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 Applicant' s communication filed 8/7/2026 in response to the Office action dated 5/12/2026. Claims 1, 3, and 7 have been amended. Claims 1-12 are pending in this application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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 1-12 are 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 1 recites the limitation “the doorbell written to a gap” in line 14. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Therefore, for the purposes of examination, the limitation has been interpreted to mean “a doorbell written to a gap”.
Claims 2-12 are dependent upon claim 1 and thus inherit its deficiencies. Therefore, claims 2-12 are rejected for the same reasons as the respective parent claim stated above.
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 of this title, 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.
Claims 1-3, 6-9, and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Benisty et al. (US 20180217951 A1), hereinafter Benisty (‘951), in view of Jung et al. (US 20220261185 A1), hereinafter Jung, and further in view of Benisty et al. (US 20200104056 A1), hereinafter Benisty (‘056).
Regarding claim 1, Benisty (‘951) teaches a data storage device, comprising: a memory device (Paragraph 52; Fig. 1, storage device 106);
and a controller coupled to the memory device (Paragraph 53; Fig. 1, device controller 108), wherein the controller is configured to:
communicate with a host device to inform the host device of a number of resources available (Paragraph 135; Fig. 9A, resource monitor 902 of controller 108 obtains resource state metadata 903, which contains the state of storage device resources 930, from host platform 800);
handle the resources in a static manner, a dynamic manner, or a combination of static and dynamic (Paragraph 142, operating the device in a static, dynamic, or hybrid [combination] mode based off of current resource availability),
wherein the static manner comprises a dedicated submission queue (SQ) (Paragraphs 95, 110; Fig. 8C, a static “round robin” arbitration scheme selects commands from a currently-selected [dedicated] submission queue 841), and
store a time associated with receipt (Paragraphs 88, 92; Fig. 8B, arbitration manager 844 records a timestamp for fetched commands, which is stored as arbitration metadata 845 (stored with arbitration criteria 849)).
Benisty (‘951) does not explicitly teach resources available for keeping doorbell times, receive, from the host device, an indication dividing a maximum number of doorbell timing resources into static doorbell timing resources and dynamic doorbell timing resources, allocating at least a portion of the static doorbell timing resources to a dedicated submission queue (SQ), and wherein the dynamic manner comprises using at least one of the dynamic doorbell timing resources to store a time associated with receipt of the doorbell written to a gap.
However, Jung teaches resources available for keeping doorbell times (Paragraphs 125, 130, 137, managing resources for storing doorbell information, which also indicate the head and tail commands of command queues), and
wherein the dynamic manner comprises receipt of the doorbell (Paragraphs 116, 119-120; Fig. 4, a doorbell is associated with fetching of [receipt of] commands from a submission/completion queue)
written to a gap (Paragraphs 136, 164, 168; Fig. 8, a doorbell may be dynamically stored regardless of the interval [such as the DSTRD gaps] between doorbell registers).
The Examiner notes that Benisty (‘951) teaches storing a time associated with receipt of a fetched command while Jung teaches the fetched command being associated with a doorbell written to a gap.
Benisty (‘951) and Jung are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, that being command queue management. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the device of Benisty (‘951) to further include the doorbell management according to the teachings of Jung. The motivation for doing so would have been to reduce overhead and the operational delay time of the memory system (Jung, Paragraph 186).
Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung does not explicitly teach receive, from the host device, an indication dividing a maximum number of doorbell timing resources into static doorbell timing resources and dynamic doorbell timing resources, allocating at least a portion of the static doorbell timing resources to a dedicated submission queue (SQ), and using at least one of the dynamic doorbell timing resources to store a time.
However, Benisty (‘056) teaches receive, from the host device, an indication dividing a maximum number of doorbell timing resources into static doorbell timing resources and dynamic doorbell timing resources (Paragraphs 77-78, 90-91; Figs. 6, 8, and 10, token management module 816 of the storage device receives a total [maximum] number of resource tokens (such as the doorbell timing resources of Jung) from a host and divides the tokens among a plurality of namespace 1004 queues, wherein the tokens are distributed based on different performance attributes 608 of the namespaces 1004, such as different priorities of command execution (similar to the static/dynamic command execution modes of Benisty (‘951)),
allocating at least a portion of the static doorbell timing resources to a dedicated submission queue (SQ) (Paragraphs 90-91, allocating an amount of resource tokens [static doorbell timing resources] to a namespace [dedicated submission] queue), and
using at least one of the dynamic doorbell timing resources to store a time (Paragraphs 75, 77-78; Fig. 6, allocating [dynamic doorbell timing] resources to a namespace queue based on structural attributes 606, which include storage of metadata associated with each unit of data (such as the time associated with receipt (metadata) of Benisty (‘951)).
