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 .
Oath/Declaration
Applicant is reminded that an inventor's oath or declaration in compliance with 37 CFR 1.63 or 1.64 executed by or with respect to each inventor must be submitted no later than the date on which the issue fee is paid in response to a notice requiring such fee.
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed 1 June, 2026 has been entered. Claims 1-2, 4-7, 11-12, and 14-20 remain pending in the application. Examiner acknowledges amendments to the claims which have been rejected under 35 USC § 103 upon further search and consideration.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 4, 6-7, 11, 14, and 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maeda (U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2009/0180209) in view of Oukid et al (U.S. Patent No. 10,152,258), hereinafter referred to as Oukid, Chien (U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2014/0365713), and Benisty (U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2020/0004445).
In regard to claim 1, Maeda teaches a method for allocating memory to applications, comprising: in response to an allocation request for a hard disk memory sent from a target application, reading free memory information of the hard disk memory directly from a system memory (Paragraph 0120, lines 1-6 include application control for recording AV data; Paragraph 0189 hard disk may be used; Paragraph 0131 area management block information includes free area size and is recorded in RAM; Paragraph 0142, lines 2-5 information is used to allocate space for recorded data); determining, based on the free memory information of the hard disk memory directly read from the system memory, a first storage space from the hard disk memory (Paragraph 0142, lines 2-5 management information is used to allocate space for recorded data; ); and writing size information of the first storage space into a second storage space of the hard disk memory (Paragraph 0022, lines 6-8 directory entry includes file size); and sending initial address information corresponding to the first storage space to the target application, wherein the target application accesses the second storage space based on the initial address information (Paragraph 0123, lines 7-11 RDE (including directory entries which include size and initial address info) is stored as file system management information; Paragraph 0127 and 0129 file system management information is used for accessing data on memory device 2 e.g. initial address info in directory entry (second storage space) is accessed when files are accessed).
Maeda does not teach the remaining limitations of claim 1, however Oukid discloses reading, by a memory allocator, free memory information (Column 2, lines 64-65 disclosed allocator includes sub-allocators; Column 3, line 67 to Column 4, line 2, free segment info may be read by sub-allocators; while this is read from persistent memory, a person of ordinary skill could implement this technique with that of Maeda to read free info from RAM). Oukid also discloses that the memory allocator is in the system memory, and the system memory communicates directly with a central processing unit (CPU) (see Fig. 1, main memory 108 includes allocator 112, connected through comm infrastructure (i.e. bus) to CPU); allocating, by the memory allocator, the first storage space of the hard disk memory to the target application (Fig. 2 and related description in Column 4, line 58 to Column 5, line 45 disclose allocation process which returns a persistent pointer): sending, by the memory allocator, initial address information (Column 5, lines 46-48) wherein the first storage space of the hard disk memory conforms to requirement information carried in the allocation request sent from the target application (Column 4, lines 60-63 disclose that size information in the request is used to determine allocation size e.g. as a requirement for the allocation); and that the target application uses the first storage space based on the size information written into the second storage space of the hard disk memory and the initial address information of the first storage space (Column 3, lines 29-44, virtual segment info includes size and is used to determine persistent pointers (e.g. application accesses must be based on the information); Column 5, lines 46-48 a persistent pointer to an initial address is returned after allocation for use by a requesting program; a combination with Maeda would result in utilization based on size information in a filesystem management area of the hard disk (i.e. second storage space)). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the disclosure of Oukid in order to benefit from a plurality of customizable memory allocators for allocating application memory as well as manage allocation of SCM in a single level architecture (Column 1, lines 26-28) by utilizing the sub-allocators which have block size ranges for allocation (Column 3, lines 11-16) which has the expected result of reducing complexity compared to a multiple-level management of SCM e.g. using blocks grouped at one or more translation layers.
The previously cited references do not explicitly teach pre-storing free memory information of a hard disk, however Chien ¶ 0006 discloses a host detecting and retrieving parameter information from a hard disk on boot, wherein the information includes data concerning capacity and block size (¶ 0013). When combined with the functioning of previously cited references where free block information is stored in system memory, hard disk free memory information would be automatically detected and pre-loaded into system memory on boot, achieving the claimed limitation. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the disclosure of Chien in order to load free block information pre-emptively and access drives more immediately by retrieving parameter data while they are still initializing (¶ 0020).
Previously cited references do not teach the remaining limitations of claim 1. However, Benisty teaches an embodiment wherein the hard disk memory comprises a controller memory buffer inside a solid-state drive controller (Fig. 5 Controller 514 includes controller buffer manager 520 connected to DRAM 522, etc; Fig. 6 controller memory buffer 600 is assigned using DRAM 522 in controller; ¶ 0053 lines 3-6 memory device may be SSD), and wherein the first storage space and the second storage space are allocated from the controller memory buffer (¶ 0042-0043 controller can dynamically allocate CMB for various functions (physical or virtual) in collaboration with host device; a person of ordinary skill could then use the CMB as an arbitrary memory space for storing any desired application data), achieving the claimed limitation. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the disclosure of Benisty to allow a host device consistent access to an additional memory pool (¶ 0027) and reduce the occupancy of host memory (¶ 0022).
As for claim 4, Maeda Paragraph 0131 teaches that generating area management information e.g. free memory information includes listing FAT blocks (which are lists of information on data clusters e.g. storage spaces; Paragraph 0133) and their related free space located in the continuous user data area shown in Fig. 10.
