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 .
This office action is in response to communication from applicant received on November 10, 2025.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.
Applicant's submission filed on November 10, 2025 has been entered. Claim 12 has been canceled. Claims 1-11 and 13-20 are pending in the current application.
Claim Objections
Claims 1-11 and 13-20 are objected to because of the following informalities: In claim 1, line 17, “the threshold limit” should be changed to “the critical threshold limit”. Appropriate correction is required. All dependent claims are objected to for having the same issue as the claim(s) that they depend on.
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 1-11 and 13-20 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 “determine that the first super device has reached a critical threshold limit, wherein the critical threshold limit is the minimum free space to be maintained within a super device,” and “determine that the second super device has at least one cold zone less than a cold zone threshold value, wherein the cold zone threshold value is a maximum number of cold zones a super device can include”. The aforementioned limitations in combination with the rest of the limitations of claim 1 is considered new matter by examiner, and thus the totality of the teachings of claim 1 is considered new matter and lacks adequate written description in the specification. Specifically, the step of determining that a first duper device has reached a critical threshold limit and the step of determining that the second super device has at least one cold zone less than a cold zone threshold value, wherein the cold zone threshold value is a maximum number of cold zones a super device can include, appear to be at least different embodiments in the specification, in which the specification does not disclose using them together. For example, paragraphs [0060]-[0061] provides that the threshold may either correspond to a critical threshold limit or a threshold number of cold zones, but does not teach using them together. As another example, paragraph [0055] recites “In another embodiment, the controller 108 may determine a threshold number of cold zones for each SD 302a, 302b, where the threshold number of cold zones represents a maximum number of cold zones that the SD may include.” Paragraph [0055] indicates that this teaching is “in another embodiment”, and nowhere in the specification is there a teaching that discloses that the embodiment specified in paragraph [0055] is combined with the critical threshold teaching set forth in claim 1, in combination with the rest of the limitations of claim 1. In short, the specification does not appear to disclose, in the same embodiment, determining two threshold values/limits comparisons (i.e. determining a critical threshold limit has been reached and determining the second super device has at least one cold zone less than a cold zone threshold value), and moving data from the at least one cold zone of the first super device to at least one other zone of the second super device in response to the determining(s). Also, determining two threshold values/limits comparisons does not appear to be disclosed with the other limitation(s) of claim 1 regarding “reset the at least one cold zone”.
The critical threshold teachings can be found in paragraphs [0004], [0050], [0052]-[0053] and [0060]-[0061]. Teachings regarding determining a super device to have at least one cold zone less than a threshold value can be found in paragraphs [0007], [0056] and [0064]. Teachings that disclose the threshold number of cold zones to represent a maximum number of cold zones that the SD may include can be found in paragraph [0055]. Although the teachings are present in the aforementioned paragraphs, the specification does not explicitly disclose all of them to be used together in the same embodiment to perform all of the limitations of claim 1. Also, the specification appears to mention that they are part of different embodiments.
All dependent claims are rejected for having the same deficiency as the claim(s) that they depend on.
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 1-11 and 13-20 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 "determine that the first super device has reached a critical threshold limit…" in line 6. Claim 1 recites the limitation "determine that the second super device has at least one cold zone less than a cold zone threshold value" in lines 11-12. Claim 1 recites the limitation "move data from at least one zone of the first plurality of active zones of the first super device to at least one other zone of the second plurality of active zones of the second super device in response to the determining” in lines 14-16. There is insufficient antecedent basis for “the determining” in line 16, as there are two separate determining steps previously set forth. Due to the lack of antecedent basis, it is unclear as to which determining step is being referenced when reciting “the determining” in line 16. It is unclear as to if both determining steps are being referenced when reciting “the determining” in line 16.
All dependent claims are rejected for having the same deficiency as the claim(s) that they depend on.
