DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the America Invents Act (AIA ).
General Information Matter
Please note, the instant Non-Provisional application (19/043,700) under prosecution at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has been assigned to David Zarka (Examiner) in Art Unit 2449. To aid in correlating any papers for 19/043,700, all further correspondence regarding the instant application should be directed to the Examiner.
Joint Inventors
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the Examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicants are advised of the obligation under 37 C.F.R. § 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the Examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential § 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Provisional Application
The instant application claims benefit to provisional application No. 63/402,794 filed on August 31, 2022 and provisional application No. 63/322,112 filed on March 21, 2022 under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e).
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. § 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
Claims 5, 14, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) as failing to comply with the enablement requirement.
In particular, claim 1, line 8 recites “successfully writing the record to the distributed cache,” but claim 5 lines 1–2 recite “responsive to failing to write the record to the distributed cache.” The Specification, however, only discloses either the record is successfully written to a distributed cache or it does not. See Spec. ¶¶ 64–65; Figure 2, item 218. The Specification does not disclose how the record is both successfully written to the distributed cache and not written to the distributed cache. Claims 14 and 20 by analogy.
Therefore, claims 5, 14, and 20 contain subject matter which was not described in the Specification in such a way as to enable one skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and/or use the invention.
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 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.
Hsu and Tadlock
Claims 1, 2, 9–11, 16, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Hsu et al. (US 2023/0106214 A1; filed Aug. 4, 2022) in view of Tadlock et al. (US 2010/0268728 A1; filed Apr. 17, 2009).
Regarding claim 1, while Hsu teaches a non-transitory computer readable medium (fig. 6, item 50; “cache server that includes one or a plurality of processors, and the one or plurality of computer processors execute a machine-readable instruction” at ¶ 13) comprising instructions which, when executed by one or more hardware processors (“cache server that includes one or a plurality of processors” at ¶ 13), causes performance of operations comprising:
receiving a request (fig. 6, item S100; ¶ 81) to send a record to a streaming service (intended use in italics);
determining whether the record (“a data object or a resource which, for example, could represent or correspond to a page, a leaderboard or a message section of an application or a website” at ¶ 81) exists in a distributed cache of records (fig. 5, item 54 within item 50; “cache storage unit 54 is configured to store data objects (or copies of data objects) from the backend server 30 and/or the streaming server 40 previously fetched by a user terminal 10” at ¶ 74) previously sent to the streaming service (Hsu at least suggests if data objects are already stored in item 54 of item 50, then the data objects were previously sent to item 10 “for an operation in an application, for example, for checking a leaderboard, viewing a page of the application, or getting the latest comment information.” at ¶ 87) by querying the distributed cache for the record (fig. 6, item S102; “determine whether the requested data object is stored in the cache storage unit 54” at ¶ 81);
responsive to determining that the record does not exist in the distributed cache (fig. 6, item S102; “the requested data object cannot be found in the cache storage unit 54, which results in a cache miss” at ¶ 81), attempting to write the record to the distributed cache (fig. 6, items S104–S108);
responsive to successfully writing the record to the distributed cache (fig. 6, item S110; “CDN server 50 may store the data object in the cache storage unit 54” at ¶ 86), determining a partition (“an operation in an application, for example, for checking a leaderboard, viewing a page of the application, or getting the latest comment information” at ¶ 87; “an application providing live streaming service.” at ¶ 79) of a plurality of stream partitions (“an application providing live streaming service.” at ¶ 79 comprises multiple operations) for the record;
providing the record to the streaming service (fig. 6, item S112; “CDN server 50 transmits an API response to the user terminal 10, which at least includes the requested data object.” at ¶ 87; “the user terminal 10 may use the received data object for an operation in an application, for example, for checking a leaderboard, viewing a page of the application, or getting the latest comment information” at ¶ 87; “an application providing live streaming service.” at ¶ 79) for inclusion in the determined partition (intended use in italics); and
updating the distributed cache (fig. 6, item S110; “the CDN server 50 receives the API response, which includes the requested data object and its TTL information” at ¶ 86) to indicate successful transmission of the record to the streaming service (intended use in italics),
Hsu does not teach the updating the distributed cache being responsive to the streaming service confirming receipt of the record.
