Prior art

Here's an analysis of the most relevant prior art for US patent 7587430, based on the provided patent text and a simulated search for the cited reference:

Patent Under Analysis: US7587430B2 - "Backup system for data base"

Most Relevant Prior Art Identified:

The provided patent text for US7587430B2 directly references one patent in its background section: JP 2004-78746 A.

• Full Citation: JP 2004-78746 A

• Publication/Filing Date: The specific publication date for JP 2004-78746 A was not directly retrievable through the allowed search methods. However, it is cited as prior art in US7587430B2, which has a "Prior art date" of 2006-02-28, indicating that JP 2004-78746 A was published prior to this date.

• Brief Description (as described in US7587430B2): This reference describes a known storage system that has a function of copying data between two storage systems (referred to as "remote copy") by transferring the data via a network.

• Potential Anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102:
  Based on the description of JP 2004-78746 A provided in the background of US7587430B2, this prior art reference does not appear to anticipate any of the claims of US7587430B2.

  The core inventive concept of US7587430B2, as defined by its independent claims (e.g., Claims 1, 9, 18, 24, 30, 33, 38), revolves around the specific combination of:

  1. An "unnecessary information removing unit" for overwriting unused areas in updated data with a preset character or value.
  2. A "network device" with a "data compression unit" specifically designed to efficiently compress a succession of the same value.
  3. The application of these components in a database backup system, particularly for synchronizing databases over narrow-band networks, often after events like log-less batch processing or line failures.

  JP 2004-78746 A, as described, only discloses the broad concept of a "remote copy function" to copy data between storage systems over a network. It lacks any mention of:

  • The specific mechanism of identifying and overwriting "unused areas" within database pages with uniform data (e.g., zeros).
  • The integration of such a data pre-processing step with a compression unit that leverages repetitive data for enhanced compression ratios.
  • The context of optimizing data transfer for database synchronization over narrow-band networks to reduce costs and time, which is the problem US7587430B2 explicitly aims to solve.

  Therefore, while JP 2004-78746 A describes a general remote copy functionality, it does not disclose all the elements of any claim in US7587430B2, particularly the novel combination of data cleaning for compression optimization.