DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Response to Amendment
This office action is in response to the amendment filed on 09/15/2025. Claims 1-4, 7-8, 11-12, and 17-27 are pending. Claims 1, 4, and 7-8 are amended. Claims 5-6, 9-10, and 13-16 are canceled. Claims 17-27 are new.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks pages 6-7, filed 09/15/2025, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Specifically, the argument that the amendment “identifying portions of data in the array segment where hash-like accesses occurred more than a predetermined count within a predetermined window of loop iterations” is not taught by Cavus and Meier was found to be persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, this amendments raises new matter issues and a new rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) is given below.
Claim Objections
Claim 4 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 4 line 1- insert --the portions of-- before “data” to clarify that this refers to the prefetching of the portions of data introduced in claim 1.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-4, 7-8, 11-12, and 17-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 recites “identifying portions of data in the array segment where hash-like accesses occurred more than a predetermined count within a predetermined window of loop iterations” in lines 5-7. However, the specification at [0058] discloses “At block 402, the compiler detects hash accesses which are in a loop. Generally, hash access in a loop may be necessary to ensure that there is a high enough frequency of accesses to pay for the cost of the optimization. Otherwise, if the hash accesses are too infrequent, the optimization may slow down execution more than the improved prefetching improves execution.” That is, [0058] describes detecting hash accesses that are in a loop to ensure that there is a high enough frequency of accesses, which is not the same as “identifying portions of data in the array segment where hash-like accesses occurred more than a predetermined count within a predetermined window of loop iterations” (as recited in claim 1) since hash accesses in a loop can be identified without having to identify that the accesses occurred more than a predetermined count within a predetermined window of loop iterations (for example, by just checking if the access is performed in a single iteration of the loop). [0057] discloses that “The compiler may be configured to identify segments of code where hash-like accesses are performed often enough to warrant the use of a PMU” but this also does not describe identifying portions of data where hash-like accesses occurred more than a predetermined count within a predetermined window of loop iterations. No other portion of the specification describes identifying data where hash-like accesses occur more than a predetermined count within a predetermined window of loop iterations.
Claim 8 recites a similar limitation in lines 10-12 and is rejected for similar reasons.
The dependent claims are rejected based on their dependence from claims 1 and 8.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 18-25 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 18 recites “the code” in line 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 20 recites “the allocated prefetcher management unit resources” in line 3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation as the claim does not introduce allocated prefetcher management unit resources.
Claim 22 recites “the address in memory where a given hash table begins” in line 2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation as the claim does not introduce an address in memory where a given hash table begins.
Claim 24 recites “each loop iteration” in line 3. It is unclear whether this refers to each loop iteration of the number of loop iterations introduced in line 2 or each loop iteration of the window of loop iterations introduced in claim 1.
Claim 25 recites “per handle” in lines 2-3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation as the claim does not introduce handles.
Claims dependent on a rejected base claim are further rejected based on their dependence.
Prior Art Considerations
The prior art of record was not found to teach, in combination with other limitations in the claims, identifying portions of data in the array segment where hash-like accesses occurred more than a predetermined count within a predetermined window of loop iterations, as described in claims 1 and 8.
While sec. 2.1 of Cavus teaches a compiler that identifies a loop and passes extracted indirect-access information to a hardware component (which indicates that Cavus identifies portions of an array that are accessed using hash-like accesses in a loop/at the predetermined frequency of the loop), Cavus does not teach the compiler identifying portions of data where hash-like accesses occur more than a predetermined count within a predetermined window of loop iterations. Meier was not found to cure this deficiency in Cavus.
While no prior art rejection is currently given for claims 1-4, 7-8, 11-12, and 17-27, these claims are currently rejected under 112(a) and are thus not allowable at the current point. Examiner notes that amendments to resolve the new matter issues would likely impact the prior art considerations.
Conclusion
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
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/KASIM ALLI/Examiner, Art Unit 2182
/JYOTI MEHTA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2183
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