DETAILED ACTION
1. This is a Non-Final Office Action Correspondence in response to U.S. Application No. 19/018408 filed on February 20, 2026.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
2. 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
3. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Applicant
Applicant is encouraged to contact the Examiner in hopes of reaching a resolution in light of compact prosecution.
Response to Arguments
4. Applicants’ arguments have been considered but are not persuasive.
Applicant’s arguments with 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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 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.
6. 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.
7. Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Grube et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0213928 (herein as ‘Gube’) and further in view of Sonobe U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0259686 (herein as ‘Sonobe’) and Resch et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0107165 (herein as ‘Resch’).
As to claim 1 Grube teaches a method comprises:
maintaining a storage pool that stores a first set of encoded data slices of at least one data object at a first number of locations, based on applying a first width parameter value as a width parameter of the dispersed error encoding (Par. 0153 and Par. 0154 Grube discloses the system receiving a failure message due to the data not being valid. The system corrects the in valid data by retrieving the data from another storage location);
Grube teaches and storing the second set of encoded data slices in a second number of locations of the storage pool, wherein the second number of locations includes a greater number of locations than the first number of locations based on the updated width parameter value being greater than the first width parameter (Par. 0058 Grube discloses the storage locations for the error encoded slices contain n/k system, where n is the number slices. The system shows slices of 5/3, 6/4, 8/6. The greater slices are seen as a second number of locations greater than the first number of locations. Par. 0087 Grube discloses the encoded data segment is of greater size than the data segment. The encoded data segment of greater size is seen as a second number of locations greater than the first number of locations. The n number of slices see is seen as the number of locations. The k values is the number of needed slices is seen as the width parameter).
Grube does not teach but Sonobe teaches increasing the width parameter of the dispersed error encoding function to produce an updated width parameter based on an expansion of the storage pool to include an additional set of storage units (See Sonobe Fig. 5b, [0018], [0054] and [0057] teachings of a performance measurement wherein a determination is made to add an additional storage device when at performance falls below a performance threshold. One of the performance values being based on free space of reach of the disk. The storage devices are added to increase the size of the volume. The number of storage devices associated with a volume is seen as the width parameter);
Grube and Sonobe are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, storage processing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to modify the encoded data of Grube to include the expanded storage space of Sonobe, to improve performance. The suggestion/motivation to combine is that it would be obvious to try in order to prevent a deterioration in processing performance (Par. 0003 Sonobe).
Grube in combination with Sonobe does not teach but Resch teaches wherein the first set of encoded data slices were generated via performing a dispersed error encoding function upon the data object (Par. 0064-0068 Resch discloses performing the encoding of data slices using the error coding dispersal function);
re-encoding the at least one data object via re-performing the disperse error encoding function upon the data object based on applying the updated width parameter value as the width parameter of the dispersed error encoding function to produce a second set of encoded data slices (Par. 0065, Par. 0091-0092 and 0101 Resch discloses recoding the modified data using the threshold number to be used in the error encoding function to generate slices).
Grube and Resch are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, storage processing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to modify the encoded data of Resch to include the expanded storage space of Resch, to improve performance. The suggestion/motivation to combine is that it would be obvious to try in order to prevent a deterioration in processing performance (Par. 0015 Resch).
As to claim 2 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 1.
In addition Grube teaches further comprising:
retrieving the first set of data slices from storage in the set of storage units based on applying identifiers of the first set of data slices (Par. 0058 Grube discloses storing encoded data in slices based upon the distributed data storage parameter that determines the number of slices per segment. The segments are of fixed size. Therefore a segment with 1 slice will have a different slice size then a segment with a slice number of 2 slices);
and generating recovered data based on performing a decoding function upon the first set of data slices retrieved from storage to recover the data; wherein the data is re-encoded based on performing an encoding function upon the recovered data by utilizing the updated width parameter value (Par. 0056 Sonobe discloses the performance-measurement table function which is seen as the decoding function. The encoding function is seen as the number of times of error).
As to claim 3 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 1.
In addition Grube teaches wherein storing of the second set of data slices includes rebuilding at least one data slice associated with at least one storage error (Par. 0153 and Par. 0154 Grube discloses the system receiving a failure message due to the data not being valid. The system corrects the in valid data by retrieving the data from another storage location).
