DETAILED ACTION
The application of Lee et al., for a “Resiliency group configurations” filed on January 15, 2025, which is a continuation of U.S. Application No. 17/407806, filed on August 20, 2021, now U.S. Patent No. 12235743, which is a continuation in part of U.S. Application No. 16/888156, filed on May 29, 2020, now U.S. Patent No. 11126516, which is a continuation of U.S. Application No. 15/172197, filed June 03, 2016, now U.S. Patent No. 10691567, has been examined. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on June 13, 2025 have been considered.
Claims 1-20 are presented in the application.
Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting.
Claims 1- 20 are rejected under 35 USC § 103.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: On page 1, under Related Applications, 1 related application is listed, but no corresponding patent number is supplied. Appropriate correction is required.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
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Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 12235743. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 12235743 contain(s) every element of claim(s) 1-20 of the instant application and as such anticipate(s) claim(s) 1-20 of the instant application.
Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-17 of U.S. Patent No. 11126516. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because claims 1-17 of U.S. Patent No. 11126516 contain(s) every element of claim(s) 1-20 of the instant application and as such anticipate(s) claim(s) 1-20 of the instant application.
Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 10691567. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 10691567 contain(s) every element of claim(s) 1-20 of the instant application and as such anticipate(s) claim(s) 1-20 of the instant application.
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 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 of this title, 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-5, 7-8, 10-17, and 19-20, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Iliadis et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20170109083) in view of Davis et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20160041887).
As per claims 1, 10, and 14, Iliadis discloses a method/computer-readable media/storage system, comprising: a plurality of storage drives ([0044], RAID); and a processing device ([0092]), comprising:
re-forming the plurality of resiliency groups using the one or more available configurations ([0058], “changing the number of each type of device according to the total amount of available budget”) and ([0064], “all possible values of n1 and n2 are considered, in one or more embodiments, such that the devices can be bought or made available within a given cost budget B”),
the re-forming biased according to a trade-off between characteristics of the storage system ([0037]-[0039]), wherein each of the re-formed resiliency groups comprises a group of storage drives ([0044], “RAID”) and ([0024], “Determining a new configuration involves modifying the amounts of the data subsets respectively stored on the storage devices. That is, the new configuration involves data that are, a minima, rearranged across the heterogeneous storage system. The estimation may furthermore involve the modification of other configuration parameters, as discussed herein below. In particular, the determination of the new configuration may be subject to a given storage budget for the storage of such data.”) and ([0033], “In addition, embodiments of the present methods may consider the numbers of devices of each type, e.g., the number n.sub.1 of storage devices of the first type and the number n.sub.2 of storage devices of the second type, where more than two devices are considered, e.g., n.sub.1>1 and/or n.sub.2>1. The configuration parameters may thus include n.sub.1 and n.sub.2. Such parameters may, in one or more embodiments, be varied to determine an increased global reliability.”, [0058]) and (Fig. 1).
Iliadis fails to explicitly disclose detecting a change in topology of the storage system.
Davis of analogous art teaches:
detecting a change in topology of the storage system ([0058], “upon removal, replacement or insertion of one or more storage nodes 150 and/or solid-state storages 152 provides a storage memory topology that automatically reconfigures”);
identifying one or more available configurations for a plurality of resiliency groups based on the changed topology ([0058], “Storage overhead is thus reconfigured as cluster membership changes. The storage nodes 150, solid-state storages 152, and storage cluster 160 which these form can dynamically switch between RAID schemes, and at any moment could have a hybrid combination of RAID schemes.”).
All of the claimed elements were known in Iliadis and Davis and could have been combined by known methods with no change in their respective functions. It therefore would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing language to combine their storage management methods. One would be motivated to make this combination for the purpose of providing maximum storage efficiency by self-configuring (Davis, [0022]).
As per claim 2, Iliadis discloses the trade-off is between data survivability over resource failures and data capacity efficiency ([0037]-[0039]).
As per claims 3, 11, and 15, Iliadis discloses the determined trade-off comprises biasing storage system expansion to have more and narrower resiliency groups acting to increase ([0033] and [0043]) mean time to data loss and decrease data capacity efficiency ([0035], “global mean time to data loss MTTDL metric.”) and (Fig. 1).
As per claims 4, 12, and 16, Iliadis discloses the plurality of resiliency groups is established across differing subsets of the storage system resources, each resiliency group is supportive of a plurality of write groups across differing subsets of members of the resiliency group, and each write group is supportive of a plurality of RAID stripes across a subset of members of the resiliency group ([0044]).
As per claims 5, 13, and 17, Iliadis discloses the data survivability over resource failures relates to mean time to data loss (MTTDL) and the data capacity efficiency relates to N/(N+R+S) for N number of storage drives, R number of redundant storage drives, and S number of spare storage drives, and the storage system forms widest possible RAID stripes in at least one resiliency group to maximize the data capacity efficiency ([0042], “Then, if the simulated reconfiguration is compatible S44 with the storage capacities of the storage devices, the method of FIG. 1 proceeds to calculate S45, S46 the global mean time to data loss that corresponds to the modified parameters.”) in the at least one resiliency group ([0035]-[0044]).
As per claims 7 and 19, Iliadis discloses the re-forming the plurality of resiliency groups comprises: responsive to a count of unassigned storage drives exceeding a defined split multiplier count, arranging the storage drives of the storage system to form a new resiliency group ([0064]-[0077]) that does not decrease the data capacity efficiency of the storage system ([0042], “Then, if the simulated reconfiguration is compatible S44 with the storage capacities of the storage devices, the method of FIG. 1 proceeds to calculate S45, S46 the global mean time to data loss that corresponds to the modified parameters.”).
As per claims 8 and 20, Iliadis discloses responsive to a resiliency group falling below a defined collapse limit membership count equal to a maximum RAID stripe width, adjusting the resiliency group ([0057]-[0077]).
Claims 6 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Iliadis et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20170109083) in view of Davis et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20160041887) and in further view of Tamo et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20120278689).
As per claims 6 and 18, Iliadis fails to explicitly discloses zigzag coding.
Tamo of analogous art teaches: increasing the data capacity efficiency in a resiliency group, through zigzag coding comprising multiple RAID stripes sharing at least one parity shard ([0038]).
All of the claimed elements were known in Iliadis and Tamo and could have been combined by known methods with no change in their respective functions. It therefore would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing language to combine their storage management methods. One would be motivated to make this combination for the purpose of providing an improved storage rebuilding (Tamo, [0008]).
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Iliadis et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20170109083) in view of Davis et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20160041887) and in further view of Holdaway et al. (U.S. Patent No. 7840656).
As per claim 9, Iliadis fails to explicitly discloses chassis.
Holdaway of analogous art teaches: biasing the storage system to have a chassis of a plurality of chassis form at least one resiliency group of storage system resources (Figs. 4-7) and to have each further chassis that is unable to form a resiliency group according to the trade-off to distribute storage system resources of the further chassis among remaining resiliency groups (col. 11-12).
All of the claimed elements were known in Iliadis and Holdaway and could have been combined by known methods with no change in their respective functions. It therefore would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing language to combine their storage management methods. One would be motivated to make this combination for the purpose of providing an improved storage server management (Holdaway, col. 2, lines 1-27).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See included PTO-892.
This is a continuation of applicant's earlier Application No. 17/407806. All claims are identical to, patentably indistinct from, or have unity of invention with the invention claimed in the earlier application (that is, restriction (including lack of unity) would not be proper) and could have been finally rejected on the grounds and art of record in the next Office action if they had been entered in the earlier application. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL even though it is a first action in this case. See MPEP § 706.07(b). 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Elmira Mehrmanesh whose telephone number is (571)272-5531. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 10-6.
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/Elmira Mehrmanesh/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2113