database comprises a data used by computer system talking about what is inside a database there's no dispute about that but the patent goes on and describes in every claim requires that the database is accessed by a database server so the bank is talking about conventional databases as provided by the companies they're identified in column by for a  microsoft is all databases that are structured organized collections of data that are optimized for searching and retrieve people and their access through a database server as the patent describes and in that context the notion of a database log is a well known concept and there's really no dispute about this in the evidence in the record treatises like professor molina's book database systems to complete book describe this idea the documentation from every database provider reference in the patent describes a database block or a database page has a known concept is the logical unit  to the database server used to read and write to the database and to do that that has to be defined by the database server and it has to include metadata that the database server uses to interpret that block of data and put it into the right place in the organized structure and that's what exactly what you know it's a pattern to find a database block so and there's you know a blocks at all and so you can't define the balance of a database block based on a reference it doesn't even talk about a database block and so the claim term is database lock questions first point on that is the patent made very clear that the database locks exists in the stories database system from which they are transferred to this database storage system to create the virtual there's nothing in the pattern that would suggest that the contents of the database block changes depending on how they are transferred there's no reason to say that the board talks about you could pass them with metadata for the and said figure one of those trades one embodiment for how information may be copied from a production database to a database storage system and then the board puts in a little to the dog using file sharing system but if you look at what the patch actually says it says and provisioned as virtual databases using a file sharing system to the board left out the part that actually talks about how the foster system is which that in all cases and this is farther down column six around line twenty eight says the production database system one ten response by sending information is stored in the the database files can become the files to be copied have defined boundaries and known structures as referring to that what they call the file sharing the bottom end and database block stored in the files can be accessed directly and that seemed to indicate that interface module and the pattern explains that the vendor interface module essentially an add on to the database server provided by a vendor like oracle example the time uses oracle farming which stands for recovery manager that is a way to read the database blocks from the production database and output them to some back that describes at all that there is not metadata in those blocks or that the blocks are somehow different when they're read through this vendor interface module or through the database server all that is talking about is at the data base blocks can come from not to live production database that you're running to run your business but a copy of it right and this is actually referring to the snapshots you database clunks are really what this net app prior art is about if you run your production database and use a net app storage system for production database you can create the snapshots and clo different or that this process operates any differently whether you're reading the live production database or a copy because there's another thing that the for just kind of misquote and i want to get through and it might get it to judges hughes's a question about the breadth of databases so the board kind of goes off repeatedly on the statement that the patent says it applies first going to the point you know which is  to the term production database is used in particular examples to illustrate a useful application of the technology however it can be appreciated if it ted needs to disclose can be used for  database regardless of whether the database is used as a production database all this is saying is that the primary dampener we talk about the source being the production database that you can use a non production database and file system is to hide how data is stored on good from applications like databases so they don't need to understand and there is a the experts agree there is  boundary line there a database cannot figure out and does not get access to the blocks units of data that a file system uses on disk and the file system doesn't get access to the database log it doesn't know anything about the database blocks that are used by the database and that's confirmed both by both experts but also the oracle documentation and the molinas treatise on database systems so once that kind of technical this feud is clarified and words of the definition of the eight zero eight database block is applied there's if you have a virtual server is decoupling the physical implementation you're sharing a common piece of hardware through software but the applications are run on it can't tell the difference right the for successful virtualization the thing that is using the virtual resources can't tell the difference and that's what happens here now instead it p j r came up with its own constructions of thoughts about mapping files to the physical address but mapping it files to a physical address is what all file systems do write going back forty years to unix write they use this same system  saying that that covers compressing at some point in the pa decompressing and then storing just turned six when i'm on its head right it can't mean that some point in the history of the piece of data it was source database to a second site and that is all net have to do because net out operates at the physical file system level so every block on disk it's replicated from the first site to the second site can snap in here so you can never