NON-FINAL OFFICE ACTION
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 1/26/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claims have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2015/0269025 to Krishnamurthy et al. (hereinafter Krishnamurthy) in view of U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2017/0277458 to Yamamoto (hereinafter Yamamoto), and further in view of U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2015/0324264 to Chinnakkonda Vidyapoornachary et al. (hereinafter Chinnakkonda).
Krishnamurthy discloses:
1. A method comprising:
determining a first fault resilient operating mode of a first fault resilient storage drive of a storage array (paras. [0018], [0021] and Fig. 2, step 204);
determining a second fault resilient operating mode of a second fault resilient storage drive of the storage array (paras. [0021], [0030] and Fig. 2, step 204);
allocating one or more rescue spaces of one or more additional storage drives of the storage array (paras. [0022], [0023] and Fig. 2, steps 206, 208);
mapping user data from the first fault resilient storage drive to the one of the one or more rescue spaces (paras. [0022], [0023] and Fig. 2, steps 206, 208); and
mapping user data from the second fault resilient storage drive to at least one of the one or more rescue spaces (paras. [0022], [0023], [0030] and Fig. 2, steps 206, 208).
Krishnamurthy does not disclose expressly wherein one of the one or more additional storages drives comprises a user space and one of the one or more rescue spaces.
Yamamoto teaches wherein one of the one or more additional storages drives comprises a user space and one of the one or more rescue spaces (paras. [0032], [0054] and Fig. 7).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Krishnamurthy by having user space and rescue space within a storage drive, as taught by Yamamoto. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so in order to extend the life span of SSDs and maintain efficient use of system resources, as discussed by Yamamoto (paras. [0077]-[0079]).
Krishnamurthy further does not disclose expressly copying, based on the first fault operating mode, from the first fault resilient storage drive to at least one of the one or more rescue spaces, user data.
Chinnakkonda teaches copying, based on the first fault operating mode, from the first fault resilient storage drive to at least one of the one or more rescue spaces, user data (paras. [0018]-[0019], [0022]-[0024]).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Krishnamurthy by copying user data of a failed die to spare blocks on another die, as taught by Chinnakkonda. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so in order to increase the useful life of the SSD memory, as indicated by Chinnakkonda (para. [0021]).
Modified Krishnamurthy discloses:
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising assigning at least one drive identifier (ID) of the one or more additional storage devices to a drive ID of the first fault resilient storage device (Krishnamurthy - paras. [0023], [0034] – LBAs assigned to physical addresses of spare/standby storage device).
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the at least one drive ID of the one or more additional storage drive is assigned based on a healthy drive ID and a drive ID of a drive in a fault resilient operating mode (Krishnamurthy - paras. [0023], [0034] - LBAs assigned to physical addresses of spare/standby storage device from physical addresses of faulty storage device).
4. The method of claim 1, further comprising directing one or more inputs and/or outputs from the first fault resilient storage drive to the one or more additional storage drive (Krishnamurthy - paras. [0023], [0034]).
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the user data comprises a strip of data (Krishnamurthy - para. [0034]).
6. The method of claim 5, wherein the strip of data is directed to a target storage drive of the one or more additional storage drive based on a stripe ID of the user data (Krishnamurthy - para. [0034]).
7. The method of claim 1, wherein mapping user data from the first fault resilient storage drive to the one or more rescue spaces comprises using a first mapping table (Krishnamurthy - paras. [0020], [0039], and Fig. 8).
8. The method of claim 7, wherein mapping user data from the second fault resilient storage drive to the one or more rescue spaces comprises using a second mapping table (Krishnamurthy - paras. [0030], [0020], [0039], and Fig. 8).
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more rescue spaces has a rescue space percentage ratio of a storage drive capacity (Yamamoto - para. [0032] and Fig. 7).
10. The method of claim 9, wherein the rescue space percentage ratio is greater than or equal to a number of storage drive in the storage array operating in a fault-resilient operating mode, divided by a total number of storage drive in the storage array (Yamamoto - para. [0032] and Fig. 7).
11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
allocating the one or more rescue spaces (Krishnamurthy - para. [0016] and Fig. 1, standby storage device 145); and
operating the storage array based on the allocating (Krishnamurthy - Fig. 2, step 208).
12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
operating the storage array (Krishnamurthy - Fig. 2, step 202); and
allocating the one or more rescue spaces based on the operating (Yamamoto – paras. [0032], [0054] and Fig. 7).
Claims 13-17 are a system for performing the identical method as recited in claims 1-6, 9, and 10, and are rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 18-20 are an apparatus for performing the identical method as recited in claims 1, 5, 6, 9, and 10, and are rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
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/PHILIP GUYTON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2113