Ex Parte Archer et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardJul 28, 201613666221 (P.T.A.B. Jul. 28, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/666,221 1110112012 47478 7590 08/01/2016 IBM (ROC-KLS) c/o Kennedy Lenart Spraggins LLP 8601 Ranch Road 2222 Ste. 1-225 AUSTIN, TX 78730 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR CHARLES J. ARCHER 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. ROC920100138US2 2988 EXAMINER MAI,KEVINS ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2456 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/0112016 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): office@klspatents.com kate@klspatents.com hanna@klspatents.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte CHARLES J. ARCHER, JAMES E. CAREY, MATTHEW W. MARKLAND, and PHILIP J. SANDERS Appeal2015-001962 Application 13/666,221 Technology Center 2400 Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, CATHERINE SHIANG, and LINZY T. McCARTNEY, Administrative Patent Judges. DIXON, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants 1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 1---6. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. The claims are directed to a method of compressing result data for a compute node in a parallel computer. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1 Appellants indicated that International Business Machines Corporation is the real party in interest. (Br. 1 ). Appeal2015-001962 Application 13/666,221 1. A method of compressing result data for a compute node in a parallel computer, the parallel computer including a collection of compute nodes organized as a tree, the method compnsmg: initiating a collective gather operation by a logical root of the collection of compute nodes, including adding result data of the logical root to a gather buffer, wherein the results data comprises error messages that identify a particular error on a particular compute node; for each compute node in the collection of compute nodes, determining whether result data of the compute node is already written in the gather buffer by another compute node in the collection of compute nodes based on a ruled stipulating characteristics of the result data is required to be identical to result data already written in the gather buffer; if the result data of the compute node is already written in the gather buffer, incrementing a counter assigned to that result data already written in the gather buff er; and if the result data of the compute node is not already written in the gather buffer, writing the result data of the compute node as new result data in the gather buffer, incrementing a counter assigned to that new result data, and writing in the gather buff er a node identifier. REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: Larsson et al. Barsness et al. Ianni US 2004/0107387 Al US 2009/0043910 Al US 2010/0057738 Al REJECTIONS The Examiner made the following rejections: 2 June 3, 2004 Feb. 12,2009 Mar. 4, 2010 Appeal2015-001962 Application 13/666,221 Claims 1---6 of this application stand patentably indistinct from claims 7-20 of Application No. 13/166,183. Claims 1-5 stand rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Barsness in view of Larsson. Claim 6 stands rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Barsness and Larsson and further in view of Ianni. ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections (Final Act. 2-9) in light of Appellants' contentions in the Appeal Brief (Br. 4--9) that the Examiner has erred, as well as the Examiner's response (Ans. 2-5) to Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief. We disagree with Appellants' conclusions. We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner and adopt, to the extent consistent with our analysis below, (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 2-9), and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in response to Appellants' Appeal Brief (Ans. 2-5). We highlight and amplify certain teachings and suggestions of the references, as well as certain ones of Appellants' arguments as follows. Non-Statutory Obviousness-Type Double Patenting Appellants contend that because "the scope of the claims may change during prosecution, the Appellant hereby requests the double patenting rejection to be held in abeyance until such time as the claims in this case are held to be allowable." (Br. 4). Because Appellants have not responded to the rejection, we proforma, sustain the provisional non-statutory 3 Appeal2015-001962 Application 13/666,221 obviousness-type double patenting rejection of claims 1-6 over claims 7-20 of U.S. Patent Application serial number 13/166,183. Obviousness With respect to claims 1-5, Appellants present arguments to the claims together. We select independent claim 1 as the representative claim for the group and address Appellants' arguments thereto. With respect to representative claim 1, Appellants contend: the cited portions of Barsness and Larsson, individually or in combination, do not teach or suggest at least the following limitations of independent claim 1 of the present application: for each compute node in the collection of compute nodes, determining whether result data of the compute node is already written in the gather buffer by another compute node in the collection of compute nodes based on a rule stipulating characteristics of the result data required to be identical to result data already written in the gather buffer; ... if the result data of the compute node is not already written in the gather buffer, writing the result data of the compute node as new result data in the gather buffer, incrementing a counter assigned to that new result data, and writing in the gather buff er a node identifier. (Br. 4--5). Appellants quote para. 47 of the Larsson reference (Br. 5---6), and contend: First, the cited section of Larsson is silent regarding any determination that the event, which the Office Action contends discloses the results data, is already written by another node. Said another way, in Larsson, the database merely tracks occurrences of events without regard to where the event occurred. Thus, Larsson does not disclose "for each compute node in the collection of compute nodes, determining whether result data of 4 Appeal2015-001962 Application 13/666,221 the compute node is already written in the gather buffer by another compute node," as claimed. Further, Larsson is silent regarding "a rule stipulating characteristics of the result data required to be identical to result data already written in the gather buffer," as claimed. That is, Larsson merely indicates that identical entries are not stored in the database, and is silent regarding any rule determining how the entries are determined to be identical. Said another way, merely indicating that identical entries are not stored in the database is insufficient to disclose "a rule stipulating characteristics of the result data required to be identical to result data already written in the gather buffer," as claimed (Br. 6). Appellants further contend: Specifically, the reasoning set forth in the Office Action, as restated above, fails to address how Larsson discloses "writing the result data of the compute node as new result data in the gather buffer, incrementing a counter assigned to that new result data, and writing