and 14-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kulkarni (2013/0132769) in view of Huang (2010/0123992).
Regarding claim 1:
Kulkarni teaches:
A computer-implemented data protection method, the method comprising:
receiving, by at least one computing device, information representing failure of a drive, wherein the drive is assigned to a Redundant Array of Independent Drives (RAID) group [par 4, 74 – “identifying a failure indication for a first data storage device that is a member of a RAID group”];
determining, by the at least one computing device, that the RAID group includes at least one available spare drive [par 4, 75 – “identifying a virtual drive,” “identify at least one available virtual drive”];
building, by the at least one computing device, at least one virtual drive using at least the available storage on the plurality of drives in use in the RAID group [par 50, 61, 75 – “a data storage volume defined across one or more storage arrays,” “"virtual hot spare" means a virtual drive provisioned to be used in place of a physical data storage device,” “when the failure indication is identified, the virtual drive can be automatically created”;
providing, by the at least one computing device, data associated with the failed drive to the at least one virtual drive [par 47, 78 – “data previously stored on the failed data storage device can be recovered to the virtual drive,” “data from the failed storage device can be re-built to the virtual drive”];
assigning, by the at least one computing device, the at least one virtual drive to the RAID group, wherein the at least one virtual group appears to a RAID controller associated with the RAID group to be the failed drive in a non-failed state [par 71, 77 – “ the address of the failed storage device can be mapped to the virtual drive,” “map the address of the failed storage device to the address assigned to the virtual drive”;
receiving, by the at least one computing device, information representing the failed drive having been replaced by a replacement drive [par 73, 79- “When the new data storage device is added to the RAID group,” “when the failed data storage device is replaced with another physical data storage device”];
providing, by the at least one computing device, data from the at least one virtual drive to the replacement drive [par 73, 79 – “the data from the virtual drive re-built to the new data storage device,” “the data of the virtual drive can be re-built to the replacement data storage device”] ;
assigning, by the at least one computing device, the replacement drive to the RAID group, wherein the replacement drive appears to the RAID controller to be the failed dive [par 73, 79 – “the new data storage device can be assigned the same address previously assigned to the failed data storage device,” “ the new physical data storage device is the target for the storage device address”]; and
releasing, by the at least one computing device, the at least one virtual drive from the RAID group [par 73, 79, 80 – “the virtual drive can be returned to the pool of available virtual drives. In addition, the virtual drive can be read-only enabled. In another embodiment, the data storage space provided by the RAID groups to the virtual drive can be unallocated from the virtual drive, and freed for other use,” “remove the mapping of the physical data storage device address to the virtual drive,” “the virtual drive can be returned to a pool of available virtual drives”].
Kulkarni does not explicitly teach engaging, by the at least one computing device, a lock on the RAID group, wherein the lock prevents removal of a drive in the RAID group and releasing, by the at least one computing device, the lock, thereby enabling removal of a drive in the RAID group.
Huang teaches engaging, by the at least one computing device, a lock on the RAID group, wherein the lock prevents removal of a drive in the RAID group [par 7, 10, 13, 15 – drives are locked to prevent removal] and
releasing, by the at least one computing device, the lock, thereby enabling removal of a drive in the RAID group [par 14 – drives are unlocked to allow removal].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date to combine the locks of Huang with the RAID of Kulkarni.
One of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date would have been motivated to make the combination because locking the drives to prevent removal prevents careless removal of a disk by mistake which can lead to unrecoverable errors [par 7, 24].
Regarding claim 2:
The combination teaches:
The method of claim 1,wherein the at least one virtual drive comprises a plurality of virtual drives, and further comprising:
providing, by the at least one computing device to at least one of the plurality of virtual drives, parity data associated with failed drive [Kulkarni par 47, 59-61, 78 – data from the failed drive is provided to the virtual drive, which can be composed of multiple virtual drives; in a parity RAID each drive can store both data and parity data] ; and
providing, by the at least one computing device to at least one other of the plurality of virtual drives, non-parity data associated with failed drive [Kulkarni par 47, 59-61, 78].
