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 arguments, filed 7/30/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-20 under 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Kaplan.
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hubis (US Patent 6,343,324) in view of Kaplan (US Patent Pub. 20180032443).
As per claim 1, 10 and 20: Hubis discloses a data access method, comprises:
in response to a permission request sent by a first compute node (Col 8 lines 43-48; At the start of a data transaction, a host computer 101 desiring to access a logical volume 108 controlled by controller 106 must login or otherwise identify its access request. Host 101 first logs in to the logical volume storage array 108 via controller 106, then makes requests to access a specific logical volume),
allocating, by a storage node, a first access permission for a target data page to the first compute node, wherein the target data page is one of a plurality of data pages stored in the storage node, and the first compute node is one of a plurality of compute nodes comprised in a storage system (Col 8 lines 6-12; Each logical volume 108 in the storage array is assigned or associated with a volume data structure 140, one element of which is a Volume WWN Table (VNT) 130. These VNT tables (130-1, 130-2, . . . , 130-N) may be thought of as separate small tables or as a single larger table, but in any event provide a VNT data structure used in subsequent search or query operations. (We will later expand the description of the concept of the Volume data Structure to encompass a Volume Permission Table 160)) and
sending, by the storage node, permission feedback information and the target data page together to the first compute node, wherein the permission feedback information indicates to allow the first compute node to access the target data page based on the first access permission (Col 11, lines 16-22; This table identifies which of the host computers 101 are granted access to each particular Logical Volume 108 coupled to the controller based on the WWNs).
Hubis does not specifically disclose permission feedback information carrying a permission identifier of the first access permission that is a read or write operation permission (See Kaplan; paragraph 88; determine if a read/write permission (or a value representing read/write permission) for the entry matches a type of the memory access).
Therefore, it 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, having the teachings of Hubis and Kaplan in it’s entirety, to modify the technique of Hubis for permission feedback information by adopting Kaplan's teaching for determine if a read/write permission (or a value representing read/write permission) for the entry matches a type of the memory access. The motivation would have been to improve data access method.
As per claims 2 and 11: The combination of Hubis and Kaplan discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the storage node communicates with the plurality of compute nodes by using a network (Col 2, lines 14-20; distributed computing system 100 having first, second, and third host computers 101 (101-1, 101-2, 101-3) coupled to an array controller 104 which in turn is coupled to a storage subsystem 108 formed from one or more logical volumes).
As per claims 3 and 12: The combination of Hubis and Kaplan discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the allocating a first access permission for a target data page to the first compute node comprises:
when a second compute node that has an access permission for the target data page currently does not exist, allocating, by the storage node, the first access permission to the first compute node based on the permission request (Col 5, lines 11-14; restricts access to any particular configured Logical Volumes only to a single host or group of hosts).
As per claims 4 and 13: The combination of Hubis and Kaplan discloses the method according to claim 3, wherein the permission request comprises a page identifier of the target data page, and the method further comprises:
searching for, by the storage node, access permission information of the target data page based on the page identifier of the target data page, wherein the access permission information of the target data page indicates a compute node that currently has the access permission for the target data page; and when the access permission information of the target data page is not found, determining, by the storage node, that the second compute node currently does not exist (see abstract; Col 8 lines 43-48; associating a locally unique identifier with each the plurality of computers, defining a data structure in a memory identifying which particular ones of the computers based on the locally unique identifier may be granted access to the device; and querying the data structure to determine if a requesting one of the computers should be granted access to the hardware device).
