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 .
Response to Amendment
The office action is responding to the amendments filed on 02/02/2026. Claims 1, 6, 12 and 16 have been amended. Claims 5 and 15 are cancelled.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 10, 12 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Lee [US 11,675,699 B2].
Regarding Claim 1, Lee teaches “A storage device comprising: a memory including a plurality of memory blocks; and” as “a data storage device may include: a storage including a plurality of memory blocks” [Col 1, lines 47-48]
“a controller configured to: allocate at least one of the plurality of memory blocks to a user data area that stores user data,” as “a data storage device may include: a storage including a plurality of memory blocks composed of system memory blocks for storing system data and user memory blocks for storing user data;” [Col 1, lines 47-50]
“allocate at least one of the remaining memory blocks, among the plurality of memory blocks that are not allocated to the user data area, to a reserved area,” as “and a reserved area including a plurality of first free memory blocks; ” [Col 1, lines 60-61]
“receive a command from a host requesting an increase in a size of the user data area by a target size, and” as “and a controller configured to control exchange of the system and user data with the storage in response to a request of a host device,” [Col 1, lines 61-63] (Configurable, i.e., the user data area can be increased based on request/command)
“reallocate to the user data area, in response to the command, one or more of the memory blocks allocated to the reserved area,” as “wherein a number of free memory blocks within the reserved area is changed according to the number of bad blocks among the user memory blocks,” [Col 1, lines 64-66] (Number of free blocks can be reallocated from reserved area as needed)
“wherein the controller is configured to change one or more garbage collection parameters, and wherein the garbage collection parameters include at least one of a threshold free memory block count that determines whether to execute garbage collection, an execution time of garbage collection and a ratio of garbage collection execution time to write execution time by the host.” as “determine whether a start condition for performing a garbage collection operation on the storage is satisfied, based on a number of bad memory blocks in the plurality of memory blocks.” [Col 1, lines 53-56]
Regarding Claim 10, Lee teaches “wherein the controller is configured to notify the host that a number of free memory blocks among the plurality of memory blocks is less than or equal to a threshold free memory block count by setting an event notification bit in response to a read command, a write command or an un-map command transmitted by the host.” as “The meta area M may be for storing meta data for managing the data storage device 10. For example, the meta data may include file system data, block allocation information, block meta information including block-specific attributes/the number of valid pages/a page offset/the number of times of access (program or erase) and the like, mapping information between logical addresses of the host device and physical addresses of the storage 120, and the like.” [Col 4, lines 20-28]
Claim 12 is anticipated by Lee under the same rationale of anticipation of claim 1.
Claim 19 is anticipated by Lee under the same rationale of anticipation of claim 10.
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) 2-4, 6, 13-14 and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee [US 11,675,699 B2] in view of AMAKI et al. [US 2022/0300185 A1].
Claim 2 is rejected over Lee and AMAKI.
Lee does not explicitly teach wherein the controller is configured to transmit to the host, before receiving the command from the host, information about the maximum size of the user data area.
However, AMAKI teaches “wherein the controller is configured to transmit to the host, before receiving the command from the host, information about the maximum size of the user data area.” as “A first item of the reservation parameter indicates the maximum size of the SLC buffer which is the total of the size of the reserved area of the SLC buffer and the size of the active area of the SLC buffer.” [¶0095]
Lee and AMAKI are analogous arts because they teach storage system and storage controller.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teachings of Lee and AMAKI before him/her, to modify the teachings of Lee to include the teachings of AMAKI with the motivation of usability of the SSD is improved and verification costs are lowered. [AMAKI, ¶0130]
Claim 3 is rejected over Lee and AMAKI.
Lee does not explicitly teach wherein the controller is configured to transmit the information about the maximum size of the user data area to the host in response to a read descriptor request from the host, and wherein the read descriptor request is a request for a geometry descriptor.
