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 11/12/2024.
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 as a continuation of US Application 18/944,637 filed 11/12/2024 which further claims priority to provisional US Application 63/557,057 filed 02/23/2024 is herein acknowledged.
Information Disclosure Statement
As required by M.P.E.P. 609(C), the applicant’s submission of the Information Disclosure Statement dated 06/25/2025 is acknowledged by the examiner and the cited references have been considered in the examination of the claims now pending. As required by M.P.E.P 609 C(2), a copy of the PTOL-1449 initialed and dated by the examiner is attached to the instant office action.
Drawings
The applicant’s drawings submitted on 11/12/2024 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 “modifying, by the storage system and based on the second checksum being different from the first checksum…” wherein the “second checksum” lacks proper antecedent basis for the term. Claim 1 previously recites “generating … a second instance of the first checksum” and while the “second instance” appears to be intended basis for the subsequent recitation of “second checksum”, the language is not explicit in this connection and it is suggested to amend either recitation to indicate clearly the corresponding reference. Dependent claims 2-10 do not resolve the issue.
Claim 2 recites “one or more bits of the first intermediate representation to modify” wherein the “representation lacks proper antecedent basis with respect to claim 1 which recites “first intermediate representation of the data” and therefore should be accordingly amended to include the term “of the data”. Additionally, claim 2 recites “the second checksum” which should be addressed in conjunction with any amendments to claim 1.
Claim 5 recites the similar issue as claim 2 identified above wherein claim 5 recites “the second intermediate representation” which appears to be lacking “of the data” as recited in claim 1. Additionally, the recitation of the comma (,) after “verifying” renders the limitation unclear as to which element is being verified: the second intermediate representation [of the data], the fourth checksum, or the another instance of the third checksum.
Claim 6 recites “wherein the generating and the verifying comprise applying an XOR operation to the second intermediate representation” which renders the limitation as unclear as to which elements are involved in the XOR operation due to the verifying and generating steps reciting multiple elements in claim 5 and the lack of distinction in claim 6 as to what elements are the inputs of the XOR operation.
Claim 11 recites the similar issues as identified in claim 1.
Claim 12 recites the similar issues as identified in claim 2.
Claim 15 recites the similar issues as identified in claim 5.
Claim 16 recites the similar issues as identified in claim 6.
Claim 18 recites the same issue as identified in claim 1.
Claim 19 recites the similar issues as identified in claim 2.
Claim 20 recites the similar issues as identified in claim 5.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Haswell (US 11,886,286) – Column 4, lines 54-67 wherein intermediate checksum calculation via XOR operation is discussed.
Zvibel (US 2010/0318887) – Paragraphs [0029-33] wherein data checksum verification is discussed.
Wang et al. (US 2016/0342641) - Paragraphs [0030-33] wherein data checksum verification is discussed.
Honda (US 2020/0285628) - Paragraphs [0068-69] wherein intermediate checksum generation is discussed.
Magerramov et al. (US 8,495,472) – Figure 2 and corresponding disclosure wherein checksum calculation 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.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
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 571-273-8300.
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.
/ALEXANDER YOON/
Examiner, Art Unit 2135
/JARED I RUTZ/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2135