Benisty (‘951), Jung, and Benisty (‘056) are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, that being command queue management. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the device of Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung to further include the host-based division of resources according to the teachings of Benisty (‘56). The motivation for doing so would have been improve memory resource utilization to achieve a desired performance (Benisty (‘056), Paragraph 21).
Regarding claim 2, Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung, further in view of Benisty (‘056) teaches the data storage device of claim 1, wherein the dynamic manner comprises providing a DWORD gap between two doorbells (Jung, Paragraphs 149-151, 164-165; Figs. 6 and 8, the gap between two adjacent control registers CTRL_REG corresponding to doorbells may be set according to a stride value DSTRD, wherein the offset may be 2-(2+DSTRD) bytes).
Regarding claim 3, Benisty (‘951) in view of Benisty (‘056) teaches the data storage device of claim 2, wherein the controller is configured to mark and store a time of the doorbell (Benisty (‘951), Paragraph 88; Fig. 8B, arbitration manager 844 records a timestamp for fetched commands (such as the head/tail commands indicated by the doorbells of Jung)).
Benisty (‘951) in view of Benisty (‘056) does not explicitly teach a doorbell written to a DWORD gap.
However, Jung teaches a doorbell written to a DWORD gap (Paragraphs 136, 164, 168; Fig. 8, a doorbell may be dynamically stored regardless of the interval [such as the DSTRD gaps] between doorbell registers).
Benisty (‘951), Jung, and Benisty (‘056) are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, that being command queue management. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the device of Benisty (‘951) in view of Benisty (‘056) to further include the dynamic doorbell location according to the teachings of Jung. The motivation for doing so would have been to more efficiently manage resources for storing doorbell information (Jung, Paragraph 137).
Regarding claim 6, Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung, further in view of Benisty (‘056) teaches the data storage device of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to receive an indication from the host device of a split of resources between the dynamic manner and the static manner (Benisty (‘951), Paragraph 142; Fig. 9A, arbitration logic 842 of the storage device is configured to adapt a static, dynamic, or hybrid mode, in which the operating mode of the arbitration logic 842 and the relative influence [split] of dynamic factors [resources] in the operations may be defined by configuration data [indication] in host platform 800).
Regarding claim 7, Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung, further in view of Benisty (‘056) teaches the data storage device of claim 6, wherein the controller is configured to create the dedicated submission queue in response to the host device indicating resources for the static manner (Benisty (‘951), Paragraphs 75, 95, 110; Fig. 8C, the host platform 800 may configure IOV functions 830 to implement a “round robin” static submission queue selection scheme, wherein controller 108 designates a currently-selected [dedicated] submission queue 841).
Regarding claim 8, Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung, further in view of Benisty (‘056) teaches the data storage device of claim 7, wherein the controller is configured to determine whether a command received is a normal priority command, a dynamic manner priority command, or a static manner priority command (Benisty (‘951), Paragraphs 110-112; Fig. 8E, IOV arbiter 864 and command fetch logic 840 may process commands according to a static submission queue selection scheme, including a round robin scheme [normal priority] and a weighted round robin with urgent priority class scheme [static manner priority], or a dynamic submission queue selection scheme).
Regarding claim 9, Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung, further in view of Benisty (‘056) teaches the data storage device of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to track a number of available dynamic manner resources (Benisty (‘951), Paragraph 142; Fig. 9A, arbitration logic 842 may monitor current resource availability and the relative influence of dynamic factors (such as device resource state) in a dynamic mode).
Regarding claim 12, Benisty (‘951) in view of Benisty (‘056) teaches the data storage device of claim 1 and the controller (Benisty (‘951), Paragraph 53; Fig. 1, device controller 108).
Benisty (‘951) in view of Benisty (‘056) does not explicitly teach wherein the controller is configured to create the dedicated submission queue in response to an instruction from the host device.
However, Jung teaches wherein the controller is configured to create the dedicated submission queue in response to an instruction from the host device (Paragraphs 121-122; Fig. 4, the host HOST may designate [instruct] N number of submission queues SQ1-SQN to be managed by the host).
