DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 6/29/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
This Office Action is in response to applicant’s communication filed June 29, 2026, in response to PTO Office Action mailed December 29, 2025. The applicant’s remarks and amendments to the claims and/or specification were considered with the results that follow.
In response to last Office Action, claims 21-30 and 34-40 have been amended. No claims have been canceled. No claims have been added. As a result, claims 21-40 remain pending in this application.
The double patenting rejection of the claims is withdrawn due to the terminal disclaimer filed by the Applicant on 6/29/2026.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 5/22/2026 was filed after the mailing date of the Final Office Action on 12/29/2025. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Arguments
Applicants’ arguments filed 6/29/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Darisa relates to available space evaluator for "quantifying the unused storage space in the storage group and comparing it against the storage space needed for migrating the data elements from the current RAID configuration into the new RAID configuration." (Darisa, ¶ 66.) "The largest logical data unit may be compared to the available space to determine whether the space available is greater than the largest logical data unit [for migration]." (Darisa, ¶ 88.) Thus, Darisa assesses available space relative to a largest logical data unit. Darisa does not, however, determine what the actual storage utilization is for a data object and then determine what the base utilization is under a current storage policy (e.g., actual storage + overhead). The remaining references also do not disclose such concepts, and the Office Action does not cite the other references as teaching such features. Thus, claim 21 and the claims depending therefrom are allowable over the cited references.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees with the fact. As noted by the Applicant above, Darisa relates to quantifying the unused storage space for “a largest logical data unit” when the current RAID level (storage policy) is for the changed to new RAID level (new storage policy). To determine unused storage for particular storage object (largest logical data unit), when the RAID level is changed, first one has to determine the actual size (utilization) of the logical data unit (storage object) and then calculate new size of the logical data unit according to new RAID level (new policy) including any overhead also.
For example, Darisa in par. [0066] further teaches that “an available space evaluator 326.2 may calculate a migration factor for the data requirements of the new RAID configuration of the largest logical data unit, such as requirements for parity or mirroring of data that may not include parity or mirroring in its current RAID configuration”. Par. [0089] teaches: “For example, migration of 5 GB snapshot may require an allocation of 5 GB (gigabytes) of unused data blocks or, if the new RAID configuration imposes additional data redundancy overhead, such as 100% for mirroring or 50% for a particular parity scheme, then 10 GB or 7.5 GB (respectively) of unused data blocks may be allocated”. As noted above, Darisa teaches determining an unused space for “a RAID group” or “a snapshot” (object) having an actual capacity of 5GB (e.g., current utilization) requires at least 5GB of unused space (future utilization) and if new configuration imposes additional data redundancy overhead, such as 100% for mirroring or 50% particular parity scheme then 10GB or 7.5 GB of unused space (new utilization of the current object according to new RAID level/policy) will be required. Here, it is noted that the actual utilization of the storage object/RAID group/snapshot is 5GB and if the new configuration is mirroring then 10GB of unused space is needed, which indicates estimated utilization of 10GB, (which includes overhead of 100% for mirroring) based on the new configuration. As explained in par. [0066], the current RAID configuration does not include parity or mirroring means it is RAID-0 configuration and when the new RAID configuration is mirroring, 100% of additional free space is required, e.g., a RAID-0 snapshot with 5 GB (actual utilization) will require 10 GB of unused space (estimated utilization based on actual/base utilization of 5 GB) for mirroring configuration. It is also well-known the art of RAID technology for each type of RAID configuration and number disks utilized, the overhead of each RAID configuration and therefore it would be readily apparent to one having ordinary skill in the art to determine current actual storage utilization based on the type of RAID level current associated with the storage object (such as a volume or a file or a snapshot) and estimate or calculate new storage utilization (e.g., estimated utilization) based on the new RAID configuration. Thus, the technique of determining an unused space required to migrate data of a particular snapshot/a RAID group from one RAID configuration/level to another RAID configuration/level based on current storage space teaches the claimed limitations of determining an estimated storage utilization (e.g., required unused storage space) based on the current (actual) utilization.
Thus, the Applicant’s arguments are not persuasive and therefore the rejection of the claims is maintained.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 21-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Per claim 21, the following analysis has been performed.
