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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the communication filed on 07/01/2025.
Claims 1-24 are under examination.
The Information Disclosure Statements filed on 02/18/2026 has been entered and considered.
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 claims at issue 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); and 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 a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this 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 §§ 706.02(l)(1) - 706.02(l)(3) 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).
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/forms/. The filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/file/efs/guidance/eTD-info-I.jsp.
Claims 1-24 rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-25 of U.S. Patent No. 11,294777, claims 1-36 of U.S. Patent No. 11,775397, claims 1-28 of U.S. Patent No. 11,947952 and claims 3-23 US Patent Application 18,450319. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the subject matter claimed in the instant application is fully disclosed in the patent and is covered by the patent since the patent and the application are claiming common subject matter, as follows: The at least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 1, the instructions further causing: protecting a share group of the virtualized file server at least in part by adding the share group to the protection domain; and replicating the share group at least in part to update the remote site for disaster recovery of at least a portion of the virtualized file server.
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 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.
Claims 1-2, 4, 6, 9-10, 12, 14, 17-18, 20 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 2014/0123138 A1), Muhlestein et al. (US 2003/0191810 A1) and Aizman et al. (US 8,812,566 B2).
Regarding claim 1, Lee et al. discloses At least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium encoded with executable instructions which, when executed, cause a system to perform operations comprising: protecting an individual share of a virtualized file server at least in part by adding a volume group used for file services storage [par. 0077, “The USER VMs 1200 and 1210 should have respective dedicated file systems. In order to meet this need, the FS VM 140 may divide the virtual storage device 111 provided via the hypervisor 110 into a plurality of virtual volumes, and may provide respective file systems mounted in the virtual volumes to the USER VMs 1200 and 1210”], wherein the virtualized file server includes a plurality of file server virtual machines [par. 0097, file server virtual machine 140, par. 0022, “The second FS VM may be generated by duplicating the first FS VM into the standby server”], and replicating the share at least in part to update a remote site for disaster recovery of at least a portion of the virtualized file server [par. 0090, “the fault tolerance module 214 of the standby server 200 duplicates the data loaded in the buffer cache 141 of the primary server 100 into the buffer cache 241 of the standby server 200 by incorporating the update of the data included in the area of the buffer cache 141 of the virtual memory 112”, par. 0095, “when the primary server 100 crashes, the first standby server 200 performs the operation of recovering the primary server 100, and the second standby server 300 provides service during the recovery”].
Lee et al. does not explicitly disclose the volume group used for file services storage to a protection domain.
However, Muhlestein et al. teaches the volume group used for file services storage to a protection domain [abs, “Each vfiler is allocated a subset of dedicated units of storage resources, such as volumes or logical sub-volumes (qtrees), and one or more network address resources. Each vfiler is also allowed shared access to a file system resource of a storage operating system. To ensure controlled access to the allocated and shared resources, each vfiler is further assigned its own security domain for each access protocol”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Muhlestein et al. into the teaching of Lee et al. with the motivation to ensure controlled access to the allocated and shared resources as taught by Muhlestein et al. [Muhlestein et al.: abs].
They do not explicitly disclose each of the FSVMs presenting a namespace of storage items, including the individual share.
However, Aiman et al. teaches each of the FSVMs presenting a namespace of storage items, including the individual share [claim 1, “ the Federated FS supports both a uniform namespace implemented by multiple servers and enables migration of files and directories from one server to another, the Federated FS comprising one or more network attached storage (NAS) file servers that stores file oriented directory sets that are exclusive to one or more virtual machines (VMs), wherein the file oriented directory sets include files that are to be accessed by the VMs; at least one NAS server providing storage services to a selected one or more VMs and Hypervisor Platforms hosting those VMs”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Aizman et al. into the teaching of Lee et al. and Muhlestein et al. with the motivation for providing storage services to Virtual Machines (VMs) and the Hypervisor Platforms that host them as taught by Aizman et al. [Aizman et al.: abs].
