DETAILED ACTION
1. This Office Action is taken in response to Applicants’ Amendments and Remarks filed on 8/21/2026 regarding application 18/637,710 filed on 4/17/2024.
Claims 1, 3-11, and 13-20 are pending for consideration.
2. Response to Amendments and Remarks
Applicants’ amendments and remarks have been fully and carefully considered, with the Examiner’s response set forth below.
(1) In response to the amendments and remarks, an updated claim analysis has been made, with additional, newly identified reference(s). Refer to the corresponding sections of the following Office Action for details.
3. Examiner’s Note
(1) In the case of amending the Claimed invention, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and also to verify and ascertain the metes and bounds of the claimed invention. This will assist in expediting compact prosecution. MPEP 714.02 recites: “Applicant should also specifically point out the support for any amendments made to the disclosure. See MPEP § 2163.06. An amendment which does not comply with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.121(b), (c), (d), and (h) may be held not fully responsive. See MPEP § 714.” Amendments not pointing to specific support in the disclosure may be deemed as not complying with provisions of 37 C.F.R. 1.131(b), (c), (d), and (h) and therefore held not fully responsive. Generic statements such as “Applicants believe no new matter has been introduced” may be deemed insufficient.
(2) Examiner has cited particular columns/paragraph and line numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
Double Patenting
4. The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the "right to exclude" granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. See In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and, In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the conflicting application or patent is shown to be commonly owned with this application. See 37 CFR 1.130(b).
Effective January 1, 1994, a registered attorney or agent of record may sign a terminal disclaimer. A terminal disclaimer signed by the assignee must fully comply with 37 CFR 3.73(b).
5. Claims 1, 3-11, and 13-20 are provisionally rejected under the judicially created doctrine of obvious-type double patenting as being unpatentable over independent claims 1-22 of US Patent Application 18/748,359. Although not all of the conflicting claims are exactly identical, they are extremely similar and are not patentably distinct from each other as shown in the example below:
18/637,710
18/748,359
1. (Currently Amended) A method for performing adaptive prefetch in a memory system, the method comprising: receiving a first data request including a first address of a first data page stored in a memory device; and performing a lookup operation using an adaptive prefetch table, to determine whether a prefetch operation should be performed based on the received first data request, wherein the adaptive prefetch table includes an entry for the first data page corresponding to the received first data request, wherein the entry for the first data page includes an address of a predicted next page, and a weight factor of the predicted next page, and wherein the weight factor of the predicted next page is an integer value that is increased by 1 in response to the predicted next page being requested in a next data request, and decreased by 1 in response to the predicted next page not being requested in the next data request; and performing the prefetch operation for the predicted next page, based on the weight factor of the predicted next page being equal to or exceeding a prefetch threshold.
1. A method for performing early prefetch in a memory system, the method comprising: receiving a data request including an address of a data page stored in a memory device; storing the data request at a first position in a request queue; accessing the data request stored at the first position and performing a first lookup operation for the data request; updating the device request queue, which includes moving the data request stored at the first position to a second position in the request queue; and accessing the data request stored at the second position and performing a second lookup operation for the data request.
The method of claim 1, wherein performing the first lookup operation for the data request comprises: generating a hash value of the address of the data page; and searching for the hash value in a hash table including a plurality of hash values corresponding to data stored in a device cache.
The method of claim 2, further comprising: generating a request for data at the address of the data page stored in the memory device, based on a search miss for the hash value in the hash table; and sending the request to the memory device.
The method of claim 3, further comprising: receiving, from the memory device, the data at the address of the data page stored in the memory device; and storing the received data in the device cache.
The method of claim 3, further comprising sending the address of the data page to an adaptive prefetch table, wherein the adaptive prefetch table includes an entry for the data page, and wherein with the entry for the data page includes an address of a predicted next page, and a weight factor of the predicted next page.
The method of claim 5, further comprising performing a third lookup operation using the adaptive prefetch table, to determine whether a prefetch operation should be performed based on the data request.
The method of claim 6, further comprising performing the prefetch operation for the predicted next page, based on the weight factor of the predicted next page being greater than or equal to a prefetch threshold.
The method of claim 7, further comprising: generating a prefetch data request for the address of the predicted next page; and sending the prefetch data request to the memory device.
The method of claim 8, further comprising: receiving, from the memory device, data for the address of the predicted next page; and storing the received data in a prefetch cache.
The method of claim 1, wherein performing the second lookup operation for the data request comprises performing a device cache lookup for the data request.
The method of claim 1, wherein the first position in the request queue is located at a tail of the request queue, and wherein the second position in the request queue is located at a head of the request queue.
Allowable Subject Matter
6. Claims 1, 3-11, and 13-20 are rejected due to double patenting rejections, but would be allowable if able to overcome the double patenting rejections by filing a Terminal Disclaimer.
Conclusion
7. Claims 1, 3-11, and 13-20 are rejected as explained above.
Claims 1, 3-11, and 13-20 are rejected due to double patenting rejections, but would be allowable if able to overcome the double patenting rejections by filing a Terminal Disclaimer.
8. 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 extension fee 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.
9. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHENG JEN TSAI whose telephone number is 571-272-4244. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday, 9-6.
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.
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/SHENG JEN TSAI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2139
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