Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 18/935,813

DYNAMIC QUALITY OF SERVICE IMPLEMENTATION BASED UPON RESOURCE SATURATION

Non-Final OA §112
Filed
Nov 04, 2024
Examiner
GEBRIL, MOHAMED M
Art Unit
2135
Tech Center
2100 — Computer Architecture & Software
Assignee
Netapp Inc.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
76%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
3y 0m
To Grant
86%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 76% — above average
76%
Career Allow Rate
271 granted / 358 resolved
+20.7% vs TC avg
Moderate +11% lift
Without
With
+10.6%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 0m
Avg Prosecution
21 currently pending
Career history
379
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
5.3%
-34.7% vs TC avg
§103
53.0%
+13.0% vs TC avg
§102
11.2%
-28.8% vs TC avg
§112
25.7%
-14.3% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 358 resolved cases

Office Action

§112
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . DETAILED ACTION Claims 1-20 are presented for examination in this application (18/935,813) filed on November 4, 2024. The Examiner cites particular sections in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant(s). Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant(s) fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner. Claims 1-20 are pending for consideration. Drawings The drawings submitted on November 4, 2024 have been considered and accepted. Information Disclosure Statement Acknowledgment is made of the information disclosure statements filed on 11/4/2024, 12/11/2024 and 2/11/2025. U.S. patents and Foreign Patents have been considered. 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Claim 1, 9 and 15 recite “associating priority bands with queues …. the first queue being associated with a first priority band, a second weight is assigned to a second queue based upon the second queue being associated with a second priority band, and a third weight is assigned to a third queue based upon the third queue being associated with a third priority band” would have been indefinite to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. One of ordinary skill would not have known the metes and bounds of whether the bands associated with the queue attributes or assigned as queue priority level or else. Correction is required to show clearly how such association is defined. As per claims 2 and 4, Claim recites “numbers of volumes associated with each priority band” would have been indefinite to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. One of ordinary skill would not have known the metes and bounds of whether the bands associated with the queue attributes or assigned as queue priority level or else. Correction is required to show clearly how such association is defined Claim 10 recites “an adequate amount of credits”, where it is a relative term that was not defined in the claims. Claim further recites “consume in exchange for execution”, where it is unclear how the credits are consumed and executed and how the exchange takes place. As per claim 12, claim recites “a minimum I/O processing rate recommendation”, where it is a relative term that was not defined in the claims. As per claim 13, claim recites “ maximum I/O rate”, where it is a relative term that was not defined in the claims. Claim further recites “processor load”, where it is unclear if the processor is part of the machine or else. All dependent claims are rejected as having the same deficiencies as the claims they depend from. CLAIMS ALLOWED IN THE APPLICATION Per the instant office action, claims 1-20, but would be allowable if rewritten in a form to overcome the 112 issues. The reasons for allowance of claims 1, 9 and 15 is that the prior art of record, neither anticipates, nor renders obvious the recited combination as a whole; including the limitations of “queuing an I/O operation into at least one of the first queue, the second queue, or the third queue as a queued I/O operation based upon resource saturation monitored using the resource saturation based quality of service policy; and utilizing the weights to select the queued I/O operation to dequeue and reevaluate for execution utilizing current resource saturation monitored using the resource saturation based quality of service policy”. The closest prior art Brewer (US 7,594,044) teaches where the host can also weight the allocation of I/O requests to priorities by the number of volumes assigned to each priority. For example, if high priority is 50% and archive priority 5% of I/O bandwidth, and you have one high priority volume and 20 volumes of archive priority, the host will weight the allocation as shown in the table. In another embodiment, the host may weight the allocation of I/O requests only to volumes that are recently active (e.g., I/O requests received in the last five minutes) in each priority. Each host receives I/O requests from users running applications and translates I/O requests to read or write blocks in a volume into I/O requests to blocks in the data storage subsystems (Column 8, lines 24-46; FIG. 4). Pertinent Prior art The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Gum-Bernat et al., USPGPUB 2020/0278804– teaches MANAGING MEMORY SYSTEM QUALITY OF SERVICE (QOS). Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jared Ian Rutz whose telephone number is (571)272-5535. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday, 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jared Rutz can be reached on 571-272-5535. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-270-2857. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /MOHAMED M GEBRIL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2135
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Nov 04, 2024
Application Filed
Jan 03, 2026
Non-Final Rejection — §112 (current)

Precedent Cases

Applications granted by this same examiner with similar technology

Patent 12602179
MEMORY SYSTEM FOR TAILORING DATA, HOST SYSTEM FOR CONTROLLING THE MEMORY SYSTEM, AND OPERATION METHOD OF THE MEMORY SYSTEM
2y 5m to grant Granted Apr 14, 2026
Patent 12602163
MANAGING CROSS-TEMPERATURE EXPOSURE IN MEMORY SYSTEMS
2y 5m to grant Granted Apr 14, 2026
Patent 12596482
Log Memory Compression System and Method
2y 5m to grant Granted Apr 07, 2026
Patent 12585388
SELECTIVELY ENABLING VALLEY TRACK FOR READING DATA
2y 5m to grant Granted Mar 24, 2026
Patent 12572786
NVM-BASED HIGH-CAPACITY NEURAL NETWORK INFERENCE ENGINE
2y 5m to grant Granted Mar 10, 2026
Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

AI Strategy Recommendation

Get an AI-powered prosecution strategy using examiner precedents, rejection analysis, and claim mapping.
Powered by AI — typically takes 5-10 seconds

Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
76%
Grant Probability
86%
With Interview (+10.6%)
3y 0m
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 358 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allow rate.

Sign in with your work email

Enter your email to receive a magic link. No password needed.

Personal email addresses (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) are not accepted.

Free tier: 3 strategy analyses per month