Benisty (‘951), Benisty (‘056), and Jung are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, that being command queue management. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the device of Benisty (‘951) in view of Benisty (‘056) to further include the host-created submission queues according to the teachings of Jung. The motivation for doing so would have been to improve user control.
Claims 4-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung, further in view of Benisty (‘056) as applied to claim 1, and further in view of DeRosa et al. (US 20180335976 A1), hereinafter DeRosa.
Regarding claim 4, Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung, further in view of Benisty (‘056) teaches the data storage device of claim 1, but does not explicitly teach wherein the dedicated SQ has a preset timeout.
However, DeRosa teaches wherein the dedicated SQ has a preset timeout (Paragraphs 21, 23; Fig. 2, steps 252 and 259, establishing a maximum execution time limit for a command in queue, wherein the command may timeout if it is not serviced within the time limit).
Benisty (‘951), Jung, Benisty (‘056), and DeRosa are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, that being command queue management. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the device of Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung, further in view of Benisty (‘056) to further include the queue timeout limits according to the teachings of DeRosa. The motivation for doing so would have been to minimize disruption in performance (DeRosa, Paragraph 15).
Regarding claim 5, Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung, further in view of Benisty (‘056) and DeRosa teaches the data storage device of claim 4, wherein the controller is configured to receive a number of resources allocated for the dedicated SQ from the host device (Jung, Paragraphs 116, 121-122; Fig. 4, memory 100 stores doorbell information for N number of submission queues, wherein N is designated by the host HOST).
Claims 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung, further in view of Benisty (‘056) as applied to claim 1, and further in view of McGlaughlin et al. (US 20180300064 A1), hereinafter McGlaughlin.
Regarding claim 10, Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung, further in view of Benisty (‘056) teaches the data storage device of claim 1, the controller (Benisty (‘951), Paragraph 53; Fig. 1, device controller 108), and the host device (Benisty (‘951), Paragraph 68; Fig. 8A, host platform 800).
Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung, further in view of Benisty (‘056) does not explicitly teach wherein the controller is configured to add a bit to a completion structure provided to the host device.
However, McGlaughlin teaches wherein the controller is configured to add a bit to a completion structure provided to the host device (Paragraph 47, returning a command completion notification, wherein the notification includes a status indicating resource overflow/exhaustion (the status including a bit as all digital information is stored as bits)).
Benisty (‘951), Jung, Benisty (‘056), and McGlaughlin are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, that being command queue management. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the device of Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung, further in view of Benisty (‘056) to further include the completion structure according to the teachings of McGlaughlin. The motivation for doing so would have been to prevent problems associated with processing commands with insufficient resources (McGlaughlin, Paragraphs 47, 49).
Regarding claim 11, Benisty (‘951) in view of Jung, further in view of Benisty (‘056) and McGlaughlin teaches the data storage device of claim 10, wherein in response to the bit being present (McGlaughlin, Paragraph 47, the command completion notification includes a status [bit] indicating resource overflow/exhaustion),
the controller is configured to increase a number of available resources for the dynamic manner (Benisty (‘951), Paragraph 64; Fig. 7A, steps 704-706, in response to determining that the storage device resources are over/under-utilized, switching to the dynamic mode).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments (see pages 4 of the remarks) filed 8/7/2026, with respect to the rejections of claim 1 and dependent claims 2-12 under 35 U.S.C 112 have been fully considered, but are not persuasive.
Although claim 1 has been amended to delete the problematic limitation, “hint during the doorbell”, a new limitation in amended claim 1, “the doorbell written to a gap”, renders the claim indefinite as there is insufficient antecedent basis for the term “the doorbell”. Thus, the Examiner maintains the rejection of claim 1 and dependent claims 2-12 under 35 U.S.C 112.
Applicant’s arguments (see pages 4 of the remarks) filed 8/7/2026, with respect to the rejections of claim 7 and dependent claim 8 under 35 U.S.C 112 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection of claim 7 and dependent claim 8 under 35 U.S.C 112 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments (see pages 5-7 of the remarks) filed 8/7/2026, with respect to the rejections of claims 1-12 under 35 U.S.C 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Benisty (‘951), Jung, and Benisty (‘056).
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 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 Jason Pinga whose telephone number is (571) 272-2620. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:30am-6pm ET.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Arpan Savla, can be reached on (571) 272-1077. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/J.M.P./Examiner, Art Unit 2137
/Arpan P. Savla/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2137
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