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 § 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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 10, 14-16 and 26-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by den Besten (US 11,115,264), hereinafter referred to as den Besten ‘264.
Referring to claim 1, den Besten teaches, as claimed, an apparatus comprising: a controller of a physical layer (PHY) (i.e.-MI controller 106, PHY 111, see fig. 1; col. 6, lines 27-30; and col. 9, lines 60-63); and a transceiver of the PHY (i.e.-a port of the PHY, col. 9, lines 60-63; and col. 10, lines 38-39) in communication with the controller via a hardware interface (i.e.-communicating thru media independent interface, col. 9, lines 3-6; and col. 10, lines 14-15), the PHY to translate a first value of an address associated with an address space of the PHY (i.e.-changing the initial port address of the was previously assigned to a PHY, col. 10, lines 44-45 and col. 11, lines 28-32) to a second value of an address associated with an address space of the transceiver. (i.e.-assigning/mapping a new port address to the port address associated with the PHY, col. 11, lines 13-15 and 50-51).
As to claim 10, den Besten ‘264 teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the controller to provide an STA interface for application-level interactions with the PHY, and the address space of the PHY is accessible by applications via the controller (see den Besten ‘264, col. 6, lines 53-55; col. 8, lines 45-48; and col. 11, lines 19-25).
As to claim 14, den Besten ‘264 innately teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the controller, before remapping of the first value of the address, to determine if a write to the register space of the transceiver is locked (see den Besten ‘264, col. 10, lines 58-66).
As to claim 15, den Besten ‘264 teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the controller to detect that address is an access to the transceiver based on compliance with the IEEE protocol (see den Besten ‘264, col. 7, lines 21-24 and 52-55).
Referring to claims 16 and 26-28, the claims are substantially the same as claims 1, 10, 14 and 15, hence the rejection of claims 1, 10, 14 and 15 is applied accordingly.
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.
Claims 2-4, 7, 17, 20-23 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over den Besten ‘264 in view of den Besten (US 10,999,097), hereinafter referred to as Besten ‘097.
As to claim 2, den Besten ‘264 teaches the claimed invention except the limitation of claim 2.
On the other hand, Besten ‘097 teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the controller to: receive a first request to access memory including the first address value (i.e.-receive a clause 22 transaction including address, see Besten ‘097, col. 11, lines 44-46; col. 12, lines 51-53) associated with the address space of the PHY (see Besten ‘097, col. 5, lines 42-43); map the first address value associated with the address space of the PHY to the second address value associated with the address space of the transceiver (see Besten ‘097, col. 9, lines 5-7 and col. 12, lines 54-55 ); and generate a second request to access memory including the second address value (see Besten ‘097, col. 16, lines 1-7).
Therefore, before the effective date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the teachings of den Besten ‘264, so that the controller is configured to: receive a first request to access memory including the first address value associated with the address space of the PHY; map the first address value associated with the address space of the PHY to the second address value associated with the address space of the transceiver; and generate a second request to access memory including the second address value, as taught by Besten ‘097. The motivation for doing so would have been to enhance efficiencies of mapped register implementations, for variety of applications, by discerning type of received transactions/commands.
As to claim 3, den Besten ‘264 teaches the apparatus of claim 2, wherein the first access is compatible with one of IEEE 802.3 Clause 22 annex D protocol, and wherein the second access is compatible with IEEE 802.3 Clause 22 protocol (see den Besten ‘264, col. 7, lines 33-40).
As to claim 4, the modified den Besten ‘264 in view of Besten ‘097 teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the controller to: receive a first request to access an address space including the first address value (i.e.-receive a clause 22 transaction including address, see Besten ‘097, col. 11, lines 44-46; col. 12, lines 51-53) associated with the address space of the PHY (see Besten ‘097, col. 5, lines 42-43); remap the first address value associated with the address space of the PHY to the second address value associated with the address space assigned to the transceiver (see Besten ‘097, col. 9, lines 5-7 and col. 12, lines 54-55 ); and generate a second request to access memory including the second address (see Besten ‘097, col. 16, lines 1-7).
As to claim 7, den Besten ‘264 teaches the apparatus of claim 4, wherein the address space assigned to the transceiver is different than the address space of the PHY (see den Besten ‘264, col. 2, lines 17-21; col. 3, lines 27-32; and col. 5, lines 53-55).
As to claims 17, 20-23 and 25, the claims are substantially the same as claims 2-4 and 7, hence the rejection of claims 2-4 and 7 is applied accordingly.
Claim Objections
Claims 5, 6, 8, 9, 11-13, 18, 19, 24 and 29-31 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 claims.
Examiner’s note:
Examiner has cited particular columns and line numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the Applicant. 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 Applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passages as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Chen et al. (US 9,852,101), Lai (12,321,298), Lu et al. (US 6,810,520), Jayakumar et al. (US 9,645,829), McKee et al. (US 5,842,041) and Levy (US 6,275,886) do teach method and system configured to map transaction registers different type of transaction addresses.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ELIAS MAMO whose telephone number is (571)270-1726. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thu, 7 AM - 5 PM.
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/Elias Mamo/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2184
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