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, 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, 5-9, 13 and 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Applicant Admitted Prior Art (Hereinafter, AAPA) in view of Motwani et al. (Hereinafter Motwani, U.S. Publication No. 2012/0117351) in view of Yeh (U.S. Publication No. 2011/0010489) in view of Yang et al. (Hereinafter Yang, U.S. Publication No. 2022/0382454) in view of Seo et al. (Hereinafter Seo, U.S. Publication No. 2023/0297522).
Regarding claim 1, AAPA teaches:
A data storage device, comprising:
a memory device, wherein the memory device is arranged into a first super device having a first plurality of active zones and a second super device having a second plurality of active zones (See [0004] “Consider the case of a SSD having two active open zones and two super devices (SDs). In order to achieve higher write performance, each zone is mapped to a super block (SB) of an SD” See [0004] “For example, in a two SD SSD, if both SDs have a write performance of about 1000 Mbps, the total SSD write performance is about 2000 Mbps.” AAPA teaches an SSD that can have multiple super devices (SDs), and further teaches zones mapped to the SDs.); and
determine that the first super device has reached a critical threshold limit, wherein the critical threshold limit is the minimum free space to be maintained within a super device (See [0004] “When an SD is at capacity or if the free space of the SD is below a critical threshold (e.g., the minimum free space that must be maintained in an SD), the SD is no longer usable and the data storage device performance may be impacted by the loss of the usability of the SD.” See [0004] “However, if one SD is can no longer be written to due to the amount of free space decreasing below a critical threshold, the total SSD write performance decreases to about 1000 Mbps.”);
Motwani teaches:
a controller coupled to the memory device (See Abstract, in which the “processing module” of Motwani corresponds to the claimed controller.), the controller configured to:
determine that the first super device has reached a critical threshold limit, wherein the critical threshold limit is the minimum free space to be maintained within a super device (See [0109] “The method begins with step 152 where a processing module (e.g., of a dispersed storage (DS) processing unit) determines to migrate an encoded data slice from a memory to a second memory. The memory and the second memory may be included as memories of a dispersed storage (DS) unit. The processing module may determine to migrate a plurality of encoded data slices. The determination may be based on one or more of a migration score, a migration threshold, a memory free space indicator” Under broadest reasonable interpretation of the prior art, the memory free space indicator/critical threshold may be for the first memory.);
move data from at least one zone of the first plurality of active zones of the first super device to at least one other zone of the second plurality of active zones of the second super device in response to the determining (See [0109] “FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating another example of migrating encoded data slices, which includes similar steps to FIG. 7B. The method begins with step 152 where a processing module (e.g., of a dispersed storage (DS) processing unit) determines to migrate an encoded data slice from a memory to a second memory. The memory and the second memory may be included as memories of a dispersed storage (DS) unit. The processing module may determine to migrate a plurality of encoded data slices. The determination may be based on one or more of a migration score, a migration threshold, a memory free space indicator” See Abstract “The method continues with the processing module migrating one or more encoded data slices between the first and second memory devices to reduce the available memory imbalance when the available memory imbalance exists.” See block 114 and block 120 depicted in Figure 6F.), wherein the second super device has not reached the threshold limit (See Figure 6B and Figure 6C in combination with [0084], in which [0084] recites: “Next, encoded data slices may be moved from a memory with the least amount of free space of the memory pair to the other memory of the memory pair. For instance, encoded data slices may be moved from memory C to memory B to balance the memory utilization.” See [0095] “The migrating the one or more encoded data slices between the first and second memory devices includes, when the available memory imbalance exists because an available memory value of the first memory device is less than an available memory value of the second memory device, selecting the one or more encoded data slices associated with the first memory for migration to produce a migration set of encoded data slices, retrieving the migration set of encoded data slices from the first memory, storing the migration set of encoded data slices in the second memory” Data is moved from a first memory to a second memory when the first memory has reached a free/available space amount and the second memory has not reached the free/available space amount.), and
It 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 to combine the storage system of AAPA with the data migration method of Motwani to balance memory utilization, thus improving memory management/utilization and storage efficiency (i.e. See Figure 6B, Figure 6C, and Figure 6D of Motwani).
AAPA and Motwani do not explicitly disclose what Yeh teaches:
wherein the first plurality of active zones comprises at least one cold zone, and wherein a cold zone is a zone that is overwritten less than a hot zone (See [0057] “the memory management unit 172 sequentially groups the logical blocks into logical zones LZ1, LZ2 and LZ3 according to the use count values of the logical blocks.” See [0057] “the logical zone where the host system 200 sends the write commands for relatively more times (or frequent) is referred to as a hot logical zone, and the logical zone where the host system 200 sends the write commands for relatively less times (or frequent) is referred to as a cold logical zone.” See [0059] “Then, when the times for the host system 200 sending the write commands to the logical blocks is accumulated for a period of time (shown as (b) of FIG. 4), the memory management unit 172 determines that the use count value of the logical block 350-8 is greater than the use count threshold value (for example, the use count threshold value of 99).”);
and move data from the at least one cold zone of the first plurality of active zones of the first super device to at least one other zone of the second plurality of active zones of the second super device… (See [0065] “in the example shown in FIG. 4, the logical zone LZ1 is the hottest logical zone, the logical zone LZ2 is a secondary-hottest logical zone, and the logical zone LZ3 is the cold logical zone.” See [0059] “Then, when the times for the host system 200 sending the write commands to the logical blocks is accumulated for a period of time (shown as (b) of FIG. 4), the memory management unit 172 determines that the use count value of the logical block 350-8 is greater than the use count threshold value (for example, the use count threshold value of 99)”. See [0059] “the memory management unit 172 updates the logical block-logical zone mapping table 270 to exchange the logical block 350-8 to the logical zone LZ2, and meanwhile exchanges a logical block with a minimum use count value (i.e. the logical block 350-7) in the logical zone LZ2 to the logical zone LZ3 (as that shown in (c) of FIG. 4)” See [0060] “the memory management unit 172 exchanges the logical block with the minimum use count value in the logical zone LZ2 to the logical zone LZ3.” See claim 4 of Yeh “determining whether the use count values of the logical blocks in the cold logical zone is greater than a use count threshold value; and when the use count value of one of the logical blocks in the cold logical zone is greater than the use count threshold value, grouping the one of the logical block into the hot logical zone, selecting one of the logical blocks from the hot logical zone, and grouping the selected logical block into the cold logical zone.”).
It 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 to combine the storage system of AAPA and the data migration method of Motwani with the logical block management method of Yeh to determine usage patterns of memory blocks and use different mechanisms to write data so as to increase the performance of the flash memory storage device (See abstract and [0075] of Yeh.).
AAPA, Motwani and Yeh do not explicitly disclose what Yang teaches:
reset the at least one cold zone of the first plurality of active zones of the first super device (See [0109] “The garbage collection of the storage device may mean erasing a corresponding physical zone after moving the valid data among the data stored in the victim physical zone of the memory device to another physical zone.” See [0124] “Referring to FIG. 17, in operation S1701, data stored in the victim physical zones may be copied and stored in a super block different from the victim super block.” See [0125] “In operation S1703, erasure may be performed on the victim superblock on which data movement is completed. Accordingly, all physical zones included in the victim super block may be switched to the empty state.” The prior art teaches erasing a victim physical zone and switching it to an empty state (i.e. resetting the zone) after moving the data from the victim physical zone to another zone.).
It 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 to combine the storage system of AAPA and the data migration method of Motwani and the logical block management method of Yeh with the memory zone management method of Yang to free memory blocks previously occupied with data for reuse, thus improving memory space management and allocation.
AAPA, Motwani, Yeh and Yang do not explicitly disclose what Seo teaches:
determine that the second super device has at least one cold zone less than a cold zone threshold value, wherein the cold zone threshold value is a maximum number of cold zones a super device can include (See Figure 5A, in which multiple segments (i.e. Free_SEG1, SEG 1, SEG 2, etc.) have at least one cold zone less than a maximum number of cold zones that a segment can hold.);
It 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 to combine the storage system of AAPA and the data migration method of Motwani and the logical block management method of Yeh and the memory zone management method of Yang with the hot/cold data management method of Seo to improve garbage collection operations and thus improve memory management of free space.
Regarding claim 2, AAPA teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein data is written sequentially to the first plurality of active zones and the second plurality of active zones (See [0003] “ZNS SSDs are a class of SSDs that supports either sequential only zones and zone random write area (ZRWA). In a sequential only zones ZNS SSD, zone data is written sequentially without overwrites. However, in a ZRWA ZNS SSD, zones are written to randomly and with overwrites. Typically, ZNS SSDs supports sequential only zones” See [0004] “Consider the case of a SSD having two active open zones and two super devices (SDs). In order to achieve higher write performance, each zone is mapped to a super block (SB) of an SD, where a SB includes a set of blocks across each die of an SD. When writing to a particular zone, the zone must be reset prior to writing to a previous logical block address (LBA) of the zone or when writing to a full zone.”).
Regarding claim 3, Motwani teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to remap the moved data (See [0097] “The method continues at step 116 where the processing module updates a slice location table based on the migrating the one or more encoded data slices between the first and second memory devices.”).
Regarding claim 3, Yeh teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to remap the moved data (See [0059] “Then, when the times for the host system 200 sending the write commands to the logical blocks is accumulated for a period of time (shown as (b) of FIG. 4), the memory management unit 172 determines that the use count value of the logical block 350-8 is greater than the use count threshold value (for example, the use count threshold value of 99). Therefore, the memory management unit 172 adjusts the mapping relations between the logical blocks and the logical zones. In detail, the memory management unit 172 updates the logical block-logical zone mapping table 270 to exchange the logical block 350-8 to the logical zone LZ2, and meanwhile exchanges a logical block with a minimum use count value (i.e. the logical block 350-7) in the logical zone LZ2 to the logical zone LZ3 (as that shown in (c) of FIG. 4), and the memory management unit 172 updates the logical block-physical block mapping tables corresponding to the logical zones LZ2 and LZ3.”).
Regarding claim 5, AAPA teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the second super device has a critical threshold limit equal to the critical threshold limit of the first super device (See [0004] “Consider the case of a SSD having two active open zones and two super devices (SDs).” See [0004] “When an SD is at capacity or if the free space of the SD is below a critical threshold (e.g., the minimum free space that must be maintained in an SD), the SD is no longer usable and the data storage device performance may be impacted by the loss of the usability of the SD. For example, in a two SD SSD, if both SDs have a write performance of about 1000 Mbps, the total SSD write performance is about 2000 Mbps. However, if one SD is can no longer be written to due to the amount of free space decreasing below a critical threshold, the total SSD write performance decreases to about 1000 Mbps.” AAPA teaches both SDs to have the same write performance, and references the SDs generally with a critical threshold. Therefore, the SDs having the same critical threshold is readily apparent in the description of the SDs described in paragraph [0004] of AAPA, as it is readily apparent that the two SDs of the SSD may be identical.)).
Regarding claim 6, AAPA teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein both the first super device and the second super device are write active (See [0003] “ZNS SSDs are a class of SSDs that supports either sequential only zones and zone random write area (ZRWA). In a sequential only zones ZNS SSD, zone data is written sequentially without overwrites. However, in a ZRWA ZNS SSD, zones are written to randomly and with overwrites.” See [0004] “Consider the case of a SSD having two active open zones and two super devices (SDs). In order to achieve higher write performance, each zone is mapped to a super block (SB) of an SD, where a SB includes a set of blocks across each die of an SD. When writing to a particular zone, the zone must be reset prior to writing to a previous logical block address (LBA) of the zone or when writing to a full zone.”).
Regarding claim 7, AAPA teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the first plurality of zones are sequential write zones (See [0003] “ZNS SSDs are a class of SSDs that supports either sequential only zones and zone random write area (ZRWA). In a sequential only zones ZNS SSD, zone data is written sequentially without overwrites. However, in a ZRWA ZNS SSD, zones are written to randomly and with overwrites. Typically, ZNS SSDs supports sequential only zones” See [0004] “Consider the case of a SSD having two active open zones and two super devices (SDs). In order to achieve higher write performance, each zone is mapped to a super block (SB) of an SD, where a SB includes a set of blocks across each die of an SD. When writing to a particular zone, the zone must be reset prior to writing to a previous logical block address (LBA) of the zone or when writing to a full zone.”).
Regarding claim 8, AAPA teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein at least one zone of the first plurality of zones is a random write zone (See [0003] “ZNS SSDs are a class of SSDs that supports either sequential only zones and zone random write area (ZRWA). In a sequential only zones ZNS SSD, zone data is written sequentially without overwrites. However, in a ZRWA ZNS SSD, zones are written to randomly and with overwrites.”).
Regarding claim 9, AAPA teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the first plurality of active zones and the second plurality of active zones are equal (See [0004] “Consider the case of a SSD having two active open zones and two super devices (SDs).” See [0004] “When an SD is at capacity or if the free space of the SD is below a critical threshold (e.g., the minimum free space that must be maintained in an SD), the SD is no longer usable and the data storage device performance may be impacted by the loss of the usability of the SD. For example, in a two SD SSD, if both SDs have a write performance of about 1000 Mbps, the total SSD write performance is about 2000 Mbps. However, if one SD is can no longer be written to due to the amount of free space decreasing below a critical threshold, the total SSD write performance decreases to about 1000 Mbps.” AAPA teaches both SDs to have the same write performance, and references the SDs generally with a critical threshold. Therefore, the SDs having the same amount of zones are readily apparent in the description of the SDs described in paragraph [0004] of AAPA, as it is readily apparent that the two SDs of the SSD may be identical.).
Regarding claim 13, Motwani teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to determine whether any super device is below a threshold (See [0109] “The method begins with step 152 where a processing module (e.g., of a dispersed storage (DS) processing unit) determines to migrate an encoded data slice from a memory to a second memory. The memory and the second memory may be included as memories of a dispersed storage (DS) unit. The processing module may determine to migrate a plurality of encoded data slices. The determination may be based on one or more of a migration score, a migration threshold, a memory free space indicator” Under broadest reasonable interpretation of the prior art, the memory free space indicator/threshold could be for any one of the memory or second memory. It may be determined that a memory is below or above the memory free space indicator.).
Regarding claim 15, Motwani teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to determine whether any super device is above a threshold (See [0109] “The method begins with step 152 where a processing module (e.g., of a dispersed storage (DS) processing unit) determines to migrate an encoded data slice from a memory to a second memory. The memory and the second memory may be included as memories of a dispersed storage (DS) unit. The processing module may determine to migrate a plurality of encoded data slices. The determination may be based on one or more of a migration score, a migration threshold, a memory free space indicator” Under broadest reasonable interpretation of the prior art, the memory free space indicator/threshold could be for any one of the memory or second memory. It may be determined that a memory is below or above the memory free space indicator.).
Regarding claim 16, AAPA teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to open a plurality of active zones in each super device (See [0004] “Consider the case of a SSD having two active open zones and two super devices (SDs). In order to achieve higher write performance, each zone is mapped to a super block (SB) of an SD” See [0004] “For example, in a two SD SSD, if both SDs have a write performance of about 1000 Mbps, the total SSD write performance is about 2000 Mbps.” AAPA teaches an SSD that can have multiple super devices (SDs), and further teaches zones mapped to the SDs.).
Claims 10-11 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over AAPA in view of Motwani in view of Yeh in view of Yang in view of Seo in view of Bhardwaj (U.S. Publication No. 2023/0028627).
Regarding claim 10, Bhardwaj teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein a zone is classified as hot or cold depending upon a zone reset count (See [0017] “A zone that has a zone reset counter value that is above the global reset counter (i.e., above average) is a hot zone, while a zone that has a zone reset counter value that is below the global reset counter (i.e., below average) is a cold zone.”).
It 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 to combine the storage system of AAPA and the data migration method of Motwani and the logical block management method of Yeh and the memory zone management method of Yang and the hot/cold data management method of Seo with the block allocation method of Bhardwaj to provide efficient wear leveling of a memory device, thus prolonging endurance of a memory device (See [0022] of Bhardwaj).
Regarding claim 11, Bhardwaj teaches:
The data storage device of claim 10, wherein a zone is a hot zone if the zone reset count is greater than a zone reset threshold, and wherein a zone is a cold zone if the zone reset count is less than the zone reset threshold (See [0017] “A zone that has a zone reset counter value that is above the global reset counter (i.e., above average) is a hot zone, while a zone that has a zone reset counter value that is below the global reset counter (i.e., below average) is a cold zone.”).
Regarding claim 17, Bhardwaj teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to write data to active zones in each super device (See [0014] “Memory sub-system controllers can receive multiple write requests from a host system, and can be configured to execute the write requests in parallel.” (See [0015] “Data can be written to a particular zone sequentially and independently from other zones, at varying rates.” See [0015] “Zones are written to sequentially within a memory device.” See [0016] “Writing to a block with a zone is managed by a write cursor. There can be many active write cursors operating concurrently.”)
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over AAPA in view of Motwani in view of Yeh in view of Yang in view of Seo in view of Bert (U.S. Publication No. 2022/0300195).
Regarding claim 18, Bert teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to inform a host device when super devices are full (See [0022] “When the memory region reaches full capacity, the memory sub-system controller can inform the host system that the memory region is full.”).
It 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 to combine the storage system of AAPA and the data migration method of Motwani and the logical block management method of Yeh and the memory zone management method of Yang and the hot/cold data management method of Seo with the memory management method of Bert to permit efficient memory allocation by providing system updates regarding memory capacity/storage status.
Claims 4, 14 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over AAPA in view of Motwani in view of Yeh in view of Yang in view of Seo in view of Kim et al. (Hereinafter Kim, U.S. Publication No. 2021/0240390).
Regarding claim 4, Kim teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the moving the data occurs as a background operation (See [0055] “The memory controller 120 may control the operation of the memory device 110 at the request of a host. Alternatively, the memory controller 120 may control the operation of the memory device 110 without a corresponding request of the host, such as, for example, when the memory controller 120 directs the memory device 110 to perform one or more background operations.” See [0152] “Hereunder, an operation in which the memory system 100 manages the hot data pool and the cold data pool during a background operation (e.g., garbage collection/wear leveling) is described.”).
For clarity of record, Examiner points out that Motwani teaches moving the data (i.e. move data from at least one zone… as recited in claim 1). See rejection of claim 1 regarding Motwani’s teaching of “move data from at least one zone…”. Prior art Kim has been used to reject claim 4, because although Motwani teaches moving the data, Motwani does not teach moving the data via a background operation, while Kim does teach moving the data via a background operation. Therefore, it 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 to combine the storage system of AAPA and the data migration method of Motwani and the logical block management method of Yeh and the memory zone management method of Yang and the hot/cold data management method of Seo with the data pool management method of Kim to enable smooth multitasking, efficient resource utilization, and continuous system processes, made possible by running memory management operations in the background while enabling other operations to be run in the foreground. Such combination which would essentially involve combining the data migration method of Motwani with the data movement background operation of Kim, and thus teach allowing the data migration to be run in the background to enable smooth multitasking, efficient resource utilization, and continuous system processes.
Regarding claim 14, Kim teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to determine whether a super device needs cold zones to balance a number of cold zones between two or more super devices (See [0009] “The memory controller may manage a hot data pool and a cold data pool, each of which includes at least one among the plurality of memory blocks.” See [0012] “The memory controller may determine whether to exchange at least one among memory blocks in the cold data pool and at least one among memory blocks in the hot data pool with each other, in a wear leveling operation.” See Figure 8 and Figure 11 in which a block residing in the hot data pool that has become cold can be swapped with a block residing in the cold data pool that has become hot. As shown in Figure 8 and Figure 11, cold blocks are balanced in a cold data pool. See Abstract “The memory system manages a hot data pool and a cold data pool, each of which includes at least one among a plurality of memory blocks, writes read only data to the cold data pool, and controls the hot data pool and the cold data pool in garbage collection and wear leveling, thereby classifying data, less frequently updated, into cold data and improving the performance of garbage collection and wear leveling.”).
It 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 to combine the storage system of AAPA and the data migration method of Motwani and the logical block management method of Yeh and the memory zone management method of Yang and the hot/cold data management method of Seo with the data pool management method of Kim to improve performance of garbage collection and wear leveling by classifying data as cold and hot and migrating data based on balancing cold and hot storage pools.
Regarding claim 19, Motwani teaches:
The data storage device of claim 1, wherein the controller is configured to move data from…zone within a super device that is above the critical threshold limit or the cold zone threshold value to any super device that is below the critical threshold limit or cold zone threshold value (See [0109] “FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating another example of migrating encoded data slices, which includes similar steps to FIG. 7B. The method begins with step 152 where a processing module (e.g., of a dispersed storage (DS) processing unit) determines to migrate an encoded data slice from a memory to a second memory. The memory and the second memory may be included as memories of a dispersed storage (DS) unit. The processing module may determine to migrate a plurality of encoded data slices. The determination may be based on one or more of a migration score, a migration threshold, a memory free space indicator” See Abstract “The method continues with the processing module migrating one or more encoded data slices between the first and second memory devices to reduce the available memory imbalance when the available memory imbalance exists.” See block 114 and block 120 depicted in Figure 6F. See the aforementioned citations, in view of Figure 6B, Figure 6C, and Figure 6D in which data is moved from one zone to another based on free space amount/critical threshold in the different memories.).
It 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 to combine the storage system of AAPA with the data migration method of Motwani to balance memory utilization, thus improving memory management/utilization and storage efficiency (i.e. See Figure 6B, Figure 6C, and Figure 6D of Motwani).
Motwani does not explicitly disclose what Kim teaches:
a cold zone (See [0009] “The memory controller may manage a hot data pool and a cold data pool, each of which includes at least one among the plurality of memory blocks.” See [0012] “The memory controller may determine whether to exchange at least one among memory blocks in the cold data pool and at least one among memory blocks in the hot data pool with each other, in a wear leveling operation.” See Figure 8 and Figure 11 in which a block residing in the hot data pool that has become cold can be swapped with a block residing in the cold data pool that has become hot. As shown in Figure 8 and Figure 11, cold blocks are balanced in a cold data pool by migrating cold data blocks. See Abstract “The memory system manages a hot data pool and a cold data pool, each of which includes at least one among a plurality of memory blocks, writes read only data to the cold data pool, and controls the hot data pool and the cold data pool in garbage collection and wear leveling, thereby classifying data, less frequently updated, into cold data and improving the performance of garbage collection and wear leveling.”)
While Motwani does teach moving data from a zone within a super device that is above the critical threshold limit to any super device that is below the critical threshold limit, Motwani doesn’t teach the zones to be cold zones. Kim does teach moving cold zones from one super device to another. It 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 to combine the storage system of AAPA and the data migration method of Motwani and the logical block management method of Yeh and the memory zone management method of Yang and the hot/cold data management method of Seo with the data pool management method of Kim to improve performance of garbage collection and wear leveling by classifying data as cold and hot and migrating data based on balancing cold and hot storage pools.
Regarding claim 20, Motwani teaches:
performing the moving of data from the …zone within a super device that is above the critical threshold limit or the cold zone threshold value to any super device that is below the critical threshold limit or the cold zone threshold value (See [0109] “FIG. 8 is a flowchart illustrating another example of migrating encoded data slices, which includes similar steps to FIG. 7B. The method begins with step 152 where a processing module (e.g., of a dispersed storage (DS) processing unit) determines to migrate an encoded data slice from a memory to a second memory. The memory and the second memory may be included as memories of a dispersed storage (DS) unit. The processing module may determine to migrate a plurality of encoded data slices. The determination may be based on one or more of a migration score, a migration threshold, a memory free space indicator” See Abstract “The method continues with the processing module migrating one or more encoded data slices between the first and second memory devices to reduce the available memory imbalance when the available memory imbalance exists.” See block 114 and block 120 depicted in Figure 6F. See the aforementioned citations, in view of Figure 6B, Figure 6C, and Figure 6D in which data is moved from one zone to another based on free space amount/critical threshold in the different memories.).
It 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 to combine the storage system of AAPA with the data migration method of Motwani to balance memory utilization, thus improving memory management/utilization and storage efficiency (i.e. See Figure 6B, Figure 6C, and Figure 6D of Motwani).
Motwani does not explicitly disclose what Kim teaches:
The data storage device of claim 19, wherein the controller is configured to balance cold zones by performing the moving (See [0009] “The memory controller may manage a hot data pool and a cold data pool, each of which includes at least one among the plurality of memory blocks.” See [0012] “The memory controller may determine whether to exchange at least one among memory blocks in the cold data pool and at least one among memory blocks in the hot data pool with each other, in a wear leveling operation.” See Figure 8 and Figure 11 in which a block residing in the hot data pool that has become cold can be swapped with a block residing in the cold data pool that has become hot. As shown in Figure 8 and Figure 11, cold blocks are balanced in a cold data pool by migrating cold data blocks. See Abstract “The memory system manages a hot data pool and a cold data pool, each of which includes at least one among a plurality of memory blocks, writes read only data to the cold data pool, and controls the hot data pool and the cold data pool in garbage collection and wear leveling, thereby classifying data, less frequently updated, into cold data and improving the performance of garbage collection and wear leveling.”)
While Motwani does teach moving data from a zone within a super device that is above the critical threshold limit to any super device that is below the critical threshold limit, Motwani doesn’t teach the zones to be cold zones. Kim does teach moving cold zones from one super device to another. It 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 to combine the storage system of AAPA and the data migration method of Motwani and the logical block management method of Yeh and the memory zone management method of Yang and the hot/cold data management method of Seo with the data pool management method of Kim to improve performance of garbage collection and wear leveling by classifying data as cold and hot and migrating data based on balancing cold and hot storage pools.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed November 10, 2025 have been fully considered but they are moot, as the arguments are directed to amendments filed on November 10, 2025 that recite “determine that the second super device has at least one cold zone less than a cold zone threshold value, wherein the cold zone threshold value is a maximum number of cold zones a super device can include”. Newly found prior art Seo has been used (in combination with previously cited references) to teach the amendments filed on November 10, 2025 (See rejection of claim 1 in view of Seo). Furthermore, due to the amendments to claim 1, such amendments in combination with the rest of the limitations of claim 1 is considered new matter by examiner for the reasons stated in the 112(a) rejection of claim 1. Although applicant’s arguments indicated that support for the amendments is found in [0027]-[0029] of applicant’s arguments, examiner respectfully disagrees, as such citations do not disclose the amended subject matter. All pending claims are rejected herein.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL L WESTBROOK whose telephone number is (571)270-5028. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9am-5pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Reginald Bragdon can be reached on (571) 272-4204. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/MICHAEL L WESTBROOK/Examiner, Art Unit 2139
/REGINALD G BRAGDON/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2139