DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Priority: 11/21/2022(FP), 03/07/2023(FP), 6/30/2023(PCT)
Assignee: Huawei
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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 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.
The phrase “combine compression” in claims 1, 10, 19 is not a standard term in the art. It is ambiguous as to whether it refers to a compression algorithm or gathering data blocks before compression, and whether it includes forward coding or a coding partition. Currently it is interpreted as a way to group/merge data pre-compression.
Claim 8 recites the limitation “the a plurality”. It should be “the plurality”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph 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.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
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 of carrying out his invention.
Claim(s) 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 10, 19 include the term forward coding. The compression algorithm using forward coding is not adequately defined in the specification. Compression based on “Forward coding” is construed to be adaptive compression.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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, 3-7, 11, 13-17, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Mizushima(2021/0191658).
Claim(s) 1, 3-7 are directed to method/steps that are implemented by the system/apparatus claims 10, 12-17 respectively. Therefore the corresponding mappings are incorporated.
As per claim 10, Mizushima discloses:
A computing device cluster(Mizushima, [0039 -- In FIG. 1, a storage system 100 includes the host computer 30 and a storage device 11. The host computer 30 is connected to the storage device 11 via a network 31 and is managed by a management computer]), comprising:
at least one computing device, comprising: a memory configured to store instructions(Mizushima, [0216 -- The configurations, functions, and the like described above may also be implemented by software by a processor interpreting and executing a program for implementing the functions]);
and one or more processors coupled to the memory, wherein when executed by the one or more processors(Mizushima, [0039 -- In FIG. 1, a storage system 100 includes the host computer 30 and a storage device 11. The host computer 30 is connected to the storage device 11 via a network 31 and is managed by a management computer]), the instructions cause the computing device cluster to:
obtain a plurality of to-be-compressed data blocks(Mizushima. [0050 -- Data that is grouped into each group may include data written based on a separate write request from the host computer]);
combine the plurality of to-be-compressed data blocks to obtain a plurality of combined to-be-compressed data blocks(Mizushima. [0050 -- The storage controller 22A generates a group in which the data cached in the cache area 203A is grouped based on a similarity degree among the data cached in the cache area 203A. Data that is grouped into each group may include data written based on a separate write request from the host computer 30.]);
and compress, based on forward coding, the plurality of combined to-be-compressed data blocks to obtain a compressed data set with combine compression(Mizushima, [0052 -- For example, the storage controller 22A selects a group (for example, the group 1102C) to be written from the cache area 203A to the drive 29, collectively compresses data included in the selected group], [0084 -- According to a reversible compression algorithm used by the storage device 11, based on a sliding dictionary compression, a character string that matches past character strings is found and replaced with a short code (a length matching a distance to a discovery position) to reduce the data amount.]).
As per claim 12, the rejection of claim 10 is incorporated, in addition, Mizushima discloses:
The computing device cluster, wherein when executed by the one or more processors, the instructions further cause the computing device cluster to compress the plurality of combined to-be-compressed data blocks using a compression algorithm(Mizushima, [0084 -- According to a reversible compression algorithm used by the storage device 11, based on a sliding dictionary compression, a character string that matches past character strings is found and replaced with a short code (a length matching a distance to a discovery position) to reduce the data amount]).
As per claim 13, the rejection of claim 10 is incorporated, in addition, Mizushima discloses:
The computing device cluster, wherein when executed by the one or more processors, the instructions further cause the computing device cluster to obtain the plurality of to-be-compressed data blocks by: obtaining a plurality of to-be-written data blocks according to a data write instruction; and obtaining the plurality of to-be-compressed data blocks based on the plurality of to-be-written data blocks(Mizushima, [0050 -- . Data that is grouped into each group may include data written based on a separate write request from the host computer 30. At this time, since the storage controller 22A stores a plurality of pieces of data for each group, one or more areas are ensured in the cache area]).
As per claim 14, the rejection of claim 13 is incorporated, in addition, Mizushima discloses:
The computing device cluster, wherein when executed by the one or more processors, the instructions further cause the computing device cluster to store the compressed data set in a storage medium(Mizushima, [0057 -- The storage controller 22A transmits the compressed group (compressed data equal to or larger than the parity cycle of one or more groups) in the buffer area 202A and the parity corresponding thereto to the drive 29 and writes them to the drive 29 (destage processing).]).
As per claim 15, the rejection of claim 14 is incorporated, in addition, Mizushima discloses:
The computing device cluster, wherein when executed by the one or more processors, the instructions further cause the computing device cluster to update index information of the storage medium based on a location of the compressed data set in the storage medium(Mizushima, [0083 -- The pool address 74 is an address (an address belonging to a pool) of a data area allocated to store data obtained by separately compressing data of two groups. The pre-compression size 75 indicates a data size before compression of each group (128 KB for each). The post-compression size 76 indicates a data size after compression of each group.]).
As per claim 16, the rejection of claim 15 is incorporated, in addition, Mizushima discloses:
wherein the index information further indicates that the compressed data set is based on combine compression(Mizushima, [0083 -- The pool ID 73 is an ID of each pool including a data area allocated to store data obtained by compressing data of two groups (128 KB for each) included in each slot (256 KB).]).
As per claim 17, the rejection of claim 10 is incorporated, in addition, Mizushima discloses:
The computing device cluster, wherein when executed by the one or more processors, the instructions further cause the computing device cluster to obtain the plurality of to-be-compressed data blocks by: obtaining a plurality of to-be-filtered data blocks; and obtaining the plurality of to-be-compressed data blocks based on one or more to-be-filtered data blocks in the to-be-filtered data blocks that comprise similar data(Mizushima, [0050 -- The storage controller 22A generates a group in which the data cached in the cache area 203A is grouped based on a similarity degree among the data cached in the cache area 203A. ]).
As per claim 18, the rejection of claim 17 is incorporated, in addition, Mizushima discloses:
The computing device cluster, wherein when executed by the one or more processors, the instructions further cause the computing device cluster to perform deduplication on the one or more to-be-filtered data blocks to obtain the plurality of to-be-compressed data blocks(Mizushima, [0051 -- As will be described later, the storage controller 22A may perform deduplication processing before grouping the selected data and group only representative data after the processing. ]).
Claim(s) 19 is directed to CRM method steps that are implemented by the system/apparatus claims 10, 1. Therefore the corresponding mappings are incorporated.
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, 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 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.
Claim(s) 2, 11, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mizushima(2021/0191658), and further in view of Lin et al.(9367557).
Claim(s) 2 is directed to method steps that are implemented by the system/apparatus claims 10. Therefore the corresponding mappings are incorporated.
As per claim 11, the rejection of claim 10 is incorporated, in addition, Mizushima does not explicitly disclose the following, however Lin discloses:
The computing device cluster, wherein when executed by the one or more processors, the instructions further cause the computing device cluster to sequentially sort the plurality of to-be-compressed data blocks(Lin, [Col. 7 lines 24-27 -- According to one embodiment, when a file is received for compression, the file is partitioned, for example, by a chunking engine (e.g. segmenter), into multiple data chunks, which is in a first sequence order within the original file as received.]), and wherein a coding partition of a first to-be-compressed data block of the plurality of to-be-compressed data blocks comprises the first to-be-compressed data block and all to-be-compressed data blocks that are sorted before the first to-be-compressed data block(Lin, [Col. 12 lines 11-21 -- Each data entry includes at least two data fields: sketch 601 and chunk ID 602. Sketch 601 may be the actual sketch value or alternatively a sketch ID or hash value representing a sketch. Chunk ID 602 may be a fingerprint of a data chunk or may be a file handle and offset or a storage system ID indicating the location of the data chunk. Thus, data structure 600 may include a number of entries corresponding to a number of data chunks of a file. Once all of the sketches and chunk IDs have been inserted into the data entries of data structure 600, the entries are sorted based on sketches]).
Therefore it would have been obvious to a POSITA to incorporate the features of Lin into Mizushima for the benefit of greatly reducing a number of input/output (I/O) operations and increasing performance of accessing the data chunks when compression rate of the data chunks is reduced for balancing the compression rate with I/O performance as all data chunks of a particular storage area such as a compression region, are accessed together(Lin, Col. 8 lines 62-65).
Claim(s) 20 is directed to method steps that are implemented by the system/apparatus claims 10. Therefore the corresponding mappings are incorporated.
Examiner Notes
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Venkatasubbaiah et al . (20210405882); The techniques described herein are directed to a format and layout for compressed data. This format provides for container level compression, such as compression of a container as opposed to compression of a single file at a file level. The format allows for data blocks to be compressed in variable chunk sizes and using different compression algorithms without impacting any prior deduplication storage savings, and while being transparent to data management capabilities of a file system associated with the data being compressed(0013).
Conclusion
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Arvind Talukdar
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2132
/ARVIND TALUKDAR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2132
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