Ex Parte Colglazier

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 16, 2017

13692035 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 16, 2017)

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.
13/692,035 12/03/2012 Daniel J. Colglazier RPS920120073US2
(157CON)
6065
50594 7590
CRGO LAW
STEVEN M. GREENBERG
7900 Glades Road
SUITE 520
BOCA RATON, EL 33487
06/20/2017 EXAMINER
AHMED, ZUBAIR
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2132
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/20/2017 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):
docketing@crgolaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP.1
Appeal 2017-000768
Application 13/692,035
Technology Center 2100
Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, JOHN F. HORVATH, and
MICHAEL J. ENGLE, Administrative Patent Judges.
BAUMEISTER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING
Pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 41.52, Appellant requests rehearing of our
March 29, 2017, Decision on Appeal (“Decision”). See Request for
Rehearing filed May 30, 2017 (“Request”). In that Decision, we affirmed
the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) as anticipated
by Jaleel (US 2012/0159073 Al; published June 21, 2012), as well as the
four additional obviousness rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) of claims 2—
5.2 The obviousness rejections of claims 2 and 3 were based upon Jaleel in
1 Daniel J. Colglazier is the named inventor.
2 We note that in our Decision, we once inadvertently referred to the
Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 as an obviousness rejection, rather than an
anticipation rejection. Compare Decision 7, with id. at 2. However, our
discussion of the rejection of claim 1 was based solely on the disclosures in
Appeal 2017-000768
Application 13/692,035
view of various combinations of additional prior-art references, and the
obviousness rejections of claims 4 and 5 were based on Balakrishnan in
view of various additional references. Decision 3—9. Appellant does not
identify any points it believes we misapprehended or overlooked in our
Decision affirming the Examiner’s rejections of claims 4 and 5. See Request
1—4. Accordingly, we treat Appellant’s Request as seeking to rehear only
the rejections of claims 1—3. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.52.
We grant Appellant’s Request for Rehearing to the extent that we
reconsider the reasoning of our Decision, as further discussed below, but we
deny Appellant’s Request to modify our ultimate decision affirming the
Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—3. Pursuant to our discretionary authority
under 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b), we designate each of the rejections of claims 1—
3 as constituting new grounds.
STATEMENT OF THE INVENTION
Appellant describes the present invention as follows:
Embodiments of the present invention provide a method,
system and computer program product for enhanced cache
coordination in a multi-level cache. In an embodiment of the
invention, a method for enhanced cache coordination in a multi­
level cache is provided. The method includes receiving a
processor memory request to access data in a multi-level cache
and servicing the processor memory request with data in either
an LI cache or an L2 cache of the multi-level cache. The method
additionally includes marking a cache line in the LI cache and
also a corresponding cache line in the L2 cache as most recently
used responsive to determining that the processor memory
request is serviced from the cache line in the LI cache and that
Jaleel. See Decision 5—7. Thus, our affirmance was of the Examiner’s
rejection of claim 1 as anticipated by Jaleel.
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Application 13/692,035
the cache line in the LI cache is not currently marked most
recently used.
Abstract.
Independent claim 1, reproduced below with the disputed limitation
emphasized, is illustrative of the appealed claims:
1. A method for enhanced cache coordination in a multi-level
cache, the method comprising:
receiving a processor memory request to access data in a
multi-level cache;
servicing the processor memory request with data in either
an LI cache or an L2 cache of the multi-level cache; and,
marking a cache line in the LI cache and also a
corresponding cache line in the L2 cache as most recently used
responsive to determining that the processor memory request is
serviced from the cache line in the LI cache and that the cache
line in the LI cache is not currently marked most recently used.
FINDINGS AND CONTENTIONS
We stated in our Decision that “[w]e disagree with Appellant’s
contention that the Examiner’s conclusion regarding Jaleel inherently
teaching marking a cache line as MRU upon determining the cache line is
not currently marked as MRU is only conclusory or constitutes mere
conjecture absent factual support.” Decision 6. The Panel then went on to
explain that Jaleel not only supports the Examiner’s finding of inherency,
Jaleel also teaches this feature expressly: “Jaleel states that ‘the LI cache
can issue TLHs [i.e., Temporal Learning Hints] for non-[most recently used]
MRU lines.’” Decision 7 (quoting Jaleel 144).
Appellant reasserts on Rehearing that Jaleel lacks a teaching of
marking of a cache line in the LI cache and also a corresponding
cache line in the L2 cache as most recently used in response to a
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Application 13/692,035
