Ex Parte RubDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 23, 201612840920 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 23, 2016) Copy Citation United States Patent and Trademark Office UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O.Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 12/840,920 07/21/2010 Bernardo Rub STX.008.A1 1012 98068 7590 Hollingsworth Davis 8000 West 78th Street Suite 450 Minneapolis, MN 55439 11/28/2016 EXAMINER HIGGS, STELLA ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2179 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 11/28/2016 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): tdotter @ hdpatlaw. com roswood@hdpatlaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte BERNARDO RUB Appeal 2015-006009 Application 12/840,920 Technology Center 2100 Before: JASON V. MORGAN, MICHAEL M. BARRY, and JOHN R. KENNY, Administrative Patent Judges. KENNY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is an appeal under 35U.S.C. § 134 from rejections of claims 1—5, 7—13, 15, and 25—35, which constitute all pending claims in the application. Final Act. 1; App. Br. 9. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. Appeal 2015-006009 Application 12/840,920 CLAIMED INVENTION The claimed invention is directed to methods and systems for managing wear in a solid state non-volatile memory device. Spec. 11. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method comprising: performing a first garbage collection on erase units of a flash memory; establishing at least two groupings for the erase units, wherein the groupings are based at least on a recent write frequency of data targeted for writing to the flash memory; in response to the first garbage collection, assigning each of the erase units to one of the respective groupings based on wear criteria of the respective erase units corresponding to a wear range assigned to each of the at least two groupings; determining a recent write frequency of data units targeted for writing to the flash memory, wherein at least one of the data units originate from a garbage collection controller that moves the at least one data unit in response to a second garbage collection; selecting erase units from the groupings in response to the recent write frequency of the data units corresponding to the groupings; and writing the data units to the selected erase units. REFERENCES Sutardja US 2009/0138654 A1 May 28, 2009 US 2011/0029715 A1 Feb. 3, 2011 US 2011/0191521 A1 Aug. 4,2011 Hu Araki 2 Appeal 2015-006009 Application 12/840,920 REJECTIONS Claims 1—3, 5, 7—11, 13, 15, 25—26, 28—29, and 31—34 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Hu. Final Act. 4. Claims 4, 12, and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Hu and Araki. Final Act. 11. Claims 30 and 35 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Hu and Sutardja. Final Act. 13. ANALYSIS Claims 1—3, 5, 7—11, 13, 15, 25—26, 28—29, and 31—34 Appellant argues that Hu fails to teach or suggest “determining a recent write frequency of data units targeted for writing to the flash memory, wherein at least one of the data units originate from a garbage collection controller” as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 6; Reply Br. 1. Appellant and the Examiner propose differing constructions for “determining.” Appellant proposes construing “determining” as “the act of finding out or calculating something.” App. Br. 6. The Examiner proposes construing “determining” as deciding or choosing “based on some sort of consideration.” Ans. 13. Appellant provides no support for their proposed construction of “determining,” whereas the Examiner provides a supporting dictionary definition.1 App. Br. 6; Ans. 13. 1 The Examiner cites a definition from a Meriam Webster’s dictionary. Although the Examiner does not specifically identify the dictionary, the online version of the Merriam Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary contains the definition (http ://www. merriam-web ster. com/dictionary/determining). Other dictionary definitions accord with this definition. See, e.g., Merriam- Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.), 340 (2008) (“to . . . come to a decision about by investigation, reasoning, or calculation”). 