Final Rejection
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 .
Claim 5 has been cancelled by Applicant
Claims 1-4 and 6-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b)
Claims 8 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2)
Response to Amendment
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 1-4 and 6-9 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.
In Claims 1, 8, and 9, It is unclear if the notification of “issue a notification… of whether or not…” is described by the conditional statements with notifications that follow, “a notification of the completion” and “a notification of failure.” The claim language should be amended to make it clear if these notifications are the same or different, especially with regards to Claim 1, as the first notification comes from the controller and the others come from the storage control device. Dependent claims 2-4 and 6-7 follow this rejection due to their dependency. Additionally, Claim 4 recites, “a notification of the error,” and it is unclear if this is related to any of the notifications in Claim 1. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 8 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Mitomi (U.S. Publication No. 2019/0384531 A1), referenced in Applicant’s IDS filed on November 29th, 2024.
With regards to Claim 8, Mitomi teaches:
A storage comprising (Fig. 1):
a flash memory having a plurality of blocks, each of which is a unit for erasing data, and each of which includes a plurality of pages, each of which is a unit for recording data (Paragraphs 0047 and 0055; Fig. 33 and 35; Fig. 7-9);
and a controller configured to control recording of data in the flash memory (Paragraphs 0067-0068), wherein:
the controller is configured to receive a plurality of recording instructions for recording to-be-recorded data in the flash memory, record the to-be-recorded data in the flash memory in accordance with the received plurality of recording instructions (Paragraphs 0067-0068),
and issue a notification to the storage control device of whether or not data recording has succeeded for each of the plurality of recording instructions (Paragraphs 0153 and 0104);
in a case where it is determined that data recording in a set area having a predetermined number of pages has succeeded due to the to-be-recorded data being successively recorded in the set area, a notification of data recording completion is issued for a unit of a number of recording instructions required in order to record the to-be-recorded data in the set area (Paragraph 0153),
and in a case where it is determined that data recording in the set area has failed due to the to-be-recorded data not being continuously recorded in the set area because a notification of failure of data recording is issued for an intermediate recording instruction among consecutive recording instructions required to record the to-be-recorded data in the set area, a notification of a data recording error is issued for a unit of a number of the recording instructions required to record the to-be-recorded data in the set area (Paragraphs 0104, 0076, and 0081).
Mitomi teaches the limitations of Claim 9. Please see the above rejection of Claim 8 for citations of these limitations.
Subject Matter Not Rejected Under Prior Art
Claims 1-4 and 6-7 are not rejected under prior art due to the following reasons:
Although references cited in this action and previous actions teach parts of the method or the structure of the invention of Claim 1, the combination of all of the parts of the method being executed using the claimed structure was not found. In particular, a flash memory device that transmits notifications due to intermediate failure with the particular structure of which elements send and receive the different notifications, cannot be found together within the prior art. The parts of the method and the structure of the system cannot be obviously combined. Claims 2-4 and 6-7, follow due to also being a part of that specific combination. It should be noted that Claims 8 and 9 are broader than Claim 1, particularly in terms of the aforementioned structure.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed on April 22nd, 2026, have been fully considered.
Regarding arguments that the features of the claims were not taught under the prior art, the amendment has necessitated new grounds of rejection, and art has been applied accordingly to cover these newly amended features of Claims 8 and 9. Please see the above rejection under 35 U.S.C. 102 for details. Please see the corresponding section above regarding Claims 1-4 and 6-7 not being rejected under the art.
With regards to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(b), while the previous issue has been fixed, new issues have arisen due to the amendment, and thus the claims remain rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b).
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.
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/G.K.S./Examiner, Art Unit 2113
/BRYCE P BONZO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2113
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