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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 01/23/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 4-7, 11-14 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The claims use the term “a correspond weak decision voltage range,” which is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “weak decision voltage range” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. The specification and the claims do not provide any ranges or definition for a person in the art to know the limits and the boundaries to consider a range a weak decision voltage range or a strong decision voltage range. In addition, the term is not well-known in the art. Therefore, the claims are indefinite.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-5, 8-12, 15-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Sharon et al. (US 2023/0402112 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Sharon teaches a storage device, comprising:
a non-volatile memory comprising a plurality of sectors including a first sector and a second sector (Fig. 1A to Fig. 1C, memory 104 comprises a plurality of sectors. Sector in a memory device is given the broadest reasonable interpretation to mean a plurality of memory cells); and
a storage controller (Controller 102):
wherein the storage controller is configured to:
read first data from the first sector based on a plurality of threshold models; based on determining that the first data is invalid, read second data corresponding to the second sector based on the plurality of threshold models; based on determining that the second data is valid, update at least one parameter of the plurality of threshold models based on the second data; and generate updated first data corresponding to the first sector based on the plurality of threshold models including the updated at least one parameter (Fig. 6, when the memory indicate decoding failure, read-error-handling (REH), the memory device will apply training model to optimize the read thresholds. The updated threshold models will be used for future read operation in the memory device when the error rate is below a threshold limit, see Fig. 7).
Regarding claim 2, Sharon further teaches the storage device of claim 1, wherein the first sector and the second sector are included in a same word line of the non-volatile memory (sector is given the broadest reasonable interpretation to mean a plurality of memory cells to for a section of the memory device. Word lines can have a plurality of sectors).
Regarding claim 3, Sharon further teaches the storage device of claim 1, wherein the first data is determined to be invalid by applying error correction code (ECC) decoding to the first data, and wherein the second data is determined to be valid by applying the ECC decoding to the second data (Fig. 2A, error correction code ECC).
Regarding claim 4, Sharon further teaches the storage device of claim 1, wherein each threshold model from among the plurality of threshold models is associated with a corresponding weak decision voltage range from among a plurality of weak decision voltage ranges corresponding to the nonvolatile memory (Uses soft-bit read thresholds, see ¶0048).
Regarding claim 5, Sharon further teaches the storage device of claim 4, wherein to generate the first data, the storage controller is further configured to: read a plurality of first voltages corresponding to a plurality of first memory cells included in the first sector; determine that a first voltage from among the plurality of first voltages corresponds to a weak decision voltage range from among the plurality of weak decision voltage ranges; select a threshold model corresponding to the weak decision voltage range from among the plurality of threshold models; and generate the first data by providing the first voltage to the threshold model (Fig. 5B and Fig. 6, see ¶0047-0048).
Regarding claims 8-12 and 15-19, the claims have similar limitations as claims 1-5. Therefore, the claims are rejected under the same grounds of rejection.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 6, 13 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sharon, and further in view of Seo (US 2022/0189575 A1).
Regarding claim 6, Sharon further teaches the storage device of claim 5, wherein the first voltage corresponds to a first memory cell from among the plurality of first memory cells (Fig. 5 B and Fig. 6, teaches optimized read voltage used to read memory cells), wherein the non-volatile memory further comprises a first neighboring memory cell adjacent to the first memory cell in an upward pillar direction and a second neighboring memory cell adjacent to the first memory cell in a downward pillar direction (Sharon does not explicitly teach using 3D pillars for the NAND memory device. Seo teaches using 3D pillars for the NAND memory device, Fig. 3. It is well-known to use NAND string pillars in order to increase the density of the memory device), and wherein an input to the threshold model comprises the first voltage and at least one from among a reference voltage corresponding to the weak decision voltage range, a first neighboring voltage read from the first neighboring memory cell, and a second neighboring voltage read from the second neighboring memory cell (The claim did not indicate the first and second neighboring read voltages to be different from the first voltage. Therefore, Sharon teaches an optimized read voltages to be used for reading the different sectors of the memory device, Fig. 6 and Fig. 7).
Regarding claims 13 and 20, the claims have similar limitations as claim 6 above. Therefore, the claims are rejected under the same grounds of rejection.
Claim(s) 17 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sharon, and further in view of Rosca et al. (US 2024/0054341 A1).
Regarding claim 7, Sharon is silent in teaching wherein to update the at least one parameter of the plurality of threshold models, the storage controller is further configured to: based on the second data, estimate a Hessian matrix and a gradient of at least one classification loss function corresponding to at least one threshold model from among the plurality of threshold models; obtain the updated at least one parameter by applying a at least one step of a second-order optimization to the at least one threshold model based on the Hessian matrix and the gradient; and generate the updated plurality of threshold models by applying the updated at least one parameter to the at least one threshold model.
based on the second data, estimate a Hessian matrix and a gradient of at least one classification loss function corresponding to at least one threshold model from among the plurality of threshold models; obtain the updated at least one parameter by applying a at least one step of a second-order optimization to the at least one threshold model based on the Hessian matrix and the gradient; and generate the updated plurality of threshold models by applying the updated at least one parameter to the at least one threshold model (¶0011 to ¶0014).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person with the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use Hessian matrix in order to provide advanced optimization in the machine learning.
Regarding claim 14, the claims have similar limitations as claim 7 above. Therefore, the claims are rejected under the same grounds of rejection.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KHAMDAN N ALROBAIE whose telephone number is (571)270-7099. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Thursday (8AM till 6PM).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Richard Elms can be reached at (571) 272-1869. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Khamdan N. Alrobaie/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2824
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