DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on July 1, 2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the Examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 3-8, 11-16, 19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 3 recites the limitation "an other revision value associated with the request" in lines 2-3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Revision values had not been previously recited before the first instance of a revision value found in lines 2-3 of claim 3.
Claims 13 and 19 recite similar claim language and are rejected for the same reasons as claim 3.
Claims 4-8, 12-16 and 20 are rejected as being dependent upon, and thus incorporating therein, the rejected subject matter of the respective parent claim.
The following prior art rejections are made in light of the aforementioned 35 USC 112, 2nd paragraph rejections.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Yelovitch et al. US# 2020/03202542).
Regarding claim 1, Yelovitch et al. teaches a method, comprising: receiving, by an object storage system, a request to delete any objects matching a key pattern from a bucket of the object storage system; and deleting, in response to the request, a plurality of objects matching the key pattern from the bucket of the object storage system [para 0028, lines 1-2: AWS S3; para 0036, Tables 1 and 2 (operations DeleteObject and DeleteObjectversion); Yelovitch et al. teaches use of the AWS S3:DeleteObject and s3:deleteObjectVersion. However, Yelovitch et al. does not explicitly recite how these two operations perform. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the AWS command S3:DeleteObject, when sent and initiated by the storage system, removes an object or objects from a bucket based on an object key matching the pattern, or key, specified in the command argument. Supplemental references have been provided to further explain the operation, including at least DeleteObjects and GetObject].
Regarding claim 2, Yelovitch et al. teaches receiving, while deleting the plurality of objects is in progress, an operation associated with an object key matching the key pattern; and denying the operation in response to the object key matching the key pattern [0028, lines 1-2: AWS S3; Yelovitch teaches inclusion of commands of AWS S3, including that of DeleteObject and GetObject, where one of ordinary skill in the art recognizes that GetObject is used for getting objects from S3 buckets, and that for concurrent DeleteObject and GetObject operations, if DeleteObject concludes before GetObject finishes, GetObject will be not retrieve the data and return an error].
Regarding claim 3, Yelovitch et al. teaches wherein deleting the plurality of objects matching the key pattern comprises deleting the plurality of objects matching the key pattern and having a revision value less than an other revision value associated with the request [0036, Tables 1&2; s3:DeleteObjectVersion].
Regarding claim 4, Yelovitch et al. teaches further comprising incrementing a stored revision value in response to receiving the request, wherein the other revision value is equal to the incremented stored revision value [each iteration of DeleteObjectVersion may be iteratively increased on subsequent uses of the operation].
Regarding claim 5, Yelovitch et al. teaches further comprising allowing, while deleting the plurality of objects is in progress, one or more object storage operations targeting the bucket [as one of ordinary skill would recognize, a GetObject to one object and a DeleteObject or DeleteObjectVersion to a different object would be allowed to occur concurrently].
Regarding claim 6, Yelovitch et al. teaches further comprising receiving, while deleting the plurality of objects is in progress, an operation targeting an object stored in the bucket having an object key matching the key pattern [0028, lines 1-2: AWS S3; Yelovitch teaches inclusion of commands of AWS S3, including that of DeleteObject and GetObject, where one of ordinary skill in the art recognizes that GetObject is used for getting objects from S3 buckets, and that for concurrent DeleteObject and GetObject operations, if DeleteObject concludes before GetObject finishes, GetObject will be not retrieve the data and return an error].
Regarding claim 7, Yelovitch et al. teaches further comprising allowing the operation in response to the revision value of the object being greater than or equal to the other revision value [separate DeleteObjectVersion operations with different version arguments would be allowed to occur].
Regarding claim 8, Yelovitch et al. teaches further comprising denying the operation in response to the revision value of the object being less than the other revision value [0028, lines 1-2: AWS S3; Yelovitch teaches inclusion of commands of AWS S3, including that of DeleteObjectVersion and GetObjectVersion, where one of ordinary skill in the art recognizes that GetObjectVersion is used for getting objects from S3 buckets, and that for concurrent DeleteObjectVersion and GetObjectVersion operations, if DeleteObjectVersion concludes before GetObjectVersion finishes, GetObjectVersion will be denied concluding the operation by way of not returning the object as specified by the command].
Claims 9 and 11 recite similar claim language to that of claim 1, and are rejected for the same reasons as claim 1.
Claims 10 and 18 recite similar claim language to that of claim 2, and are rejected for the same reasons as claim 2.
Claims 11 and 19 recite similar claim language to that of claim 3, and are rejected for the same reasons as claim 3.
Claims 12 and 20 recite similar claim language to that of claim 4, and are rejected for the same reasons as claim 4.
Claim 13 recites similar claim language to that of claim 5, and is rejected for the same reasons as claim 5.
Claim 14 recites similar claim language to that of claim 6, and is rejected for the same reasons as claim 6.
Claim 15 recites similar claim language to that of claim 7, and is rejected for the same reasons as claim 7.
Claim 16 recites similar claim language to that of claim 8, and is rejected for the same reasons as claim 8.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. The Examiner has included several references corresponding to AWS S3 commands. Command definitions are reflected in the release notes of the latest version of the AWS S3 specification, where any prior version release notes dating back to 2015, which include the aforementioned operations, have proven difficult to obtain. Applicant is encouraged to contact the Examiner should there be any further questions.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Brian R. Peugh whose telephone number is (571) 272-4199. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 7:30am to 3:30pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Rocio Del Mar Perez-Velez, phone number 571-270-5935, can be reached. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 703-872-9306.
Any inquiry of a general nature or relating to the status of this application or proceeding should be directed to the receptionist whose telephone number is 571-272-2100.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/BRIAN R PEUGH/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2133
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