Invalidity dossier
US 6047353
Method and apparatus for monitoring of host activities relating to an attached storage device
Current assignee: EMC Corp
Added 9/23/2026, 8:24:25 PM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 6047353 A
Title: Method and apparatus for monitoring of host activities relating to an attached storage device
Patent number / application: US 6047353 A; application US08/822,388
Inventors: Natan Vishlitzky, Erez Ofer, Eli Shagam, David Shadmon
Assignee: EMC Corporation (original assignee); current assignee listed as EMC Corp
Key dates: Filed 1997-05-07; priority 1997-05-07; granted/published 2000-04-04; anticipated expiration 2017-05-07. Status listed as Expired – Lifetime.
Purpose. The invention addresses the difficulty of diagnosing operational errors in complex, cache-based storage systems (for example, EMC's SYMMETRIX® systems, described as arrays of disks with host controllers, disk controllers, and a large shared memory). Because data moves among many controllers and devices, faults can be hard to diagnose, and prior host-side trace information was routed only to a host display or host log file, making correlation with internal storage-system events difficult.
Plain-language scope. The patent describes a "host initiated trace facility" that lets a user or application on a host computer connected to a storage system enable and review a recorded event history of storage-system operation. A trace buffer resides in globally accessible memory inside the storage system and includes a table for each logical device. The host issues a "host-trace command" to the storage system, which may be implemented using a SCSI write buffer command built by the host. In response, the storage system inserts records into the trace buffer, including fields for the identity of the issuing host application, the time the command was issued, and the number of times a host accessed the device. The host can later read the buffer (SCSI read buffer command) to compare recorded accesses against actual accesses, debug storage-system source code, or track storage-system behavior relative to host activity.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6047353/en
Not established by the excerpt. The excerpt omits most of the detailed description and all claims. It therefore does not establish the specific claim language, claim scope, figures' contents beyond captions, prosecution history, or any legal conclusion about validity, infringement, or enforceability.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:41:26 PM
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Litigation summary
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PTAB challenges
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Assignment history
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Prior art
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Obviousness
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Extensions
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Derivative works
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