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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 recites the term “garbage collection executing time point”. This term does not appear in the specification. The specification does not appear to describe a specifically determined time point for performing S730/S740 of Fig. 7.
Claims 2-9 are rejected by virtue of their dependence upon a rejected base claim.
Claim 10 recites the limitation: “execute a garbage collection during a first time when the execution data size is less than a predetermined threshold data size, and execute the garbage collection during a second time which is shorter than the first time when the execution data size is equal to or greater than the predetermined threshold data size.”. This limitation is stating that if there is less updated write data than a threshold, then garbage collection is execute during (in) in first time and if there is more updated write data than a threshold, then garbage collection is executed during (in) a faster amount of time than when there was less updated write data. There does not appear to be any support in the specification for this claim language. As illustrated in Fig. 7 and described in the accompanying sections of the specification, there is no disclosure of speed of execution of the garbage collection operation at all, let alone based on the conditions claimed. Further there is no description of performing garbage collection no matter the outcome of the threshold comparison.
Claims 11-14 are rejected by virtue of their dependence upon a rejected base claim.
Claim 15 uses the term: “garbage collection executing time point” and therefore has the same issue as claim 1 in item 4 above.
Claims 16-20 are rejected by virtue of their dependence upon a rejected base claim.
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 recites the limitation "the garbage collection" in line 8. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 1 recites the term “garbage collection executing time point”. As stated above in item 4, this term is not present in the specification nor is there a determined time point for performing S730/S740 of Fig. 7. It is unclear how this time point is determined. It is further unclear if this is a time point of only one instance, is it a periodic time point or triggered by a particular event.
Claim 1 further states: “a memory device configured to store data by write requests from outside the memory system” and “wherein the execution data size is a sum of sizes of data updated by the write requests among data already stored in the memory device after a reference time point”. First, there is no bounds on the amount of write requests considered in the sum or when the summing is supposed to stop. In other words, the summing operation appears to just go on indefinitely and continuously sum writes that cause an update as they come in from the outside. The claim states that the sum is for “the write requests” after a reference time point, but for how long after the reference time point is the summing supposed to continue and what write requests are being considered in the sum? The term “the write requests” is referring to the first limitation which states: “write requests from outside the memory system”, is this all the writes coming into the system or some subset of write requests received over a certain time period or writes between specific events?
Claim 1 further states: “skip the garbage collection at a garbage collection executing time point when the execution data size is equal to or greater than a predetermined threshold data size.”. Since it is unclear what the scope of the term “the write requests” is, the term “garbage collection executing time point” is, and when the sum operation is complete (there is no claimed stop point for when the right amount of writes have been made to memory to perform the sum on.), it is therefore unclear whether the execution data size has even been determined at the “garbage collection executing time point” to figure out if garbage collection is to be skipped. The relationship between the “the write requests”, “the execution data size” and “garbage collection executing time point” is not clearly defined.
Claims 2-9 are rejected by virtue of their dependence upon a rejected base claim.
Claim 10 has the same issue as claim 1 above with respect to it being unclear when the summing operation associated with the execution data size determining step is complete (item 14 above).
Claims 11-14 are rejected by virtue of their dependence upon a rejected base claim.
Claim 15 has the same issue as claim 1 above with respect to the term “garbage collection executing time point” as explained in item 13 above.
Claim 15 has the same issue as claim 1 above with respect to clarity around when the summing operation associated with the data size determining step is complete (item 14 above). This claim has two instances of this type of limitation, one for the first and second data size.
Claims 16-20 are rejected by virtue of their dependence upon a rejected base claim.
For purposes of examination the examiner is considering the “garbage collection executing time point” to be an arbitrary point in time. Further, the summing and write requests being summed are considered to be performed and summed from the claimed reference point to the point the result is needed to determine if garbage collection should be executed or skipped.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 1 recites (using the examiners interpretation in item 22 above) that the sum of sizes of data updated by the write requests among data already stored in the memory device after a reference time point (the execution data size) is compared against a threshold and if the execution data size is equal to or greater than the threshold, then garbage collection is skipped. The examiner has not found a prior art reference or combination of references that teaches that if there is more updated write data than a threshold, not only don’t perform garbage collection but also actively doing a garbage collection skipping operation.
Claim 10 recites (using the examiners interpretation in item 22 above) to determine an execution data size, wherein the execution data size is a sum of sizes of data updated by write requests among data already stored in the memory device after a reference time point; and execute a garbage collection during a first time when the execution data size is less than a predetermined threshold data size, and execute the garbage collection during a second time which is shorter than the first time when the execution data size is equal to or greater than the predetermined threshold data size. The examiner has not found a prior art reference or combination of references that teaches performing a garbage collection operation no matter if the threshold is met or not, but depending on whether the threshold is met or not, how fast the garbage collection must be performed.
Claim 15 recites (using the examiners interpretation in item 22 above) execute a garbage collection during a first time when the first data size is equal to or greater than a multiple of a predetermined reference data size and the second data size is less than a predetermined threshold data size at a garbage collection executing time point. The examiner has not found a prior art reference or combination of references that teaches performing garbage collection under the above two pronged specific claim requirements.
The claims are not in condition for allowance due to their rejections under 112 (a) and (b), however, the current claim language as interpreted for purposes of examination has not been found in the prior art as described directly above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL ALSIP whose telephone number is (571)270-1182. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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/MICHAEL ALSIP/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2139