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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 5/28/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 5/28/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The applicant argues on pages 6-9 of the remarks, filed 5/28/2026 that the examiner’s mapping of the claimed SMMU to the prior art Beub’s memory system controller 240, and they base this argument on the fact that the figures of their specification and the prior art differ. ¶49 teaches that the common command queue 230 can be dispatched to the memory system controller 240 (which the examiner has mapped to as the SMMU). This, at the very least, suggests that a queue exists in the memory system controller 240 for the commands to be executed in the order in which they were arranged in the common command queue. It should also be noted that the examiner’s mapping of the claims is but one viable mapping, and that the I/O scheduler 220 (see fig. 2) also meets the claimed criteria of a SMMU as it also inserts commands into the common command queue 230.
“Prior art is not limited just to the references being applied, but includes the understanding of one of ordinary skill in the art. The prior art reference (or references when combined) need not teach or suggest all the claim limitations. The "mere existence of differences between the prior art and an invention does not establish the invention’s nonobviousness." Dann v. Johnston, 425 U.S. 219, 230, 189 USPQ 257, 261 (1976) The gap between the prior art and the claimed invention may not be "so great as to render the [claim] nonobvious to one reasonably skilled in the art."” (MPEP 2141 III.)
“If an applicant disagrees with any factual findings by the Office, an effective traverse of a rejection based wholly or partially on such findings must include a reasoned statement explaining why the applicant believes the Office has erred substantively as to the factual findings. A mere statement or argument that the Office has not established a prima facie case of obviousness or that the Office’s reliance on common knowledge is unsupported by documentary evidence will not be considered substantively adequate to rebut the rejection or an effective traverse of the rejection under 37 CFR 1.111(b). Office personnel addressing this situation may repeat the rejection made in the prior Office action and make the next Office action final. See MPEP § 706.07(a).” (MPEP 2141 IV.)
Applicant's arguments fail to comply with 37 CFR 1.111(b) because they amount to a general allegation that the claims define a patentable invention without specifically pointing out how the language of the claims patentably distinguishes them from the references.
Applicant's arguments do not comply with 37 CFR 1.111(c) because they do not clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. Further, they do not show how the amendments avoid such references or objections.
In response to applicant's arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
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, 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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 7-11, and 16-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bueb (US 2023/0176776) in view of Vemuri (US 2014/0173113)
In regards to claims 1 and 10, taking claim 1 as exemplary Bueb teaches
A method performable by a hypervisor, comprising: (see fig. 2 and ¶39, which states the host system 210 may be an example of a hypervisor)
obtaining a first set of commands originating from a first virtual machine of a plurality of virtual machines and a second set of commands originating from a second virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines, (fig. 2, ¶45 teaches the host system controller 215, which is part of host system 210 (i.e. hypervisor) can receive a set of commands associated with individual virtual machines as command queue. For example, virtual machine 205-a (first VM) is associated with command queue 225-a (first set of commands), and virtual machine 205-b (second VM) is associated with command queue 225-b (second set of commands), from a plurality of virtual machines (i.e. VMs 205-a, 205-b, and 205-c).
inserting the first set of commands and the second set of commands into a command queue of a system memory management unit (SMMU) (fig. 2, ¶45-49 teaches that the commands of the individual command queues 225-a, b, c are then inserted and arranged in the common command queue 230 (i.e. command queue), which is then sent to the memory system controller 240 (system memory management unit)
Bueb may not specifically teach that each of the plurality of virtual machines having a different priority ranking; and that the commands are inserted into the common command queue of the SMMU based on the priority ranking of the first virtual machine and the priority ranking of the second virtual machine.
Vemuri teaches in at least ¶44 that VMs can be associated a priority and therefore their requests are determined to be of their associated VMs priority, and the queues of commands are serviced according to their rating.
As Bueb already describes modifying the order of commands from different VMs in a common command queue based on a pattern of addresses, It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have been able to take into account other factors, such as the priority of the virtual machines issuing said requests as taught by Vemuri in order to not only reduce the latency of the memory system, but to also ensure that virtual machines are serviced in according with a set associated quality of service. This improves the system by allowing different VMs to operate under different quality of service levels, and ensuring that higher levels of quality can be maintained for individual VMs.
In regards to claims 2 and 11, Bueb further teaches and/or makes obvious
obtaining the first set of commands occurs before obtaining the second set of commands; and inserting the first set of commands into the command queue occurs before inserting the second set of commands into the command queue. (¶52 teaches that commands from the VMs can be timestamped and that the commands can initially be arranged in the command queue 305 (i.e. common command queue, for the SMMU). Therefore, a first set of commands from a first VM received before (i.e. with a prior timestamp) a second set of commands received from a second VM (i.e. with a later timestamp) will result in the first set of commands being inserted into the command queue before the second set of commands.