However, AMAKI teaches “wherein the controller is configured to transmit the information about the maximum size of the user data area to the host in response to a read descriptor request from the host, and wherein the read descriptor request is a request for a geometry descriptor.” as “The user gives the host 2 a trigger to execute step 202 in FIG. 14, and causes the host 2 to send a feedback information request signal to the SSD 4. From the feedback information displayed on the display of the host 2, the user finds that the amount of data written in the NAND write operation is very large compared to the amount of data written by the host write operation, that is, the WAF is large. The user wishes to improve the reliability. In that case, the user may reduce the maximum size of the SLC buffer in the reservation parameter from 10 GB to 1 GB, and send SLC buffer control information to the SSD 4 such that the recovery is not performed except during the active idle period.” [¶0169]
Claim 4 is rejected over Lee and AMAKI.
Lee does not explicitly teach wherein the controller is configured to execute an operation of increasing the size of the user data area before a logical unit configuration operation.
However, AMAKI teaches “wherein the controller is configured to execute an operation of increasing the size of the user data area before a logical unit configuration operation.” as “the size of the reserved area of the SLC buffer is decreased and the size of the active area is increased.” [¶0080]
Lee and AMAKI are analogous arts because they teach storage system and storage controller.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teachings of Lee and AMAKI before him/her, to modify the teachings of Lee to include the teachings of AMAKI with the motivation of usability of the SSD is improved and verification costs are lowered. [AMAKI, ¶0130]
Claim 6 is rejected over Lee and AMAKI.
Lee does not explicitly teach wherein the controller is configured to increase the threshold free memory block count when the size of the user data area increases from a reference size by the target size, and
execute garbage collection when a number of free memory blocks among the plurality of memory blocks is less than or equal to the threshold free memory block count.
However, AMAKI teaches “wherein the controller is configured to increase the threshold free memory block count when the size of the user data area increases from a reference size by the target size, and” as “This example corresponds to the item of the reservation parameter “SLC buffer reservation size: 10 GiB if the total size of the free blocks is above a threshold” in FIG. 3. CurrentFreeCluster in the control program indicates the current total size of the free blocks. TargetFreeCluster indicates the threshold of the total size of the free blocks to reserve additional dynamic SLC buffers.” [¶0135]
“execute garbage collection when a number of free memory blocks among the plurality of memory blocks is less than or equal to the threshold free memory block count.” as “The controller is configured to reserve one or more free blocks in the plurality of blocks as write destination block candidates of the first data write operation, perform the first data write operation for one of the write destination block candidates, and perform a garbage collection operation based on first control information received from an external device for an active block or blocks in which data has been written by the first data write operation.” [¶0022]
Lee and AMAKI are analogous arts because they teach storage system and storage controller.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teachings of Lee and AMAKI before him/her, to modify the teachings of Lee to include the teachings of AMAKI with the motivation of usability of the SSD is improved and verification costs are lowered. [AMAKI, ¶0130]
Claim 13 is rejected over Lee and AMAKI under the same rationale of rejection of claim 2.
Claim 14 is rejected over Lee and AMAKI under the same rationale of rejection of claim 3.
Claim 16 is rejected over Lee and AMAKI under the same rationale of rejection of claim 6.
Claim(s) 7-8 and 17-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee [US 11,675,699 B2] in view of YANAGIHARA et al. [US 2019/0339885 A1].
Claim 7 is rejected over Lee and YANAGIHARA.
Lee does not explicitly teach wherein the controller is configured to delete all or part of temporary data stored in the user data area when a number of free memory blocks among the plurality of memory blocks is less than or equal to a threshold free memory block count.
However, YANAGIHARA teaches “wherein the controller is configured to delete all or part of temporary data stored in the user data area when a number of free memory blocks among the plurality of memory blocks is less than or equal to a threshold free memory block count.” as “If the amount of memory storage space that is deleted by the applications in response to the requests is insufficient to increase the total amount of available memory storage space 306 above the second threshold value 320, then the cache engine 112 can be configured to transmit requests to delete data from within the temporary data store 304 to higher priority applications 116 in at least one additional pass.” [¶0069]
Lee and YANAGIHARA are analogous arts because they teach storage system and storage controller.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teachings of Lee and YANAGIHARA before him/her, to modify the teachings of Lee to include the teachings of YANAGIHARA with the motivation of effectively carry out various operations, e.g., downloading data from a remote server or storing a file generated by the application. [YANAGIHARA, ¶0004]
Claim 8 is rejected over Lee and YANAGIHARA.
