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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
Information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 06/13/2025, 04/24/2026 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Claim Status
Claims 1-20 are pending
Claims 4-10 and 14-19 are objected to
Claims 20 are rejected under 35 USC § 101
Claims 1 is rejected under 35 USC § 102
Claims 1-3 and 11-13 and 20 are rejected under 35 USC § 103
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim does not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because claim 20 is directed to a “computer-readable recording medium (CRRM)” which can be viewed as signals (see In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346, 84 USPQ2d 1495 (Fed. Cir. 2007)). The specification does not provide an explicit definition of a tangible medium but rather, at [0072], [00106] and [00179] provides non-limiting examples like “computer-readable recording medium may record”. A Broadest reasonable interpretation for the term “CRRM” would include both statutory embodiments and non-statutory embodiments such as signals. The words "storage" and/or "recording" are insufficient to convey only statutory embodiments to one of ordinary skill in the art absent an explicit and deliberate limiting definition or clear differentiation between storage media and transitory media in the disclosure. As such, the claim is drawn to a form of energy. Energy is not one of the four categories of invention and therefore this claim is not statutory. Energy is not a series of steps or acts and thus is not a process. Energy is not a physical article or object and as such is not a machine or manufacture. Energy is not a combination of substances and therefore not a composition of matter. The Examiner suggests amending the claim(s) to read as a “non-transitory machine-readable recording medium”.
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 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 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by YUN; Sunghwan et al. (US 20160018990 A1)[Yun]
Regarding Claim 1, Yun discloses:
An electronic device comprising:
one or more memories, the one or more memories comprising: a first memory in a first node (Yun: Fig. 6, block 235);
a second memory in a second node having a slower access speed than the first node (Yun: Fig. 6, block 236); and
a third memory storing one or more instructions, wherein the one or more instructions, when executed by at least one processor individually or collectively, cause the electronic device to:
receive a request for memory allocation of a page (Yun: [0165]: teaches when there is a memory allocation request regarding specific data required by software, allocate a partial space of the physical memory to store the corresponding data);
determine whether the request is for a file that has at least one page mapped to any memory from the one or more memories (Yun: [0168] the electronic device 200 may classify data types, according to the memory operating scheme for each operating system (memory type of the memory manager), into an application code (data A) 612, application data (data B) 613, a page cache (data C) 631, a driver (data D) 632, and operating system data (data E) 633 and, when the above pieces of data are stored in a physical memory by the memory manager 621, selects a memory in which the data is to be stored based on the corresponding data type and the distribution policy); and
allocate the page to the first memory in the first node based on the file having at least one page mapped to the memory (Yun: [0124], [0180], [0227] and [0234]: teaches loading data to a first or second memory that meets the requirement of the data i.e. the type of the data. Loading implies allocating memory but it does not address allocating a page in the memory. It might imply allocating a page since a page is the smallest block to be allocated. Yun [0165]: teaches allocating a partial space of the physical memory to store the corresponding data in response to a memory allocation request.).
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 1, 2, 3, 11, 12, 13 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over YUN; Sunghwan et al. (US 20160018990 A1)[Yun] in view of Voigt; Douglas L. et al. (US 20170308479 A1)[Voigt]
Regarding claim 1 Yun discloses: An electronic device comprising:
one or more memories, the one or more memories comprising: a first memory in a first node (Yun: Fig. 6, block 235);
a second memory in a second node having a slower access speed than the first node (Yun: Fig. 6, block 236); and
a third memory storing one or more instructions, wherein the one or more instructions, when executed by at least one processor individually or collectively, cause the electronic device to:
receive a request for memory allocation of a page (Yun: [0165]: teaches when there is a memory allocation request regarding specific data required by software, allocate a partial space of the physical memory to store the corresponding data);
determine whether the request is for a file that has at least one page mapped to any memory from the one or more memories (Yun: [0168] the electronic device 200 may classify data types, according to the memory operating scheme for each operating system (memory type of the memory manager), into an application code (data A) 612, application data (data B) 613, a page cache (data C) 631, a driver (data D) 632, and operating system data (data E) 633 and, when the above pieces of data are stored in a physical memory by the memory manager 621, selects a memory in which the data is to be stored based on the corresponding data type and the distribution policy); and
allocate the page to the first memory in the first node based on the file having at least one page mapped to the memory (Yun: [0124], [0180], [0227] and [0234]: teaches loading data to a first or second memory that meets the requirement of the data i.e. the type of the data. Loading implies allocating memory but it does not address allocating a page in the memory. It might imply allocating a page since a page is the smallest block to be allocated. Yun [0165]: teaches allocating a partial space of the physical memory to store the corresponding data in response to a memory allocation request.).