in the gather buffer a node identifier." Rather, the rejection merely states "if an entry is made in the database 56 identical to another preexisting entry, the hits field 70H is incremented for the existing entry." That is, the rejection is completely silent as to how Larsson discloses, "if the result data of the compute node is not already written in the gather buff er ... writing in the gather buffer a node identifier," as claimed. (Br. 7). Appellants further quote para. 66 of the Larsson reference and contend: the cited section of Larsson is actually directed to entering a new record into a bucket table corresponding to the data provided by the reporting engine. By direct contrast, the claims disclose if the result data of the compute node is not already written in the gather buffer, three elements occur: (1) writing the result data of the compute node as new result data in the gather buffer, (2) incrementing a counter assigned to that new result data, and (3) writing in the gather buffer a node identifier. In fact, Larsson as a whole is silent regarding writing any node identifier in the bucket table the Office Action contends discloses the gather 5 Appeal2015-001962 Application 13/666,221 buffer. Said another way, merely indicating that a new record is created in the bucket table "corresponding to the data provided by the reporting engine" is insufficient to disclose, "if the result data of the compute node is not already written in the gather buffer, writing the result data of the compute node as new result data in the gather buffer, incrementing a counter assigned to that new result data, and writing in the gather buffer a node identifier," as claimed. (Br. 8). The Examiner clarifies the claim interpretation in the Examiner's Answer (Ans. 2-3), and Appellants do not file a Reply Brief to respond to the Examiner's clarifications. Consequently, Appellants do not show error in the Examiner's reasoned conclusion of obviousness, and we sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejection of independent claim 1. The Examiner clarifies the claim interpretation and maintains: Appellant[ s'] arguments appear to be directed toward a different interpretation that is unsupported by the specification. There is no support that the intent of this limitation is to verify by comparison that the event is written by a different node. As understood by the examiner, for this limitation, "another" refers to "once more" rather than "different from the current." For example, paragraph [0065] of applicant's published specification states "a rule stipulating that an error message with a particular error message code is determined (612) to be already written in the gather buffer (632) if the gather buffer (632) includes any other error messages with the same error message code, regardless of which compute node wrote the error message to the gather buffer (632)." Thus, when considering if an entry is already written, rather than verifying that the two nodes are different, the system instead ignores which compute node submitted the error message. Namely there does not appear to be support for this interpretation because there is no requirement that the event must be written by another node. There is no comparison made to verify that the current node of the event and the node of the stored event are different. Rather, as read by the 6 Appeal2015-001962 Application 13/666,221 examiner, the limitation "another" refers to "once more", and as such refers to if the event has been written in the buff er once before. Larsson discloses this. Paragraph [0047] of Larsson discloses a unique instance of an event may be identified within the database 56 and an event type defined for that instance. Moreover, a hits field 70H is provided that identifies the number of occurrences in the database 56 for each event type and unique parameter values corresponding to an occurrence of the event. In this manner, duplicative entries need not be contained in the database 56. Rather, if an entry is to be made in the database 56 identical to another preexisting entry, the hits field 70H is incremented for the existing entry. Paragraph [0065] discloses if an existing entry exists in the database, the routine 670 branches to block 678 where the hits field 70H is incremented for the existing entry. (Ans. 2-3). The Examiner addresses Appellants' arguments and provides further clarification regarding the claimed "rule stipulating characteristics." Paragraph [0047] of Larsson discloses a unique instance of an event may be identified within the database 56 and an event type defined for that instance. Moreover, a hits field 70H is provided that identifies the number of occurrences in the database 5 6 for each event type and unique parameter values corresponding to an occurrence of the event. In this manner, duplicative entries need not be contained in the database 56. Rather, if an entry is to be made in the database 56 identical to another preexisting entry, the hits field 70H is incremented for the existing entry. Paragraph [0065] discloses if an existing entry exists in the database, the routine 670 branches to block 678 where the hits field 70H is incremented for the existing entry. Since Larsson discloses being able to identify if an entry is identical to another preexisting entry, Larsson necessarily requires some form of comparison. A comparison for identifying identical entries will include a rule. In order to compare two entries there must be some basis for the comparison and this basis is the rule upon which the comparison is made. 7 Appeal2015-001962 Application 13/666,221 (Ans. 4). We agree with the Examiner's findings and line of reasoning. The Examiner further maintains: Paragraph [0012] of Larsson discloses additional data needed regarding the occurrence of the event may also be identified from an entry in the database. A request may then be transmitted to the client computer that generated the event report requesting the needed data. Thus, the system is able to look at an entry in the database and then make a request to the client computer that generated that entry. In order to make a request to the particular client computer that generated the entry, an appropriate identifier must be stored with that entry. As such, an identifier of the client computer that generated the entry is stored with the entry. (Ans. 4--5). We agree with the Examiner and find Appellants' argument does not show error in the Examiner's factual findings and conclusion of obviousness of representative independent claim 1. With respect to dependent claim 6, Appellants rely upon the arguments advanced with respect to independent claim 1. (Br. 9). Because we found Appellants' arguments unpersuasive with respect to independent claim 1, we similarly find those same arguments unpersuasive with respect to dependent claim 6. CONCLUSIONS The Examiner did not err in rejecting representative independent claim 1 based upon obviousness. The Examiner did not err in rejecting dependent claim 6 based upon obviousness. 8 Appeal2015-001962 Application 13/666,221 DECISION For the above reasons, we sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejections of claims 1-5, and we sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejection of claim 6. 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 9 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation