DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the remarks filed on October 28, 2025 in application 17/758,995.
Claims 1-2, 4-6, 8-9 are presented for examination. Claim 1 is amended. Claim 3 and 7 is cancelled.
IDS submitted on July 18, 2022 and March 8, 2024 was acknowledged.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on October 2, 2025 in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements were considered by the Examiner.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed October 28, 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Independence claim 5 does not recite similar limitation as claim 1 in term of the third and fourth steps. Refer below for further details.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-2, 4, 8-9 are allowed. The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
The examiner deemed claims 1-2, 4, 8-9 as novel when read as a whole for the limitations of a control unit is configured to upon determining that a control program is stored in the storage unit, instructions to rewrite the control program do not exist and determine that the success or failure display data does not indicate an acceptable control pattern, then test the validity of the control program and update to the display data to failure and in response to the display data reflecting a negative result (failure), and generate a user notification of an abnormality in the event that the instructions to rewrite the control program do not exist.
It is noted that related prior arts teach of addressing the failure display data of a previous occurrence instead of a re-test of the validity of the control program after a failure is reflected in the display data.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 5-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Tung (US 2002/0066009).
In regard to claim 5, Tung teaches a method for writing or rewriting a control program stored in a storage unit for controlling an operation of an electronic device, the method for writing or rewriting the control program comprising:
a first step of determining whether or not there is an instruction to execute rewriting of the control program (reads a non-update flag to determine if it has been set, fig. 1, S1, para. 14, if set as “1” does not update, if not set to “1” check the fail flag to verify, fig. 1, para. 15);
a second step of overwriting the control program with an update program in response to: determining that there is an instruction to execute rewriting of the control program; or determining that no control program is stored in the storage unit (the system BIOS sends a signal to notify the keyboard BIOS that the update will be performed, fig. 1, S3, para. 17);
a third step, where the control program is stored in the storage unit and instructions to execute rewriting of the control program do not exist, of determining whether success or failure data exist indicating a prior success of the overwriting of the control program with the update program (if receives the success signal, the keyboard BIOS clears the fail flag, para. 20, and if the keyboard BIOS does not receives the success signal, the keyboard BIOS sets the fail flag to 1, fig. 2, T3-T4, para. 21);
a fourth step of writing success or failure display data indicating the success or failure of the overwriting of the control program into a success or failure determination result storage area provided in the storage unit in accordance with the determined success or failure (set or clear the fail flag, para. 19-21); and
a fifth step of reading the success or failure display data present in the success or failure determination result storage area (reads a fail flag and determines whether an update in the previous system booting process was successful, fig. 1, S2),
wherein, upon a subsequent iteration of the first step after startup of the electronic device (if the keyboard BIOS does not receive the success signal within the first predetermined period, the steps of FIG. 1 are repeated, para. 21, fig. 1), the fifth step is immediately carried out in response to a determination in the first step that there is no instruction to execute the rewrite process, and the control program is executed without passing through a subsequent iteration of the second to fourth steps (keyboard BIOS restarts the computer and verify whether the microcode update in the previous system boot was successful, fig. 1, para. 14-17).
In regard to claim 6, Tung teaches the method for rewriting a control program according to claim 5, wherein a combination of the success or failure display data is: a combination that indicates a success in the case of a success and indicates a failure in the case of a failure; a combination that indicates a success in the case of the success and is null in the case of the failure; or a combination that is null in the case of the success and indicates a failure in the case of the failure (fail flag setting to 1 or not set to 1, para. 15-17).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO 892.
Matsubara (US 9,916,029) software recovery
Creel et al. (US 11,650,906) source code update and retest
Venkiteswaran (US 9,678,761) update logic, flag an error if checksum does not match
Nelson et al. (US 6,928,108) update code with checksum
Maeda (US 2008/0320471) updating unit with checking unit for verification of code
Takamizawa et al. (US 2012/0254487) method for writing data
Emperle et al. (US 2018/0181433) checks for overwriting
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Arrive (US 2021/0034352) firmware update
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Button et al. (US 20060080522) secure booting
Wilks et al. (US 6,944,757) booting embedded OS
Yu et al. (US 6,865,670) boot routine with patch files
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Vidyadhara et al. (US 2021/0240484) BIOS update with NULL location or update exist
Ma (US 2020/0285544) BIOS update
Samuel et al. (US 2020/0057629) validate updated BIOS firmware
Alexeev et al. (US 9,448,785) checks upon BIOS update
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Zhang et al. (US 2004/0236932) firmware update
Kumagai (US 20030182547) restore partition
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Jang et al. (US 2022/0137947) firmware update control module with rechargeable secondary battery
Jeong et al. (US 2021/0072971) update monitor
Lee et al. (US 2021/0034354) update data to the new version of the program
Park et al. (US 2020/0296794) update a program and secondary cell battery
Shin et al. (US 2020/0249938) installing an update program
Yokota et al. (US 2020/0114927) update of software in vehicle
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LOAN TRUONG whose telephone number is 408-918-7552. The examiner can normally be reached on 10AM-6PM PST M-F.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, Applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Thomas Ashish can be reached on 571-272-0631. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Loan L.T. Truong/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2114 Loan.Truong@uspto.gov