DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the application 18/936517, filed on 11/04/2024.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1-20 have been examined and are pending in this application. Claims 1, 10, and 15 are independent.
Priority/Continuity
This application has relationship with foreign Application No. KR10-2024-0064800, filed on 05/17/2024, and foreign Application No KR10-2023-0161031, filed on 11/20/2023.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS), submitted on 11/04/2024 and 01/08/2025, are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the Examiner.
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 of this title, 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the Examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the Examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-4, 8-13, and 15-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hong et al (“Hong,” US 2022/0019356, published on 01/20/2022), in view of Veluswamy (“Veluswamy,” US 2022/0413737, patented on 02/29/2022).
As to claim 1, Hong teaches a universal flash storage (UFS) device (Hong: pars 0004-0005, 0028-0030; Fig 1, a system and method for writing data on storage device, including a universal flash storage (UFS) device) comprising:
a memory comprising a replay protection memory block (RPMB) region (Hong: pars 0028-0030; Fig 1, the UFS storage device includes a memory, having protected region, including a replay protected memory block (RPMB)), the RPMB region comprising one or more index fields storing a second write index (Hong: pars 0035, 0063; Fig 2, the storage device storing a write counter, device write count, associated with the RPMB region [i.e., a second write index]); and
a memory controller comprising at least one controller memory storing one or more instructions, wherein the memory controller is configured to execute the one or more instructions to cause the UFS device to (Hong: pars 0028-0035; Fig 1, the UFS storage device also includes a memory controller. The memory controller defines the protected region, corresponding to a replay protected memory block (RPMB) defined in UFS, and process write requests, transmitted from the host device [i.e., an external device]):
receive, from an external device, an RPMB write request comprising a first write index, meta information, and a first message authentication code generated based on the first write index and the meta information (Hong: pars 0028-0035, 0038-0040, 0067; Fig 2, the memory controller of the UFS storage device receives a write request from the host device [i.e., an external device] that is connected over a communication interface, such as, a universal flash storage (UFS) interface. The request contains a host’s message authentication code (MAC) that is generated by the host, using a shared authentication key and concatenation of the message files, such as write counter [i.e. a first write index], and a message type [i.e. meta information], a first write count, and a first random number), and
determine whether to perform an authentication operation on the external device based on the first write index and the second write index (Hong: pars 0005-0006, 0038-0040, 0065, the memory controller of the UFS storage device generate a storage device’s message authentication code (MAC), using the same mechanism, and verify with the received message authentication code, as an option the host may verify the storage device’s message authentication code, and the random number, received from the controller in RES message).
Hong does not explicitly teach failure index.
However, in an analogous art, Veluswamy teaches failure index (Veluswamy: pars 0005-0006, discloses a calculating a failure index for each storage device plurality of data storage devices, and determine the failure index reaches a threshold or not for executing operation on the storage device).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Veluswamy with the method/system of Hong to include the limitation(s), failure index, where one would have been motivated to use the failure index, instead of write counter, for the benefit of creating a first failure index and second failure index in authentication message code generation for host device and storage device sides, and performing and verification in processing the write request operation, and also use the failure index for making decision on whether to execute an operation on the memory or not (Veluswamy: pars 0005-0006).
As to claim 2, the combination of Hong and Veluswamy teaches the UFS device of claim 1,
Hong and Veluswamy further teaches wherein the memory controller is configured to execute the one or more instructions to cause the UFS device to: compare a value of the first write failure index with a value of the second write failure index, based on the value of the first write failure index being different from the value of the second write failure index, perform the authentication operation based on the RPMB write request (Veluswamy: pars 0005-0006, if the failure index being less than the threshold, executing the operation [i.e., authentication operation as a failure]. Hong: 0033, 0043, the controller permits only authenticated access to the protected region, and thus stores data that is intended to be secure, i.e., secure data, in the protected region. Performing a secure write protection configuration block write request, and a secure write protection configuration block read request), and based on the value of the first write failure index being the same as the value of the second write failure index, determine a result of the authentication operation as a failure (Veluswamy: pars 0005-0006, if the failure index reaches over a threshold, not executing the operation [i.e., authentication operation as a failure]).
As to claim 3, the combination of Hong and Veluswamy teaches the UFS device of claim 1,
Hong further teaches wherein the memory controller is configured to execute the one or more instructions to cause the UFS device to: obtain a second message authentication code based on a preset algorithm, the first write failure index, and the meta information, compare a value of the first message authentication code with a value of the second message authentication code, and determine whether the authentication operation succeeds based on whether the value of the first message authentication code matches the value of the second message authentication code (Hong: pars 0005-0006, 0038-0040, 0065, the memory controller of the UFS storage device generate a storage device’s message authentication code (MAC) [i.e., second message authentication code], using the same mechanism, and verify with the received message authentication code [i.e., first message authentication code]).
As to claim 4, the combination of Hong and Veluswamy teaches the UFS device of claim 1,
Hong and Veluswamy further teaches wherein the memory controller is configured to execute the one or more instructions to cause the UFS device to: based on a result of the authentication operation being a failure, store the first write failure index in the RPMB region and transmit, to the external device, a response comprising a first code value indicating that the authentication operation is a failure (Hong: pars 0006, 0035, storage device process the write operation on the replay protection memory block (RPMB), and updates the write count. Veluswamy: pars 0005-0006, if the failure index reaches over a threshold, not executing the operation).
