Ex Parte Colavin et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Sep 29, 2008

10301372 (B.P.A.I. Sep. 29, 2008)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte OSVALDO COLAVIN and DAVIDE RIZZO
____________

Appeal 2008-0420
Application 10/301,372
Technology Center 2100
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Decided: September 29, 2008
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Before JAMES D. THOMAS, HOWARD B. BLANKENSHIP, and JAY P.
LUCAS, Administrative Patent Judges.

BLANKENSHIP, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1-21, which are all the claims in the application. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
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Application 10/301,372

Appellants’ invention relates to runtime reconfigurable processors,
particularly to a combination of clustered very large instruction word
(VLIW) and runtime reconfigurable architectures. (Spec. 1.) Claim 1 is
illustrative.

1. A portion of a processing system comprising:

a plurality of processing clusters;

a runtime reconfigurable interconnect coupling the plurality of
processing clusters; and

an interface to a processor;

wherein the plurality of processing clusters and the runtime
reconfigurable interconnect execute a program segment designated by the
processor, the program segment including a configuration portion setting a
configuration of the runtime reconfigurable interconnect,

wherein execution of the configuration portion by the plurality of
clusters and the runtime reconfigurable interconnect is performed if
necessary and otherwise skipped.

The Examiner relies on the following references as evidence of
unpatentability.
Jiang US 4,535,427 Aug. 13, 1985
Küçükçakar US 5,815,715 Sept. 29, 1998
Fisher US 6,026,479 Feb. 15, 2000
Hocevar US 6,256,724 B1 Jul. 03, 2001
Batten US 6,269,437 B1 Jul. 31, 2001
Tremblay US 6,542,988 B1 Apr. 1, 2003
(filed Oct. 1, 1999)

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Claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, and 20 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Küçükçakar and Batten.
Claims 3, 10, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Küçükçakar, Batten, and Tremblay.
Claims 4, 11, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Küçükçakar, Batten, Tremblay, and Hocevar.
Claims 7, 14, and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Küçükçakar, Batten, and Fisher.

Representative claims
Based on Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief, we will decide
the appeal on the basis of claims 1, 2, 5, 3, 4, and 7. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(1)(vii).

