The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Detailed Action
Claim(s) 1-20 has/have been examined.Claim(s) 1-20 have been rejected.
Novel Subject Matter
Claim(s) 1-20 recite(s) novel subject matter while being rejected as lacking written description. The novel subject matter is as described in the office action of October 27, 2025.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed June 17, 2026 have been fully considered but are moot in view of the new rejections.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(a)
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.
Claim(s) 1-10 and 17-20 is/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.
Note that dependent claims not specifically addressed below inherit the deficiency of the parent claim and do not remedy the issue.
Regarding claim 1, lines 10-13 of the claim recite “wherein the data formatter performs the formatting operation such that the at least a part of the first to N-th hard decision data and the first to N-th soft decision data are provided to the ECC circuit in an order different from an order of the first to N-th hard decision data and the first to N-th soft decision data received from the memory device.” The specification describes changing the order of hard decision data and soft decision data (paragraphs 8, 40, 42, 55, 64, 114 and 135). The specification does not recite changing the order of only a part of the first to N-th hard decision data and the first to N-th soft decision data.
MPEP 2163.05(III) notes that a disclosure of a range does not provide written description support for a claimed broader range. In this case, the disclosure of changing an order of both hard decision data and soft decision data does not provide support for changing an order of just some part of the data. See MPEP 2163.05.
Regarding claim 17, this claim recites the same limitation identified above for claim 1 and is rejected on the same grounds as claim 1.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Micheloni teaches performing error correction decoding using a hard-decision outer ECC and subsequently attempting to utilize a soft-decision inner ECC of the hard-decision ECC is not successful. Kim teaches a memory controller performing a read of a MLC memory by performing first and second had decision read operations using first and second read voltages and, upon failure of bit correction, perform a second read command of soft decision data using multiple soft decision read voltages corresponding to the hard decision read voltages, and providing the sot decision data to an ECC decoder.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH SCHELL whose telephone number is (571) 272-8186. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday 9AM-5:00PM (Pacific Time).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ashish Thomas can be reached at (571) 272-0631. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. The fax phone number for the examiner is 571-273-8186. The examiner may be e-mailed at joseph.schell@uspto.gov though communications via e-mail are not permitted without a written authorization form (see MPEP 502.03).
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JS/JOSEPH O SCHELL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2114
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