Regarding claim 3:
The combination teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the data associated with the failed drive and provided to the at least one virtual drive is data accessed at a frequency over a predetermined period of time [Kulkarni par 47, 78 – this is inherent to the concept of data in storage drives. All data in the drives will be accessed at some frequency over some period of time. The claim does not require any defined frequency. The claim does not provide any information regarding the predetermined time period, and the specification mentions the predetermined time period only once in paragraph 0008. There is no indication in either the claim or the disclosure of how such predetermined time period is determined. The broadest reasonable interpretation of the claim, then, is data that is accessed at some frequency, e.g. once, one hundred times, never, etc., over the time of operation of the drive. All data thus meets the BRI of the claim].
Regarding claim 4:
The combination teaches:
The method of claim 1, wherein the lock requires at least one of a physical key and a virtual key to unlock the drives [Huang par 7, 10, 13, 15].
Regarding claim 5:
Kulkarni teaches:
A computer-implemented data protection method, the method comprising:
receiving, by at least one computing device, information representing failure of a drive, wherein the drive is assigned to a Redundant Array of Independent Drives (RAID) group [par 4, 74 – “identifying a failure indication for a first data storage device that is a member of a RAID group”];
identifying, by the at least one computing device, available storage on each of a plurality of drives in use in the RAID group [par 4, 50, 61, 75 – “identifying a virtual drive,” “means a data storage volume defined across one or more storage arrays,” virtual drives are built from multiple RAID groups, “identify at least one available virtual drive”];
building, by the at least one computing device, at least one virtual drive using at least the available storage on the plurality of drives in use in the RAID group [par 50, 61, 75 – “a data storage volume defined across one or more storage arrays,” “"virtual hot spare" means a virtual drive provisioned to be used in place of a physical data storage device,” “when the failure indication is identified, the virtual drive can be automatically created”;
providing, by the at least one computing device, data associated with the failed drive to the at least one virtual drive [par 47, 78 – “data previously stored on the failed data storage device can be recovered to the virtual drive,” “data from the failed storage device can be re-built to the virtual drive”];
assigning, by the at least one computing device, the at least one virtual drive to the RAID group, wherein the at least one virtual group appears to a RAID controller associated with the RAID group to be the failed drive in a non-failed state [par 71, 77 – “ the address of the failed storage device can be mapped to the virtual drive,” “map the address of the failed storage device to the address assigned to the virtual drive”;
receiving, by the at least one computing device, information representing the failed drive having been replaced by a replacement drive [par 73, 79- “When the new data storage device is added to the RAID group,” “when the failed data storage device is replaced with another physical data storage device”];
providing, by the at least one computing device, data from the at least one virtual drive to the replacement drive [par 73, 79 – “the data from the virtual drive re-built to the new data storage device,” “the data of the virtual drive can be re-built to the replacement data storage device”] ;
assigning, by the at least one computing device, the replacement drive to the RAID group, wherein the replacement drive appears to the RAID controller to be the failed dive [par 73, 79 – “the new data storage device can be assigned the same address previously assigned to the failed data storage device,” “ the new physical data storage device is the target for the storage device address”]; and
releasing, by the at least one computing device, the at least one virtual drive from the RAID group [par 73, 79, 80 – “the virtual drive can be returned to the pool of available virtual drives. In addition, the virtual drive can be read-only enabled. In another embodiment, the data storage space provided by the RAID groups to the virtual drive can be unallocated from the virtual drive, and freed for other use,” “remove the mapping of the physical data storage device address to the virtual drive,” “the virtual drive can be returned to a pool of available virtual drives”].
Kulkarni does not explicitly teach engaging, by the at least one computing device, a lock on the RAID group, wherein the lock prevents removal of a drive in the RAID group and releasing, by the at least one computing device, the lock, thereby enabling removal of a drive in the RAID group.