Step 1 – Statutory category: claim 21 recites a system comprising: at least one processor; and memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to perform a set of operations, the set of operations comprising: receiving a request to generate an estimated storage utilization associated with a storage object stored by a data store; determining an actual storage utilization of the storage object; determining, based on the actual storage utilization and a current storage policy for the storage object, a base storage utilization for the storage object, wherein the base storage utilization is based on the actual storage utilization and overhead associated with the current storage policy; generating, based on the base storage utilization and a new storage policy, the estimated storage utilization for the storage object on the data store per the new storage policy; and providing, in response to the request, an indication of the estimated storage utilization.
Step 2A – Prong 1: claim 21 recites the limitations of determining an actual storage utilization; determining base storage utilization and generating the estimated storage utilization. According to current disclosure pars. [0016] – [0022], the steps of the determination of an actual storage utilization, determination of base storage utilization and generating the estimated storage utilization can be performed in human mind or also can be easily performed with the aid or pen and paper. Current specification provides an example in par. [0019], which indicates that for current storage policy for the storage object indicates RAID level 5 and parity level of 1, provides storage efficiency of 75% and if the actual storage utilization of the storage object is 2 GB, then the base utilization of the storage object is 1.5 GB (e.g., 75% of 2 GB). Par. [0020] further disclose that if the new storage policy may indicate RAID level of 1, with fault tolerance of 3 has storage efficiency of 25% and therefore estimated storage utilization will be 6 GB (e.g., base utilization of 1.5 GB at an efficiency of 25% means 1.5/.25 = 6 GB). The storage systems typically provide the storage utilizations of the storage objects by indicating total used space of the particular logical unit or file. Therefore, one having ordinary skill in the art can easily calculate the base utilization using current RAID level (e.g., again as noted in par. [0016] of current disclosure the overhead incurred by the various RAID levels) and an estimated utilization based on new RAID level and overhead. The other examples provided in the specification clearly indicate that the steps of determining an estimated utilization can be easily performed by human mind or using pen and pencil and calculator.
The limitations as drafted, is a process performed by the system, that under its broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI), covers an abstract idea of performance of the limitations in the mind or manually using pen and paper. If a claim limitation, under its BRI, covers performance of the limitation in the human mind or with the aid of pen and paper, then it falls within the mental process and/or mathematical concepts of abstract idea under step 2A prong 1 (See, e.g., Benson, 409 U.S. at 67, 65, 175 USPQ at 674-75, 674 (noting that the claimed "conversion of [binary-coded decimal] numerals to pure binary numerals can be done mentally," i.e., "as a person would do it by head and hand."); Synopsys, 839 F.3d at 1139, 120 USPQ2d at 1474 (holding that claims to the mental process of "translating a functional description of a logic circuit into a hardware component description of the logic circuit" are directed to an abstract idea, because the claims "read on an individual performing the claimed steps mentally or with pencil and paper").
Step 2A – Prong 2: claim 21 further comprises additional steps of receiving a request to generate an estimated storage utilization and providing, in response to the request, an indication of the estimated storage utilization. These additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into the principal application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the idea. They merely use the computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea. Therefore, the claim is directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2B: The claim recites steps of receiving a request and providing an indication, which merely recites the generic functionality of computer of receiving an instruction/request and providing/displaying the result of calculations performed by the abstract idea and therefore does not amount to significantly more than judicial exception. The steps of receiving an instruction and displaying the result of the calculation are a well-understood, routine and conventional activity of computers. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Claim 22 recites the limitation of indicating the difference between calculated base utilization and estimated storage utilization based on the overhead which again does not provide any additional elements to the abstract idea, and it is mere additional mental step of calculating the difference between two quantities.
Claim 23 recites the limitation of indicating the difference between calculated base utilization and estimated storage utilization based on the overhead which again does not provide any additional elements to the abstract idea, and it is mere additional mental step of calculating the difference between two quantities.
Claim 24 recites the additional steps of determining the estimated storage utilization for multiple storage objects which again is mere repetitive process of the determining the estimated storage utilization for individual storage objects and adding to obtain total estimated storage utilization of multiple storage objects associated with the virtual entity and can be performed by use of pen and pencil.
Claims 25-27 also recite the additional limitations of the computer system providing an interface to the user to provide inputs for providing instructions to perform the steps of claim 21 and receive confirmation of displayed results, which are well-understood, routine and conventional activities performed by the computer systems and does not amount to significantly more than judicial exception.
