Patent 7117302

Prior art

Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.

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Prior art

Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.

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US Patent 7117302, titled "Boot techniques involving tape media," has several patent citations that serve as prior art. I will analyze each, providing the requested details and potential anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102.

US Patent 7117302's Filing and Publication Dates:

  • Filing Date: 2005-02-28
  • Publication Date: 2006-10-03

For the purpose of 35 U.S.C. § 102, we generally compare the prior art's effective date (e.g., filing date, publication date) to the filing date of the patent under review.

Here is an analysis of the most relevant prior art cited in US7117302:

1. US5373485A

  • Full Citation: US5373485A, Minnesota Mining And Manufacturing Company, "Method for locating data in a data cartridge system"
  • Publication/Filing Date: Priority date: 1991-09-03, Publication date: 1994-12-13
  • Brief Description: This patent describes a method for locating data within a data cartridge system, which is fundamental to accessing specific information on tape media.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102):
    • This patent broadly relates to data access on tape, which is a prerequisite for any boot from tape. While it doesn't explicitly describe "boot techniques" or a "flexible header" as in Claim 1, it establishes the basic concept of locating data on a tape. Therefore, it may anticipate general aspects of tape data access relevant to a booting process, but not the specific innovative features of 7117302.
    • Specifically, it might be considered general background art rather than anticipating the specific header structure or multi-boot features of Claim 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. It might anticipate the underlying concept of "identifies locations of files" in Claim 1, but only at a very high, abstract level, without disclosing the specific means (the header fields described in 7117302). It would not anticipate the "plurality of different boot techniques" or the specific header frames.

2. WO2000008561A1

  • Full Citation: WO2000008561A1, Hewlett-Packard Company, "System backup and recovery"
  • Publication/Filing Date: Priority date: 1998-08-07, Publication date: 2000-02-17
  • Brief Description: This international publication describes a system for backup and recovery, which is a common use case for tape media, often involving booting a system for restoration.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102):
    • The "system backup and recovery" aspect directly relates to the application of boot tapes for system recovery mentioned in the background of US7117302. However, the title alone doesn't suggest the "plurality of different boot techniques" or the extensible header as claimed in US7117302. It's broadly related to the problem US7117302 aims to solve, which is system recovery.
    • It could potentially anticipate Claim 1 regarding a tape memory enabling a computer to "recover data after a system crash" (as stated in the description of 7117302 for element 200, which claim 1 refers to). However, it wouldn't anticipate the specific header structure or the "plurality of different boot techniques" unless disclosed within the document itself, which is not evident from the citation details provided. It would not anticipate Claim 2-6, 8-11. It might relate to the general purpose of booting for recovery in Claim 7, but without the specific header features.

3. US6085318A

  • Full Citation: US6085318A, Compaq Computer Corporation, "Computer system capable of booting from CD-ROM and tape"
  • Publication/Filing Date: Priority date: 1993-09-10, Publication date: 2000-07-04
  • Brief Description: This patent describes a computer system that can boot from both CD-ROM and tape, directly addressing a common challenge in system booting, and the background of US7117302 mentions prior art that stores a CD-ROM image on tape to simulate a CD-ROM device.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102):
    • This is a highly relevant piece of prior art. The title "Computer system capable of booting from CD-ROM and tape" directly addresses booting from tape, which is central to US7117302.
    • It very strongly anticipates Claim 2 ("tape memory supports direct booting techniques and non-direct booting techniques") if its booting from tape is considered "direct" and booting from a simulated CD-ROM on tape is "non-direct," or if it teaches both direct tape boot and other methods.
    • It also highly anticipates Claim 5 ("firmware that enables the tape device to simulate being a non-tape device") and Claim 6 ("wherein the non-tape device is one of a CD device and a DVD device") because US7117302 explicitly states in its background that "Another tape-based system recovery technique stores a compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM) image on the tape and uses a tape drive to simulate a CD-ROM device during a system boot." This aligns directly with the title of US6085318A.
    • It would also anticipate the concept of a computer being "configured to boot using at least one of the plurality of boot techniques" in Claim 7, as booting from both CD-ROM and tape implies multiple boot techniques.
    • However, it's not clear from the title if it teaches the flexible, extensible header of Claim 1, or the support for *multiple different boot techniques *via that header's information frames, or the EFI compatibility (Claim 4, 8), or supporting different OS/applications (Claim 9, 10, 11).