As to claim 8, the combination of Hong and Veluswamy teaches the UFS device of claim 1,
Hong further teaches wherein the memory controller is configured to execute the one or more instructions to cause the UFS device to: based on a result of the authentication operation being successful, initialize the one or more index fields (Hong: pars 0005-0006, 0038-0040, 0065, upon successful verification of the message authentication code, the storage device performs the write operation on the replay protection memory block (RPMB), and updates the write count).
As to claim 9, the combination of Hong and Veluswamy teaches the UFS device of claim 1,
Hong and Veluswamy further teaches wherein the RPMB write request comprises at least one of an authenticated data write request, a secure write protect configuration block write request, and an RPMB purge enable request (Hong: 0033, 0043, the controller permits only authenticated access to the protected region, and thus stores data that is intended to be secure, i.e., secure data, in the protected region. Performing a secure write protection configuration block write request, and a secure write protection configuration block read request. Veluswamy: pars 0005-0006, commanding to securely erase the at least one nonvolatile memory block, and retire the at least one nonvolatile memory block).
As to claim 10, the scope of the claim limitation is similar to the claim1, and therefore, rejected for the same reason set forth above for claim 1.
As to claims 11-13, the claim limitations are similar to the limitations of claims 2 and 4, respectively, and rejected for the same reason set forth above for claims 2 and 4.
As to claim 15, the scope of the claim limitation is similar to the claim1, and therefore, rejected for the same reason set forth above for claim 1.
As to claims 16-18, the claim limitations are similar to the limitations of claims 2-4, respectively, and rejected for the same reason set forth above for claims 2-4 and.
Claims 5-7, 14, 19, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hong et al (“Hong,” US 2022/0019356, published on 01/20/2022), in view of Veluswamy (“Veluswamy,” US 2022/0413737, patented on 02/29/2022), and further in view Kwon et al (“Kwon,” US 2021/0117540, patented on 04/22/2021).
As to claim 5, the combination of Hong and Veluswamy teaches the UFS device of claim 1,
Veluswamy wherein the memory controller is configured to execute the one or more instructions to cause the UFS device to: based on the authentication operation failing a predetermined number of times, (Veluswamy: pars 0005-0006, if the failure index reaches over a threshold, not executing the operation), but Hong or Veluswamy does not explicitly teach the limitation, enter at least one of an ignore mode, a power cycle, or a read only mode.
However, in an analogous art, Kwon teaches enter at least one of an ignore mode, a power cycle, or a read only mode (Kwon: pars 0005, 0034, 0077, a storage device receiving input/output request from an external device, and performs authentication. If the authentication failure occurs, the storage device enters into a protection mode. The protection mode may set the protected area of the memory area to “read-only” [i.e., read only mode], or may block an access to the protected area [i.e., ignore mode]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Kwon with the method/system of Hong and Veluswamy to include the limitation(s), enter at least one of an ignore mode, a power cycle, or a read only mode, where one would have been motivated for the benefit of providing a means for the storage device to enter a protection mode, such as, blocking access or read-only, to regulate the access to the memory in avoiding any unauthorized or malicious attack by a write request operation (Kwon: pars 0005, 0034, 0077).
As to claim 6, the combination of Hong, Veluswamy, and Kwon teaches the UFS device of claim 5,
Hong and Kwon wherein the memory controller is configured to execute the one or more instructions to cause the UFS device to: based on the UFS device entering the power cycle, initialize a first index field in which the first write failure index is stored and a second index field in which the second write failure index is stored (Kwon: pars 0005, 0034, 0077, if the authentication failure occurs, the storage device sets the protected area of the memory area to read-only mode or blocking mode. Hong: pars 0006, 0035, updates the write count).
As to claim 7, the combination of Hong, Veluswamy, and Kwon UFS device of claim 5,
Hong and Kwon wherein the memory controller is configured to execute the one or more instructions to cause the UFS device to: based on the UFS device entering the read only mode, transmit, to the external device, a response comprising a second code value indicating that the authentication operation is a failure with respect to a write request of the external device (Kwon: pars 0005, 0034, 0077, if the authentication failure occurs, the storage device sets the protected area of the memory area to read-only mode. Hong: par 0152, a notification indicating that the previously transmitted command is processed by the UFS device).
As to claim 14, the scope of the claim limitation is similar to the claim 5, and therefore, rejected for the same reason set forth above for claim 5.
As to claim 19, the scope of the claim limitation is similar to the claim 5, and therefore, rejected for the same reason set forth above for claim 5.
As to claim 20, the scope of the claim limitation is similar to the claim 6, and therefore, rejected for the same reason set forth above for claim 6.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to Jahangir Kabir whose telephone number is (571) 270-3355. The Examiner can normally be reached on 9:00- 5:00 Mon-Thu.
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, Luu Pham can be reached on (571) 270-5002. The fax number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JAHANGIR KABIR/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2439