Detailed Action
This action is in response to the application filed on 06/15/2026. Claims 1-2, 4-11, and 13-20 are pending and have been fully examined.
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 .
Status of the Claims
Claims 1-2, 7-11, and 16-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103
Claims 4-6, 13-15, and 20 contain allowable subject matter but are objected to as being dependent upon rejected independent claims
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 1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 16-17, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Du et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2020/0133804 A1), hereinafter referred to as Du, in view of Tang et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2021/0117280 A1), hereinafter referred to as Tang.
Regarding Claim 1, Du teaches:
A method for backup, comprising:
determining a plurality of parameters of a plurality of replication sessions in a waiting queue in response to a backup execution command being triggered, ([0043]; regarding, “a replication session (i.e., the synchronization session)”; [0060]; regarding, “The method 300 shown in FIG. 3 may be executed periodically or upon the arrival of a new synchronization job.”; [0048]; regarding, “the scheduler 130 obtains, at block 310, respective synchronization characteristics of a group of synchronization jobs to be processed.”);
the determining of the plurality of parameters comprising:
…and a predicted execution time of the replication session, ([0051]; regarding, “the scheduler 130 determines, based on the expected completion time instant of the synchronization job, the length of available time for executing the synchronization job until the expected completion time instant”);
determining a plurality of weights of the plurality of replication sessions based on the plurality of parameters of the plurality of replication sessions, ([0050]; regarding, “The scheduler 130 prioritizes, at block 320, the group of synchronization jobs based on the obtained respective synchronization characteristics”);
selecting at least one replication session from the plurality of replication sessions to enter the running queue based on the plurality of weights of the plurality of replication sessions; ([0059]; regarding, “the scheduler 130 may select, from the group of synchronization jobs, a synchronization job with the highest priority as a synchronization job to be executed based on the result of prioritization;”);
and performing a backup task with respect to the at least one replication session in the running queue. ([0059]; regarding, “…and execute the selected synchronization job.”).
Du fails to explicitly disclose but Tang teaches:
the determining of the plurality of parameters comprising:
determining a waiting time of each replication session in the waiting queue, ([0034]; regarding, “the scheduling device 110 may further determine a waiting time period of the existing backup job in the waiting queue.”);
a total waiting time of the replication session corresponding to a difference between an execution start time of arrival of the replication session at a running queue, and an arrival time of the replication session at the waiting queue; ([0033]; regarding, “the predetermined execution information of the existing backup job may be a predetermined priority and/or a predetermined execution interval”; [0047]; regarding, “the scheduling device 110 may determine a value related to the predetermined execution information of the existing backup job in advance, and then only calculate the term related to the waiting time period of the existing backup job… This is because the predetermined execution information for each backup job is predetermined and unchanged, whereas the waiting time period in the waiting queue changes as time elapses”);
the determining of the plurality of weights comprising:
determining a weight of each replication session based at least on the waiting time of the replication session, and the predicted execution time of the replication session; ([0036]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine Du with the teachings of Tang. Doing so ensures that… system resources are better utilized to achieve the Recover Point Objective (RPO) for important data, thereby ensuring a Service Level Agreement (SLA). (Tang, [0019]).
Regarding Claim 2, Du in view of Tang teaches the method of claim 1 as referenced above. Du in view of Tang further teaches:
wherein determining a plurality of parameters of a plurality of replication sessions in a waiting queue comprises:
determining a sum of the waiting time and the predicted execution time; (Tang, [0033]; regarding, “the predetermined execution information of the existing backup job may be a predetermined priority and/or a predetermined execution interval”; [0047]; regarding, “the scheduling device 110 may determine a value related to the predetermined execution information of the existing backup job in advance, and then only calculate the term related to the waiting time period of the existing backup job… This is because the predetermined execution information for each backup job is predetermined and unchanged, whereas the waiting time period in the waiting queue changes as time elapses”);
determining a data recovery point objective level of said each replication session; (Tang, [0043]; regarding, “a backup job with a higher execution priority may be executed earlier, enabling as much data as possible to reach the Recover Point Objective (RPO)”);
and determining a user-defined level of said each replication session; (Tang, [0027]; regarding, “the predetermined execution information may be a predetermined priority of the target backup job specified by the user.”).