have a point in time copying your second site that you didn't also save your first sight but it also means is the physical implementation of those two sets of files asked to be identical block for block identical so if your source database is not compressed you cannot mirror it storing compressed data also described encrypted or in the case of sensitive data like social security numbers you can mask those out when you storm on your virtual database system so that we do testing and development you don't expose confidential about is that several popular commercial relational databases have database blocks or pages that at least in some cases have met a data now there's also evidence that many databases have not of data but not necessarily in the database blocks and the google example the big table is a great example of that the google reference explains that it has and it calls them blocks it doesn't use the exact term database block but has blocks of data and enormous amount of data same database used for the google and exchange when you do google searches and it explains that there is mehta data that is stored ext arnel to those blocks and that was an example that was cited by active feo the petitioners expert doctors out ect and that that rebuts the idea that all data bases necessarily have met a data in the flock we would agree that generally speaking with a large database not a data it's going to make it easier to determine where these blocks go the pattern talks about taking blocks from one server to another virtualizing the metadata will certainly help with that but the question here is x appears in only one of the three patents that are at issue and yet delphic has argued that there should be a consistent interpretation across it does not appear in the claims it appears only sporadically in the spec and some of those  specification referenced matter data stored in other places such as in a file and not in the block in addition the stack consistently describes the matter data as being associated with the block which the board correctly pointed out doesn't require it to be on the block it could certainly be somewhere else and still be associated with the block of that statement and call into looks rather than definition well it says not definition so if you look at that statement in isolation i would agree that certainly seems probative a database blocks that storm at a data but what the borg dead and what is appropriate under this court's precedents look at the specification as a whole and the specification as a whole has the examples i just gave us well as the file sharing and body men as well as the streaming and also critically the file sharing so the answer is they interpret in the blocks and column thirteen where council referred us to earlier actually talks about the file sharing example being perfect for situations when the database server does not support appropriate a p i is for extracting the necessary information and then talks are going on and be able to move the data and again it talks about i met a data associated with the blocks and a different portion of the specification i think is really relevant here in the eight zero eight comment and if we look at column thirty one presented as a single component may be implemented as separate components so to the extent that it's not clear whether or not in all cases one must include the metadata in the database block particularly where it's not the cited in the claim the patentee seems to have told us if you if the patent says you could do it with one unit you could do it with two units which i should point out is undisputed net app prior art does have not a data to add words reference which is the primary i think the examples of four kilobytes where you have the the file system block and the database block it's being stored there on be the same size in which case virtually all of blocks would have met a data but in any event there is no dispute that at least in some cases there are some blocks in the prior art that contain metadata now another point that was made earlier was about the database server and how you need to have a database server and we would certainly agree that the claims do express a reciting a server but they do it in a different limitation in a way claim one it's in the last limitation about mounting the virtual databases on verge on a database server and there's been no dispute that that claim was tied by the blocks that include databases which can then be mounted on whether it's microsoft sequel server or oracle or any other program that people may often think of as a database but when we talk about database stack does have a definition is very broad it says a database is data stored in a computer for use by computer implemented applications and although delphic has tried to walk away from that their own expert dr should know i said that a database is a collection of data that is organized so that it can be easily access managed or updated which is exactly what the net out file system is now turning to the  argument of the virtual database term it seems at the heart of dell fixes argument with the board on this point is that the board did not use the term decoupling and i think the easiest approach for this court be to look at what is actually meant by the cup when and whether that would have any impact on the obviousness finding and i submit that it would not the primary reason in my view that the board in my reading of the board's decision that they rejected that the end of the day if we look at the expert declarations the evidence of the prior art and also the patent what is really meant by virtual which is the term in the claim of possibly by decoupling is that there's some level of filed blocks in which it organizes the data that is ultimately stored to a lot of physical storage device of some sort and all fix has pointed out that you also have blocks that can exist in what we might traditionally think of as a database something like references teach that you could use the net app to store replicate mirror etc database of data databases in these file blocks and the argument was in the board noted and agree that in but there's no where in and it seems like they're talking