The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 19, 2026
Filed:
Nov. 23, 2020
Microsoft Technology Licensing, Llc, Redmond, WA (US);
Rajsekhar Das, Sammamish, WA (US);
Gregory David Garbern, Sammamish, WA (US);
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
Aspects of the present disclosure relate to weak references of allocated logical clusters. In examples, a deduplication hash table stores associations between block hashes and block addresses, such that a block can be identified and used in place of another block storing the same data. A weak reference may be generated on a block, such that an intact weak reference indicates that the block is unchanged. When a block is identified that has a hash matching that of an existing block in the hash table, it may be determined whether a weak reference on the existing block is intact. If there is not an intact weak reference on the existing block, the existing block may have changed, such that it is not used for deduplication. By contrast, if the weak reference is intact, the existing block has not changed, such that it may be used for deduplication accordingly.