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 .
Detailed Action
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 2-4 and 11-13 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Each of claims 2-4 and 11-13 recite the limitation “the information”, which calls back to independent claims 1 and 10, respectively, which state: “repairing during runtime, by the one or more handlers, information associated with the external device that caused generation of the flag.”
It is unclear if the recitation of “the information” of dependent claims 2-4 and 11-13 is referring to the “original” information “associated with the external device that caused generation of the flag” or the original information after it is “repaired” as required by the independent claims.
Additionally, the limitation “complete to meet a first threshold” is unclear. To one having ordinary skill in the art, a piece of information is considered “complete” if it is not missing any bits/portions/segments of information. Therefore, the claimed “threshold” when considering an “information” for completeness must be all of the information is present.
Further, the claims do not sufficiently establish what about the information is being measured for the broadly claimed generic “first threshold”.
- For examination purposes, the claimed threshold will be interpreted as a basic threshold against which a value can be compared to determine whether an action will be taken.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-4, 6-13, and 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wu et al. U.S. PGPUB No. 2024/0385754.
Per Claim 1, Wu discloses a computing system comprising:
one or more data processors (206); and
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing instructions which, when executed on the one or more data processors, cause the one or more data processors to perform operations (Paragraph 170) including:
checking, by the one or more data processors during a boot process of the computing system (Paragraph 49; Power-On-Self-Test (POST)), if an external device operably coupled to the computing system has generated a flag indicating an issue (Paragraphs 49 and 72; A failed memory may be encountered during POST memory circuitry health check.);
in response to determining that the flag has been generated: generating, by the one or more data processors, one or more handlers based on the flag (Paragraph 49; Post Package Repair (PPR) handler);
triggering the one or more handlers during a runtime of the computing system, the runtime being subsequent to the boot process (Paragraph 49; “triggering the repair may include calling 252 a PPR handler”. Paragraph 51; The runtime PPR handler is triggered by instructing the repair handler provided by a system management interrupt controller to perform the runtime PPR procedure.);
and repairing during the runtime, by the one or more handlers, information associated with the external device that caused generation of the flag (Paragraph 49; “triggering the repair procedure may include calling 252 a runtime PPR handler. For example, the runtime PPR may be performed after power up boot operations have been completed.”).
Per Claim 2, Wu discloses the computing system of claim 1, wherein the operations further include checking, by the one or more data processors, if the information associated with the external devices is complete to meet a first threshold (Paragraphs 30, 32, 48, 51, 87, and 93; The processing circuitry is configured to trigger a repair procedure of at least one memory cell of the memory circuitry when a memory failure probability score reaches a threshold.).
Per Claim 3, Wu discloses the computing system of claim 2, wherein the operations further include: determining that the information is incomplete if missing at least a portion of the information; and in response to the determining, continuing the operation of the computing system with the at least a portion of the information being missing (Paragraphs 30, 32, 48, 51, 52, 87, and 93; The processing circuitry is configured to trigger a repair procedure of at least one memory cell of the memory circuitry when a memory failure probability score reaches a threshold. If the threshold isn’t met then the memory cell is considered to be incomplete while the operations of the system continue.).
Per Claim 4, Wu discloses the computing system of claim 2, wherein the operations further include, in response to the information meeting the first threshold, removing, by the one or more data processors, the flag associated with the external device (Paragraph 77, Figure 7).
Per Claim 6, Wu discloses the computing system of claim 1, wherein the one or more handlers are triggered by an operating system application of the computing system (Paragraphs 51, 52, and 54).
Per Claim 7, Wu discloses the computing system of claim 1, wherein the one or more handlers are triggered by a baseboard management controller (BMC) of the computing system (Paragraphs 53, 80, and 81).
Per Claim 8, Wu discloses the computing system of claim 1, wherein the operations further include: in response to the flag, identifying functions of the computing system that are associated with missing information; and generating, by the one or more data processors, one or more special handlers associated with the identified functions (Paragraphs 49, 51, 55; PPR handler, repair handler, SMM error handler).
Per Claim 9, Wu discloses the computing system of claim 8, wherein the operations further comprise: in response to the execution of a function associated with missing information, triggering, by the one or more data processors, the one or more special handlers; identifying, by the one or more special handlers and the one or more data processors, that at least a portion of the missing information has been repaired; and executing, by the one or more data processors, at least a portion of the identified functions based on the repaired information (Paragraphs 49 and 51).
Per Claims 10-13 and 15-18, please refer to the above rejection of claims 1-4 and 6-9 as the limitations are substantially similar and the mapping of the reference to the limitations is equally applicable.
Per Claim 20, please refer to the above rejection of claim 1 as the limitations are substantially similar and the mapping of the reference to the limitations is equally applicable. Additionally, Wu discloses a machine-readable storage medium embodiment (Paragraph 170).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 14 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim 5 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112, 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 a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Per Claims 5 and 14, no combination of Wu and the prior art specifically teach performing the operations of Wu with respect to a hot-plug device and creating a hot-plug handler, when considered in combination with the limitations of claims 1 and 2 (and claim 10 with respect to claim 14).
Wu teaches performing the Post Package Repair with respect to a DIMM memory device (Paragraph 27), which are not known in the art to be hot-plug capable devices.
- 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.”
Prior Art
The prior art made of record but not relied upon in the Examiner’s rejections is considered pertinent to the applicant’s disclosure due teaching at least one of boot-up error/failure discovery, runtime error correction, and post-package repair.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRIAN T MISIURA whose telephone number is (571)272-0889 - (Direct Fax: 571-273-0889). The examiner can normally be reached on M-F: 8-4:30PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Andrew Jung can be reached on (571) 272-3779. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Brian T Misiura/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2175
Prosecution Insights