Lee does not explicitly teach wherein the controller is configured to delete a portion of the temporary data whose retention time is greater than a threshold retention time.
However, YANAGIHARA teaches “wherein the controller is configured to delete a portion of the temporary data whose retention time is greater than a threshold retention time.” as “a request to identify and delete files may include a threshold priority level such that only those files below the threshold priority level should be deleted in order to comply with the request.” [¶0042]
Claim 17 is rejected over Lee and YANAGIHARA under the same rationale of rejection of claim 7.
Claim 18 is rejected over Lee and YANAGIHARA under the same rationale of rejection of claim 8.
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee [US 11,675,699 B2] in view of YANAGIHARA et al. [US 2019/0339885 A1] and in further view of Kang et al. [US 11,438,416 B1].
Claim 9 is rejected over Lee, YANAGIHARA and Kang.
The combination of Lee and YANAGIHARA does not explicitly teach wherein the controller is configured to store information about the retention time of the temporary data in a metadata area that stores metadata corresponding to the user data stored in the user data area.
However, Kang teaches “wherein the controller is configured to store information about the retention time of the temporary data in a metadata area that stores metadata corresponding to the user data stored in the user data area.” as “data designated for storage in the unprotected storage space 504 included in the shared storage space 500 may be associated with a default retention time period (during which that data may not be automatically deleted, as discussed with regard to the method 900 below), or may have a retention time period specified by the user storing that data.” [Col 7, lines 39-45]
Lee, YANAGIHARA and Kang are analogous arts because they teach storage system and storage controller.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teachings of Lee, YANAGIHARA and Kang before him/her, to modify the teachings of combination of Lee and YANAGIHARA to include the teachings of Kang with the motivation of allowing the space utilization of the shared storage system to regularly approach (while not reaching) the total capacity of the shared storage system, thus providing a shared storage system that is more efficient and flexible than conventional shared storage systems, and benefitting both the user and storage administrators. [Kang, Col 16, lines 50-56]
Claim(s) 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee [US 11,675,699 B2] in view of YANAGIHARA et al. [US 2019/0339885 A1] and in further view of HARIJONO et al. [US 10,176,190 B2].
Claim 11 is rejected over Lee, YANAGIHARA and HARIJONO.
The combination of Lee and HARIJONO does not explicitly teach wherein the controller is configured to delay a data write operation requested by the host or delete a large file stored in the user data area.
However, HARIJONO teaches “wherein the controller is configured to delay a data write operation requested by the host or delete a large file stored in the user data area.” as “Some other Deduplication techniques may read more metadata blocks than required, cache it in RAM to speed-up the reading process and may defer any writing request in RAM to give an impression of fast writing.” [Col 6, lines 12-15]
Lee, YANAGIHARA and HARIJONO are analogous arts because they teach storage system and storage controller.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teachings of Lee, YANAGIHARA and HARIJONO before him/her, to modify the teachings of combination of Lee and YANAGIHARA to include the teachings of HARIJONO with the motivation of reducing the amount of storage capacity required to store data, and reducing the network bandwidth required for performing backups or replication. Most existing deduplication schemes encounters many performance issues. [HARIJONO, Col 1, lines 24-28]
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 02/02/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that the cited prior art fails to disclose “changing one or more garbage collection parameters” including a threshold free memory block count, execution time, or ratio of garbage collection execution time to write execution time. Lee [US 11,675,699 B2] explicitly discloses determining whether a start condition for performing a garbage collection operation is satisfied “based on a number of bad memory blocks in the plurality of memory blocks” (Col. 1, lines 53–56). The Examiner notes that a start condition based on the number of available or unusable memory blocks constitutes a threshold parameter governing initiation of garbage collection. Such a threshold directly corresponds to the claimed “threshold free memory block count that determines whether to execute garbage collection.” Furthermore, adjusting or determining when garbage collection is initiated inherently modifies operational parameters of garbage collection, including timing of execution. Therefore, Lee teaches configuring the controller to utilize and effectively change garbage collection parameters, including threshold-based conditions controlling execution. Accordingly, the cited reference reasonably teaches the disputed limitation.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 MASUD K KHAN whose telephone number is (571)270-0606. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday (8am-5pm).
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/MASUD K KHAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2132