DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the Amendments/Arguments filed on 04/28/2026.
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 .
EXAMINER’S NOTE
In the Non-Final Rejection dated 01/28/2026, the motivation in claim 1 was inadvertently states that “..Otter into the system of Ume..” which is incorrect. The correct statement should be “..Gorobets into the system of Ume..” as stated below in the rejection below.
EXAMINER’S AMENDMENT
Regarding claims 1, 6, 9, 13, 15 and 17, the 112 2nd paragraph rejections made in the Non-Final Rejection dated 01/28/2026 are hereby withdrawn due to the Amendments filed on 04/28/2026.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 04/28/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding claim 1, on pages 8-10, Applicant seems to argue that one of ordinary skill in the art would not have any reasonable motivation to combine the reference Umesawa with Gorobets.
In response, Examiner respectfully disagrees and submits that:
One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that an encryption key can be generated using a system data, and concatenating, by a key derivation function (KDF), the system data with a salt (random number).
As discussed in the Non-Final Rejection dated 01/28/2026, Ume already discloses generating an encryption key using key information (at least [0061]-[0064][0081], encryption key is generated using a root key/key information/random number). It was also admitted that Ume does not explicitly disclose the key information is health data indicating state of the nonvolatile memory and time data. So, Gorobets was brought in to cure the deficiencies of Ume, because Gorobets discloses health data indicating a deterioration state of the nonvolatile memory and time data (at least [0022][0025][0048]-[0049][0051]-[0053], usage rate/remaining life of a memory card (system data), i.e.: number of erases per block per day).
As such, contrasting to the applicant’s argument, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the information (system data) of Gorobets with the information (random number) discloses by Ume to generate key using different information.
Regarding claim 17, see response to arguments for claim 1 above.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
Claims 1-2, 4-5, 7, 12, 17-18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Umesawa et al. (US 2021/0223968 A1-hereinafter Ume) and in view of Gorobets et al. (US 2007/0266200 A1-hereinafter Gorobets).
Regarding claim 1, Ume discloses a memory system comprising:
a nonvolatile memory (at least figure 1, element 5, [0031], i.e.: NAND flash memory); and
a controller (at least element 4, i.e.: memory controller) configured to:
generate an encryption key using key information (at least elements 12 & 123, [0061][0064], i.e.: generates data encryption key using key information);
generate encrypted data by encrypting data with the encryption key (at least [0057], data is encrypted); and
write the encrypted data into the nonvolatile memory (at least [0057], the data encrypted is written into the NAND flash memory).
Ume does not explicitly disclose the key information is health data indicating a deterioration state of the nonvolatile memory and time data.
However, Gorobets discloses information is health data indicating a deterioration state of the nonvolatile memory and time data (at least figures 2-7, i.e.: number of erases per block per day).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the information discloses in Gorobets into the system of Ume to allow keys to be generated using different information.
Regarding claim 2, Ume and Gorobets disclose the memory system according to claim 1. Gorobets also discloses the time data includes an absolute time output from a real-time clock or a relative time from a certain reference time output from the real-time clock (at least [0050][0054]-[0055], system clock).
Regarding claim 4, Ume and Gorobets disclose the memory system according to claim 1. Gorobets also discloses the health data includes a number of erase operations that has been performed with respect to the nonvolatile memory (at least figures 2-3 and 6).
Regarding claim 5, Ume and Gorobets disclose the memory system according to claim 4. Gorobets also discloses the nonvolatile memory includes a memory cell array including a plurality of blocks (at least figure 1b, Block 0-block N), and the health data includes a minimum value, a maximum value, and an average value among numbers of erase operations that have been performed with respect to the plurality of blocks, respectively (at least [0034][0042], minimum, maximum and average number of block erases).
Regarding claim 7, Ume and Gorobets disclose the memory system according to claim 1. Ume and Gorobets also disclose the nonvolatile memory includes a storage area that is divided into a plurality of address ranges (Ume-at least [0050]-[0051], physical address of NAND; Gorobets-at least [0035], addresses of page/block), and the controller is configured to generate one or more encryption keys for each of the plurality of address ranges (Ume-at least elements 12 & 123, [0061][0064], i.e.: generates data encryption key using key information).
Regarding claim 12, Ume and Gorobets disclose the memory system according to claim 1. Ume also discloses controller performs the generation of the encryption key in response to a write request received from a host (at least [0038][0054], data encryption key is generated in response to write command received), and the data encrypted using the encryption key is data corresponding to the write request (at least [0038][0054], data is encrypted using the data encryption key corresponding to the write command received).
Claim 17 is rejected for the same rationale as claim 1 above.
Claim 18 is rejected for the same rationale as claim 2 above.
Claim 20 is rejected for the same rationale as claim 4 above.
Claims 3 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Umesawa, Gorobets and further in view of Snyder et al. (US 2013/0031304 A1-hereinafter Snyder).
Regarding claim 3, Ume and Gorobets disclose the memory system according to claim 1. Ume and Gorobets do not explicitly disclose the health data includes a total size of data that has been written into the nonvolatile memory or a total size of data that has been read from the nonvolatile memory.
However, Snyder discloses a total size of data that has been written into nonvolatile memory (at least [0031]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the teachings of Snyder into the system of Ume & Gorobets to allow keys to be generated using different types of state information of NVM.
Claim 19 is rejected for the same rationale as claim 3 above.
ALLOWABLE SUBJECT MATTER
Claims 6, 8, 13 and 15 are objected to as being dependent upon rejected based claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claims 9-11, 14 and16 directly or indirectly dependent on the objected claims, as such are also objected for the same rationale as claims 6, 8 13 & 15 above.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 PHY ANH TRAN VU whose telephone number is (571)270-7317. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 7 am-1 pm.
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/PHY ANH T VU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2438
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