Regarding Claim 7, Du in view of Tang teaches the method of claim 1 as referenced above. Du in view of Tang further teaches:
wherein selecting at least one replication session from the plurality of replication sessions to enter the running queue comprises:
detecting whether the running queue is full; (Du, [0038]; regarding, “the execution of synchronization jobs is limited by the maximum number of active synchronization jobs… Any of the incoming synchronization jobs will be pushed into an active job list or a waiting job list, depending on whether the number of the current active jobs reaches the maximum number of the active jobs.”)
waiting for a vacancy in the running queue in response to the running queue being full; (Du, [0040]; regarding, “If the predetermined maximum number is not reached, the initiated synchronization job is executed at block 230; otherwise, the initiated synchronization job waits to be processed at block 240.”)
and selecting at least one replication session from the plurality of replication sessions to enter the running queue in response to the running queue not being full. (Du, [0059]; regarding, “when the number of current active synchronization jobs is below a threshold (e.g., the maximum number of the active synchronization jobs allowed), the scheduler 130 may select… a synchronization job with the highest priority as a synchronization job to be executed based on the result of prioritization…”).
Regarding Claim 8, Du in view of Tang teaches the method of claim 1 as referenced above. Du in view of Tang further teaches:
wherein selecting at least one replication session from the plurality of replication sessions to enter the running queue in response to the running queue not being full comprises:
determining the number of vacancies in the running queue in response to the running queue not being full; (Du, [0040]; regarding, “the scheduler determines, at block 220, whether the number of the active synchronization jobs reaches a predetermined maximum number.”);
ranking the replication sessions in the waiting queue in ascending order of weights; (Du, [0073]; regarding, “the scheduler 130 may respectively normalize the remaining time and the incremental data size, and determine the priority of each of the waiting synchronization jobs by using the normalized remaining time and the normalized incremental data size as weight values.”);
and selecting replication sessions ranked lower of which the quantity is the number of vacancies to enter the running queue. (Du, [0059]; regarding, “when the number of current active synchronization jobs is below a threshold (e.g., the maximum number of the active synchronization jobs allowed), the scheduler 130 may select, from the group of synchronization jobs, a synchronization job with the highest priority as a synchronization job to be executed based on the result of prioritization”).
Claims 10-11, 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 under the same grounds of rejection as claims 1-2, 7-8 respectively.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 under the same grounds of rejection as claim 1.
Claims 9 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Du et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2020/0133804 A1), hereinafter referred to as Du, in view of Tang et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2021/0117280 A1), hereinafter referred to as Tang, in further view of Knechtel et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2019/0034285 A1), hereinafter referred to as Knechtel.
Regarding Claim 9, Du in view of Tang further teaches the method of claim 1 as referenced above. Du in view of Tang further fails to explicitly disclose but Knechtel teaches:
detecting whether the waiting queue is an empty queue; and determining that the backup task is complete in response to the waiting queue being an empty queue. ([0034]; regarding, “Once all queued backup candidates have been stored, the backup thread 215 may enter into a sleep interval during which the backup thread 215 is refrained from backing up data. Method 200 may go back to 202 and wait until it receives another backup trigger at 204 to repeat the process.”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine Du and Tang with the teachings of Knechtel. Doing so can minimize or reduce performance impact to the application (Knechtel, [0016]).
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 under the same grounds of rejection as claim 9.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-6, 13-15, and 20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claims and any intervening claims. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding Claims 4-6 and similarly claims 13-15, and 20, Du discloses (Fig. 6, [0055-0057]; regarding “wherein R.sub.min represents the shortest time of RPO of all synchronization jobs, i.e., R.sub.min=min (R.sub.i,r), where R.sub.i,r represents the RPO set for the replication session R.sub.i. R.sub.max represents the longest time of RPO of all synchronization jobs, i.e., R.sub.max=max (R.sub.i,r). Dmin represents the smallest incremental data size, i.e., D.sub.min=min (R.sub.i,d), where R.sub.i,d represents the incremental data size between synchronizations of the replication session R.sub.i. D.sub.max represents the largest incremental data size of all synchronization jobs, i.e., D.sub.max=max (R.sub.i,d).”). Further, Tang discloses ([0035-0038]; regarding, “when Pc is an integer, the resulting interval of values of Pc×10 is 10, and the resulting maximum value of a*log R+b log B−c log W is less than 10. Therefore, a higher predetermined priority results in a higher execution priority. Only when a plurality of backup jobs have the same predetermined priority, the scheduling device 110 determines the execution priorities of the plurality of backup jobs according to the predetermined execution interval, the predicated execution duration and the waiting time period.”). The previously cited prior art fails to teach alone or in combination the claimed subject matter of claims 4-6, 13-15, and 20.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 06/15/2026 have been fully considered.
Applicant’s arguments have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
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/M.D.G./Examiner, Art Unit 2113 /BRYCE P BONZO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2113
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