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 Objections
Claims 1-20 are objected to because of the following informalities:
[A] Claim 1:Line 16 – acquire, an amount of time from;
[B] Claim 1:Line 23 – with the amount of time;
[C] Claim 11:Line 14 – acquiring, an amount of time from;
[D] Claim 11:Line 21 – with the amount of time;
Appropriate correction is required.
Claims 2-10 and 12-20 are objected to as being dependent from, but failing to cure the deficiencies of, a claim which is the subject of an objection.
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 13-15 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 13, at line 17, describes “after ending the throttling, acquiring the time.” However, Claim 11 details that the time is measured from “when the number of commands stored in the storage area has exceeded a lower limit to when the number of commands stored in the storage area exceeds an upper limit” which occurs prior to throttling. It appears that the time described in claim 13 is different from the time described in Claim 11 and therefore, it is unclear what time is being referred to in Claim 13. For the purposes of examination, the time of claim 13 will be interpreted as the time at which throttling ends.
Claims 14 and 15 are rejected as being dependent from, but failing to cure the deficiencies of, a rejected base claim.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-12 and 16-20 are allowed.
Claims 13-15 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
The prior art describes a controller configured to acquire a request from a first submission queue included in a host (TROY,e.g., ¶0033), generate one or more commands to be executed by the nonvolatile memory in accordance with the acquired request (TROY, e.g., ¶0033), store the generated one or more commands to the storage area (TROY, e.g., ¶0033), and cause the nonvolatile memory to execute a process according to each of the one or more commands stored in the storage area, wherein the controller is further configured to throttle acquisition of requests from the first submission queue (TROY, e.g., ¶0038). The prior art additionally describes using thresholds and timers to control throttling (HATANO, e.g., Abstract; Figs 4 and 11; Columns 3 and 4). Therefore, the primary reason for the allowance of the claims in this case, is the inclusion of the specific request throttling detail wherein the controller is further configured to acquire, time from when the number of commands stored in the storage area has exceeded a lower limit to when the number of commands stored in the storage area exceeds an upper limit, the upper limit being larger than the lower limit, and control throttling of acquisition of requests from the first submission queue at least in accordance with the time, the scope of which is now included in all the independent claims, in combination with the other elements recited, which is not found or fairly obviated by the prior art of record.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
[A] O’Connor et al. (US Patent No. 9,658,822) – discloses systems and methods for managing a throttle rate based on a threshold fill-level (see, e.g., Figs 1-1,1-2,1-3, and Fig 4).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Gary W Cygiel whose telephone number is (571)270-1170. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 11am-3pm PST.
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, Arpan P Savla can be reached at (571) 272-1077. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/Gary W. Cygiel/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2137