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 .
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.
Claim(s) 1 – 3, 7 – 9, 13, 16 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Wang et al. (US Pat pub 2025/0231873).
Regarding claims 1, 7 and 13, Wang et al. disclose a memory device in a memory system (figs. 1 – 8), comprising:
one or more super blocks (304 of fig. 3 or 400 of fig. 4), each super block including a plurality of memory blocks (304-1, 304-2, etc… in fig. 3; or blocks 402-1 – 402-n in fig. 4. See also para 0039);
a control circuit in the memory device (302, fig. 3 or 404, fig. 4) and configured to perform a first test read on a codeword sequence from the plurality of memory blocks (see para 0003, 0020, etc…); and
a partial checksum calculator in the memory device and configured to calculate a partial checksum on a syndrome sequence based on the codeword sequence and a subset matrix derived from a parity check matrix (see para 0020, 0026, 0036 and 0044, etc…), wherein the control circuit is configured to:
compare the partial checksum with first and second thresholds (see para 0045, 0051);
when it is determined that the partial checksum is less than the first threshold, determine that the codeword sequence is clean (para 0045, “checksum metric is below the threshold value”); when it is determined that the partial checksum is greater than the second threshold, determine that the codeword sequence is noisy (para 0046); and
when it is determined that the partial checksum is in between the first threshold and the second threshold, perform by a controller of the memory system a second test read on the codeword sequence to determine a number of failed bit counts for the codeword sequence read from the plurality of memory blocks (referred to in para 0047 as “checksum metric is between the first threshold level and a second threshold level”. See further para 0051 – 0054).
Regarding claims 2, 8 and 16, Want et al. also disclose the memory device of claim 1, wherein the control circuit is further configured to send the noisy codeword sequence to the controller for decoding and error correcting. (see para 0020, “perform error correction on the valid data using the ECC engine.…”. See also para 0026, 0028 and 0029, etc…).
Regarding claims 3, 9, and 17, Wang et al. also disclose the memory device of claim 1, wherein the second threshold is greater than or equal to the first threshold (inherent because that’s the only way a situation in which the checksum is between the first threshold and the second threshold can occur).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 – 6, 10 – 12, 14, 15, and 18 – 20 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The prior arts of record fail to teach or reasonably suggest the memory and operating method as set forth above, further comprising, in combination, the features and limitations additionally claimed at least in claims 4, 6, 10, 12, 14, 18 and 20.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LY D PHAM whose telephone number is (571)272-1793. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 8am-5pm.
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LY D. PHAM
Examiner
Art Unit 2827
/LY D PHAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2827 July 24, 2026
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