Regarding claim 2, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Lee et al. further disclose protecting a share group of the virtualized file server at least in part by adding the share group; and replicating the share group at least in part to update the remote site for disaster recovery of at least a portion of the virtualized file server [par. 0090, “the fault tolerance module 214 of the standby server 200 duplicates the data loaded in the buffer cache 141 of the primary server 100 into the buffer cache 241 of the standby server 200 by incorporating the update of the data included in the area of the buffer cache 141 of the virtual memory 112”, par. 0095, “when the primary server 100 crashes, the first standby server 200 performs the operation of recovering the primary server 100, and the second standby server 300 provides service during the recovery”].
Muhlestein et al. teaches adding the share group to the protection domain [abs, “Each vfiler is allocated a subset of dedicated units of storage resources, such as volumes or logical sub-volumes (qtrees), and one or more network address resources. Each vfiler is also allowed shared access to a file system resource of a storage operating system. To ensure controlled access to the allocated and shared resources, each vfiler is further assigned its own security domain for each access protocol”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Muhlestein et al. into the teaching of Lee et al. with the motivation to ensure controlled access to the allocated and shared resources as taught by Muhlestein et al. [Muhlestein et al.: abs].
Regarding claim 4, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Muhlestein et al. further teaches the protection domain includes one or more consistency groups, wherein at least one of the one or more consistency groups comprises a subset of virtual machines, a subset of applications, or a combination thereof, within the protection domain [par. 0025, “Dedicated filer resources, such as units of storage and network addresses of network interfaces, may be grouped and partitioned to establish security domains within the filer”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Muhlestein et al. into the teaching of Lee et al. with the motivation to ensure controlled access to the allocated and shared resources as taught by Muhlestein et al. [Muhlestein et al.: abs].
Regarding claim 6, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Lee et al. disclose replicating the share at least in part to update a remote site for disaster recovery of at least a portion of the virtualized file server comprises generating a snapshot of the share.
Aiman et al. further teaches generating a snapshot of the share [col. 2, lines 30-33, “hypervisors create snapshot images of VMs that can be used to restart the VM from the point where the snapshot was taken after a failure of the VM or host”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Aizman et al. into the teaching of Lee et al. and Muhlestein et al. with the motivation for providing storage services to Virtual Machines (VMs) and the Hypervisor Platforms that host them as taught by Aizman et al. [Aizman et al.: abs].
Regarding claim 9, it recites limitations like claim 1. The reason for the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 10, it recites limitations like claim 2. The reason for the rejection of claim 2 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 12, it recites limitations like claim 4. The reason for the rejection of claim 4 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 14, it recites limitations like claim 6. The reason for the rejection of claim 6 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 17, it recites limitations like claim 1. The reason for the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 18, it recites limitations like claim 2. The reason for the rejection of claim 2 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 20, it recites limitations like claim 4. The reason for the rejection of claim 4 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 22, it recites limitations like claim 6. The reason for the rejection of claim 6 is incorporated herein.
Claims 3, 5, 11, 13, 19 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 2014/0123138 A1), Muhlestein et al. (US 2003/0191810 A1) and Aizman et al. (US 8,812,566 B2) as applied to claims 1-2, 4, 6, 9-10, 12, 14, 17-18, 20 and 22 above, and further in view of Kumar (US 10,311,042 B1).
Regarding claim 3, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Muhlestein et al. teaches adding the share group to the protection domain.
They do not explicitly disclose the protection domain specifies a backup schedule, a number of snapshots to be retained, or combinations thereof.
However, Kumar teaches the protection domain specifies a backup schedule, a number of snapshots to be retained, or combinations thereof [col. 39, lines 33-37, “a scheduling service running on storage manager 140 accesses backup copy rule set 160 or a separate scheduling policy associated with client computing device 102 and initiates a backup job on an hourly basis”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Kumar into the teaching of Lee et al., Muhlestein et al. and Aizman et al. with the motivation of allowing point-in-time recovery as taught by Kumar [Kumar: col. 11, line 32].
Regarding claim 5, the rejection of claim 3 is incorporated.
Kumar further teaches the backup schedule comprises backing up every day, hour, week, month, or combinations thereof [col. 39, lines 33-37, “a scheduling service running on storage manager 140 accesses backup copy rule set 160 or a separate scheduling policy associated with client computing device 102 and initiates a backup job on an hourly basis”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Kumar into the teaching of Lee et al., Muhlestein et al. and Aizman et al. with the motivation of allowing point-in-time recovery as taught by Kumar [Kumar: col. 11, line 32].
