DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. Claims 1, 3-16 and 18-20 are pending.
3. This office action is in response to the Applicant’s communication filed 02/05/2026 in response to PTO Office Action mailed 04/25/2026. The Applicant’s remarks and amendments to the claims and/or the specification were considered with the results that follow.
Response to Arguments
4. Applicant’s arguments filed 04/25/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant’s arguments are summarized as:
1) “The core of the Examiner's rejection relies on the combination of Davies, Ma, and Depew to teach the claimed hot-swapping mechanism. However, Applicant respectfully submits that the cited references fail to teach or suggest the claimed System-Control-Interrupt (SCI) mechanism that is cooperatively handled by an operating system (OS) via an Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) protocol. Instead, the cited references (Ma and Depew) strictly rely on a fundamentally different, OS-transparent hardware interrupt known as a System Management Interrupt (SMI).”
As per argument 1, in response to applicant's argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., the present application allows for a rank of physical devices inclusive of the state machine engines 14 and not merely a rank of elements (e.g., state machine lattices 30) of a single state machine engine 14.) are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
In response to applicant’s argument that there is no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine the references, the examiner recognizes that obviousness may be established by combining or modifying the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention where there is some teaching, suggestion, or motivation to do so found either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 5 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 21 USPQ2d 1941 (Fed. Cir. 1992), and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). In this case, the Applicant relies on the claimed invention to require OS participation via the ACPI protocol, however, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. The claim language states “the central processing unit” runs an operating system which is known function in the art of computer systems. The claim language is interpreted as the CPU calling a “system-control-interrupt handler” and not the operating system calling the system-control-interrupt handler”. The teachings of Depew further states “The system also includes an operating system 136 that is executable on the CPU 112.” (Par. [0023]); “Instructions of the various software routines or modules discussed herein (such as the SMI handlers, operating system 136, ACPI driver 152, memory configuration utility 134, health driver 150, and so forth) are executed on corresponding control modules. The control modules include microprocessors, microcontrollers, processor modules or subsystems (including one or more microprocessors or microcontrollers), or other control or computing devices.” (Par. [0038]). Nowhere in the claim language discloses the requirement of an OS participation calling the system-control-interrupt handler via the ACPI protocol. As a result, the combination of Davies, Ma and Depew’s teachings are able to implement the claimed invention.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Claims 1, 3, 4, 16, 18 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Davies et al. (US Pub. No. 2005/0102557 A1 hereinafter “Davies”) in view of Ma (US Pub. No. 2024/0045748 hereinafter “Ma”), and further in view of Depew et al. (US Pub. No. 2005/0138465 A1 hereinafter “Depew”).
Referring to claim 1, Davies discloses a server system, comprising:
a central processing unit, having a system-control-interrupt pin operative to receive a system-control-interrupt alert signal (Davies – Fig. 1 & par. [0037] disclose a CPU 124 with a IRQ line or pin 134 that receives an interrupt request from an I/O controller 126A.),
wherein an alert status of the system-control-interrupt alert signal reflects an event occurring at any of a plurality of drive ports on a backplane (Davies – Fig. 1 & par. [0008] disclose each of the I/O controllers 126 generates an interrupt request (IRQ) 134 that is routed through the backplane 108 to its respective controlling CPU 124. The I/O controllers 126 receive I/O requests from the host computers on their respective I/O ports 128 and in response generate an interrupt request 134 to notify the CPU 124 of the I/O request. Additionally, each of the I/O controllers 126 may generate an interrupt request 134 to notify its respective CPU 124 that it has received a packet of data from a disk drive or transmitted a packet of data to a disk drive or host computer.), and wherein, in response to the alert status of the system-control-interrupt alert signal (Davies – Fig. 1 & par. [0039] disclose the device driver executing on the CPU 124 registers an interrupt handler routine with the operating system to handle interrupt requests 134 from the I/O controllers 126 it owns, i.e., from the I/O controllers 126 for which it will initially service I/O requests. In the embodiment of FIG. 3, the CPU 124 of DM-A 114A registers an interrupt handler to handle interrupts from the I/O controllers 126A of DG-A 116A and DG-B 116B, and the CPU 124 of DM-B 114B registers an interrupt handler to handle interrupts from the I/O controllers 126B of DG-A 116A and DG-B 116B.).
Davies fails to explicitly disclose wherein an alert status of the system-control-interrupt alert signal reflects a hot-swapping event occurring at any of a plurality of solid-state drive ports on a backplane, and wherein, in response to the alert status of the system-control-interrupt alert signal, the central processing unit running an operating system calls the system-control-interrupt handler according to an advanced configuration and power interface protocol, to handle the hot-swapping event, to identify a target solid-state drive port where the hot-swapping event has occurred, and to determine whether the hot-swapping event is a hot plugging-in event or a hot plugging-out event.
