DETAILED ACTION
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 in response to communications filed 11/01/2024.
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Claims 1-20 are rejected.
The Examiner notes the current action does not include prior art rejections over the current presentation of the claims. The cited relevant prior art references made of record below are considered as pertinent to the claims and disclosed details provided in the Specification.
The claims are subject to the rejections provided herein which must be addressed accordingly.
Priority
Applicant’s priority claim to foreign document CN 202410075759X filed 01/18/2024 is herein acknowledged.
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Drawings
The applicant’s drawings submitted on 11/01/2024 are acceptable for examination purposes.
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 1-20 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.
Claim 1 recites “swap temporary parity data with the host through the second interface and the first interface…” Herein the recitation of ‘swap temporary parity data’ is unclear as to the context within which the “swap” occurs. The issue is due to the lack of clarity regarding what elements are subject to the swap between the host and the controller as it appears to indicate that ‘temporary parity data’ exists in both elements, but this aspect is unclear and furthermore, if this interpretation was the intended scope of the limitation, it is unclear in distinguishing between the temporary parity data that is stored in the host and the temporary parity data stored in the controller as the following limitation then recites “wherein the temporary parity data is parity data generated in a process of determining the target parity data”. It is suggested to clarify the temporary parity data located in each of the respective elements. Dependent claims 2-12 do not resolve the issue.
Claim 2 recites first and second buffers which both “store temporary parity data” which as recited incurs the same issue as identified for claim 1 wherein the temporary parity data is not distinguished between the elements. Furthermore, claim 2 recites “currently generated temporary parity data” which lacks clarity of distinction in context to the “temporary parity data” as recited within claim 2 and claim 1.
Claim 3 recites “the controller if configured to: store write data corresponding to each group…” Herein the recitation of “write data” appears to lack proper antecedent basis with respect to the “target write data” as recited in claim 1, from which claim 3 depends. All subsequent recitations of “write data” and “temporary parity data” should be addressed accordingly.
Claim 4 recites the same issues as identified for claim 3 regarding the “write data” and “temporary parity data” which should be addressed accordingly.
Claim 5 recites the same issues as identified for claim 3 regarding the “write data” and “temporary parity data” which should be addressed accordingly.
Claim 6 recites the same issues as identified for claim 3 regarding the “temporary parity data” which should be addressed accordingly.
Claim 8 recites the same issues as identified for claim 3 regarding the “temporary parity data” which should be addressed accordingly.
Claim 10 recites the same issues as identified for claim 3 regarding the “temporary parity data” which should be addressed accordingly.
Claim 11 recites the same issues as identified for claim 1 regarding the “temporary parity data” which should be addressed accordingly.
Claim 12 recites the same issues as identified for claim 1 regarding the “temporary parity data” which should be addressed accordingly.
Claim 13 recites the similar issue as identified for claim 1 regarding “send temporary parity data to the host through the interface, and receive the temporary parity data sent from the host through the interface…” Dependent claims 14-18 do not resolve the issue.
Claim 14 recites the same issues as identified for claim 3 regarding the “write data” and “temporary parity data” with respect to claim 13 which should be addressed accordingly.
Claim 15 recites the same issues as identified for claim 6 regarding the “temporary parity data” with respect to claim 14 which should be addressed accordingly.
Claim 16 recites the same issues as identified for claim 3 regarding the “temporary parity data” with respect to claim 14 which should be addressed accordingly.
Claim 17 recites the same issues as identified for claim 12 regarding the “temporary parity data” with respect to claim 13 which should be addressed accordingly.
Claim 19 recites the similar issue as identified for claim 1 regarding “sending, by the controller, the temporary parity data for the write data … receiving, by the host, the temporary parity data for the write data…” Dependent claim 20 does not resolve the issue.
Claim 20 recites the same issues as identified for claim 3 regarding the “write data” and “temporary parity data” with respect to claim 19 which should be addressed accordingly.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Palmer (US 10,866,861) – Column 3, lines 4-23 wherein use of temporary memory to store and swap temporary parity calculations within the memory controller using RAIN techniques is discussed.
Yeh (US 2019/0196903) – Paragraphs [0009-10] wherein generating temporary parity codes for groups is discussed.
Singidi et al. (US 2020/0110661) - Paragraphs [0076-78] wherein usage of a temporary parity super block in view of a RAIN parity buffer being full is discussed.
Luo et al. (US 2024/0168849) - Paragraphs [0075-77] wherein reallocating buffer space for parity calculation and garbage collection operations is discussed.
Bao et al. (US 2025/0165170) - Paragraphs [0010-11] wherein obtaining parity data through buffer swapping between RAID groups is discussed.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALEXANDER J YOON whose telephone number is (408)918-7629. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 8am-3pm ET. The examiner’s email is alexander.yoon2@uspto.gov.
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/ALEXANDER YOON/
Examiner, Art Unit 2135
/JARED I RUTZ/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2135