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 .
Status of claim(s) to be treated in this office action:
a. Independent: 1 and 13
b. Pending: 1-13
Claims 1, 4 and 13 have been amended.
Specification
The new title is reviewed but rejected as “Attribute Information” is not critical any more for independent claims 1 and 13. Instead, term “Priority Value” is recited without any further clarification.
Double Patenting
Double Patenting Rejection is withdrawn pursuant to claim amendments.
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 1-13 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.
Independent claims 1 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential structural cooperative relationships of elements, such omission amounting to a gap between the necessary structural connections. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted structural cooperative relationships are: “priority value”. This is critical component, which is not clarified in the claims like how to determine it and metes and bounds of claims are unclear.
None of the dependent claims 2-12 elaborates the term “priority value” and some of the claims keeps reciting the term and henceforth rejected.
Per MPEP 2111 and 2111.01, the claims are given their broadest reasonable interpretation and the words of the claims are given their plain meaning consistent with the specification without importing claim limitations from the specification.
Claims 4 and 7 recite the limitation "the attribute information". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Dependent claims 5-6, 8-11 all carry the same deficit and henceforth rejected.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-3 and 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Takizawa (US 12073087).
Regarding independent claim 1, Takizawa discloses a memory control apparatus that controls access to a DRAM including a plurality of banks (Fig. 1 and (16) describes memory controller 100 and semiconductor memory device 300 which is a DRAM having multiple ranks R0 to R2), the memory control apparatus comprising:
a first generation unit (120; Fig. 1) configured to generate an access command in response to an access request for the DRAM (Fig. 1 and (17) describes command generator 120), and store the generated access command in a buffer (Fig. 1 and (17) describes access request holder 110);
a second generation unit configured to generate a bank-designated refresh request for the DRAM (Fig. 1 and (19)-(20) describes access request selector 130 which executes an access request selection process, and determines the processing order of the access requests); and
an issuing unit configured to issue a DRAM command to the DRAM based on the access command stored in the buffer and the refresh request generated by the second generation unit (Fig. 5 and (37) describes that memory controller 100 executes, according to the issuance order of the access commands determined in S300, a refresh process in each of the ranks R0 to R2 in S400 to S420, and executes the access command issuance process in S500. The memory controller 100 continuously executes each refresh process and each access command issuance process during the operation of the memory controller 100. Here examiner asserts that an issuing unit is present even though it is not shown explicitly),
wherein the bank of the generated bank-designated refresh request is one of banks which have been selected from among the plurality of banks based on a priority value attributed to the access request (Fig. 3 and (30) describes that in a case where multiple ranks corresponding to the access target rank are present, the access request selector 130 determines the issuance order of access commands in order to preferentially process the access request group including access requests having a high priority preliminarily set by the arithmetic units 210 to 230).
Regarding claim 2, Takizawa discloses all the elements of claim 1 as above and further the second generation unit selects banks serving as refresh candidates based on the number of commands of each of the plurality of banks, selects an exclusion bank to be excluded from the refresh candidates based on the attribute information, and determines a bank to which the refresh request is to be given, from among banks remaining after the exclusion bank has been excluded from the banks serving as the refresh candidates (Fig. 6 and (39)-(40) describes that command generator 120 determines whether or not the counter value Cnt0 of the refresh counter 150 is larger than or equal to a threshold value TH1 in S404. If it is determined that the counter value Cnt0 is larger than the threshold value TH1 (S404: Yes), the command generator 120 issues the refresh command to refresh all of the banks belonging to the rank R0. Also Fig. 7 and (48) describes that command generator 120 determines whether or not the accessible rank is present in S532. The accessible rank means a rank other than the rank currently being accessed, which has already been refreshed and has a request access to the corresponding rank).
Regarding claim 3, Takizawa discloses all the elements of claim 2 as above and further the second generation unit selects banks whose sum total of commands to banks other than a focused bank, with respect to each of the plurality of banks, is greater than or equal to a predetermined number, as the banks serving as the refresh candidates (Figs. 6-7, (39)-(40) and (43)-(48).
Regarding claim 12, Takizawa discloses all the elements of claim 1 as above and further a control unit configured to control an order of issuance of access commands stored in the buffer ((19) describes that command generator 120 issues the access command to the semiconductor memory device 300 according to a command issuance order determined by the access request selector 130), wherein the control unit excludes an access command that is to access a bank that is being refreshed, from access commands to be subjected to the control of an order of issuance Fig. 7 and (48) describes that command generator 120 determines whether or not the accessible rank is present in S532. The accessible rank means a rank other than the rank currently being accessed, which has already been refreshed and has a request access to the corresponding rank).
Independent claim 13 recites the exact same claim limitations of independent device claim 1 in method format and henceforth rejected the same way.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection rely on newly found references. Due to claim amendments scope of the claims have been changed.
Rejections are maintained at-least for above mentioned reasons. Details will be found under “Claim Rejections”
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.
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/SULTANA BEGUM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2824 1/28/2026