Tadlock teaches updating a cache (“purge a vitality update from a . . . cache” at ¶ 36) responsive to a service confirming receipt of a record (“when vitality service 109 confirms receipt of a vitality update” at ¶ 36).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention for Hsu’s distributed cache to be updated responsive to the streaming service confirming receipt of the record as taught by Tadlock so that the distributed cache knows to save the requested data object with its corresponding TTL (and if the distributed cache never receives a service confirming receipt, then the distributed cache knows to remove the requested data object with its corresponding TTL), thereby creating a more efficient system.
Regarding claim 2, Hsu teaches further comprising
receiving a second request (fig. 6, item S114) to send a second record to the streaming service (intended use in italics);
determining whether the second record (“the same data object” at ¶ 88) exists in the distributed cache (fig. 5, item 54 within item 50; “cache storage unit 54 is configured to store data objects (or copies of data objects) from the backend server 30 and/or the streaming server 40 previously fetched by a user terminal 10” at ¶ 74) by querying (fig. 6, item S116) the distributed cache for the second record; and
responsive to determining that the second record exists (fig. 6, item S116; “the requested data object can be found in the cache storage unit 54, which results in a cache hit” at ¶ 89) in the distributed cache, returning a cached response (fig. 6, item S118; “In step S118, the CDN server 50 transmits an API response to the user terminal 10, which at least includes the requested data object stored in the cache storage unit 54.” at ¶ 90) indicating the second record was previously sent to the streaming service (from fig. 6, items S100–118, Hsu at least suggests that data objects stored in the cache are intended to be sent to the streaming service).
Regarding claim 9, Hsu teaches wherein determining the partition comprises: mapping a destination (one of “a leaderboard, viewing a page of the application, or getting the latest comment information” at ¶ 87) for the record to a stream partition (one of “a leaderboard, viewing a page of the application, or getting the latest comment information” at ¶ 87) assigned for transmissions to the destination.
Regarding claim 10, Hsu teaches a method to perform operations according to claim 1. Thus, references/arguments equivalent to those present for claim 1 are equally applicable to claim 10.
Regarding claims 11 and 17, claim 2 recites substantially similar features. Thus, references/arguments equivalent to those present for claim 2 are equally applicable to claims 11 and 17.
Regarding claim 16, Hsu teaches a system comprising: at least one device including a hardware processor; the system being configured to perform operations according to claim 1. Thus, references/arguments equivalent to those present for claim 1 are equally applicable to claim 16.
Hsu, Tadlock, and Feng
Claims 3, 12, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Hsu in view of Tadlock, and in further view of Feng (US 2019/0196728 A1; filed Mar. 5, 2019).
Regarding claim 3, while Hsu teaches further comprising receiving a third request (fig. 6, item S100; ¶ 81; “sending API requests” at ¶ 73 at least suggests fig. 6 is repeatable) to send a third record to the streaming service (intended use in italics);
determining whether the third record (“a data object or a resource which, for example, could represent or correspond to a page, a leaderboard or a message section of an application or a website” at ¶ 81) exists in the distributed cache by querying the distributed cache for the third record (fig. 5, item 54 within item 50; “cache storage unit 54 is configured to store data objects (or copies of data objects) from the backend server 30 and/or the streaming server 40 previously fetched by a user terminal 10” at ¶ 74); and
responsive to determining that the third record does not exist in the distributed cache (fig. 6, item S102; “the requested data object cannot be found in the cache storage unit 54, which results in a cache miss” at ¶ 81), attempting to write the third record to the distributed cache (fig. 6, items S104–S108),
Hsu does not teach responsive to unsuccessfully writing the third record to the distributed cache, returning a failure response indicating the third record was not sent to the streaming service.
Feng teaches responsive to unsuccessfully writing data to memory, returning a failure response indicating the data was not sent (“when the target data object fails to be written onto the primary storage node, directly sending a write failure response message to an initiator of the write I/O request” at ¶ 20; “if the target data object fails to be written, directly return a write failure response message to an initiator of the write I/O request” at ¶ 24; fig. 6, item S430).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention for Hsu to include responsive to unsuccessfully writing the third record to the distributed cache, returning a failure response indicating the third record was not sent to the streaming service as taught by Feng so that corrective measures may be taken thereby “[e]nsuring a write success of the primary storage node can increase to a greatest extent.” Feng ¶ 89.
Regarding claims 12 and 18, claim 3 recites substantially similar features. Thus, references/arguments equivalent to those present for claim 3 are equally applicable to claims 12 and 18.
Hsu, Tadlock, and Eadon
Claims 4, 13, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Hsu in view of Tadlock, and in further view of Eadon et al. (US 2021/0081453 A1; filed Sept. 11, 2020).
Regarding claim 4, Hsu does not teach wherein determining the partition comprises: generating a partitioning key based on at least one of: a tenant namespace, a timestamp, and a log index.
Eadon teaches generating a partitioning key based on at least one of: a tenant namespace, a timestamp (“partition keys such as DATE, TIMESTAMP, or the NUMBER data type may often be suitable.” at ¶ 60), and a log index.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention for Hsu’s determining the partition to comprise generating a partitioning key based on at least one of: a tenant namespace, a timestamp, and a log index as taught by Eadon to provide “an improved approach to implement partitioning for data processing systems.” Eadon ¶ 7.
Regarding claims 13 and 19, claim 4 recites substantially similar features. Thus, references/arguments equivalent to those present for claim 4 are equally applicable to claims 13 and 19.
Hsu, Tadlock, and Bhargava
Claims 6, 7, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Hsu in view of Tadlock, and in further view of Bhargava et al. (US 2018/0307723 A1; filed Apr. 25, 2017).
Regarding claim 6, while Hsu teaches wherein providing the record to the streaming service comprises: assigning the record to the determined partition before transmission to the streaming service (fig. 6, item S112; ¶ 87),
Hsu does not teach the assigning including batching the record with other records assigned.
Bhargava teaches batching a record with other records assigned (“accumulate authorized data records in accumulator 122” at ¶ 34).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention for Hsu’s assigning to include batching the record with other records assigned as taught by Bhargava “to improve efficiency.” Bhargava ¶ 75.
Regarding claim 7, Hsu does not teach wherein batching the record comprises: accumulating multiple records until either a batch size threshold is reached, or a waiting period expires.
Bhargava teaches accumulating multiple records until either a batch size threshold is reached (“accumulate authorized data records in accumulator 122 until a threshold number of records . . . has been reached” at ¶ 34), or a waiting period expires.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention for the Hsu/Tadlock/Bhargava combination’s batching the record to comprise accumulating multiple records until either a batch size threshold is reached, or a waiting period expires as taught by Bhargava “to improve efficiency.” Bhargava ¶ 75.
Regarding claim 15, claim 6 recites substantially similar features. Thus, references/arguments equivalent to those present for claim 6 are equally applicable to claim 15.
Hsu, Tadlock, and Fursman
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Hsu in view of Tadlock, and in further view of Fursman (US 2021/0241357 A1; filed Jan. 29, 2021).
Regarding claim 8, while Hsu teaches wherein determining whether the record exists in the distributed cache comprises: checking for the record in the distributed cache (fig. 6, item S102; ¶ 82),
Hsu does not teach checking for a unique identifier associated with the record.
Fursman teaches checking for a unique identifier associated with a record (“searching for the unique identifier on the Customer record” at ¶ 245).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention for Hsu’s checking to be for a unique identifier associated with the record as taught by Fursman to further distinguish the records from one another so that they are easily determined whether existing in the distributed cache.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicants’ disclosure: US-20210382877-A1; US-6516385-B1; US-20210144227-A1; US-20150268858-A1; US-20140244727-A1; US-20130263083-A1; US-20120331233-A1; US-20090177667-A1; US-20060184737-A1; US-5996088-A; US-10997263-B1; US-11853319-B1; US-20160041907-A1; and US-5900009-A.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to DAVID P. ZARKA whose telephone number is (703) 756-5746. The Examiner can normally be reached Monday–Friday from 9:30AM–6PM ET.
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, Vivek Srivastava, can be reached at (571) 272-7304. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/DAVID P ZARKA/PATENT EXAMINER, Art Unit 2449
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