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 responsive to the request for continued examination filed 19 November 2025.
Claims 1, 4-8, 10-14 and 17-21 are pending and have been presented for examination.
Claims 2, 3, 9, 15 and 16 have been cancelled.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 24 October 2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 10-11, filed 24 October 2025, with respect to claims 1, 11 and 14 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claims 1, 11 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 has been withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter.
As per claim 12, the claim is rejected because the applicant has provided evidence that the applicant intends the term “Computer Readable Storage Medium” to include non-statutory subject matter. The applicant describes a computer readable storage medium as including open ended language and thus it is reasonable to interpret it to include all possible mediums, including non-statutory mediums (see paragraphs [0156], [0200], [0220]). The words "storage" and/or "recording" are insufficient to convey only statutory embodiments to one of ordinary skill in the art absent an explicit and deliberate limiting definition or clear differentiation between storage media and transitory media in the disclosure. As such, the claim(s) is/are drawn to a form of energy. Energy is not one of the four categories of invention and therefore this /these claim(s) is/are non-statutory. Energy is not a series of steps or acts and this is not a process. Energy is not a physical article or object and as such is not a machine or manufacture. Energy is not a combination of substances and therefore not a composition of matter.
The Examiner suggests amending the claim(s) to read as a “non-transitory Computer Readable Storage Medium.”
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 4-8, 10, 11, 13, 14 and 17-21 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The state of the art fails to anticipate, or render obvious, “… writing metadata corresponding to the target data into the second persistent memory region through a processor, wherein the metadata is used for describing the target data and the processor does not cache the metadata, and wherein the second persistent memory region serves as a top-level connection between an input-output hierarchical system and a CPU/memory system.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EDWARD J DUDEK JR whose telephone number is (571)270-1030. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8:00A-4:00P.
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/EDWARD J DUDEK JR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2132