While Yun teaches all the limitation of claim 1, allocating a page is implied. Therefore, examiner is adding Voigt who explicitly teaches allocating a page and the combination will make the teaching stronger and clearer for a person ordinarily skilled in the art.
Voigt discloses:
determine whether the request is for a file that has at least one page mapped to any memory from the one or more memories; and allocate the page to the first memory in the first node based on the file having at least one page mapped to the memory (Voigt [0021]: teaches detecting (determining) memory-mapped access of a file, by a computer system, having a persistent memory page cache. The computer system initiates memory-mapped access of the file by opening the file and establishing memory-mapped access of the file, which can result in a new page being allocated in association with the memory-mapped access. The memory-mapped access detected by memory-mapped access detection module 102 comprise the computer system establishing a new memory-mapping of the file, or the computer system requesting access to a memory address (e.g., virtual memory address) of a page stored on a non-persistent memory page cache and associated with an existing (e.g., previously established) memory mapping).
Both Yun and Voigt represent works within the same field of endeavor, namely information processing devices focusing on storage systems and memory managements. It would therefore have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the claimed invention was effectively filed to apply Yun in view of Voigt as it represents a combination of known prior art elements according to known methods (memory management system of Yun using memory-mapped access of a file as used in Voigt) to yield a more efficient storage and memory management system resulting in a more efficient computing system (see also Voigt [0021]).
Regarding claim 11, it is a method claim corresponding to the electronic device of claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons mutatis mutandis.
Regarding claim 20, it is a computer-readable recording medium (CRRM) claim corresponding to the electronic device of claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons mutatis mutandis.
Regarding claim 2 Yun/Voigt discloses: The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the file that has the at least one page mapped to the memory comprises the file having at least one file page placed in physical memory being mapped to an application's virtual address space (Voigt [0021]: teaches the memory-mapped access detected by memory-mapped access detection module 102 comprise the computer system establishing a new memory-mapping of the file, or the computer system requesting access to a memory address e.g., virtual memory address of a page stored on a memory page cache and associated with an existing (e.g., previously established) memory mapping).
Regarding claim 12, it is a method claim corresponding to the electronic device of claim 2 and is rejected for the same reasons mutatis mutandis.
Regarding claim 3 Yun/Voigt discloses: The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the one or more instructions, when executed by the at least one processor individually or collectively, cause the electronic device to:
identify whether there is a file policy for selecting the first node based on the file not having at least one page mapped to the memory; and allocate the page to the first memory in the first node based on there being the file policy for selecting the first node (Yun [0232-0234] teaches According the electronic device 200 having at least one distribution policy. The multiple distribution policies applied independent of each other or to overlap each other. The multiple distribution policies may be overlapped and reviewed sequentially according to priority. A system applies a distribution policy based on “sequential/random I/O data classification” and a distribution policy based on “shared/static data classification” in an overlapping manner. In the case that data has both “shared” and “random” types, different memories 230 are determined for respective distribution policies. In this case, the policy that “shared” data type is stored in the first memory have a higher priority (weight) than the policy that “random” data type is stored in the second memory. In the case of a data type that is both “sequential” and “is supposed to have a low initial setup time,” the policy that “sequential” data is stored in the first memory have a higher priority than the policy that data “that has a low initial setup time” is stored in the second memory. Multiple distribution policy based on “sequential/random I/O data classification” includes file policy and storing in the first memory indicates allocating page to the first memory).
Regarding claim 13, it is a method claim corresponding to the electronic device of claim 3 and is rejected for the same reasons mutatis mutandis.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-10, 14-19 are being 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.
Claim 4 recites, ‘The electronic device of claim 3, wherein the file policy is based on extended file attributes that specify user-defined attributes,
wherein the extended file attributes are loaded into a mapping data structure of the page, and the extended file attributes comprise a basic file policy and an individual file policy, wherein the basic file policy comprises a policy for selecting a node having a slower speed than a predefined access speed’.
Prior art Hildebrand; Dean et al. (US 20170061006 A1)[Hildebrand][0090-0091], Fig. 4A: teaches the file system entries including data in the form of user and/or system files. Analyzing the file system entries include any operation that determines attributes of the data. The analyzing includes determining, for one or more files, user or group ownership, access control limitations, file type, file size, time stamps, user-defined attributes, and extended file system attributes. Further, a file is checked against policies. A policy may include any rule or statement that is configured to control access of an object-based client to one or more files based on attributes of the client and the file.
Prior art Sankruthi; Anand D. (US 8272026 B1)[Sankruthi] Col2/ln38-col3/ln7: (10)-(11): teaches The memory 106 further includes various data, such as a plurality of files 108 (herein referred to the files 108) and a dynamic policy 110. The files 108 may include file data of interest to the user (e.g., temporary internet files, security patches, cached files, software application updates and the like). The files 108 may include file data for a software application patch (e.g., computer code for modifying the software application) that is downloaded onto the computer 100. The dynamic policy 110 includes a plurality of metrics whose values are used to determine whether a particular file (e.g., an executable file for a security patch, a software application update and the like) is to be purged during a purging session or process, as described further below.
While Hildebrand and Sankruthi teaches user-defined attributes, extended file attributes that includes file policy, they do not teach using file attributes and policies to select a node/memory having a slower speed than a predefined access speed.
No known prior art taken alone or in combination teaches selecting a node/memory having a slower speed than a predefined access speed based on a file policy included in extended file attributes that specify user-defined attributes.
Claim 5 is dependent on claim 4 and is allowable due at least to this dependence.
Claim 6 recites, ‘The electronic device of claim 2, wherein the one or more instructions, when executed by the at least one processor individually or collectively, cause the electronic device to:
based on there being no file policy for selecting the first node, identify whether a page cache hit ratio associated with the file is greater than a moving average; and
allocate the page to the first memory in the first node based on the page cache hit ratio associated with the file being greater than the moving average’.
Applicant did not define moving average. Hence examiner is using the below definition of moving average that is underlined –
‘a moving average (rolling average or running average or moving mean or rolling mean) is a calculation to analyze data points by creating a series of averages of different selections of the full data set. Variations include: simple, cumulative, or weighted forms.
Mathematically, a moving average is a type of convolution. Thus in signal processing it is viewed as a low-pass finite impulse response filter. Because the boxcar function outlines its filter coefficients, it is called a boxcar filter. It is sometimes followed by down sampling.
Given a series of numbers and a fixed subset size, the first element of the moving average is obtained by taking the average of the initial fixed subset of the number series. Then the subset is modified by "shifting forward"; that is, excluding the first number of the series and including the next value in the series.’
Prior art Richard m ehrlich et al. (JP 2015041378 A)[Richard] paragraph 60-61 (attached pdf file): teaches the hit rate is determined by calculating what percentage of the read / write commands received by the hybrid drive 100 results in accessing the flash memory device 135. Such a read / write command is hereinafter referred to as a “NAND hit”. The hit rates of the latest 256 groups of commands is used to calculate a moving average of the hit rates. Using this moving average of the hit rate, in this case the last 25,600 commands received by the hybrid drive 100, so that the hybrid drive 100 operates in a more energy efficient manner the time period 401 (used to calculate moving average) is adjusted. A moving average of multiple read and / or write commands (or some other measure of NAND hit rate) is a hit rate threshold, eg, 70%, 80%, 90%, etc. By exceeding the predetermined time period 401, the length of the predetermined time period 401 is adjusted by decrementing. The length of the predetermined time period 401 is also when the moving average or other measure of the read and / or write command hit rate is less than the hit rate threshold.
So, Richard teaches moving average and NAND (flash memory) hit rate and hit rate/ratio threshold.
However, Richard does not compare hit rate with moving average and does not decide using comparison result to decide allocating page to first memory or second memory.
Prior art BOZMAN GERALD PARKS (EP 0359923 A2)[Bozman] claim 8: teaches comparing said moving average of delta I/O wait to -ε if a current data cache size is equal to a predetermined ceiling, and if said moving average of delta I/O wait is not greater than ε then exiting to said operating system and if a current data cache size is equal to an authorized ceiling, and if said moving average of delta I/O wait is not greater than ε and the last decision was to reduce the size of the data cache then increment the size of said data cache; Increments data cache size when a data cache hit ratio is not higher than some threshold;
Bozman teaches using moving average and data cache hit ratio to adjust data cache size.
However, Bozman does not compare hit rate with moving average does not decide using comparison result to decide allocating page to first memory or second memory.
No known prior art taken alone or in combination teaches allocating at least one page of a file to first memory or second memory (faster memory or slower memory) based on comparison result of cache hit ratio associated with a file and the moving average when no file policy for selecting first memory or second memory is identified.
Regarding claim 16, it is a method claim corresponding to the electronic device of claim 6 and contains the same allowable claim elements and is therefore allowable for the same reasons mentioned for claim 6.
Claim 7 recites, ‘The electronic device of claim 3, wherein the one or more instructions, when executed by the at least one processor individually or collectively, cause the electronic device to:
allocate the page to the second memory in the second node based on a page cache hit ratio associated with the file being less than or equal to a moving average’.
As shared above neither Richard nor Bozman teaches using cache hit ratio and moving average to decide allocation of a page in first (fast) memory or second (slow) memory.
No known prior art taken alone or in combination teaches allocating a page to first memory or second memory (faster memory or slower memory) based on comparison result of cache hit ratio associated with a file and the moving average when no file policy for selecting first memory or second memory is identified.
Claim 8 is dependent on claim 7 and is allowable due at least to this dependence.
