5Notice 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
The instant detailed action is in response to Applicant's submission filed on 16 June 2025.
ALLOWABLE SUBJECT MATTER
Claim 5-6,8,15-16,18 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.
REJECTIONS BASED ON PRIOR ART
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.
Claim 2-4,7,10-14,17,20-21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Grimsrud (US PG PUB No. 2016/0162203) in view of Miyata (US PG PUB No. 2007/0198784).
As per claim [2,12,21], an apparatus (see Grimsrud FIG 1: 100), comprising:
a file system of a host system (see Grimsrud FIG 1: 113), the file system configured to:
generate a plurality of commands for a memory system, the plurality of commands having a first sequence (see Grimsrud FIG 1: 115-1, 115-2 and [0017]); and
a memory interface of the host system, the memory interface configured to:
schedule the plurality of commands for transmission to the memory system according to a second sequence that is different than the first sequence (see Grimsrud FIG 1: 117 and [0018]); and
transmit the plurality of commands to the memory system based at least in part on the second sequence (see Grimsrud [0019]).
However, Grimsrud does not expressly disclose but in the same field of endeavor Miyata discloses
insert a respective identifier into each command of the plurality of commands, the respective identifiers based at least in part on the first sequence (see Miyata FIG 7B and [0105]); and
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Grimsrud to further insert a respective identifier as taught by Miyata.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been for the benefit of more optimal command handling (see Miyata [0015]).
Therefore it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Grimsrud to further insert identifiers as taught by Miyata for the benefit of more optimal command handling to arrive at the invention as specified in the claims.
As per claim [3,13], the apparatus of claim 2, wherein: the memory interface is further configured to:
transmit a command to the memory system for an indication of an identifier for a command of the plurality of commands based at least in part in on transmitting the plurality of commands; and receive the indication of the identifier from the memory system (see Miyata FIG 8: 607 and [0122]); and
the file system is further configured to: identify a subset of the plurality of commands based at least in part on the indication, wherein each command of the subset has been performed by the memory system (see Miyata [0127]).
As per claim [4,14], the apparatus of claim 2, wherein the file system is further
configured to:
generate the respective identifier for each command of the plurality of commands based at least in part on the first sequence (see Miyata [0019]); and
configure a respective field of each command of the plurality of commands to include an indication of the respective identifier (see Miyata FIG 7B) .
As per claim [7,17], the apparatus of claim 2, wherein the file system is further
configured to:
increment a value of a counter based at least in part on generating a command of the plurality of commands, wherein the respective identifier of each command of the plurality of commands is based at least in part on the value of the counter (see Miyata [0087]).
[The mechanism for adding sequence information is taken as a counter as recited in the claims.]
As per claim [10,20], the apparatus of claim 2, wherein the memory interface is further configured to:
insert one or more additional commands into the plurality of commands, wherein each of the one or more additional commands is exclusive of the respective identifiers (see Miyata [0085]).
As per claim 11, the apparatus of claim 2,
wherein the memory interface of the host system comprises an input/output (I/O) scheduler, a universal flash storage host controller driver (UFSHCD), a small computer system interface (SCSI) layer, or a combination thereof (see Grimsrud FIG 1: 117 and also [0018]).
Claim 9,19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Grimsrud (US PG PUB No. 2016/0162203) in view of Miyata (US PG PUB No. 2007/0198784) as applied to claim 2 and 12 above and further in view of Kachare (US PG PUB No. 2018/0284990).
As per claim [9,19], the apparatus of claim 2, wherein, to schedule the plurality of
commands, the memory interface is further configured to:
However, Grimsrud in view of Miyata do not expressly disclose but in the same field of endeavor Prins discloses
segment a first command of the plurality of commands into multiple sub-commands (see Kacahare [0015]), wherein each of the multiple sub-commands includes the respective identifier associated with the first command (see Kachare [0082]).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the invention to divide the command into sub-commands and further associate the respective identifier.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been for the benefit of tracking the sub-commands (see Kacahare [0082]).
Therefore it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Grimsrud to further divide the command into sub-commands and further associate the respective identifier for the benefit of tracking sub-commands to arrive at the invention as specified in the claims.
CONCLUSION
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
2022/0334765: A method and system for maintaining command queue order are disclosed. According to certain embodiments, commands are read from a host, storing command queue IDs in an array that will keep the queue IDs in order. After having the queue IDs stored in the array, the commands are processed in the data storage device (DSD). After processing, the commands are provided to a completion order adjustment module that will order the commands in queue ID order for sequential commands to be returned to the host. In certain embodiments, for a sequential command, other commands of the same sequence are searched for the array and ordered with the sequential command. If a particular command of the sequence is not found, the completion order adjustment module will wait to transfer the sequence until each command of the sequence is found. For commands not part of a sequence, these commands are transferred to the host (Abstract).
2011/0145474: A data storage device having non-volatile solid state memory permits efficient access by permitting multiple pending commands from a host device. A controller in the data storage device stores information about each command from the host device, and determines which stored command, if any, is presently able to be performed based on the portion of the non-volatile memory and the type of access of the command. The data storage device provides reduced access delays, improves read/write throughput, and avoids the cost of additional memory in the data storage device, by allowing accesses to idle portions of memory to proceed, and by signaling the host device when the data storage device is able to accept data to be written to portions of the non-volatile memory already active due to a previous command (Abstract).
DIRECTION OF FUTURE CORRESPONDENCES
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KALPIT PARIKH whose telephone number is (571)270-1173. The examiner can normally be reached MON THROUGH FRI 9:30 TO 6:00.
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/KALPIT PARIKH/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2137
KALPIT . PARIKH
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2137
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