Regarding claim 11, it recites limitations like claim 3. The reason for the rejection of claim 3 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 13, it recites limitations like claim 5. The reason for the rejection of claim 5 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 19, it recites limitations like claim 3. The reason for the rejection of claim 3 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 21, it recites limitations like claim 5. The reason for the rejection of claim 5 is incorporated herein.
Claims 7-8, 15-16 and 23-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. (US 2014/0123138 A1), Muhlestein et al. (US 2003/0191810 A1) and Aizman et al. (US 8,812,566 B2) as applied to claims 1-2, 4, 6, 9-10, 12, 14, 17-18, 20 and 22 above, and further in view of Ali et al. (US 2011/0252208 A1).
Regarding claim 7, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Aizman et al. disclose snapshot images of VMs [col. 2, lines 30-32].
They do not explicitly disclose generating a second snapshot of the share; and determining a delta between the snapshot of the share and the second snapshot of the share.
However, Ali et al. teaches generating a second snapshot of the share [par. 0016, “The first computing device 108 creates a second snapshot of the first Hyper-V VM 120 at a second time ”]; and determining a delta between the snapshot of the share and the second snapshot of the share [par. 0016, “A set of changed data blocks 126 is associated with a difference between the second snapshot and the first snapshot 124. Thus, the first computing device 108 may store the first snapshot 124 taken at the first time to determine the set of changed data blocks 126”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Ali et al. into the teaching of Lee et al., Muhlestein et al. and Aizman et al. with the motivation such that the amount of data transferred from the first computing device to the backup device may be reduced while still maintaining a full backup as taught by Ali et al. [Ali et al.: par. 0017].
Regarding claim 8, the rejection of claim 7 is incorporated.
Ali et al. further teaches replicating the delta between the snapshot of the share and the second snapshot of the share to the to update the remote site for disaster recovery of at least the portion of the virtualized file server [par. 0017, “The backup device 116 is configured to update the VHD snapshot 128 of the first Hyper-V VM 120 based on the set of changed data blocks 126 to generate another VHD snapshot 130 of the first Hyper-V VM 120”, par. 0024, “The backup device 116 may thus support granular recovery of the first VHD 148’, par. 0001, virtual machines, file server].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Ali et al. into the teaching of Lee et al., Muhlestein et al. and Aizman et al. with the motivation such that the amount of data transferred from the first computing device to the backup device may be reduced while still maintaining a full backup as taught by Ali et al. [Ali et al.: par. 0017].
Regarding claim 15, it recites limitations like claim 7. The reason for the rejection of claim 7 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 16, it recites limitations like claim 8. The reason for the rejection of claim 8 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 23, it recites limitations like claim 7. The reason for the rejection of claim 7 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 24, it recites limitations like claim 8. The reason for the rejection of claim 8 is incorporated herein.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure:
US 9772866 B1 Architecture For Implementing A Virtualization Environment And Appliance
US 20170091047 A1 DYNAMIC TRIGGERING OF BLOCK-LEVEL BACKUPS BASED ON BLOCK CHANGE THRESHOLDS AND CORRESPONDING FILE IDENTITIES IN A DATA STORAGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
US 20170024152 A1 BROWSE AND RESTORE FOR BLOCK-LEVEL BACKUPS
US 20170206207 A1 VIRTUAL FILE SERVER
US 9613064 B1 Facilitating The Recovery Of A Virtual Machine Using A Distributed Filesystem
US 20140359612 A1 Sharing A Virtual Hard Disk Across Multiple Virtual Machines
US 20120310892 A1 SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR VIRTUAL CLUSTER FILE SERVER
US 20110239039 A1 Cloud Computing Enabled Robust Initialization And Recovery Of It Services
US 20180143880 A1 CROSS-PLATFORM VIRTUAL MACHINE DATA AND MEMORY BACKUP AND RESUMPTION
US 8407448 B1 Shared Storage I/O Elimination Through Mapping Client Integration Into A Hypervisor
US 20170262346 A1 DATA MANAGEMENT AND BACKUP OF DISTRIBUTED STORAGE ENVIRONMENT
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JASON CHIANG whose telephone number is (571)270-3393. The examiner can normally be reached on 9 AM to 6 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Lynn Feild can be reached on (571) 272-2092. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/JASON CHIANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2431
