Appeal 2007-1951
Application 10/120,016
accordingly whereas the snapshot inode tree does not change
and it refers to the blocks of disk space where the unmodified
existing data remains. (Col. 18, ll. 24- 39, see also example
shown in figure 18 A-C and described in col. 18-19).
5. The system is consistent at all times. (Col. 20-15-31).
6. Hitz repeatedly states that the system does not overwrite data
but writes to unused blocks of the disk. By not overwriting
the disk is kept in a self-consistent state. (Col. 11, l. 65- col.
12, l. 9, col. 19, ll. 18-33, col. 20, ll. 4-6, col. 23, ll. 35-37).
7. Siddha teaches a method of taking snapshots of data to
maintain a data backup. (Abstract, and first paragraph under
heading 1.1).
8. Siddha teaches that the method of taking snapshots uses a
copy on write system. Before a block is modified, the
contents of the block are copied to a block at another location
and then the block is overwritten with the changed data.
(Second and third paragraph under heading 1.1 and figure 1).
ANALYSIS
We find that the Examiner erred in holding that it would have been
obvious to modify Hitz such that in response to a write of new data to a
section of stored data, the data existing in the section is first copied to
another section, and then the data is written to the section. Claim 1 recites
“in response to a write of new data to a section of the stored data pointed to
by a pointer of the table of the virtual storage area, copying the section of
stored data to a section of the at least one other storage area prior to the
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