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 .
Other Refs: Blount (US 2022027048) – Garbage Collection pacing in a storage system by storage controller.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-8 and 10-16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claim (subject to any rejections below).
REASONS FOR INDICATING ALLOWABLE
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for indicating allowable:
For Claims 2-8, the prior art discloses and/or renders obvious the limitations from Claim 1. The prior art does not appear to disclose the limitations from Claims 2-8.
For Claims 10-16, the prior art discloses and/or renders obvious the limitations from Claim 9. The prior art does not appear to disclose the limitations from Claims 10-16.
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.”
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 1-16 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.
5. In claims 1 and 9, the recited “the data transfer rate,” “the recycle time ratio,” “the actual delay value,” “the current round,” “the data writing speed” and “the host system” (lines 5-14) would have been indefinite to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention, for lacking antecedent basis. One of ordinary skill would not have known the metes and bounds of these limitations and whether these recitations are new recitation of the respective limitations or are intended to refer back to a previous recitation. For example, these recited limitations refer back to the previously recited but are not claimed. Under an alternate scenario, these recited limitations are new recitation. Correction is required to clarify the scope of these (and other limitations).
Claims 2-8 and 10-16 are rejected based on dependency from claim 1 and 9, respectively.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claims 1 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu (US 20190065097 A1) and in view of Perry (US 20100169603 A1) and further in view of Wei (US 20230017946 A1)
Claim 1. Liu discloses A data writing control method, configured for a storage device, wherein the storage device comprises a memory module (eg., 0006 - ata writing speed of the memory storage device is maintained to be steady relative to a host system when the memory storage device performs a data merge operation.), the data writing control method comprising:
obtaining parameter information and execution information of a data merging process wherein the data merging process comprises at least one round, (eg., [0063] After beginning to perform the data merge operation, if the PUs belonging to the spare region 602 meet one certain condition,… MMC 502 may determine whether the total number of the PUs belonging to the spare region 602 is greater than or equal to a threshold value ; 0075 - during the data merge operation being performed),
the execution information comprises a quantity of valid data transferred and a time consumed for each of the executions of the rounds (eg., 0082 - if the valid count of the PU 910(E) indicates that the valid data accounts for 95% of the data capacity in the PU 910(E), it may thus be estimated, according to the valid count, that after using 20 PUs to store the valid data collected in the data merge operation currently being performed or to be performed, 1 new spare PU may be additionally released );
calculating the data transfer rate and the recycle time ratio reflecting the current round among the rounds according to the parameter information and the execution information (eg., 0075 - the MMC 502 may decrease the transmission bandwidth for receiving the data from the host system 11, suspend reception for the data from the host system 11, and/or decrease the frequency for replaying the writing completion message to the host system 11; (eg., 0083 - the MMC 502 may control a speed of receiving the data from the host system 11 (or the data receiving amount per unit time) such that one new spare PU is additionally released when one open block is fully written in the data merge operation performed in the background).
Liu does not disclose, but Perry discloses
the parameter information comprises an estimated completion time of the data merging process and an estimated number of executions of rounds (eg., 0024 - the estimated completion time may be based in part on an anticipated wear leveling operation, garbage collection operation, power-fail protection operation, or defragmentation operation.), and
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing date of the claimed invention to modify the data writing and data merge operations as disclosed by Liu with Perry, providing the benefit of desirable to account somehow for the effect of automatic memory operations on the duration of storage operations (see Perry, 0009).
Liu in view of Perry does not disclose, but Wei discloses
calculating the actual delay value reflecting the current round according to the data transfer rate, the recycle time ratio, and a reference delay value; and controlling the data writing speed corresponding to the host system according to the actual delay value (eg., 0044 - write command rate is already at a sufficiently low level (e.g., the delay period is nearly equal to or otherwise nearly corresponds to the timeout period based on a previous iteration of operation 210), the processing device can determine to not further lower the write command rate at operation 210… the processing device first determines the current delay period and compares it against the timeout period or another threshold to determine whether the write command rate needs to or otherwise can be further decreased)and
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing date of the claimed invention to modify the data writing and data merge operations as disclosed by Liu with Perry, with Wei, providing the benefit of optimizing garbage collection (see Wei, 0002).
Claim 9. Liu discloses A storage device, (eg., 0006 - ata writing speed of the memory storage device is maintained to be steady relative to a host system when the memory storage device performs a data merge operation.), comprising:
a connection interface unit, configured to connect to a host system; a memory module; and a memory controller, connected to the connection interface unit and the memory module (eg., [0034] Referring to FIG. 4, the memory storage device 10 includes a connection interface unit 402, a memory control circuit unit 404, and a rewritable non-volatile memory module 406.),
obtaining parameter information and execution information of a data merging process wherein the data merging process comprises at least one round, (eg., [0063] After beginning to perform the data merge operation, if the PUs belonging to the spare region 602 meet one certain condition,… MMC 502 may determine whether the total number of the PUs belonging to the spare region 602 is greater than or equal to a threshold value ; 0075 - during the data merge operation being performed),
the execution information comprises a quantity of valid data transferred and a time consumed for each of the executions of the rounds (eg., 0082 - if the valid count of the PU 910(E) indicates that the valid data accounts for 95% of the data capacity in the PU 910(E), it may thus be estimated, according to the valid count, that after using 20 PUs to store the valid data collected in the data merge operation currently being performed or to be performed, 1 new spare PU may be additionally released );
calculating the data transfer rate and the recycle time ratio reflecting the current round among the rounds according to the parameter information and the execution information (eg., 0075 - the MMC 502 may decrease the transmission bandwidth for receiving the data from the host system 11, suspend reception for the data from the host system 11, and/or decrease the frequency for replaying the writing completion message to the host system 11; (eg., 0083 - the MMC 502 may control a speed of receiving the data from the host system 11 (or the data receiving amount per unit time) such that one new spare PU is additionally released when one open block is fully written in the data merge operation performed in the background).
Liu does not disclose, but Perry discloses
the parameter information comprises an estimated completion time of the data merging process and an estimated number of executions of rounds (eg., 0024 - the estimated completion time may be based in part on an anticipated wear leveling operation, garbage collection operation, power-fail protection operation, or defragmentation operation.), and
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing date of the claimed invention to modify the data writing and data merge operations as disclosed by Liu with Perry, providing the benefit of desirable to account somehow for the effect of automatic memory operations on the duration of storage operations (see Perry, 0009).
Liu in view of Perry does not disclose, but Wei discloses
calculating the actual delay value reflecting the current round according to the data transfer rate, the recycle time ratio, and a reference delay value; and controlling the data writing speed corresponding to the host system according to the actual delay value (eg., 0044 - write command rate is already at a sufficiently low level (e.g., the delay period is nearly equal to or otherwise nearly corresponds to the timeout period based on a previous iteration of operation 210), the processing device can determine to not further lower the write command rate at operation 210… the processing device first determines the current delay period and compares it against the timeout period or another threshold to determine whether the write command rate needs to or otherwise can be further decreased)and
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing date of the claimed invention to modify the data writing and data merge operations as disclosed by Liu with Perry, with Wei, providing the benefit of optimizing garbage collection (see Wei, 0002).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GAUTAM SAIN whose telephone number is (571)270-3555. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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/GAUTAM SAIN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2135