Claims 28-40 are similar in scope with claims 21-27 above and can be similarly mapped to the analysis performed for claims 21-27 above. Thus, claims 28-40 are also rejected as being directed to the abstract idea.
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 21-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Darisa et al. (US 2020/0210090) and further in view of Voigt et al. (US 5,960,4510/Mikula (US 7,322,010).
As per claim 21, Darisa teaches a system (Darisa: fig. 1, par. [0020]) comprising:
at least one processor (Darisa: fig. 3, item 302); and memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor (Darisa: par. [0024]; claim 1), causes the system to perform a set of operations, the set of operations comprising:
receiving a request to generate an estimated storage utilization associated with a storage object stored by a data store; determining an actual storage utilization of the storage object; determining, based on the actual storage utilization and a current storage policy for the storage object, a base storage utilization for the storage object, wherein the base storage utilization is based on the actual storage utilization and overhead associated with the current storage policy; generating, based on the base storage utilization and a new storage policy, the estimated storage utilization for the storage object on the data store per the new storage policy. (Darisa: par. [0003] teaches that the system administrator wants to reconfigure storage group to use a different data redundancy configuration, such as a second RAID level. Darisa par. [0059] further teaches that the system administrator may want reconfigure the RAID configuration, therefore Darisa teaches determining available space that will accommodate newly reconfigured RAID. It would be readily apparent to one having ordinary skill in the art that determining available storage space to store/migrate an object (e.g., the largest logical data unit), one must first determine the total utilization or the size (e.g., amount of data needed to store the storage object or the largest logical data unit or a snapshot or a file) of the object based on the current RAID level and then based on the current determined size, determines estimated utilization, The system then can determine if there is enough space to store/migrate the logical data unit (the storage object) according to new RAID level and new size or utilization, which also includes the overhead associated with new RAID level). To determine an available space Darisa par. [0045] teaches identifying original configuration parameters (e.g., second storage policy) and new configuration parameters. Darisa (pars. [0066], [0077] – [0079] and [0083] – [0089] teach identifying/allocating unused space equal to the storage capacity of source volume, which teaches limitations of generating an estimated storage utilization, e.g., par. [0066] teaches that the space evaluator may calculate data requirements of new RAID configuration such as requirement of parity or mirroring of data that may not include parity or mirroring in its current RAID configuration, e.g., a RAID-0 is either reconfigured as RAID-1 or RAID with parity. In pars. [0078], [0079] Darisa teaches that original volume configured in RAID-1 configuration with 40 data blocks is reconfigured as RAID-6 comprising 28 blocks and in par. [0089], Darisa further teaches a snapshot volume of 5GB, when reconfigured as RAID-1 configuration will require 10GB of space or 7.5GB for another RAID configuration. It is also well-known in the art of RAID technology that different RAID configurations have different effective user capacities, such as RAID 0 with n disks has effective/base capacity of n, RAID-1 has effective capacity of 1/n, RAID-5 has effective capacity of 1-1/n, RAID-6 has effective capacity of 1-2/n. Thus, it would be readily apparent to one having ordinary skill in the art with the disclosure of Darisa in front, will be motivated to generate estimated storage utilization of the storage object based on first storage policy (e.g., if a RAID-0 snapshot of 5GB capacity, when reconfigured as RAID-1 will require 10GB space or 7.5GB for RAID-5).
Darisa expressly fails to teach providing, in response to the request, an indication of the estimated storage utilization. Voigt/Mikula teaches in response to the request, an indication of the estimated storage utilization Voigt: abstract, col. 3, lines 31-49 and Mikula: col. 4, lines 32-67; col. 5, lines 55-67; col. 7, line 15 – col. 8, line 21 teaches that the system displays new configuration information to user before being actually committed, e.g., providing indication of the new configuration to user/administrator. Thus, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention provide an indication of the estimated storage utilization of the new configuration as taught by Voigt/Mikula so that user/administrator can determine whether to change the storage policy or not to avoid undesirable changes to save the processing time (Mikula: col. 1, lines 10-36).
As per claim 22, Darisa, Voigt and Mikula teach wherein the estimated storage utilization is different from the base storage utilization by at least a storage overhead associated with the new storage policy (Darisa: pars. [0066], [0089] teaches use of parity or overhead of additional 100% storage space based on RAID type).