Ma discloses wherein an alert status of the system-control-interrupt alert signal reflects a hot-swapping event occurred at a solid-state drive port, and the central processing unit calls a system-control-interrupt handler to handle the hot-swapping event in response to the alert status of the system-control-interrupt alert signal (Ma – See Figs. 1, 4 & Par. [0050-0058, 0098]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to include Ma’s teachings with Davies’ teachings for the benefit of waiting timeout error information will not be output even if there are unfinished IO requests, server system crashes can be avoided, and server stability can be improved (Ma – Par. [0006]).
Davies and Ma fail to explicitly disclose in response to the alert status of the system-control-interrupt alert signal, the central processing unit running an operating system calls the system-control-interrupt handler according to an advanced configuration and power interface protocol, to handle the hot-swapping event, to identify a target solid-state drive port where the hot-swapping event has occurred, and to determine whether the hot-swapping event is a hot plugging-in event or a hot plugging-out event.
Depew discloses in response to the alert status of the system-control-interrupt alert signal, the central processing unit running an operating system calls the system-control-interrupt handler according to an advanced configuration and power interface protocol, to handle the hot-swapping event, to identify a target solid-state drive port where the hot-swapping event has occurred, and to determine whether the hot-swapping event is a hot plugging-in event or a hot plugging-out event (Depew – See Par. [0017-0036]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to include Depew’s teachings with Davies and Ma’s teachings for the benefit of allowing a storage subsystem, such as a memory subsystem, in a fault tolerant mode where not all installed storage is available to the operating system or application software to be converted to another fault tolerant mode in which the operating system and application software makes full use of the installed storage resources without any system resets or down time (Depew – Par. [00016]).
Referring to claim 3, Davies, Ma and Depew disclose the server system as claimed in claim 1, wherein: the system-control-interrupt handler returns a notification to the operating system according to the advanced configuration and power interface protocol; and in response to the notification, the operating system performs device removal or device registration on the target solid-state drive port (Depew – See Par. [0017-0036]).
Referring to claim 4, Davies, Ma and Depew disclose the server system as claimed in claim 1, running a basic input and output system to reserve resources for the solid-state drive ports to support hot swapping of solid-state drives (Ma – Par. [0098] discloses the server system is powered on and runs a BIOS.).
Referring to claim 16, note the rejection of claim 1 above. The Instant Claim recites substantially same limitations as the above-rejected and is therefore rejected under same prior-art teachings.
Referring to claim 18, note the rejection of claim 3 above. The Instant Claim recites substantially same limitations as the above-rejected and is therefore rejected under same prior-art teachings.
Referring to claim 19, note the rejection of claim 4 above. The Instant Claim recites substantially same limitations as the above-rejected and is therefore rejected under same prior-art teachings.
Allowable Subject Matter
8. Claims 5-15 and 20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The examiner finds that the prior art of record taken alone or in combination fails to teach and/or fairly suggest “the alert status is at a low level for a fixed duration; and the fixed duration depends on a sampling rate at which the central processing unit samples the system-control-interrupt alert signal received by the system-control-interrupt pin.”, in combination with other recited limitations in dependent claim 5.
The examiner finds that the prior art of record taken alone or in combination fails to teach and/or fairly suggest “wherein, in response to the hot-swapping event, the backplane controller changes the system-control-interrupt alert signal to the alert status.”, in combination with other recited limitations in dependent claim 6.
The examiner finds that the prior art of record taken alone or in combination fails to teach and/or fairly suggest “the operating system operates a solid-state drive driver to stop operating the target solid-state drive port, and operates a peripheral-component interconnect-express driver to perform device enumeration on the target solid-state drive port to implement the device removal.”, in combination with other recited limitations in dependent claim 13.
The examiner finds that the prior art of record taken alone or in combination fails to teach and/or fairly suggest “the operating system operates a peripheral-component interconnect-express driver to perform device enumeration on the target solid-state drive port to implement the device registration, and operates a solid-state drive driver to operate a solid-state drive connected to the target solid-state drive port by the hot-swapping event.”, in combination with other recited limitations in dependent claim 14.
The examiner finds that the prior art of record taken alone or in combination fails to teach and/or fairly suggest “the motherboard further provides a plurality of root ports, corresponding to the solid-state drive ports on the backplane, and each has a first register and a second register, wherein the first register indicates whether a hot-swapping event has occurred on the corresponding solid-state drive port, and the second register indicates whether the corresponding solid-state port is in use; and based on the first register and the second register of each root port, the system-control-interrupt handler identifies a target solid-state drive port where the hot-swapping event has occurred, and determines whether the hot-swapping event is a hot plugging-in event or a hot plugging-out event.”, in combination with other recited limitations in dependent claim 20.
Claims 8-15 would be allowable based on their dependencies of claim 6.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicants are 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAYTON LEWIS-TAYLOR whose telephone number is (571)270-7754. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Thursday, 8AM TO 4PM, EASTERN TIME.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Idriss Alrobaye, can be reached on 571-270-1023. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Dayton Lewis-Taylor/
Examiner, Art Unit 2181
/IDRISS N ALROBAYE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2181
Prosecution Insights