Appeal No. 2004-1190
Application No. 09/286,160
mirroring.” Thus, we find that Massiglia contemplates that the striping and
mirroring can be performed by different devices (a host and controller), or they
can be performed by the same device (either a host or the disk system).
However, we do not find that Massiglia teaches the use of a front-end controller
which performs both striping and generating a mirror, with more than one back-
end controller connected to the front-end controller. That is, we do not find that
Massiglia teaches that when one device performs both striping and mirroring, a
plurality of back end controllers are also used.
We find that Khosrowpour teaches a redundant system that makes use of
two RAID controllers. The second RAID controller is used if the first RAID
controller fails. See column 1, lines 38-51. Khosrowpour also teaches that the
RAID controllers perform both striping and mirroring. See column 5, lines 30-35.
We find that the stated purpose of Khosrowpour, to improve reliability by
providing redundant controllers, provides motivation to modify Massiglia to use
redundant controllers. However, we do not find that the use of redundant
controllers in Massiglia meets the claimed front-end controller, which performs
both striping and generating a mirror, and which is connected to more than one
back-end controllers. Thus, we do not find that the combination of the references
teaches all of the limitations of the independent claims. Accordingly, we will not
sustain the examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, 4 through 8, 11 through 16 and 18
through 20.
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