As per claim 23, Darisa, Voigt and Mikula fails to teach wherein the indication of the estimated storage utilization comprises a representation of an estimated difference in physical storage utilization between the new storage policy and the current storage policy for the storage object. However, as explained with respect to claim 1 above, Darisa pars. [0077] – [0079] teaches that original RAID type A with RAID 10 with 8 disks configuration is using 40 data blocks of storage and when reconfigured as RAID 6 with 8 disk uses 28 blocks of storage. Thus, one having ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to determine the difference in storage utilizations based on source and target RAID configurations to determine whether it is possible to apply new storage policy and it is beneficial or not.
As per claim 24, Darisa, Voigt and Mikula teach wherein: the request comprises an indication of a virtual environment with which a set of storage objects including the storage object is associated; the new storage policy is for the virtual environment; generating an estimated storage utilization further comprises generating an aggregated estimate for the set of storage objects associated with the virtual environment; and the set of storage objects is stored on the data store comprising a plurality of storage devices based on the aggregated estimate. Darisa fig. 2, pars. [0037] – [0046] teaches virtual environment with set of storage devices are distributed to provide virtualized logical units and RAID groups and Darisa teaches changing the RAID configurations for the virtualized environment, where it would be readily apparent to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to estimate storage utilizations of the all virtual devices which needs to be reconfigured.
As per claim 25, Darisa, Voigt and Mikula teach wherein the actual storage utilization and the current storage policy for the storage object are determined using one or more application programming interface (API) calls to an object store associated with the storage object (Darisa: pars. [0038], [0043]).
As per claim 26, Darisa, Voigt and Mikula teach wherein the set of operations further comprises: receiving a confirmation indication to implement the new storage policy; and providing, to an object store manager, an indication to store the storage object according to the new storage policy. Darisa par. [0066] teaches returning an error if enough space is not available or initiates process of changing RAID configuration. Voigt teaches providing information to administrator (Voigt: abstract). Mikula teaches displaying to user for user input (Mikula: col. 4, lines 12-67).
As per claim 27, Darisa, Voigt and Mikula teach wherein the first storage policy comprises at least one of: a changed RAID (“redundant array of independent disks”) level compared to the current storage policy; or a changed fault tolerance level compared to the current storage policy (Darisa: pars. [0003], [0066]; Mikula: col. 5, lines 55-67).
Claims 28-30 and 33-40 are directed to a method and are similar in scope with claims 21-27. Thus, claims 28-30 and 33-40 are rejected under same rationales as applied to claims 26, 22 and 23 above.
As per claim 31, Darisa, Voigt and Mikula fails to teach wherein the indication associated with the actual storage utilization of the storage object comprises a difference between the estimated storage utilization and the actual storage utilization of the storage object. However, as explained with respect to claim 1 above, Darisa pars. [0077] – [0079] teaches that original RAID type A with RAID 10 with 8 disks configuration is using 40 data blocks of storage and when reconfigured as RAID 6 with 8 disk uses 28 blocks of storage. Thus, one having ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to determine the difference in estimated storage utilizations based on source and target RAID configurations to determine whether it is possible to apply new storage policy and it is beneficial or not.
As per claim 32, Darisa, Voigt and Mikula teach wherein the indication associated with the actual storage utilization of the storage object comprises a graphical representation of a difference between the estimated storage utilization and the actual storage utilization of the storage object. As explained with respect to claims 21-23, 26 and 31, one having ordinary skill will be able to determine the difference and Voigt and Mikula teach the displaying the information to the user/administrator.
Conclusion
The examiner also requests, in response to this Office action, support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line no(s) in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the examiner in prosecuting the application. 37 C.F.R. § 1.75(d) (1) requires such support in the Specification for any new language added to the claims and 37 C.F.R. § 1.83(a) requires support be found in the Drawings for all claimed features.
When responding to this office action, Applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections See 37 CFR 1.111(c).
Examiner has cited particular columns and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant, in preparing the responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KAUSHIKKUMAR M PATEL whose telephone number is (571)272-5536. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri: 9:00 AM - 5:30 PM.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Tim T Vo can be reached at 571-272-3642. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Kaushikkumar M. Patel
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2138
/Kaushikkumar M Patel/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2138
Prosecution Insights