As per claims 5 and 14: The combination of Hubis and Kaplan discloses the method according to claim 4, wherein the permission request further comprises a node identifier of the first compute node and a permission identifier of the first access Permission (Col 4, lines 14-20; defining a host identifier list data structure in the memory; defining a volume permission table data structure in the memory; and defining a volume number table data structure in the memory. In one particular embodiment, the memory is a memory of a memory controller controlling the hardware device, and the hardware device is a logical volume of a storage subsystem. The invention also provides an inventive controller structure, and a computer program product implementing the inventive method); and
the allocating, by the storage node, the first access permission to the first compute node based on the permission request comprises: storing, by the storage node, the page identifier of the target data page, the node identifier of the first compute node, and the permission identifier of the first access permission in a correspondence manner, to obtain the access permission information of the target data page (see abstract; Col 8 lines 43-48; associating a locally unique identifier with each the plurality of computers, defining a data structure in a memory identifying which particular ones of the computers based on the locally unique identifier may be granted access to the device; and querying the data structure to determine if a requesting one of the computers should be granted access to the hardware device).
As per claims 6 and 15: The combination of Hubis and Kaplan discloses the method according to claim 3, wherein after the allocating, by the storage node, the first access permission to the first compute node based on the permission request, the method further comprises:
reading the target data page from the plurality of data pages persistently stored in the storage node (Col 13, lines 4-11; read, write, or other access request is executed using the normal procedure for reading or writing data to or from the logical volume. On the other hand, if the permission indicator associated with that HI and for the logical volume to which the request is addressed is false ("0"), then the read or write command is rejected back to the host computer from which it was sent with an error condition).
As per claims 7 and 16: The combination of Hubis and Kaplan discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the allocating a first access permission for a target data page to the first compute node comprises:
when a second compute node that has an access permission for the target data page currently exists, allocating, by the storage node, the first access permission to the first compute node based on a second access permission of the second compute node for the target data page and the permission request (Col 5, lines 11-14; restricts access to any particular configured Logical Volumes only to a single host or group of hosts).
As per claims 8 and 17: The combination of Hubis and Kaplan discloses the method according to claim 7, wherein the permission request comprises a page identifier of the target data page, and the method further comprises:
searching for, by the storage node, access permission information of the target data page based on the page identifier of the target data page, wherein the access permission information of the target data page indicates a compute node that currently has the access permission for the target data page; and when the access permission information of the target data page is found, determining, by the storage node, that the second compute node currently exists (see abstract; Col 8 lines 43-48; associating a locally unique identifier with each the plurality of computers, defining a data structure in a memory identifying which particular ones of the computers based on the locally unique identifier may be granted access to the device; and querying the data structure to determine if a requesting one of the computers should be granted access to the hardware device).
As per claims 9 and 19: The combination of Hubis and Kaplan discloses the method according to claim 7, wherein the method further comprises:
reading, by the storage node, the target data page from the second compute node (Col 13, lines 4-11; read, write, or other access request is executed using the normal procedure for reading or writing data to or from the logical volume. On the other hand, if the permission indicator associated with that HI and for the logical volume to which the request is addressed is false ("0"), then the read or write command is rejected back to the host computer from which it was sent with an error condition).
As per claim 18: The combination of Hubis and Kaplan discloses the storage node according to claim 17, wherein the operations comprise:
updating the access permission information of the target data page based on the second access permission of the second compute node for the target data page and the permission request, to obtain updated access permission information, wherein the updated access permission information indicates that the first compute node has the first access permission for the target data page (Col 19, lines 10-13; create or change the Host-to-Volume Mapping (HVM) information used by the controller. The Host-to-Volume Mapping (HVM) information is created when the controller is initially configured, and is changed when logical volumes are added or deleted, or when host computers are added or removed).
Relevant Prior Art References
The following prior art is cited as being of interest to the claimed invention but has not been applied in any of the current rejections.
Chang et al.- US Patent Publication 2024/0397157- the prior art teaches techniques for provide an interactive method for inviting users to content.
Long et al.- US Patent Pub. 20120124183 - the prior art teaches techniques for providing remote storage space to users.
Jiang et al.- US Patent Pub. 20170102900 - the prior art teaches techniques for an Internet Protocol (IP) hard disk and a storage system, and data operation methods.
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.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANTHONY D BROWN whose telephone number is (571)270-1472. The examiner can normally be reached 730-330pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Linglan Edwards can be reached at 5712705440. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANTHONY D BROWN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2408
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