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 January 7, 2026.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 December 8, 2025 has been entered. Claims 1, 3-9, 11-17 and 19-20 are pending in the current application.
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, 3-9, 11-17 and 19-20 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 “causing the given logical drive to operate in write-through mode after the given logical drive comes back online, until write pending data that is stored in the identified memory portion is written to a redundant group of physical storage devices used to implement the logical drive the write pending data being uncommitted data that is associated with acknowledged write requests targeting the given logical drive, wherein, while the given logical drive is in write-through mode, data associated with incoming write requests targeting the given logical drive is written to the redundant group of physical storage devices before the incoming write requests are acknowledged”. The totality of the aforementioned limitations of claim 1 are considered new matter by examiner. For example, in regards to the limitation that recites “causing the given logical drive to operate in write-through mode after the given logical drive comes back online, until write pending data that is stored in the identified memory portion is written to a redundant group of physical storage devices used to implement the logical drive the write pending data being uncommitted data that is associated with acknowledged write requests targeting the given logical drive”, the specification does not appear to disclose that, while in the WT mode entered at step 608, write data is received, not committed to the logical drive, but “acknowledged”. The term “acknowledged” (or variants thereof) only shows up in the original specification at paragraphs [0017] and [0018], and not in relation to a teaching that write data is uncommitted but acknowledged in the write-through mode. Furthermore, paragraphs [0017] and [0018] seem to teach that in the write-through mode data is committed before acknowledging, which is the opposite of what is claimed (i.e. Paragraphs [0017] and [0018] teach that in the WT mode, write data is committed but the corresponding write request is not acknowledged right away.).
Furthermore, the limitation that recites “while the given logical drive is in write-through mode, data associated with incoming write requests targeting the given logical drive is written to the redundant group of physical storage devices before the incoming write requests are acknowledged” does not appear to be supported in the original specification. While the WT mode described in paragraphs [0017] and [0018] discusses writing data to the physical storage devices before the incoming write requests are acknowledged (as claimed), it does not appear that the description of the invention (e.g. at figure 6, step 612) discusses what happens when there are “incoming write requests”, which are different than the “pending write requests” in the block memory portion. In applicant’s original specification, step 612 only discusses “data associated with write requests that are pending in the memory portion…is copied to the underlying group of physical storage devices (paragraph [0066]). However, there is no mention of what happens when there are “incoming write requests” after the switch to WT mode but before the switch to WB mode. In step 614, the memory portion is unblocked and in step 616 the write policy is for the logical drive is switched back to WB (steps 614 and 616 are set forth in claim 1 in the limitation of “unblocking” in the last 3 lines of the claim). Due to the reasons stated, the amendments to claim 1 filed on December 8, 2025 are considered new matter by examiner.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed December 8, 2025 have been fully considered but are moot, as they apply to current amendments. In regards to applicant’s amendments the previously cited prior art used in the Final Rejection mailed on October 8, 2025 did not teach the totality of the amendments. However, the amendments and thus the claims are rejected herein in under 112(a) as containing new matter. All pending claims in the instant application 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.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Reginald Bragdon can be reached at (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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/MICHAEL L WESTBROOK/Examiner, Art Unit 2139
/REGINALD G BRAGDON/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2139