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 .
This Office Action is a response to the amendment filed January 2, 2026. Claims 1-20 are pending in the application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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) 10 and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Honda et al., US 2009/0055680 [hereinafter, Honda].
As for claims 10 and 19:
Honda teaches a method [see para. 0041], comprising: transmitting, from a first controller [e.g., a host not shown (see figure 1, host interface 104 for connecting to a host)] in a device to a second controller in the device [i.e., memory controller 102], a command to access memory cells in the device at a first address [e.g., a command that include logical address specified from the outside (e.g., a host) when data is read; para. 0041, lines 7]; converting, by the second controller in response to the command from the first controller, the first address to a second address during execution of the command to generate a reply to the command [i.e., determining a physical address based a logical address specified from the outside when data is read]; and recording an error in association with the second address [i.e., “registering said physical address to said error table”].
Double Patenting
The rejection of claims 1-20 on the ground of non-statutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of the US patent No. 12,159,039 is hereby maintained for the same reasons as set forth in the previous Office Action (mailed October 1, 2025).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-9 would be allowable over the prior art of record given that. The claims are allowed because none of the prior art of record teaches or fairly suggests the claimed feature regarding “the first controller is configured to record an error in association with the second address”. The closest prior is to Honda as used in the rejection of claims 10 and 19. In Honda the error recording is performed by the second controller instead. As a result, there are structural differences between the claimed invention in claims 1-9 and the teaching of Honda.
Claims 11 and 20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable over the prior art of record if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims, given that a terminal disclaimer is filed to overcome the obvious-type double patenting rejection. Consequently, claims 12-18 would also be allowable over the prior art of record. The claims Allowed over the prior art of record because none of the prior art of record taches the claimed feature regarding the first controller decoding the read data to identify the error. The closest prior art is to Honda as used in the rejection of claims 10 and 19. In Honda the “decoding” step is performed by the second controller instead. As a result, there are structural differences between the claimed invention in claims 11-18, 20 and the teaching of Honda.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
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/HIEP T NGUYEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2137
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