In regards to claims 3 and 12, Vemuri further teaches and/or makes obvious
wherein the priority ranking of the first virtual machine is higher than the second virtual machine. (as ¶44 that VMs can be associated a priority, and that the priority level of VMs can differ, as such a first VM can be of a higher priority than a second VM)
In regards to claim 7 and 16, Beub further teaches and/or makes obvious
wherein obtaining the first set of commands originating from the first virtual machine and the second set of commands originating from the second virtual machine comprises: obtaining the first set of commands from a virtual command queue generated by the first virtual machine; and obtaining the second set of commands from a virtual command queue generated by the second virtual machine. (fig. 2, ¶45 teaches the host system controller 215, which is part of host system 210 (i.e. hypervisor) can receive a set of commands associated with individual virtual machines as command queue. For example, virtual machine 205-a (first VM) is associated with command queue 225-a (first set of commands), and virtual machine 205-b (second VM) is associated with command queue 225-b (second set of commands), from a plurality of virtual machines (i.e. VMs 205-a, 205-b, and 205-c).
In regards to claims 8 and 19, Beub further teaches and/or makes obvious
wherein obtaining the second set of commands originating from the second virtual machine occurs simultaneously with obtaining the first set of commands originating from the first virtual machine. (¶45-46 and 52 and Fig. 2 teaches that the sets of commands from virtual machines can be received as sets of commands from each associated VM, and the sets of commands can be organized into the common command queue at a given time, (i.e. all of the individual command queues can be checked/received/obtained simultaneously whenever the I/O scheduler 220 routine is run.)
In regards to claims 9 and 17, Vemuri further teaches and/or makes obvious
wherein the first virtual machine has a higher priority ranking than the second virtual machine, and wherein the first virtual machine is operable to perform time-sensitive operations, and wherein the second virtual machine is operable to perform non-time sensitive operations. (¶33 teaches that different VMs can be assigned different priorities, and that high priorities can be guaranteed certain levels of availability of resources, as such it’s clear that a higher priority assignment for a VM can be associated with more time-sensitive operations, and lower priority VMs can be associated with non-time sensitive.)
In regards to claim 18, Beub further teaches and/or makes obvious
wherein the first set of commands and the second set of commands each include one or more memory management requests. (¶40 teaches the commands from the VMs can be read/write commands)
Claim(s) 4-6 and 13-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bueb (US 2023/0176776) in view of Vemuri (US 2014/0173113) and in further view of Binford (US 5,671,365).
In regards to claim 4 and 13, Vemuri further teaches and/or makes obvious
wherein the priority ranking of the first virtual machine is lower than the priority ranking of the second virtual machine (as ¶44 that VMs can be associated a priority, and that the priority level of VMs can differ, as such a first VM can be of a lower priority than a second VM)
Bueb further teaches and/or makes obvious
inserting the second set of commands into the command queue comprises: pausing a current production session of the command queue, the current production session including the first set of commands originating from the first virtual machine; (¶54, fig. 3A, shows that the initial state of the command queue is on the left, which the commands are in the order in which they were received (i.e. contain commands from a first set of commands originating from a first VM), and before the commands are sent to be processed they are first rearranged (i.e the initial/current queue placement is paused)
modifying the current production session by moving one or more commands included in the first set of commands to create space between the one or more commands and inserting the second set of commands into the space to generate an updated production session. (¶54 and the right side of fig. 3A shows how commands are rearranged into an updated queue based on the associated priorities of the individual commands (i.e. commands from a higher priority VM can be inserted closer to the top of the queue, e.g. commands 313 and 316), while lower priority commands like commands 311 and 312 can be moved to lower priority slots)
neither Bueb or Vemuri teach using consumer/producer indexes for controlling the queue.
Binford in at least C9:7-45 and fig. 4 shows the use consumer/producer indexes when efficiently using a buffer space in circular fashion.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have been able to implement the command queue of Bueb as a circular FIFO queue as taught by Binford that used producer/consumer indexes and a count to keep track of the active number of commands in the queue, and whereby the updating of the count and/or the consumer/producer indexes allows for notifying the associated consumer/producer of when new commands have been added and when requests have been completed such that information can be received. By implemented a queue in this manner, it can effectively use a set amount of buffer space to implement a FIFO without having to physical move the data to different regions of the buffer as commands are added/completed.
In regards to claims 5, 6, 14 and 15, Binford further teaches and/or makes obvious
updating a producer index of the command queue after the moving.
wherein updating the producer index comprises incrementing the producer index by a number corresponding to a total number of commands included in the second set of commands. (C9:7-45 and fig. 4 teach the use of producer/consumer indexes for implementing a circular FIFO queue.)
EXAMINER’S NOTE
Examiner has cited particular paragraphs, figures, and/or columns and line numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the Applicants. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the Applicants in preparing responses, to 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.
Conclusion
All claims are identical to or patentably indistinct from, or have unity of invention with claims in the application prior to the entry of the submission under 37 CFR 1.114 (that is, restriction (including a lack of unity of invention) would not be proper) and all claims could have been finally rejected on the grounds and art of record in the next Office action if they had been entered in the application prior to entry under 37 CFR 1.114. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL even though it is a first action after the filing of a request for continued examination and the submission under 37 CFR 1.114. See MPEP § 706.07(b). 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. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JASON W BLUST whose telephone number is (571)272-6302. The examiner can normally be reached 12-8:30 EST.
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, Hosain Alam can be reached at (571) 272-3978. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JASON W BLUST/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2132
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