about when they speak to analyzing the mitigator of data for at least walk us that seems to be almost another definitional point it's consistent with the language in the spec that we themselves to mend it that's my point and if that's the case my third point would be that these points don't track back directly to for example claim one but rather through claim capable of being mapped to physical addresses or stored database blocks associated with another database and this mapping which is using the pointers to point back to where the files are actually stored is what everyone seems to agree is meant by underlying physical storage media that sounds an awful lot like the construction that's being argued by dell fix and then if we turn from there to the edwards reference which again is is really for them one of the primary references that was relied upon across case i apologise seventy five twelve the second page says by implementing a level of interaction between physical storage containers called aggregates and logical volumes flexible volumes we virtualize the allocation of volumes on physical storage allowing multiple independently managed file bohemians along with their snapshot copies to share the same storage this virtual database term is not something that was new and i don't believe invented virtualization or virtual databases but claims require a lot more and generally what they seem to require is that you have a source database of production database you copy that to a new location multiple times reflecting multiple points in time as that database changed and then you set up one or more virtual databases that all share that same copy data but that's not the virtual that is the virtual database term  ed in that plane as a whole is just talking about this mapping we have pointers that allow multiple databases to all reference the same underlying storage which has a lot of a fish and sees given the needs of computer resources storage limitations that's outre and it seems that all agree that that is here so decoupling term in our view is simply an unclear term but to the extent that it means what experts said it means it seems that that is clearly taught in the art delphic has also argued that there have to be various actions by the database server that are incorporated into the definition of  virtual database and the board disagrees with that i'm explaining that the database is the that's the files themselves that's the data you have a database system and that incorporates a server which is software that operates on that da but that's something different and it's also reciting separately in the claims and i get in for example and claim one of the eight oh wait the last limitation talks about mounting that out of base on a database server and that allows the database server whether all databases at the time necessarily had met a data in the database walks which went to the point about whether there was some common order understood meaning separate and apart from the patent and the board did make factual findings that i think preferred twenty sixty three sixty four sixty five and sixty nine sincerely apologize i do not have a reference here i believe that at least one of the board decisions but there is reference to that but in any event there is  concession from dell fix that it is the case at least in some circumstances there will be data blocks that contain not a data and in the reply brief there is also referenced this on page twenty four in the reply brief in the twenty sixty three case talking about the fact that net apps file system blocks may incidentally contain some database metadata and it goes on to make you know their arguments why they don't think that metadata corresponds with the file blocks lines t so we are here as we are statutorily authorized to do to defend the determination of the board or if you let him handle too while not required to but in the interests of defending what we believe to have been a correct determination by the board regarding the patent ability of these three particular patents we are here given the fact that active if you go has stepped aside and was not participating in the they decided not to come in then well i'm aware that we have not intervened in every appeal on this judge or as you point out statute doesn't require us to intervene in every appeal and that particular decision  data blocks it says compressing prior to storing but if i just may make a very brief point and that is that the board before doing that observed that it would have been obvious and he had to combine compression with the other methods and court have to overturn the decision and the answer is yes and there is no alternative finding by the feet that he's found to be invalid under either of the constructions proposed by d director is making today to make you are on that database block argument that somehow a file system block could happen to have some of the metadata from a database block that that doesn't work and doesn't work for two construction in the database block task to be used by the database and once you do use a false equivalence of file system with the database that fails undisputed evidence is that net out blocks are not used by databases not exposed to the database database doesn't know they exist to know what structure they have to know what size they are knows nothing about them so they cannot be the required database couple that representation of the file when he says he snapped in your process that's also why you can't mirrored the data stored in compressed form is just copying block to block from diff to disk and this notion that he uses pointers and somehow that's the same virtualization that creates a virtual database in the past it's just wrong what the director quotes in its brief about the  wrong i know it's pointing to data blocks is and this is in the net out references that is what they copied from unix that's been around for forty years that's all file systems find data stored on disk it has nothing storing the data in a press form snappier won't do it you can't it has to be exactly the data that was on the source and so that's why the obviousness argument doesn't even hold up one of the point i just want to go back