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 .
This action is in response to the communication filed on January 06, 2026.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendment filed on January 06, 2026, has been received entered in to the record and considered.
As a result of the amendment, claim 1, 9-11 and 20 has been amended.
Claims 1-20 remain pending in this office action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
As a result of the amendment to the claims, examiner withdrawn the pending 112 rejection from the clams.
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 1-3, 5-11, 13-14 and 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Atluri et al (US 8,949,395 B2, in view of Rao et al (US 2021/0064573 A1).
As per claim 1, Atluri discloses:
- a method performed by each logical block device node of a plurality of logical block device nodes, the method comprising (a method performed in a logical volume (i.e., logical block device), column 2, line 18-35, Fig.1, item 102, D1-DN, Fig. 9, item 903),
- logical block device node (Fig. 14, item 4102 – 4106], column 3, line 10-15, column 57, line 55-67, column 58, line 5-30),
- initiating, by the logical block device node, the suspend at the first time (requesting a time-based view of a volume for recover … point-in-time period (i.e., initiating the pause at first time), column 22, line 55-64, column 24, line 20-30, column 26, 15-30, column 49, line 40-50),
- identifying, by the logical block device node, a subset of data contained at one or more logical data blocks of the logical block device node at the second time, wherein the identifying is performed at a block-level granularity (identifying data block of a specific time and date range (i.e., subset of data) for recovery, column 30, line 10-25, and point-in-time data recovery with smallest granularity possible (i.e., block-level granularity), column 25, line 60-67),
- providing, by the logical block device node, the identified subset of data (recovering identified point-in-time data of file or version (i.e., subset of data), column 26, line 20-40, 60-65),
Atluri does not explicitly disclose receiving, . However, in the same field of endeavor Rao in an analogous art discloses receiving, (Para [0020], [0041], receiving request to lock (i.e., suspend), modify or release database object (i.e., activity) for a particular time window or time slices (i.e., for a predetermined duration of time), after the duration of time, receiving, (Para [0019] – [0020], [0030] – [0031], [0041], a range of release time or a time window (i.e., time parameter specifying second time) before completing first duration time)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the receiving second instruction with specifying time parameter taught by Rao as the means to process the activity in logical block device with instruction indicating first time (i.e., point-in-time) in Atluri. Atluri and Rao are analogous prior art since they both deal with time-based activity monitoring (Atluri, column 15, line 5-10, column 63, line 45-55, Rao, [0020], [0030], [0041]). A person of the ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make aforementioned modification to improve time and effort to recover useful data, (Atluri, column1, line 50-55).
As per claim 2, rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, and further Atluri discloses:
- wherein the first time is a current time at which the first instruction is transmitted to the logical block device node (pint-in-time with current time, column 56, line 25-35).
As per claim 3, rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, and further Atluri discloses:
- wherein the second time precedes the first time (historical time proceeding a particular event, column 58, line 30-40, column 63, line 20-30).
As per claim 5, rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, and further Atluri discloses:
- wherein the plurality of logical block device nodes store data of a database, and wherein the second instruction to provide data is an instruction to provide an image or snapshot of the database at the second time (instruction to provide a snapshot of a storage space (i.e., database), column 24, line 5-20, column 26, line 45-55).
As per claim 6, rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, and further Atluri discloses:
- wherein the plurality of logical block device nodes store data of a database, and wherein the second instruction to provide data is an instruction to provide a subset of data included in the database at the second time (providing subset of data from the storage identified point-in-time data of file or version (i.e., subset of data), column 26, line 20-40, 60-65).
As per claim 7, rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, and further Atluri discloses:
- wherein each logical block device node includes a respective data log, and wherein identifying the subset of data is performed by the logical block device node using its respective data log by identifying records in the respective data log that match criteria specified in the second instruction (logical block with respective transaction log (i.e., data log), column 30, line 55-65, column 31, line 5-20, with matching parameter, column 63, line 40-45).
As per claim 8, rejection of claim 7 is incorporated, and further Atluri discloses:
- wherein the matched criteria includes the second time specified in the second instruction (recovering evet with specific matching criterion, column 63, line 35-55).
As per claim 9, rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, and further Atluri discloses:
- wherein initiating the pause at the first time comprises avoiding updating data at the logical block device node from the first time until completion of the duration of time (pausing updates to the database, column 50, line 55-65).
As per claim 10, rejection of claim 1 is incorporated, and further Atluri discloses:
- resuming, at the logical block device node, the suspend activity upon completion of the duration of time (column 49, line 45-55, “The pausing module may restart the operation of the client device).
As per claims 11, 13-14, and 16-20,
Claim 11, 13-14 and 16-20 are system claims corresponding to method claims 1-3 and 5-7 and 10 respectively and rejected under the same rejection of claims 1-3 and 5-7 and 10 above.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Atluri et al (US 8,949,395 B2, in view of Rao et al (US 2021/0064573 A1), as applied to claim 1 and 11 and further in view of Zhang et al (US 2017/0208144 A1).
As per claim 12, rejection of claim 11 is incorporated,
Combined method of Atluri and Rao does not explicitly disclose wherein each logical block device node of the plurality of logical block device nodes is a server configured to communicate using a remote procedure call protocol, and wherein the second instruction is a remote procedure call. However, in the same field of endeavor Zhang in an analogous art disclose (communication with remote procedure call, Para [0018], Fig. 1).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Atluri, as previously modified with Rao, with the teaching of Zhang by modifying Atluri such that retrieving data from the block storage invoking a Remote procedure call (RPC). The motivation for doing so would be detecting more specific information from a data block and determine the network latency (Zhang, Para [0053]).
Claims 4 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Atluri et al (US 8,949,395 B2, in view of Rao et al (US 2021/0064573 A1), as applied to claim 1 and 11 and further in view of Rowan et al (US 2005/0066225 A1).
As per claim 4, rejection of claim 1 is incorporated,
Combined method of Atluri and Rao does not explicitly disclose wherein the duration of time is on the order of milliseconds. However, in the same field of endeavor Rowan in an analogous art disclose wherein the duration of time is on the order of milliseconds (duration of specific point in time second, millisecond, microseconds, Para [0069], [0074], [0082], Fig. 3).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Atluri, as previously modified with Rao, with the teaching of Rowan by modifying Atluri such that retrieving data from the block storage with a specific time range including second and milliseconds. The motivation for doing so would be detecting more specific information from a data block quickly and efficiently, (Rowan, Para [0294], [0378]).
As per claims 11 and 13-20,
Claim 11 and 13-20 are system claims corresponding to method claims 1-8 and 10 respectively and rejected under the same rejection of claims 1-8 and 10 above.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection necessitated by the amendment to the claims.
In response to the applicant’s argument in page 7, applicants argued that, Alturi does not disclose pausing module indicates to a logical block device node a predetermined amount of time that pause should last. Examiner respectfully response that, after an updated search examiner found Rao et al. Rao reasonably teaches, receiving first instruction to suspend activity for a predefined duration of time beginning at a first time, and receiving a second instruction including a parameter specifying a second time, wherein the second time occurs before completion of the duration of time, at least in Para [0019] – [0020], [0030] – [0031], [0041], a range of release time or a time window (i.e., time parameter specifying second time) before completing first duration time.
Therefore, examiner firmly believe that, Alturi and Rao alone or in combination teaches the amended and argued limitation as claimed.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 MOHAMMED R UDDIN whose telephone number is (571)270-3138. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9:00 AM-5:00 PM.
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/MOHAMMED R UDDIN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2167