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 action is response to the application filed on 07/31/2024. Claims 1-17 are pending and herein considered.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Drawings
The drawings were received on 07/31/2024. These drawings are reviewed and accepted by the Examiner.
Specification
The lengthy specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant’s cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS), submitted on 07/31/2025, is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CRR 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.
Claim 2-4 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
For claim 2, line 2, the term “if” in the phrase “if issuing a third request to transfer…” is vague and indefinite. It is value and indefinite because it’s questionable whether said condition using the term “if” should be considered. It is suggested that the term “if” be replaced by terms/phrases such as “when” or “in a case”. (See MPEP 2173. 02 and 2173.05(b)).
Claims 3-4 are rejected since it is dependents of claim 2.
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 of this title, 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.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kawakita et al. (U.S 2014/0310452) in view of Fujiwara et al. (U.S 2007/0101031).
For claim 1:
Kawakita discloses a data transfer device configured to sequentially transfer data with specified priority (see Kawakita, at least figure 6, the arbitration circuit determines the order of priority of a plurality of data transfer requests in accordance with a predetermined rule, also see [0072]; the processor system according to the third embodiment includes a mask control circuit in place of the mask control circuit. The processing blocks Bl to Bn output the data transfer requests RQl to RQn, respectively, and also output QoS (Quality of Service) information (hereinafter referred to as "priority information") PR1 to PRn, respectively, which indicate priorities of the data transfer requests), the device comprising:
an issuing unit configured to issue a first request to transfer first data via the first interface (see Kawakita, at least paragraph [0052]; the mask control circuit 13 sequentially outputs the plurality of loaded data transfer requests); and a controller configured to stop issuing a second request to transfer second data after the first data (see Kawakita, at least paragraph [0053][0054]; After that, when the count value of the counter 1312 reaches the maximum value MAX, the count value of the counter 1312 is reset to "0", so the mask signal is switched from the inactive state to the active state (time t26). Accordingly, the mask control circuit 13 stops the output of data transfer requests to the memory controller 14. Since the memory controller 14 has not received a subsequent data transfer request during the predetermined period T1 after the completion of the access to the DRAM 20),
Kawakita further discloses each data transfer request output from the arbitration circuit 12, after a lapse of a mask period of a length that is set according to the priority of each data transfer request. (For example, when the priority of a certain data transfer request is high, the mask control circuit 13b decreases the mask period, and when the priority of a certain data transfer request is low, the mask control circuit 13b increases the mask period (see Kawakita, at least paragraph [0071]-[0078])
But does not explicitly disclose while a period required after an input of a response to the first request via the first interface is started and until the input is completed elapses, when the first request is issued.
Fujiwara, from the same or similar fields of endeavor, discloses what Kawakita fails: a transfer request priority level signal. In a case that the arbiter grants transfer permission in response to this, data transfer, the bus bridge requests data transfer to the arbiter together with the transfer request priority level signal issued by the bus master. If the arbiter grants a transfer permission on the upper layer bus, then the bus bridge performs data transfer to the bus slave, thus ending the data transfer operation (see Fujiwara, at least paragraph [0046]-[0048]; [0088]-[0093]; [0105]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious statement before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have a system comprises a method as taught by Fujiwara. The motivation for doing this is to provide a system networks can makes a plurality of users download program files required to implement the functional processing of the present invention by the computer.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8-15 and 17 are allowed.
Claims 2-7 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims, set forth in this Office action.
Conclusion
The prior arts made or record and not relied upon are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosures. Shima (U.S 2011/0222111), discloses, a transfer request priority level signal. In a case that the arbiter grants transfer permission in response to this, the bus master starts data transfer to the bus slave via the bus bridge. In response to this data transfer, the bus bridge requests data transfer to the arbiter together with the transfer request priority level signal issued by the bus master. That is, the bus bridge serves as one of bus masters on the upper layer bus. The transfer request priority level signal inherits the value output from the bus master on the lower layer bus. If the arbiter grants a transfer permission on the upper layer bus, then the bus bridge performs data transfer to the bus slave, thus ending the data transfer operation.
Loukianov et al. (U.S 11,522,931), discloses discovery and setup of streaming, start, stop and tear-down of video stream are supported through another protocol.
Ye et al. (U.S 2023/0305711), discloses a method for sequentially providing access information corresponding to each portion of the predetermined data in response to completion of the data transfer of the corresponding portion.
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/Lan-Huong Truong/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit: 2464
08/22/2026
