Prior art

The most relevant prior art for US patent 7415530, considering patents cited by the examiner or applicant, would typically be those documents that predate the earliest priority date of US7415530 (December 11, 1998, via its parent applications).

The Google Patents page for US7415530 lists a large number of "U.S. Patent Documents" under "References Cited." Due to the extensive list, providing a detailed analysis for every single citation is beyond the scope of a concise response. However, I can select a few representative examples from different time periods and inventors to illustrate the process and highlight potentially relevant prior art that predates the priority date.

The patent US7415530 explicitly states it is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 7,130,913, which is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 6,601,104. Both of these are incorporated by reference and share the earliest priority date (December 11, 1998) with US7415530 for common subject matter. While listed as "Patent citations" on Google Patents, they are generally considered family members and not anticipatory prior art in the traditional sense for claims that enjoy the shared priority date. For the purpose of this analysis, I will focus on prior art patents that are not direct family members and have an earlier filing/publication date than the earliest priority date of December 11, 1998.

Let's examine a few selected earlier patents from the "References Cited" list on Google Patents for US7415530.

Selected Most Relevant Prior Art Examples:

I will select patents by different inventors and from earlier periods to give a better overview of potential prior art.

1. U.S. Patent 4,656,591

   • Full Citation: US4656591A, "Data compression and expansion system," issued April 7, 1987, to Nakano et al.
   • Publication/Filing Date: Filed October 31, 1985; Issued April 7, 1987.
   • Brief Description: This patent describes a data compression and expansion system designed to handle large amounts of data efficiently. It utilizes dictionary-based compression, where repetitive data sequences are replaced by shorter codes (e.g., Lempel-Ziv-Welch type algorithms). The system includes a compression unit with a dictionary and an expansion unit for reconstruction.
   • Potential Anticipation for US7415530 Claims:
     • Claims 1, 10, 19, 28, 37, 46, 55, 64: These claims generally relate to methods and systems for accelerated data storage and retrieval using lossless data compression and decompression. US4656591 teaches a data compression and expansion system (decompression) which processes data to achieve more efficient storage or transmission, inherently accelerating the effective storage/retrieval when bandwidth is a bottleneck. The core idea of compressing data before storage and decompressing after retrieval to manage data volume is present.
     • Claims related to compression/decompression modules (e.g., a data storage accelerator 10 and a data retrieval accelerator 80 in Claim 1): US4656591 discloses a compression unit and an expansion unit (decompressor).

2. U.S. Patent 4,814,978

   • Full Citation: US4814978A, "Method and apparatus for compressing and decompressing data," issued March 21, 1989, to Williams.
   • Publication/Filing Date: Filed October 19, 1987; Issued March 21, 1989.
   • Brief Description: This patent describes a method and apparatus for data compression and decompression using a content-addressable memory (CAM) to identify patterns in input data. It focuses on efficiently finding and replacing frequently occurring data strings with shorter codes to reduce data size.
   • Potential Anticipation for US7415530 Claims:
     • Claims 1, 10, 19, 28, 37, 46, 55, 64: Similar to US4656591, this patent generally describes the fundamental concept of compressing data for more efficient storage/retrieval and then decompressing it. The method of using a content-addressable memory to improve compression efficiency would inherently contribute to accelerated data handling.
     • Claims related to "lossless data compression" (e.g., Claim 1, 10): The patent describes a lossless compression technique where a dictionary is used to encode data, allowing for exact reconstruction.

3. U.S. Patent 5,107,495

   • Full Citation: US5107495A, "Data compression and decompression utilizing multiple encoding algorithms," issued April 21, 1992, to Miller et al.
   • Publication/Filing Date: Filed February 26, 1990; Issued April 21, 1992.
   • Brief Description: This patent introduces a data compression and decompression system that uses multiple encoding algorithms. It selects the best compression algorithm for a given data block by evaluating the effectiveness of several algorithms, resulting in a compression type descriptor appended to the compressed data. The corresponding decompression system uses this descriptor to select the correct decoding algorithm.
   • Potential Anticipation for US7415530 Claims:
     • Claims 1, 10, 19, 28, 37, 46, 55, 64: The overall concept of accelerated data storage and retrieval through lossless compression and decompression is generally present.
     • Claims explicitly mentioning multiple encoders/decoders and selection based on compression ratio/descriptor (e.g., Claims 1, 19, and components like encoder module 25, compression ratio module 35, description module 38, decoder module 65 as described in the specification): US7415530's detailed description of its preferred embodiment in FIGS. 8 and 9, which involves "a set of encoders E1, E2, E3...En" and a "compression ratio module 35" to select the best compression, is directly anticipated by the core teachings of US5107495. This patent is highly relevant as it describes a fundamental aspect of the "system and methods for accelerated data storage and retrieval" by improving compression efficiency and reliability using multiple algorithms and selection.
     • The use of a "compression type descriptor" to indicate the encoding technique, and the corresponding use of this descriptor for decoding, is a direct teaching of US5107495 and a key feature in the detailed embodiments of US7415530.

It's important to note that many of the cited patents, especially those by Miller et al., appear frequently in the list and often deal with various aspects of data compression and decompression, suggesting a well-developed field prior to US7415530's priority date. A comprehensive obviousness analysis would require examining the specific differences between the claims of US7415530 and the disclosures of these and other cited prior art documents.