As for claim 6, the previously cited references teach the method of claim 1. Additionally, Maeda Paragraph 0131 discloses detecting free memory and generating information on it to store in RAM, which must take place before the allocation of memory for recording described at Paragraph 0142, achieving the claimed limitation.
As for claim 7, Maeda teaches sending an allocation request for a hard disk memory to a memory allocator and operating a memory allocation method using the allocator (Paragraphs 0122 and 0123 disclose a host interface 21 for receiving commands and a CPU 22 to execute control programs for the memory device (e.g. hard disk) which would functionally include allocating memory). As for the remaining limitations of claim 7, applicant is directed to the rejection of claim 1, as the claims include the same limitations and are therefore rejected on the same rationale.
As for claim 11, Maeda teaches sending an allocation request for a hard disk memory to a CPU and operating a memory allocation method using the CPU (Paragraphs 0122 and 0123 disclose a host interface 21 for receiving commands and a CPU 22 to execute control programs included on ROM 24 for the memory device (e.g. hard disk) which would functionally include allocating memory). As for the remaining limitations of claim 11, applicant is directed to the rejection of claim 1, as the claims include the same limitations and are therefore rejected on the same rationale.
As for claim 14, the previously cited references teach the device of claim 11. Applicant is directed to the rejection of claim 4, as the claims include the same limitations and are therefore rejected on the same rationale.
As for claim 16, the previously cited references teach the device of claim 11. Applicant is directed to the rejection of claim 6, as the claims include the same limitations and are therefore rejected on the same rationale.
As for claim 17, applicant is directed to the rejection of claim 11, as the claims include the same limitations and are therefore rejected on the same rationale.
As for claim 18, applicant is directed to the rejection of claim 11 (which includes disclosure of a ROM storing programs), as the claims include the same limitations and are therefore rejected on the same rationale.
As for claim 19, the previously cited references teach the device of claim 18. Applicant is directed to the rejection of claim 6, as the claims include the same limitations and are therefore rejected on the same rationale.
As for claim 20, Applicant is directed to the rejection of claim 11, as the claims include the same limitations and are therefore rejected on the same rationale.
Claims 2-3, 5, 12-13, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maeda in view of Oukid, Chien, Benisty, and Lai et al (U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2004/0202073), hereinafter referred to as Lai.
As for claim 2, the previously cited references teach the method according to claim 1. They do not teach the remaining limitations of claim 2. However, Lai teaches read/write buffers stored on a hard disk drive (Paragraph 0058, lines 1-6; Paragraph 0079, lines 1-4), achieving the claimed limitation. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the disclosure of Lai to benefit from the advantage of allocating larger memory blocks to cache (Paragraph 0058, lines 7-11).
As for claim 3, the previously cited references teach the method of claim 2. Additionally, Lai teaches read/write buffers stored on a hard disk drive (Paragraph 0058, lines 1-6; Paragraph 0079, lines 1-4) wherein portions of the buffer may be persisted (e.g. buffers may include a PMR; Paragraph 0079, lines 7-10), achieving the claimed limitation.
As for claim 5, the previously cited references teach the method of claim 4. Additionally, Maeda teaches traversing the list of FAT blocks to locate a free area (Paragraph 0143), which includes checking free FAT blocks (blocks marked VALID; Paragraph 0138; Paragraph 0147) and searching their memory locations for free space (Paragraph 0148). Maeda does not teach screening out free space based on requirement information indicated by the allocation request, but Lai teaches prioritizing write requests based on proximity (i.e. free locations not sharing locality of requests would be screened out; Paragraph 0108, lines 8-10), achieving the claimed limitation. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the disclosure of Lai in order to reduce the number of head seeks and read or write access times when accessing a hard disk drive (Paragraph 0108).
As for claim 12, the previously cited references teach the device of claim 11. Applicant is directed to the rejection of claim 2, as the claims include the same limitations and are therefore rejected on the same rationale.
As for claim 13, the previously cited references teach the device of claim 12. Applicant is directed to the rejection of claim 3, as the claims include the same limitations and are therefore rejected on the same rationale.
As for claim 15, the previously cited references teach the device of claim 14. Applicant is directed to the rejection of claim 5, as the claims include the same limitations and are therefore rejected on the same rationale.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments (see page 8 of response filed 8 January, 2026) with respect to the rejections of amended claims 1-2, 4-7, 11-12, and 14-20 under 35 USC § 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejections have been withdrawn. However, upon further search and consideration, a new ground of rejection is made in view of Benisty, which teaches allocating from a controller memory buffer in a SSD controller.
Arguments directed to the use of references Maeda and Oukid were not persuasive. Maeda is seen to teach methods for memory allocation and access using separate data locations for a target application, while Oukid primarily teaches the structure and behavior of a memory allocator for various applications. Since the relied upon disclosure of Maeda is directed to memory allocation techniques in general, a person of ordinary skill in the art could readily implement techniques in certain favorably optimized memory system configurations (like the system of Oukid) despite some differences in structure, achieving the claimed limitations.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZAKARIA MOHAMMED BELKHAYAT whose telephone number is (571)270-0472. The examiner can normally be reached Monday thru Friday 8:30AM-5PM EST.
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/ZAKARIA MOHAMMED BELKHAYAT/Examiner, Art Unit 2139
/REGINALD G BRAGDON/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2139
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