4. US20020095537A1

  • Full Citation: US20020095537A1, Hewlett-Packard Company, "Block size masking on tape data storage devices for improved performance"
  • Publication/Filing Date: Priority date: 2001-01-18, Publication date: 2002-07-18
  • Brief Description: This publication discusses techniques for block size masking on tape data storage devices, aimed at improving performance. This relates to the physical and logical organization of data on tape.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102):
    • This patent is related to the underlying technical implementation of tape devices, specifically how data blocks are managed.
    • It might generally relate to the concept of a "bootloader block size" field (318) in the header (Claim 1, sub-element of the header description in 7117302). However, it does not appear to disclose the use of such block size information within a header for enabling multiple boot techniques or the specific header structure of Claim 1. It is more about performance optimization of block size rather than enabling flexible booting. It does not appear to anticipate any of claims 1-11 directly in terms of the inventive aspects of US7117302.

5. US6490677B1

  • Full Citation: US6490677B1, International Business Machines Corporation, "Method and system for automatically configuring the boot process of a computer having multiple bootstrap programs within a network computer system"
  • Publication/Filing Date: Priority date: 1999-09-16, Publication date: 2002-12-03
  • Brief Description: This patent describes automatically configuring the boot process for a computer with multiple bootstrap programs within a network. This addresses flexibility in booting but focuses on network environments and multiple bootstrap programs, which are types of bootloaders.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102):
    • This is highly relevant due to its focus on "automatically configuring the boot process" and "multiple bootstrap programs."
    • It directly relates to "a plurality of different boot techniques" (Claim 1) and the idea of "bootloaders" (Claim 1, third information frame). The concept of having "multiple bootstrap programs" strongly suggests support for "different boot techniques."
    • It could potentially anticipate the "bootloader file number" field (316) and "bootloader total size" field (320) of the header, as these would be necessary to identify and load different bootstrap programs (Claim 1, specific header fields).
    • The "network computer system" context suggests a different primary storage medium (network boot), but the concept of managing multiple bootloaders for flexible booting is very similar to what US7117302 aims for with tape.
    • It also strongly anticipates Claim 9 ("tape device is implemented by a tape drive coupled to a plurality of computers having different operating systems, the plurality of computers are configured to boot using different bootloaders supported by the tape device") by teaching the management of multiple bootstrap programs (bootloaders) for different systems, even if its context is network rather than directly tape. The core idea of "different bootloaders supported" is present.
    • Similarly, it could anticipate Claim 10 ("plurality of computers... configured to boot based on different boot applications supported by the tape device") since different bootloaders often correspond to different boot applications or operating systems.

6. US20030110370A1

  • Full Citation: US20030110370A1, Fish Andrew J., "Supporting legacy operating system booting in a legacy-free system"
  • Publication/Filing Date: Priority date: 2001-12-11, Publication date: 2003-06-12
  • Brief Description: This publication addresses the challenge of supporting legacy operating system booting in modern, "legacy-free" systems, highlighting the need for compatibility with various OS requirements.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102):
    • This patent is relevant to the problem statement in US7117302, which mentions "The requirements of different operating systems and recovery applications place differing demands on the format of boot tapes." and "some operating systems expect tape media to be labeled while other operating systems do not handle labeling well."
    • The concept of "supporting legacy operating system booting" directly relates to the "plurality of different boot techniques" (Claim 1) and the flexibility required for "different operating systems" (Claim 9).
    • It implicitly supports the idea of "extensible format that supports at least one of operating system changes" (Claim 11) and "extensible support to changing boot techniques" (Claim 3) by acknowledging the need to accommodate older systems with newer ones.
    • The patent US7117302 also mentions its tape device supporting both "old (e.g., legacy) methods and new methods." This prior art clearly teaches the problem and a solution for accommodating legacy systems. However, it doesn't specify the tape-based header solution of US7117302.