Claim 9 recites, ‘The electronic device of claim 2, wherein the one or more instructions, when executed by the at least one processor individually or collectively, cause the electronic device to:
based on there being no file policy for selecting the first node, identify whether a weighted page cache hit ratio is greater than a moving average; and
allocate the page to the first memory in the first node based on the weighted page cache hit ratio being greater than the moving average’.
As shared above neither Richard nor Bozman teaches using cache hit ratio and moving average to decide allocation of a page in first (fast) memory or second (slow) memory.
No known prior art taken alone or in combination teaches allocating at least one page of a file to first memory or second memory (faster memory or slower memory) based on comparison result of cache hit ratio associated with a file and the moving average when no file policy for selecting first memory or second memory is identified.
Regarding claim 18, it is a method claim corresponding to the electronic device of claim 9 and contains the same allowable claim elements and is therefore allowable for the same reasons mentioned for claim 9.
Claim 10 recites, ‘The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the one or more instructions, when executed by the at least one processor individually or collectively, cause the electronic device to:
determine whether a page requesting migration is an anonymous page;
based on the page requesting migration being the anonymous page, allow page migration;
based on the page requesting migration not being the anonymous page, identify whether there is an individual file policy that allows file migration;
based on there being the individual file policy that allows file migration, allow the page migration;
based on there being no individual file policy that allows file migration and based on the file having at least one page mapped to the memory, allow the page migration;
based on the file having no page mapped to the memory and based on a page cache hit ratio associated with the file being greater than a moving average, allow the page migration; and
based on the file having no page mapped to the memory and based on a cumulative average page cache hit ratio associated with the file being greater than a weighted moving average, allow the page migration, wherein the cumulative average page cache hit ratio is based on the page cache hit ratio and a cumulative average of the page cache hit ratio for each extension’.
No known prior art taken alone or in combination teaches migrating a page of a file based on comparison result of cache hit ratio associated with a file and the moving average or weighted moving average.
Regarding claim 19, it is a method claim corresponding to the electronic device of claim 10 and contains the same allowable claim elements and is therefore allowable for the same reasons mentioned for claim 10.
Claim 17 recites, ‘The method of claim 13, further comprising:
allocating the page to the second memory in the second node when a page cache hit ratio is less than or equal to a moving average; and
based on allocating the page to the second memory, allocating the page to a zone of a slow node encountered for a first time during a zone list traversal’.
As shared above neither Richard nor Bozman teaches using cache hit ratio and moving average to decide allocation of a page in first (fast) memory or second (slow) memory.
No known prior art taken alone or in combination teaches allocating a page to first memory or second memory (faster memory or slower memory) based on comparison result of cache hit ratio associated with a file and the moving average when no file policy for selecting first memory or second memory is identified.
claim 14 recites, ‘The method of claim 13, wherein the file policy is based on extended file attributes that specify user-defined attributes,
wherein the extended file attributes are loaded into a mapping data structure of the page’.
Prior art Jameson, Kevin Wade (US 20020198770 A1)[Jameson] [0018]: teaches storing to the archive file attributes such as file descriptions, user-defined data types, user-defined processing policies, or other characteristics of files.
Prior art Botes; Par et al. (US 8055622 B1)[Botes] Col12/ln4-col12/ln19, (43): teaches - if it is determined that one or more of the files being tracked are to be kept as immutable data according to the policy, the one or more of the files are stored to the immutable data container. The files stored to the immutable data container are copies of files also stored on one or more of the storage tiers by the file system software. Botes: Col12/ln60-col13/ln15, (48), FIG. 5A: teaches an application 220 may be used to generate a new File B. The file system software 200 may store File B to the storage tier 204. File System metadata 222 may be updated to indicate the location of File B. Immutable data mechanism 206 may apply one or more attributes of File B to a user-defined policy 210 specifying particular attributes of files that indicate the files are to be stored as immutable data on the immutable data container 208. The particular attributes of files to be stored as immutable data on the immutable data container 208 and specified by the policy 210 may include, but are not limited to, one or more specific entities that may create, modify, or access files within the file system.
So, Jamerson archives file attributes. However, Jamerson does not teach loading file attributes into a mapping data structure of the page.
Botes stores files with specific attributes to storage tier 204. But Botes do not explicitly teach storing file attributes (let alone extended or user-defined) and do not teach loading file attributes into a mapping data structure of the page.
No known prior art taken alone or in combination teaches loading extended file attributes specifying user-defined attributes into a mapping data structure of a page.
Claim 15 is dependent on claim 14 and is allowable due at least to this dependence.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure and is included in pe2e_search_notes and is attached as OA.APPENDIX.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMMAD S HASAN whose telephone number is (571)270-1737. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri 8-5.
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/M.S.H/Examiner, Art Unit 2138
/Christopher D Birkhimer/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2138
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