Huang teaches engaging, by the at least one computing device, a lock on the RAID group, wherein the lock prevents removal of a drive in the RAID group [par 7, 10, 13, 15 – drives are locked to prevent removal] and
releasing, by the at least one computing device, the lock, thereby enabling removal of a drive in the RAID group [par 14 – drives are unlocked to allow removal].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date to combine the locks of Huang with the RAID of Kulkarni.
One of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date would have been motivated to make the combination because locking the drives to prevent removal prevents careless removal of a disk by mistake which can lead to unrecoverable errors [par 7, 24].
Regarding claim 7:
The combination teaches:
The method of claim 5, further comprising: building, by the at least one computing device, the at least one virtual drive using at least storage on at least one other drive in use in another RAID group [Kulkarni par 50, 61, 75].
Regarding claim 8:
The combination teaches:
The method of claim 7, further comprising: building, by the at least one computing device, at least one first virtual drive using at least the available storage on the plurality of drives in use in the RAID group [Kulkarni par 59-61];
building, by the at least one computing device, at least one second virtual drive using the storage on the at least one other drive in use in the another RAID group [Kulkarni par 59-61]; and
combining, by the at least one computing device, the at least one first virtual drive and the at least one second virtual drive to build the at least one virtual drive [Kulkarni par 59-61].
Regarding claim 9:
The combination teaches:
The method of claim 5, wherein releasing, by the at least one computing device, the at least one virtual drive from the RAID group includes:
returning, by the at least one computing device, the available storage on the plurality of drives in use in the RAID group [Kulkarni par 73, 80].
Regarding claim 10:
The combination teaches:
The method of claim 5, further comprising: accessing, by the at least one computing device, information representing the failed drive [Kulkarni par 71, 77],
wherein assigning the at least one virtual drive to the RAID group includes:
applying the information representing the failed drive to the at least one virtual drive [Kulkarni par 71, 77].
Regarding claim 11:
The combination teaches:
The method of claim 10, wherein the information representing the failed drive includes metadata [Kulkarni par 71, 77].
Regarding claims 12 and 14-18:
The claims are rejected as the systems for performing the methods of claims 5 and 7-10. Kulkarni further teaches at least one computing device throughout the reference.
Claims 6 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kulkarni-Huang in view of Patterson et al. (7058762).
Regarding claims 6 and 13:
See the teachings of Kulkarni-Huang outlined above.
Kulkarni-Huang does not explicitly teach determining, by the at least one computing device, that the RAID group includes no available spare drive.
Patterson teaches determining, by the at least one computing device, that the RAID group includes no available spare drive [fig 5 – 506; col. 5 lines 61-63, col. 6 lines 3-11].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date to combine the check for an unused drive of Patterson with the reconstruction on a virtual drive of Kulkarni-Huang.
One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to make the combination because the teachings of Patterson allow flexibility in how a failed drive is handled and allow for choosing a preferred method of reconstruction while having a backup method in case the preferred method is not possible [fig 3; col. 2 lines 28-36, col. 5 lines 61-63, col. 6 lines 3-11].
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see page 8, filed 12/11/25, with respect to the 35 USC 112(b) rejection of claim 2 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 USC 112(b) rejection of claim 2 has been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments filed 12/11/15 with respect to the claims as amended have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues, on page 9, that “the independent claims include features set forth in dependent claim 4, which the Office has indicated that Kulkarni does not teach or disclose.”
The examiner respectfully disagrees. Claim 4 was indicated as “allowable if rewritten in independent form including all limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.” The amendment did not incorporate all limitations of the previous version of claim 4 in combination with all limitations of the base claim, which changes the scope of the claimed subject matter from that which was indicated as allowable. Newly discovered art teaches the claim as amended. See above for an updated rejection in response to the amendment to the claims.
Arguments regarding the previous 35 USC 103 rejections depend on the allowability of amended claim 5 and stand or fall with that determination.
The examiner believes all arguments have been addressed in this response.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
‘250 to Carbonneau et al. disclose drive-locking solenoids to prevent unauthorized removal of drives from a RAID system.
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 MARC M DUNCAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3646. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 730am-9am, 10am-4:30pm.
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/MARC DUNCAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2113