3 Appeal 2015-006009 Application 12/840,920 On this record, the Examiner’s proposed construction is more reasonable. We note the Specification does not limit the term “determining” to finding out or calculating something. The Specification even uses the related term “determines” and phrase “determined by,” in other contexts, in a manner more closely related to the Examiner’s interpretation of the term “determining.” See Spec. H 21, 86. As such, we adopt the Examiner’s proposed construction for “determining.” With the Examiner’s proposed construction for “determining,” the Examiner finds that Hu teaches or suggests the disputed limitation because Hu decides whether the data to be moved is relocation data or user data pages, and treats the relocation data as more static (less frequently written to) than user data. Ans. 13—14. Appellant argues that Hu is not making a decision regarding whether data is frequently written because Hu is merely assuming that one type of data is more static than another. Reply Br. 6. Appellant argues that, therefore, Hu does not teach or suggest the disputed limitation even with the Examiner’s proposed construction. Id. We agree with the Examiner on this issue. Although Hu does not directly measure the write frequency of the data, Hu decides how to allocate the data based on a qualitative assessment of the write frequency of the data (i.e., on the basis that relocation data is more static than user data.) Ans. 14, citing Hu 19-22, Fig. 1. Appellant also argues that when selecting units for garbage collection, Hu does not take into account the write frequency of the data targeted for selected units. App Br. 6—7. This argument, however, is premised on the proposition that Hu does not determine a write frequency. Id. As discussed above, we do not accept that proposition. 4 Appeal 2015-006009 Application 12/840,920 In the Reply Brief, Appellant argues that Hu fails to teach or suggest determining recent write frequency for data units that originate from the garbage collection controller. Reply Br. 6. We will not consider this argument because Appellant fails to present good cause for having waited until the Reply Brief to have raised it, thereby depriving us the benefit of the Examiner’s response. App. Br. 6—7; 37 C.F.R. § 41.41(b)(2) (2014). Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claim 1 and of claims 2, 3, 5, 7—11, 13, 15, 25, 26, 28, 29, and 31—34, not separately argued. App. Br. 6— 7. Claims 4, 12, and 27 Appellant argues that Araki cannot properly be combined with Hu to reject claims 4, 12, and 27 because Hu teaches only two ways of grouping data, and Hu would have to change its means of allocating data to a accommodate a third pool of data (taught by Araki), which would change Hu’s principle of operation. App. Br. 7—8; Reply Br. 7. We are not persuaded by this argument because Appellant has not presented any persuasive arguments or evidence demonstrating that adding a third grouping of data would change Hu’s principle of operation or be anything more than the exercise within the creativity of an ordinarily skilled artisan, particularly in light of the teachings of Araki. App. Br. 7—8; Reply Br. 7. Based on this record, we agree with the Examiner that such a task is well within the skill and creativity of the ordinarily skilled artisan. KSR Int 7 Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 406 (2007). 5 Appeal 2015-006009 Application 12/840,920 Claims 30 and 35 Appellant argues that Hu and Sutardja fail to teach or suggest the limitation of “wherein determining the recent write activity associated with the data comprises determining a recent write activity of a different data unit within an address range that encompasses the data” as recited in claim 30. App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 7—8. The Examiner finds Sutardja teaches or suggests this limitation because Sutardja teaches that, in determining a write frequency at each logical address, the write frequency at all addresses are determined at more than one logical address space. Ans. 16—17, citing Sutardja Tflf 45, 110. Appellant argues that determining the write frequencies at all addresses fails to determine the write frequency at a different address. App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 7—8. We are not persuaded by that argument, however, because determining the write frequencies at all addresses by necessity determines the write frequency at a different address from the recited data. Appellant also argues that the claim limitation requires that the write activity of the different address determines the write activity for the recited data. Reply Br. 8. We, however, do not agree with that proposed construction. Given its broadest reasonable interpretation, the limitation merely requires that the actions of determining the recent write activity associated with the recited data, which includes determining the recent write activity of another data unit. By determining the recent write activity of all 6 Appeal 2015-006009 Application 12/840,920 data, Sutardja satisfies this limitation. Ans. 16—17, citing Sutardja 45, 110. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claim 31 and of claim 35, not separately argued. App. Br. 8. Further, for all of the challenged rejections and all pending claims, we adopt the Examiner’s findings and rationales set forth in the Final Action and the Answer. DECISION We affirm the rejections of claims 1—5, 7—13, 15, and 25—35. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation