DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-18 are pending.
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 .
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 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujita (US 20040167995 A1) in view of CICS (CICS Application Programming Guide).
Regarding Claim 1, Fujita teaches a command processing method, applied to an electronic system which can execute commands and comprises a plurality of storage regions (
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Fujita discloses, “This allows the ORB (command block ORB) created by the initiator to be fetched in a data buffer (packet buffer) of the target. The target analyzes a command included in the ORB fetched in the data buffer,” ¶ 0047, and “The electronic instrument 8 includes a data transfer control system 10 and a storage device 100 (device in a broad sense),” ¶ 0070.
The claimed “electronic system” is mapped to the disclosed “electronic instrument 8”, which is a system that contains a data transfer control system and a storage device, according to FIG. 8.
The claimed “plurality of storage regions” is mapped to at least one disclosed “data buffer”, which is capable of storing ORBs (ORB stands for “operation request block”).), comprising:
(a) storing at least one command to at least one of the storage regions (
Fujita discloses, “This allows the ORB (command block ORB) created by the initiator to be fetched in a data buffer (packet buffer) of the target. The target analyzes a command included in the ORB fetched in the data buffer,” ¶ 0047.
Here, an ORB containing a command is stored in a data buffer prior to being fetched.);
(b) acquiring abort information of a target command among the command if the target command is already fetched from the storage regions but is to be aborted (
Fujita discloses, “This allows the ORB (command block ORB) created by the initiator to be fetched in a data buffer (packet buffer) of the target. The target analyzes a command included in the ORB fetched in the data buffer,” ¶ 0047, and “In more detail, if the contents of the ORB1 before the bus reset are determined to differ from the contents of the ORB2 after the bus reset, the command abort section 86 aborts (terminates or cancels) the command which has been issued to the storage device 100 based on the ORB1 after completion of the DMA transfer initiated based on the ORB1 (command),” ¶ 0097.
The claimed “abort information” is mapped to the disclosed “contents of the ORB1”. This is “abort information” because the contents of the ORB1 is information that is used to determine if the command associated with the ORB1 should be aborted or not.
The present application’s specification does not appear to explicitly define what the claimed “abort information” is, or its structure. Under broadest reasonable interpretation, the Examiner has construed the claimed “abort information” to mean “any information that indicates if a command should be aborted or not”.
Here, the ORB containing the command is fetched from the data buffer.).
and (d) aborting the target command if a result of a step is yes, and not aborting the target command if the result of a step is no (
Fujita discloses, “In more detail, if the contents of the ORB1 before the bus reset are determined to differ from the contents of the ORB2 after the bus reset, the command abort section 86 aborts (terminates or cancels) the command which has been issued to the storage device 100 based on the ORB1 after completion of the DMA transfer initiated based on the ORB1 (command),” ¶ 0121.
Here, the outcome of a step is used to determine whether to abort a command associated with the ORB1. In this case, if the contents of the ORB1 differ from the contents of a second ORB, ORB2, then the command is aborted.).
Fujita does not teach (c) checking if the abort information and the target command are from an identical one of the storage regions; and (d) aborting the target command if a result of the step (c) is yes, and not aborting the target command if the result of the step (c) is no.
However, CICS teaches (c) checking if the abort information and the target command are from an identical one of the storage regions; and (d) aborting the target command if a result of the step (c) is yes, and not aborting the target command if the result of the step (c) is no (
CICS discloses, “Using this application programming technique, the CANCEL command that cancels the START request must: Be issued in same target region that the START command was executed in,” Page 172.
Here, if abort information (CANCEL command) and a target command (START command) are from the same target region, the START command is canceled. If the abort information (CANCEL command) and the target command (START command) are not from the same target region, the target command is not canceled.).
Fujita and CICS are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer command processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Fujita to incorporate the teachings of CICS and provide (c) checking if the abort information and the target command are from an identical one of the storage regions; and (d) aborting the target command if a result of the step (c) is yes, and not aborting the target command if the result of the step (c) is no. Doing so would help ensure that a command does not accidentally end up being canceled if the conditions for cancelation are not met, thus enhance system reliability and security.
Claim 10 is an electronic system claim corresponding to the command processing method Claim 1. Therefore, Claim 10 is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 1.
Claims 2-3, and 11-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujita (US 20040167995 A1) in view of CICS (CICS Application Programming Guide) and Sambangi (US 12265729 B1).
Regarding Claim 2, Fujita in view of CICS teaches the command processing method of claim 1. Fujita in view of CICS does not teach wherein the electronic system follows UFS 4.0 standard.
However, Sambangi teaches wherein the electronic system follows UFS 4.0 standard (
Sambangi discloses, “According to some memory system standards, UFS 4.0, a device may execute the write buffer flush operation only when the command queue is empty,” Col 2, Lines 32-34.).
Fujita in view of CICS, and Sambangi are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer command processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Fujita in view of CICS to incorporate the teachings of Sambangi and provide wherein the electronic system follows UFS 4.0 standard. Doing so would help ensure that the device conforms to the standard to improve compatibility with other devices.
Claim 11 is an electronic system claim corresponding to the command processing method Claim 2. Therefore, Claim 11 is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 2.
Regarding Claim 3, Fujita in view of CICS and Sambangi teaches the command processing method of claim 2, wherein the storage regions are submission queues for storing the command (
Sambangi discloses, “The method also includes detecting, by the memory controller during the flush operation, a command for placement into a command queue,” Abstract.
After the combination of Fujita in view of CICS, with Sanbangi, the data buffers/storage regions from Fujita in view of CICS, that store the command, are now specified to be submission queues as specified by Sanbangi.).
Fujita in view of CICS, and Sambangi are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer command processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Fujita in view of CICS to incorporate the teachings of Sambangi and provide wherein the storage regions are submission queues for storing the command. Doing so would help ensure that the commands are stored and retrieved in an organized manner, avoid mistakes, and/or to implement users’ priorities.
Claim 12 is an electronic system claim corresponding to the command processing method Claim 3. Therefore, Claim 12 is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 3.
Claims 4 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujita (US 20040167995 A1) in view of CICS (CICS Application Programming Guide), Sambangi (US 12265729 B1), and Shin (US 20210374079 A1).
Regarding Claim 4, Fujita in view of CICS and Sambangi teaches the command processing method of claim 3. Fujita in view of CICS and Sambangi does not teach further comprising a multi-circular queue comprising the storage regions.
However Shin teaches further comprising a multi-circular queue comprising the storage regions (
Shin discloses, “Consequentially, the storage system 10 according to at least one example embodiment of the inventive concept may use the multiple circular queue (for example, the SQ and the CQ) in directly transferring the command CMD to the storage device 200 by the HCI 190, and therefore, overhead due to occupation of shared resources among the plurality of cores, and the performance of the storage system 10 may be significantly improved,” ¶ 0139.
After the combination of Fujita in view of CICS and Sambangi, with Shin, the multi-circular queue from Shin now comprises the storage regions/data buffers from Fujita in view of CICS and Sambangi.).
Fujita in view of CICS and Sambangi, and Shin are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer command processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Fujita in view of CICS and Sambangi to incorporate the teachings of Shin and provide further comprising a multi-circular queue comprising the storage regions. Doing so would help provide a storage efficient data structure for storing the commands, in cases wherein the environment has limited storage (Shin discloses, “As described above, the circular queue, in which a next address of the last address is the first address, is advantageous for a limited data space allocation environment, and may be easily embodied,” ¶ 0176.).
Claim 13 is an electronic system claim corresponding to the command processing method Claim 4. Therefore, Claim 13 is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 4.
Claims 5 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujita (US 20040167995 A1) in view of CICS (CICS Application Programming Guide), Sambangi (US 12265729 B1), and Palmer (US 20170116154 A1).
Regarding Claim 5, Fujita in view of CICS and Sanbangi teaches the command processing method of claim 2. Fujita in view of CICS and Sanbangi does not teach wherein the storage regions respectively comprise a register, and the abort information is from one of the registers.
However, Palmer teaches wherein the storage regions respectively comprise a register, and the abort information is from one of the registers (
Palmer discloses, “FIG. 6A illustrates an example of a configuration of the operand registers from FIG. 2, including a banks of registers arranged as a mailbox queue to receive data via write transactions,” ¶ 0008, and “To prevent this, as illustrated in FIG. 6A, each processor core 290 may configure blocks of operand registers 686 to serve as banks of a circular queue that serves as the processor core’s ‘mailbox’,” ¶ 0050.
Here, a queue comprises registers that store data. After the combination of Fujita in view of CICS and Sanbangi, with Palmer, the data buffers/storage regions from Fujita in view of CICS and Sanbangi are queues that comprise at least one register, and the abort information is stored in one of the registers.).
Fujita in view of CICS and Sambangi, and Palmer are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Fujita in view of CICS and Sambangi to incorporate the teachings of Palmer and provide wherein the storage regions respectively comprise a register, and the abort information is from one of the registers. Doing so would help provide high-speed data access using the registers (Palmer discloses, “Each processing element has a number (e.g., 200) of operand registers to which it has direct, high-speed (e.g., single clock-cycle) access,” Abstract).
Claim 14 is an electronic system claim corresponding to the command processing method Claim 5. Therefore, Claim 14 is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 5.
Claims 6-7 and 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujita (US 20040167995 A1) in view of CICS (CICS Application Programming Guide) and Golov (DE 102021127072 A1).
Regarding Claim 6, Fujita in view of CICS teaches the command processing method of claim 1, wherein the step (c) checks if the abort information and the target command are from the identical one of the storage regions according to the storage region information (
CICS discloses, “Using this application programming technique, the CANCEL command that cancels the START request must: Be issued in same target region that the START command was executed in,” Page 172.
Here, if abort information (CANCEL command) and a target command (START command) are from the same target region, the START command is canceled. If the abort information (CANCEL command) and the target command (START command) are not from the same target region, the target command is not canceled.).
Fujita and CICS are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer command processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Fujita to incorporate the teachings of CICS and provide wherein the step (c) checks if the abort information and the target command are from the identical one of the storage regions according to the storage region information. Doing so would help ensure that a command does not accidentally end up being canceled if the conditions for cancelation are not met.
Fujita in view of CICS does not teach wherein the step (a) writes storage region information to the command while storing the command to the storage regions.
However, Golov teaches wherein the step (a) writes storage region information to the command while storing the command to the storage regions (
Golov discloses, “A write (or program) operation that includes a region ID is called an ‘extended’ write command to distinguish such an operation from a standard write command,” Page 4.
After the combination of Fujita in view of CICS, with Golov, storage region information such as a region ID, from Golov, is appended to a command before it is stored in the data buffers/storage regions from Fujita in view of CICS.).
Fujita in view of CICS, and Golov are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer command processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Fujita in view of CICS to incorporate the teachings of Golov and provide wherein the step (a) writes storage region information to the command while storing the command to the storage regions. Doing so would help ensure that each command can be matched with its corresponding storage region efficiently and accurately.
Claim 15 is an electronic system claim corresponding to the command processing method Claim 6. Therefore, Claim 15 is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 6.
Regarding Claim 7, Fujita in view of CICS teaches the command processing method of claim 1, further comprising:
(
CICS discloses, “Using this application programming technique, the CANCEL command that cancels the START request must: Be issued in same target region that the START command was executed in,” Page 172.
Here, if abort information (CANCEL command) and a target command (START command) are from the same target region, the START command is canceled. If the abort information (CANCEL command) and the target command (START command) are not from the same target region, the target command is not canceled.).
Fujita and CICS are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer command processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Fujita to incorporate the teachings of CICS and provide wherein the step (c) checks if the abort information and the target command are from the identical one of the storage regions according to the storage region information. Doing so would help ensure that a command does not accidentally end up being canceled if the conditions for cancelation are not met.
Fujita in view of CICS does not teach recording storage region information for each one of the command by a processing circuit which controls the storage region.
However, Golov teaches recording storage region information for each one of the command by a processing circuit which controls the storage region (
Golov discloses, “Finally, as described above, the host processor (200) appends write commands with region IDs. In some embodiments, the host processor (200) includes a hypervisor that intercepts standard write commands and inserts a region ID based on a map (e.g., a VM region map),” Page 5.
After the combination of Fujita in view of CICS, with Golov, storage region information such as a region ID, is recorded for each command via a host processor as specified by Golov. Said host processor also now controls the data buffers/storage regions from Fujita in view of CICS.).
Fujita in view of CICS, and Golov are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer command processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Fujita in view of CICS to incorporate the teachings of Golov and provide recording storage region information for each one of the command by a processing circuit which controls the storage region. Doing so would help ensure that each command can be matched with its corresponding storage region efficiently.
Claim 16 is an electronic system claim corresponding to the command processing method Claim 7. Therefore, Claim 16 is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 7.
Claims 8 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujita (US 20040167995 A1) in view of CICS (CICS Application Programming Guide) and Cariello (US 20220237079 A1).
Regarding Claim 8, Fujita in view of CICS teaches the command processing method of claim 1. Fujita in view of CICS does not teach wherein the step (d) further comprises: stopping fetching the command from the storage regions or stopping transmitting the command to the target device, if the result of the step (c) is yes.
However, Cariello teaches wherein the step (d) further comprises:
stopping fetching the command from the storage regions or stopping transmitting the command to the target device, if the result of the step (c) is yes (
Cariello discloses, “In some cases, the time-out condition may indicate, to the host system 105, to abort a command in transmission, thereby preventing the operation from occurring,” ¶ 0037.
Here, a command being transmitted can be canceled to prevent the command from being processed.
After the combination of Fujita in view of CICS, with Cariello, the transmission of the command to the target region, from Fujita in view of CICS is stopped as specified by Cariello, based on Fujita in view of CICS’s abort information and Fujita in view of CICS’s target command being from the same data buffer/storage region.).
Fujita in view of CICS, and Cariello are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer architecture. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Fujita in view of CICS to incorporate the teachings of Cariello and provide wherein the step (d) further comprises: stopping fetching the command from the storage regions or stopping transmitting the command to the target device, if the result of the step (c) is yes. Doing so would help ensure that the command is not executed when the command has already been canceled (Cariello discloses, “In some cases, the time-out condition may indicate, to the host system 105, to abort a command in transmission, thereby preventing the operation from occurring,” ¶ 0037.).
Claim 17 is an electronic system claim corresponding to the command processing method Claim 8. Therefore, Claim 17 is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 8.
Claims 9 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujita (US 20040167995 A1) in view of CICS (CICS Application Programming Guide) and Huang (CN 113835756 A).
Regarding Claim 9, Fujita in view of CICS teaches the command processing method of claim 1. Fujita in view of CICS does not teach wherein the step (d) further comprises: transmitting the target command to a target device and processing the target command by the target device if the result of the step (c) is no.
However, Huang teaches wherein the step (d) further comprises:
transmitting the target command to a target device and processing the target command by the target device if the result of the step (c) is no (
Huang discloses, “if detecting that the command to be processed is newly added read-write command, then transmitting the command to be processed to the microcode controller, by introducing the microcode controller to efficiently analyze the newly-added read-write command,” Page 5.
Here, a command is transmitted to a target device to be processed.
After the combination of Fujita in view of CICS, with Huang, the command from Fujita in view of CICS is transmitted to a target device to be processed as specified by Huang, if the if the abort information and the target command are from different storage regions.).
Fujita in view of CICS, and Huang are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer command processing. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Fujita in view of CICS to incorporate the teachings of Huang and provide wherein the step (d) further comprises: transmitting the target command to a target device and processing the target command by the target device if the result of the step (c) is no. Doing so would help ensure that a command is properly transmitted to be processed if all the requirements are satisfied.
Claim 18 is an electronic system claim corresponding to the command processing method Claim 9. Therefore, Claim 18 is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 9.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Gyllenskog (US 20220171572 A1): Queue Configuration for Host Interface
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/ANDREW NMN SUN/Examiner, Art Unit 2195
/Aimee Li/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2195
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