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 Application
This action is in response Applicant’s filing on 22 August 2024. Claims 1-12 are presently pending and under consideration.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 22 August 2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
The following title is suggested: Method for determining access increase rate to a storage volume for multiple servers.
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.
Independent claims 1 and 12, and dependent claims 2-11 are rejected under 35 USC 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception of an abstract idea without significantly more and/or a mathematical calculation. The claims recite monitoring a number of accesses to a storage device, calculating a first and second number of accesses to a storage volume for each of first and second servers, respectively, and calculating an increase rate of the first and second number of accesses, as in independent claims 1 and 12.
The limitations of monitoring a number of accesses to a storage device, calculating a first and second number of accesses to a storage volume for each of first and second servers, respectively, and calculating an increase rate of the first and second number of accesses, as in claims 1 and 12, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitations entirely in the mind or merely mathematical calculation but for the recitation of generic computer components (i.e. management apparatus, storage system, storage, processor, memory, servers, volume, snapshot, storage device, display unit). That is, other than reciting management apparatus, storage system, storage, processor, memory, servers, volume, snapshot, storage device, display unit, nothing in the claim elements precludes the steps from practically being performed in the mind or merely a mathematical calculation of calculating the number of accesses per server and further calculating the increase rate of the number of accesses. In this instance, an address is assigned from a plurality of non-repeating addresses of an address space. If a claim limitation under its broadest reasonable interpretation covers performing of the limitation in the mind and/or a mathematical calculation but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “mental processes” and/or “mathematical concepts” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, claim 1 and 12 recite the additional elements of “a management apparatus”, “a storage system”, “a second storage”, “a second servers”, “a second volume”, “a first volume”, “first servers”, “a snapshot”, “a processor”, “a memory”, “a storage device” and “a display unit”, plurality of solid state storage drives”, a “specifies” step, and a “displays” step, claim 12 recites the additional elements of “a management apparatus”, “a storage system”, “a second storage”, “a second servers”, “a second volume”, “a first volume”, “first servers”, “a snapshot”, “a processor”, “a memory”, “a storage device” and “a display unit”, plurality of solid state storage drives”, a “specifying” step, and a “displaying” step, which are recited at a high level of generality (i.e. generic computer components performing generic computer functions), such that they amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. The additional elements of the “specifies” and “displays” step of claim 1 and “specifying” and “displaying” step of claim 12 are mere data gathering and output which amounts to insignificant extra-solution activity (See MPEP 2106.05(g)). Accordingly, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on performing the abstract idea entirely in the mind.
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of “a management apparatus”, “a storage system”, “a second storage”, “a second servers”, “a second volume”, “a first volume”, “first servers”, “a snapshot”, “a processor”, “a memory”, “a storage device” and “a display unit”, plurality of solid state storage drives”, as in claim 1, and the additional elements of “a management apparatus”, “a storage system”, “a second storage”, “a second servers”, “a second volume”, “a first volume”, “first servers”, “a snapshot”, “a processor”, “a memory”, “a storage device” and “a display unit”, as in claim 12, amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. Further, the additional elements of the “specifies” and “displays” steps of claim 1 and “specifying” and “displaying” steps of claim 12 are directed to “receiving or transmitting data over a network”, which the courts have found to be well-understood, routine, and conventional activities (See MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)). Thus the claims are not patent eligible.
Additionally, dependent claims 2-11 recite “calculates”, “calculates”, “creates”, “calculates”, “compares”, “creates”, “causes”, “creates”, “creates”, “creates”, “calculates”, “compares”, “creates”, “creates”, and “creates” steps that covers performance of the limitation entirely in the mind and/or mathematical calculations but for the recitation of generic computer components, and additional recited elements of “displays”, “displays”, “displays”, “displays” steps, which are mere data gathering and output which is insignificant extra solution activity (See MPEP 2106.05(g)) or else include additional functional elements which do not provide a practical application of the mental process. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception and therefore are also patent ineligible.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-12 would be allowable if the rejection under 35 USC 101 were to be overcome.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: A search of the prior art returned the following closest art:
(1) Li et al (US 2023/0359397 A1) discloses a method of managing a storage system in which when a preset condition of a load of a first control node is greater than a first threshold, a second control node may create, an object in a third control node, the object associated with an object of the first control node.
(2) Best et al (US 9535612 B2) discloses a method for determining a primary storage device and a secondary storage device for copies of data by determining metrics data for at least two storage devices, determine an I/O throughput value based on adjusted metrics data for the two storage devices and selects a storage device with lowest determined I/O throughput as a primary storage device.
(3) Ramanan et al (US 2022/0317883 A1) discloses a distributed storage system where upon determining that the congestion level exceeds a first threshold and a number of existing mirrors for the base disk is less than a high watermark, sending, by the first node to a second node in the distributed storage system, a request to create a mirror of the base disk on the second node.
(4) Matsumoto et al (US 2020/0409584 A1) discloses a load on a first node of a plurality of nodes, over a period of time, may be determined based at least in part on comparing a load parameter with a load threshold and when the load parameter exceeds the load threshold, one or more nodes may be randomly selected from the plurality of nodes and an access load to move from the first node may be determined.
(5) Krivenok et al (US 12112075 B1) discloses increasing the IOPS performance of a virtual storage appliance by creating a new virtual disk instance and include calculating an amount of increase in the IOPS performance of the virtual storage appliance, calculating a per-cloud storage volume increment by dividing the amount of increase in the IOPS performance of the virtual storage appliance by a total number of the cloud storage volumes, and increasing an IOPS performance of each one of the cloud storage volumes by the per-cloud storage volume increment.
However, the prior art alone or in combination fails to teach or fairly suggest the combination of: managing an access load on a second storage that provides, to second servers, a second volume to which a first volume provided to first servers by a first storage is remotely copied, and a snapshot created from the second volume, monitors number of accesses to a storage device storing the second volume or throughput thereof, and when the number of accesses or the throughput exceeds a threshold, calculates first number of accesses to the storage device for each of the first servers on a basis of first number of writes and first number of reads to/from the second volume for each of the first servers, calculates a second number of accesses to the storage device for each of the second servers on a basis of second number of writes and second number of reads to/from the second volume for each of the second servers, calculates an increase rate of the first number of accesses for each of the first servers and an increase rate of the second number of accesses for each of the second servers, specifies the first servers and the second servers in which the increase rate exceeds a threshold, as in independent claim 1 and similarly in independent claim 12.
Because dependent claims 2-11 depend from and thus incorporate the allowable subject matter of independent claim 1, they are allowable for at least the same reasons.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EDMUND H KWONG whose telephone number is (571)272-8691. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 10-6 PT.
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/E.H.K/Examiner, Art Unit 2137
/Arpan P. Savla/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2137