As to claim 4 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 1.
In addition Grube teaches wherein the set of storage units are implemented as a set of solid state memory devices (Par. 0047 Grube discloses the processing storage devices as storage state machines).
As to claim 5 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 1.
In addition Grube teaches further comprising: deleting at least one data slice of the first set of data slices from storage in the set of storage units Par. 0139 Grube discloses deleting the data based upon the processing determination).
As to claim 6 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 5.
In addition Grube teaches wherein deleting the at least one data slice of the first set of data slices from the set of storage units is based on a maintained number of data slices stored in the set of storage units (Par. 0139 Grube discloses deleting data based upon storage requirements).
As to claim 7 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 1.
In addition Grube teaches further comprising: receiving identifiers for the additional set of storage units added to the storage pool, wherein activation of the set of storage units is detected based on receiving the identifiers for the additional set of storage units added to the storage pool (Fig. 5b, Par. 0018, 0054 and Par. 0057 Sonobe discloses performance measurement to determine when to add an additional storage device when performance is below a performance threshold).
As to claim 8 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 1.
In addition Grube teaches wherein the at least one data object is encoded in accordance with an encoding function, and wherein a decoding function corresponding to the encoding function can accommodate a number of failures equal to the width parameter minus an error coding parameter utilized to encode the at least one data object (Par. 0056 Sonobe discloses the performance-measurement table function which is seen as the decoding function. The encoding function is seen as the number of times of error).
As to claim 9 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 1.
In addition Grube teaches wherein the first number of data slices is equal to the first width parameter value, and wherein the second number of data slices is equal to the updated width parameter value (Par. 0054 Grube discloses increasing the number of disk apparatuses from two to three as an example. The disk apparatuses are the data slices. The width parameter is the number of data apparatuses).
As to claim 10 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 1.
In addition Grube teaches wherein the updated width parameter value is determined based on a number of storage units included in the expansion of the storage pool (Par. 0054 Grube discloses increasing the number of disk apparatuses from two to three as an example. The disk apparatuses are the data slices. The width parameter is the number of data apparatuses).
As to claim 11 Grube teaches a processing system of a computing device comprises:
at least one processor (Par. 0047 Grube discloses a processor);
a memory that stores operational instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the processing system to perform operations that include: (Par. 0047 Grube discloses a processor);
maintaining a storage pool that stores a first set of encoded data slices of at least one data object at a first number of locations, based on applying a first width parameter value as a width parameter of the dispersed error encoding (Par. 0153 and Par. 0154 Grube discloses the system receiving a failure message due to the data not being valid. The system corrects the in valid data by retrieving the data from another storage location);
Grube teaches and storing the second set of encoded data slices in a second number of locations of the storage pool, wherein the second number of locations includes a greater number of locations than the first number of locations based on the updated width parameter value being greater than the first width parameter (Par. 0058 Grube discloses the storage locations for the error encoded slices contain n/k system, where n is the number slices. The system shows slices of 5/3, 6/4, 8/6. The greater slices are seen as a second number of locations greater than the first number of locations. Par. 0087 Grube discloses the encoded data segment is of greater size than the data segment. The encoded data segment of greater size is seen as a second number of locations greater than the first number of locations. The n number of slices see is seen as the number of locations. The k values is the number of needed slices is seen as the width parameter).
Grube does not teach but Sonobe teaches increasing the width parameter of the dispersed error encoding function to produce an updated width parameter based on an expansion of the storage pool to include an additional set of storage units (See Sonobe Fig. 5b, [0018], [0054] and [0057] teachings of a performance measurement wherein a determination is made to add an additional storage device when at performance falls below a performance threshold. One of the performance values being based on free space of reach of the disk. The storage devices are added to increase the size of the volume. The number of storage devices associated with a volume is seen as the width parameter);
Grube and Sonobe are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, storage processing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to modify the encoded data of Grube to include the expanded storage space of Sonobe, to improve performance. The suggestion/motivation to combine is that it would be obvious to try in order to prevent a deterioration in processing performance (Par. 0003 Sonobe).
