DETAILED ACTION
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 has been issued in response to amendments filed 27 January 2026.
Claims 1 – 20 are pending.
Claim Objections
Claim 3 – 4 and 13 are objected to because of the following informalities. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 3 should be amended to “in response to determining that the plurality of I/O operations are being received at the rate faster than the rate at which the plurality of I/O operations are being transmitted, combine the first I/O operation and the second I/O operation into the combined I/O operation”. This is a grammatical correction.
Claim 4 should be amended to “in response to determining that a plurality of I/O operations are not being received at the rate faster than the rate at which the plurality of I/O operations are being transmitted”. This is the same issue as claim 3.
Claim 4 should be amended to “refrain from combining the combined [[first]] I/O operation is transmitted separately to an underlying storage device layer”. Claim 1 already recite that first and second I/O operations are combined into combined I/O operation. As such, this limitation should refer to the same combined I/O operation (instead of “the combined first I/O operation and the second I/O operation”) in order to avoid confusion as to whether there is two combined I/O operation for same first and second I/O operations.
Claim 13 should be amended to “wherein the delay is adjusted based upon at least one of a number of I/O operations being received during the delay or a round trip time latency between [[the]] a storage layer and [[the]] an underlying storage device layer”. This is to correct lack of antecedence basis.
Claims, dependent upon above identified claims, are also objected on the same grounds as said above identified claims.
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 3 and 17 – 18 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.
Regarding claim 3, “in response to determining that the plurality of I/O operations are being received at the rate faster than the rate at which the plurality of I/O operations are being, combine the combined first I/O operation and the second I/O operation into the combined I/O operation including other combined I/O operations” lacks written support and introduces new matter. The instant specification does not disclose combined first and second I/O operations (or combined I/O operation (see claim 1)) further being combined again with said first and second I/O operations. Rather it is intermediate I/O operations (each of which is a combination of data request (first I/O operation) and checksum request (second I/O operation)) that is being combined based on rate of I/O transmission (see spec Fig. 6 and corresponding paragraphs). Therefore, the limitation in question lacks written support and introduces new matter.
Regarding claim 17, “in response to the delay expiring, combining the combined I/O operation with one or more other I/O operations accumulated during the delay into the combined I/O operation” lacks written support and introduces new matter. The instant specification does not disclose combining into a combined I/O itself, other I/O operations (or non-combined I/O operations). Rather, the instant specification discloses combining intermediary/combined I/O operations into another new single combined I/O operation (see spec Fig. 6-7 and corresponding paragraphs). Note that said new single combined I/O operation is a result of combining plural combined I/O operations, each of which is a combination of data request and checksum request. Therefore, the limitation in question lacks written support and introduces new matter.
Regarding claim 18, “accumulating a plurality of combined I/O operations, for creating the combined I/O operation, based upon one or more of the plurality of I/O operations targeting dis-contiguous ranges of blocks within the storage device” lacks written support and introduces new matter. The instant specification does not disclose plural combined I/O operations being used to create a combined I/O that is a combination of first and second operations. Rather the instant specification discloses that plural combined I/O operations are used to generate a new single combined I/O operation (see spec Fig. 6-7 and corresponding paragraphs).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 1 recites, at least, combining i) first I/O operation targeting set of data blocks and ii) second I/O operation targeting checksums of said set of data blocks where said combined first and second I/O operations is used to access said set of data blocks and said checksums from storage device. This subject matter is reflected in its entirely in claim 1.
As noted in Office Action mailed 06 November 2025, LeCrone teaches combining separate 4 CM read commands (first and second operations) into a single TM read command (combined I/O operation) wherein said 4 CM read commands, each targets 4K data and CRC which, when combined in said TM read command, would read 4 4K data as one 16K data (set of data blocks) and 4 CRCs as one CRC (checksums). Note that each of said CM read commands only reads one CRC (checksum) whereas the claim requires second I/O operation to read plural checksums. In addition, absent hindsight reconstruction, it would not be obvious to modify LeCrone to read plural CRCs in one of said read commands since each CRC is read in a separate read command with corresponding data. Therefore, claim 1 is allowable over LeCrone.
Claim 15 is the method claim corresponding to system claim 1, and is allowable over prior art for the same reasons as claim 1.
Claim 19 is the non-transitory machine readable medium claim corresponding to system claim 1, and is allowable over prior art for the same reasons as claim 1.
Claims, dependent upon independent claims 1, 15 or 19, are also allowable over prior art for the same reasons as said independent claims.
However, due to above claim objection and §112(a) rejection, the claims are not in condition for allowance.
Response to Remarks
Applicant’s remarks, with respect to prior art rejection, have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, said prior art rejection has been withdrawn. However, Applicant’s amendment also introduced new §112(a) written description rejection.
Additional Remarks
In the interest of compact prosecution, it is noted that amendments to the claims, to address §112(a) rejection, would require further search and consideration due to scope changes to the claims. As such, after final would not be a proper avenue for said amendments as prosecution is closed.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Flynn (US 20190146867) teaches combining two read operations to ECC (see Flynn ¶[11]) which appears relevant to the instant specification.
Conclusion
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/CHIE YEW/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2139