7. US20050114387A1

  • Full Citation: US20050114387A1, Evans Rhys W., "Data backup and recovery"
  • Publication/Filing Date: Priority date: 2003-10-31, Publication date: 2005-05-26
  • Brief Description: This publication describes a system for data backup and recovery, similar to WO2000008561A1, but with a later filing date.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102):
    • This is another broad "backup and recovery" patent. Similar to WO2000008561A1, it addresses the general application area of US7117302 but without specific details about a flexible, multi-boot tape header.
    • It would relate to the ability of the tape device to "recover data after a system 'crash'" as described in US7117302 for the tape device (200), which is an application of a bootable tape.
    • It may potentially anticipate aspects of Claim 1 related to the general purpose of boot/recovery, but not the specific header structure for managing "plurality of different boot techniques." It is unlikely to anticipate Claims 2-6, 8-11. It might relate to the general purpose of booting for recovery in Claim 7, but without the specific header features.

8. US6718410B2

  • Full Citation: US6718410B2, Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.C., "System for transferring data in a CD image format size of a host computer and storing the data to a tape medium in a format compatible with streaming"
  • Publication/Filing Date: Priority date: 2001-01-18, Publication date: 2004-04-06
  • Brief Description: This patent describes transferring data in a CD image format to a tape medium, and storing it in a streaming-compatible format. This explicitly deals with CD images on tape.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102):
    • This is highly relevant. It directly teaches storing data in a "CD image format" onto "tape medium." US7117302 explicitly mentions "storing a compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM) image on the tape and uses a tape drive to simulate a CD-ROM device during a system boot" in its background as a prior art technique.
    • This patent therefore strongly anticipates Claim 2 ("tape memory supports direct booting techniques and non-direct booting techniques") if storing a CD-ROM image on tape for booting is considered a "non-direct" technique as described in US7117302.
    • It also directly anticipates Claim 5 ("firmware that enables the tape device to simulate being a non-tape device") and Claim 6 ("wherein the non-tape device is one of a CD device and a DVD device") because it teaches storing CD image format data on tape, which is a prerequisite for a tape device to simulate a CD device. US7117302 explicitly states "the CD-ROM image 214 is provided to enable tape boot methods that are compatible with CD-ROM images to be used with the tape device 200."
    • Similar to US6085318A, it relates to the concept of supporting multiple boot mechanisms. However, it doesn't clearly teach the flexible, extensible header of Claim 1, nor the EFI-specifics of Claims 4 and 8, or the broad multi-OS/application support of Claims 9-11 through such a header.

Summary of Most Relevant Prior Art:

Based on the analysis, US6085318A ("Computer system capable of booting from CD-ROM and tape") and US6718410B2 ("System for transferring data in a CD image format size of a host computer and storing the data to a tape medium in a format compatible with streaming") are highly relevant as they directly disclose booting from tape and/or using CD-ROM images on tape for booting, which are explicitly mentioned as existing techniques that US7117302 aims to improve upon or be compatible with. These two patents directly address features found in Claims 2, 5, 6, and 7.

US6490677B1 ("Method and system for automatically configuring the boot process of a computer having multiple bootstrap programs within a network computer system") is also highly relevant due to its teaching of managing "multiple bootstrap programs" for flexible booting, which relates closely to Claim 1 (plurality of boot techniques, bootloader location) and Claims 9 and 10 (different bootloaders/applications for different computers). While its context is network booting, the underlying principle of managing diverse boot options is strong.

US20030110370A1 ("Supporting legacy operating system booting in a legacy-free system") is relevant to the problem of accommodating different operating system requirements, which is a motivation for the flexible header of US7117302 and implicitly relates to Claims 3 and 11, though it does not teach the tape-specific solution.

The other patents (US5373485A, WO2000008561A1, US20020095537A1, US20050114387A1) are more general in their scope concerning tape data access or backup/recovery, serving as foundational or contextual prior art rather than directly anticipating the core inventive concepts of US7117302 related to its flexible, multi-boot tape header.

The distinguishing features of US7117302 over this prior art appear to be the specific header structure (Claim 1), particularly its explicit information frames for identifying supported boot techniques and bootloader locations, and its extensibility to support future techniques and OS/application changes (Claim 1, 3, 11), as well as explicit EFI compatibility (Claim 4, 8) in the context of a bootable tape with a flexible header.

Generated 7/4/2026, 6:45:47 AM