Grube in combination with Sonobe does not teach but Resch teaches wherein the first set of encoded data slices were generated via performing a dispersed error encoding function upon the data object (Par. 0064-0068 Resch discloses performing the encoding of data slices using the error coding dispersal function);
re-encoding the at least one data object via re-performing the disperse error encoding function upon the data object based on applying the updated width parameter value as the width parameter of the dispersed error encoding function to produce a second set of encoded data slices (Par. 0065, Par. 0091-0092 and 0101 Resch discloses recoding the modified data using the threshold number to be used in the error encoding function to generate slices).
Grube and Resch are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, storage processing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to modify the encoded data of Resch to include the expanded storage space of Resch, to improve performance. The suggestion/motivation to combine is that it would be obvious to try in order to prevent a deterioration in processing performance (Par. 0015 Resch).
As to claim 12 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 11.
In addition Grube teaches wherein the operations further include:
retrieving the first set of data slices from storage in the set of storage units based on applying identifiers of the first set of data slices (Par. 0058 Grube discloses storing encoded data in slices based upon the distributed data storage parameter that determines the number of slices per segment. The segments are of fixed size. Therefore a segment with 1 slice will have a different slice size then a segment with a slice number of 2 slices);
and generating recovered data based on performing a decoding function upon the first set of data slices retrieved from storage to recover the data; wherein the data is re-encoded based on performing an encoding function upon the recovered data by utilizing the updated width parameter (Par. 0056 Sonobe discloses the performance-measurement table function which is seen as the decoding function. The encoding function is seen as the number of times of error).
As to claim 13 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 11.
In addition Grube teaches wherein storing of the second set of data slices includes rebuilding at least one data slice associated with at least one storage error (Par. 0153 and Par. 0154 Grube discloses the system receiving a failure message due to the data not being valid. The system corrects the in valid data by retrieving the data from another storage location).
As to claim 14 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 11.
In addition Grube teaches wherein the set of storage units are implemented as a set of solid state memory devices (Par. 0047 Grube discloses the processing storage devices as storage state machines).
As to claim 15 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 11.
In addition Grube teaches wherein the operations further include: deleting at least one data slice of the first set of data slices from storage in the set of storage units (Par. 0139 Grube discloses deleting the data based upon the processing determination).
As to claim 16 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 15.
In addition Grube teaches wherein deleting the at least one data slice of the first set of data slices from the set of storage units is based on a maintained number of data slices stored in the set of storage units (Par. 0139 Grube discloses deleting data based upon storage requirements).
As to claim 17 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 11.
In addition Grube teaches wherein the operations further include: receiving identifiers for the additional set of storage units added to the storage pool, wherein activation of the set of storage units is detected based on receiving the identifiers for the additional set of storage units added to the storage pool (Fig. 5b, Par. 0018, 0054 and Par. 0057 Sonobe discloses performance measurement to determine when to add an additional storage device when performance is below a performance threshold).
As to claim 18 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 11.
In addition Grube teaches wherein the at least one data object is encoded in accordance with an encoding function, and wherein a decoding function corresponding to the encoding function can accommodate a number of failures equal to the width parameter minus an error coding parameter utilized to encode the at least one data object (Par. 0056 Sonobe discloses the performance-measurement table function which is seen as the decoding function. The encoding function is seen as the number of times of error).
As to claim 19 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 11.
In addition Grube teaches wherein the first number of data slices is equal to the width parameter, and wherein the second number of data slices is equal to the updated width parameter (Par. 0054 Grube discloses increasing the number of disk apparatuses from two to three as an example. The disk apparatuses are the data slices. The width parameter is the number of data apparatuses).
As to claim 20 Grube in combination with Sonobe and Resch teaches each and every limitation of claim 11.
In addition Grube teaches wherein the updated width parameter is determined based on a number of storage units included in the expansion of the storage pool (Par. 0054 Grube discloses increasing the number of disk apparatuses from two to three as an example. The disk apparatuses are the data slices. The width parameter is the number of data apparatuses).
Conclusion
8. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JERMAINE A MINCEY whose telephone number is (571)270-5010. The examiner can normally be reached 8am EST until 5pm EST.
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/J.A.M/ March 07, 2026Examiner, Art Unit 2159
/ALBERT M PHILLIPS, III/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2159