The rejections
The Examiner sets forth the rejection of claim 1 over Küçükçakar and
Batten at pages 3 through 5 of the Answer. Appellants’ response to the
rejection of claim 1 is, first, to refer to a Specification “exemplary
embodiment” and allege that a corresponding feature is not found in
Küçükçakar. (App. Br. 8-9.)
The claims measure the invention. See SRI Int’l v. Matsushita Elec.
Corp., 775 F.2d 1107, 1121 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (en banc). Our reviewing court
has repeatedly warned against confining the claims to specific embodiments
described in the specification. Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1323
(Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc). During prosecution before the USPTO, claims
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are to be given their broadest reasonable interpretation, and the scope of a
claim cannot be narrowed by reading disclosed limitations into the claim.
See In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997); In re Zletz, 893 F.2d
319, 321 (Fed. Cir. 1989); In re Prater, 415 F.2d 1393, 1404-05 (CCPA
1969). “An essential purpose of patent examination is to fashion claims that
are precise, clear, correct, and unambiguous. Only in this way can
uncertainties of claim scope be removed, as much as possible, during the
administrative process.” In re Zletz, 893 F.2d at 322.
Appellants’ arguments based on alleged differences between the
instant disclosure and Küçükçakar are not persuasive of error in the
rejection. Our position is consistent with that of the Examiner (Ans. 11-12.)
Appellants next allege error in the rejection of claim 1 by submitting
that the programmable interconnection network 34 in Küçükçakar’s Figure 5
is within a coprocessor, rather than between, or coupling, coprocessors as
claimed. (App. Br. 9-10; Reply Br. 5.)
However, the argument is not responsive to the rejection that has been
applied. Batten, not Küçükçakar, is the reference the rejection relies upon
for the teaching of processing clusters. Instant claim 1 recites an
interconnect “coupling the plurality of processing clusters.” As the
Examiner finds (Ans. 12), when the teachings of Küçükçakar are combined
with Batten, each programmable interconnect will join or connect each
processing cluster.
Appellants next allege that, in Küçükçakar, initialization portion 106
is always performed and never skipped (App. Br. 10-11), whereas instant
claim 1 recites that configuration is performed “if necessary and otherwise
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skipped.” As the Examiner finds, however, Küçükçakar teaches that the
initialization portion is performed if necessary -- the first time the
corresponding program segment is run -- and otherwise skipped. (Ans. 13.)
Appellants in response submit that the Examiner has “simply
assumed” that the initialization step 106 of Küçükçakar involves configuring
a programmable interconnection network. (Reply Br. 3.)
A programmable interconnection network as depicted in
Küçükçakar’s Figure 5 is included in the programmable coprocessor 86 that
is initialized. Küçükçakar col. 7, ll. 42-58; col. 8, ll. 54-63. The
interconnection network is programmable by loading instructions into the
processor. Col. 4, ll. 29-43. The multiplexers and tri-state buffers of the
programmable interconnection network are configured to route data to
particular register files, functional units, registers, and memory. Id., ll. 54-
64; col. 5, ll. 3-22; Fig. 5. In our view, the reference provides more than
adequate support for the Examiner’s finding that initialization includes
configuring the programmable interconnection network.
Appellants, further, allege that the combination of Küçükçakar and
Batten is improper because neither reference suggests choosing of the
elements in the manner proposed. (App. Br. 13.)
As the Examiner notes (Ans. 14), Appellants’ characterization of the
Examiner’s reasoning in support of the combination is factually incorrect.
Moreover, express suggestion in the references is not a requirement to
establish obviousness. “[W]hen a patent ‘simply arranges old elements with
each performing the same function it had been known to perform’ and yields
no more than one would expect from such an arrangement, the combination
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is obvious.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 127 S. Ct. 1727, 1740 (2007)
(quoting Sakraida v. Ag Pro, Inc., 425 U.S. 273, 282 (1976)).
We thus sustain the rejection of claim 1, not being persuaded of error
in the rejection.
We also sustain the rejection of claim 2. Not only do Appellants fail
to demonstrate error in the Examiner’s position (e.g., Ans. 15), but we also
observe that Appellants seem to read features into the claim that are not
required by the language of the claim. The “programming model” as set
forth in the claim, by the terms of the claim, is not necessarily used for any
purpose.
We sustain the rejection of claim 5. We are not persuaded of error in
the Examiner’s position (e.g, Ans. 16), particularly in view of the column 5
sections of Küçükçakar referenced by the Examiner.
Because we have considered a representative claim in each group
argued by Appellants, we sustain the rejection of claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12,
13, 15, 16, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Küçükçakar and Batten.
Turning to the § 103(a) rejection of claims 3, 10, and 17 over
Küçükçakar, Batten, and Tremblay, Appellants respond to the rejection of
claim 3 by alleging that some features in the instant disclosure are not found
in the prior art. As we have indicated, such an argument fails to show
nonobviousness of the claimed subject matter. “What matters is the
objective reach of the claim. If the claim extends to what is obvious, it is
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invalid under § 103.” KSR, 127 S. Ct. at 1742. We sustain the rejection of
claims 3, 10, and 17.1
We sustain the § 103(a) rejection of claims 4, 11, and 18 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Küçükçakar, Batten,
Tremblay, and Hocevar. We need only refer to the Examiner’s responsive
arguments at pages 18 through 20 of the Answer as they apply to claim 4.
We find Appellants’ position unavailing.
Finally, we also sustain the § 103 rejection of claims 7, 14, and 21
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Küçükçakar, Batten,
and Fisher. We have considered Appellants arguments in support of claim
7. However, as the Examiner indicates, the test for obviousness is not
whether the features of one reference may be bodily incorporated into the
structure of another reference. Rather, the test is what the combined
teachings of those references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill
in the art. In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981). It is not necessary
that the inventions of the references be physically combinable to render

1 The Examiner sets forth substantially the same rejection of claim 3 in the
Answer (at 7-8) and the Final Rejection (at 6-7), and in particular relies upon
the same teachings in Tremblay in each paper. We have not considered new
arguments that Appellants raise at page 8 in the Reply Brief, which could
have been timely presented in the Appeal Brief. Appellants’ waiting until
after the Examiner’s Answer to raise arguments that could have been
presented earlier, thus avoiding the Examiner’s response in the Answer, is
improper. See Optivus Tech., Inc. v. Ion Beam Applications S.A., 469 F.3d
978, 989 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (an issue not raised in an opening brief is waived).
In any event, the new arguments are not commensurate with the actual
requirements of claim 3.
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obvious the invention under review. In re Sneed, 710 F.2d 1544, 1550 (Fed.
Cir. 1983).

CONCLUSION
The rejections of claims 1-21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) are affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).

AFFIRMED

rwk

Lisa K. Jorgenson
STMICROELECTRONICS, INC.
1310 Electronics Drive
Carrollton TX 75006

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