DETAILED ACTION
1. This office action is in response to application 19/287,611 filed on 7/31/2025. Claims 1-20 are pending in this office action.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
2. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Double Patenting
3. 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).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-11 of U.S. Patent No.12,430,245 in view of US 2017/0286233 (hereinafter Dain). Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the limitations in bold are the same and the differences would have been obvious to an artisan of ordinary skill in the art. For instance explicitly claiming input output operations that must necessarily occur is an obvious variation. Moreover, with respect to claim 1 Dain discloses: generate, using a global metadata reference database that stores similarity features of data associated with the plurality of cloud-based virtual storage systems, a similarity representation for received data by comparing the received data to previously stored data elements (See paragraphs 0063-0067, note when the system receives new data or backs up changed data the data deduplication process will occur including the generation of new data storage structures). It would have been obvious to an artisan of ordinary skill in the pertinent at the time the instantly claimed invention was filed to have incorporated the teaching of Dain into the system of US 12,430,245. The modification would have been obvious because the two references are concerned with the solution to problem of data deduplication (See US 12,430,245 and Dain abstract), therefore there is an implicit motivation to combine these references (i.e. motivation from the references themselves). In other words, the ordinary skilled artisan, during his/her quest for a solution to the cited problem, would look to the cited references at the time the invention was made. Consequently, the ordinary skilled artisan would have been motivated to combine the cited references since Dain’s teaching would enable users of the US 12,430,245 system to have more efficient processing.
19/287,611 US 12,430,245
1. A system for data reduction across different cloud-based storage systems, the system comprising: a plurality of cloud-based virtual storage systems implementing one or more virtual controllers, wherein the cloud-based virtual storage systems store data in one or more backend storage resources; and one or more virtual drive servers that include a plurality of virtual drives having local instance stores; the system being configured to: generate, using a global metadata reference database that stores similarity features of data associated with the plurality of cloud-based virtual storage systems, a similarity representation for received data by comparing the received data to previously stored data elements; perform one or more global data reduction processes on the received data together with the at least one of the previously stored data elements based on the similarity representation to generate reduced data; and store the reduced data.
1. A system comprising: a plurality of cloud-based virtual storage systems implementing one or more virtual controllers, wherein the virtual storage systems store data in one or more backend storage resources; and one or more virtual drive servers that include a plurality of virtual drives having local instance stores; a global metadata reference database storing references to the data, wherein the one or more virtual drive servers can access the global metadata reference database; the system being configured to: perform one or more global data reduction processes on the data using one or more global databases that represent the data associated with the plurality of cloud-based virtual storage systems, wherein the one or more global data reduction processes comprise determining that a data element in the global metadata reference database is associated with two or more virtual drive servers.
2. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is further configured to perform the one or more global data reduction processes using the one or more virtual drive servers.
2. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is further configured to perform the one or more global data reduction processes using the one or more virtual drive servers.
3. The system of claim 1, wherein the data includes two or more data elements whose similarity to each other satisfies a similarity threshold, wherein the two or more data elements are stored by different virtual storage systems.
3. The system of claim 1, wherein the data includes two or more data elements whose similarity to each other satisfies a similarity threshold, wherein the two or more data elements are stored by different virtual storage systems.
4. The system of claim 1, wherein performing the one or more global data reduction processes includes performing a global garbage collection process using a global metadata reference database storing references to the data, and wherein the system is further configured to: determine that a data element stored in the one or more backend storage resources is referenced by two or more virtual drive servers; and in response to the determination, delay the global garbage collection process until at least one of the two or more virtual drive servers has issued an instruction to store the data element at a different location than a previous storage location.
4. The system of claim 1, wherein performing the one or more global data reduction processes includes performing a global garbage collection process, comprising: in response to determining that the data element in the global metadata reference database is associated with two or more virtual drive servers, delaying the global garbage collection process until at least one of the two or more virtual drive servers has issued an instruction to store the data element at a different location that a previous storage location.
5. The system of claim 4, wherein performing the global garbage collection process further comprises: storing an identifier of a virtual drive server of the two or more virtual drive servers; determining that an amount of data to be garbage-collected from a data structure of the one or more backend storage resources satisfies a threshold; and based on the determination: migrating at least a portion of the data stored by the data structure to another data structure; and garbage-collecting the data structure.
5. The system of claim 4, wherein performing the global garbage collection process further comprises: storing an identifier of a virtual drive server of the two or more virtual drive servers; determining that an amount of data to be garbage-collected from a data structure of the one or more backend storage resources satisfies a threshold; and based on the determination: migrating at least a portion of the data stored by the data structure to another data structure; and garbage-collecting the data structure.
6. The system of claim 4, wherein the global metadata reference database includes a global fingerprint database storing data fingerprints for the data, and wherein performing the one or more global data reduction processes further comprises: determining, using the global fingerprint database, that new data received via an I/O operation was previously stored in the one or more backend storage resources; and based on the determination: storing a reference to the new data in the global metadata reference database; and preventing storage of the new data in the one or more backend storage resources.
6. The system of claim 4, wherein the one or more global databases includes a global fingerprint database storing data fingerprints for the data, and wherein performing the one or more global data reduction processes further comprises: determining, using the global fingerprint database, that new data received via an I/O operation was previously stored in one or more of the backend storage resources; and based on the determination: storing a reference to the new data in the global metadata reference database; and preventing storage of the new data in one or more of the backend storage resources.
7. The system of claim 6, wherein the system is further configured to: determine that a first portion of the new data was not previously stored in the one or more backend storage resources; and based on the determination: store the first portion of the new data in the one or more backend storage resources; and store a reference to a remainder of the new data excluding the first portion in the global metadata reference database.
7. The system of claim 6, wherein the system comprises: determining that a first portion of the new data was not previously stored in one or more of the backend storage resources; and based on the determination: storing the first portion of the new data in one or more of the backend storage resources; and storing a reference to a remainder of the new data excluding the first portion in the global metadata reference database.
8. The system of claim 6, wherein the global metadata reference database includes a global compression table that stores compression metadata for the data, and wherein performing the one or more global data reduction processes further comprises: determining, using the global compression table, that new data being received via an I/O operation is similar to one or more previously received data elements; based on the determination: compressing the new data with the one or more previously received data elements; and based on the compressing, storing a compression result in the one or more backend storage resources.
8. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more global data reduction processes on the data comprises similarity compression.
9. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is further configured to perform one or more of deduplication or compression using one or more of the local instance stores before transferring written data to the one or more backend storage resources.
9. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is further configured to perform one or more of deduplication or compression using one or more of the local instance stores before transferring written data to the one or more backend storage resources.
10. The system of claim 9, wherein the system is further configured to perform one or more of the deduplication or the compression during a process of transferring the written data to the one or more backend storage resources, without writing the data to one or more of the local instance stores.
10. The system of claim 9, wherein the system is further configured to perform one or more of the deduplication or the compression during a process of transferring the written data to the one or more backend storage resources, without writing the data to one or more of the local instance stores.
11. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more backend storage resources includes one or more of object-based storage resources or block-based storage resources.
11. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more backend storage resources includes one or more of object-based storage resources or block-based storage resources.
Claims 12-16 are method claims substantially corresponding to the system of claims 1, 2 and 5-11 and are thus rejected for the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claims 1, 2 and 5-11.
Claims 17-20 are non-transitory computer readable medium claims substantially corresponding to the system of claims 1, 5, 6 and 7 and are thus rejected for the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claims 1, 5, 6 and 7.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
4. 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.
(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, 2, 3, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Dain.
As for claim 1 Dain discloses: A system for data reduction across different cloud-based storage systems, the system comprising: a plurality of cloud-based virtual storage systems implementing one or more virtual controllers (See paragraphs 0034-0036 note the backup module controls the deduplication/data reduction process), wherein the cloud-based virtual storage systems store data in one or more backend storage resources; and one or more virtual drive servers that include a plurality of virtual drives having local instance stores (See paragraphs 0034 and note the local data repositories are the backend to the cloud); the system being configured to: generate, using a global metadata reference database that stores similarity features of data associated with the plurality of cloud-based virtual storage systems, a similarity representation for received data by comparing the received data to previously stored data elements (See paragraphs 0063-0067, note when the system receives new data or backs up changed data the data deduplication process will occur) ; perform one or more global data reduction processes on the received data together with the at least one of the previously stored data elements based on the similarity representation to generate reduced data (See paragraphs 0037-0039 note data is compared for deduplication based on similarity); and store the reduced data (See paragraphs 0009 and 0037 note the new data is stored) .
As for claim 2 the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further Dain discloses: wherein the system is further configured to perform the one or more global data reduction processes using the one or more virtual drive servers (See paragraph 0036 note virtual devices can be used to implement the modules within the system).
As for claim 3 the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further Dain discloses: wherein the data includes two or more data elements whose similarity to each other satisfies a similarity threshold, wherein the two or more data elements are stored by different virtual storage systems (See paragraph 0065 note when the data is backed up the similarity threshold for storage is calculated).
As for claim 9 the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further Dain discloses: wherein the system is further configured to perform one or more of deduplication or compression using one or more of the local instance stores before transferring written data to the one or more backend storage resources (See paragraph 0054 note the system will use both compression and deduplication during the process to conserve resources).
As for claim 10 the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further Dain discloses: wherein the system is further configured to perform one or more of the deduplication or the compression during a process of transferring the written data to the one or more backend storage resources, without writing the data to one or more of the local instance stores resources (See paragraph 0054 note the system will use both compression and deduplication during the process to conserve resources).
As for claim 11 the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further Dain discloses: wherein the one or more backend storage resources includes one or more of object-based storage resources or block-based storage resources (See paragraphs 0034-0036 note the local data repositories are the backend to the cloud).
Claims 12 and 13 are method claims substantially corresponding to the system of claims 1 and 2 and are thus rejected for the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claims 1 and 2.
Claims 17 and 18 are non-transitory computer readable medium claims substantially corresponding to the system of claims 1 and 2 and are thus rejected for the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claims 1 and 2.
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Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ELIYAH STONE HARPER whose telephone number is (571)272-0759. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 10:00 am - 6:00 pm.
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/Eliyah S. Harper/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2166 September 1, 2026
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