determination that the processor memory request is serviced
from the cache line in the LI cache and also that the cache line
in the LI cache is not currently marked most recently used.
Request 3. More specifically, Appellant argues that
as set forth in paragraph [0043] of Jaleel, a “temporal locality hint”
(TLH) is sent to the lowest level cache (LLC) for every LI cache
hit. And, in response to an LI cache hit, the line is moved to the
MRU position in the LI cache. Likewise, in the LLC, the line is
promoted to MRU. But nothing in paragraph f00431 referred to a
determination that the line in LI is NOT currently marked MRU.
Request 3. In Appellant’s view,
determining to issue a “hint” for a line that is not MRU is not the
same as updating a cache ONLY when the requested line is not
marked MRU. To wit, the term “ONLY” is the source of the
clearly erroneous error as nothing in the cited passage of Jaleel—
namely paragraph [0044]—references exclusivity.
Request 4.
ANALYSIS
Paragraphs 41—43 of Jaleel describe the fundamental protocol for
using temporal locality hints. Appellant is correct that paragraphs 41—43 of
Jaleel teach sending TLHs for every LI hit, including cached LI lines
marked as MRU. However, paragraph 44 of Jaleel explains advantages and
drawbacks of the fundamental TLH protocol and then sets forth two
alternatives for further improving upon that TLH protocol:
TLHs can significantly reduce the number of inclusion
victims because they keep the LLC replacement state up-to-date
with the core caches. However, the downside is that they send a
request to the LLC for every hit in the core caches.
Optimizations may be made by filtering the number of TLHs sent
from the core caches to the LLC. For example, in a multilevel
hierarchy, the second level cache can issue TLHs instead of the
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Application 13/692,035
first level cache. Alternatively, the LI cache can issue TLHs for
non-MRU lines.
Jaleel 144 (emphasis added).
Restated, paragraph 44 explains that in order to avoid updating the L2
cache for every hit in the LI cache (e.g., including when the LI hit is for the
most recently used line), the TLH protocol can be optimized by marking the
L2 cache line, as well as the LI cache line, as most recently used only when
the serviced LI cache line is not marked as most recently used.
We therefore affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—3 based
upon Jaleel’s alternate TLH protocol, as set forth in paragraph 44. Because
our rationale for affirming the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—3
constitutes a different thrust from the Examiner’s rationale for these
rejections, which was that the fundamental TLH protocol inherently teaches
the disputed limitation, we designate each of the rejections of claims 1—3 as
constituting a new ground pursuant to our discretionary authority under
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b).
DECISION
Appellant’s Request for Rehearing is granted to the extent that we
reconsider the reasoning of our Decision, but Appellant’s Request to modify
our ultimate decision affirming the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—3 is
DENIED.
Because we affirm the rejections of claims 1—3 based upon Jaleel’s
alternate TLH protocol, as set forth in paragraph 44, and because our
rationale for affirming the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—3 constitutes a
different thrust from the Examiner’s rationale of the fundamental TLH
protocol inherently teaching the disputed limitation, we designate the
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rejections of each of claims 1—3 as constituting a new ground pursuant to our
discretionary authority under 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b). Rule 41.50(b) provides
that “[a] new ground of rejection pursuant to this paragraph shall not be
considered final for judicial review.” Rule 41.50(b) also provides the
following:
When the Board enters such a non-final decision, the appellant,
within two months from the date of the decision, must exercise
one of the following two options with respect to the new ground
of rejection to avoid termination of the appeal as to the rejected
claims:
(1) Reopen prosecution. Submit an
appropriate amendment of the claims so rejected or
new Evidence relating to the claims so rejected, or
both, and have the matter reconsidered by the
examiner, in which event the prosecution will be
remanded to the examiner. The new ground of
rejection is binding upon the examiner unless an
amendment or new Evidence not previously of
Record is made which, in the opinion of the
examiner, overcomes the new ground of rejection
designated in the decision. Should the examiner
reject the claims, appellant may again appeal to the
Board pursuant to this subpart.
(2) Request rehearing. Request that the
proceeding be reheard under § 41.52 by the Board
upon the same Record. The request for rehearing
must address any new ground of rejection and state
with particularity the points believed to have been
misapprehended or overlooked in entering the new
ground of rejection and also state all other grounds
upon which rehearing is sought.
Further guidance on responding to a new ground of rejection can be
found in the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) § 1214.01
(9th Ed., Rev. 9, Nov. 2015).
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No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
REHEARING DENIED
37 C.F.R, $ 41.50(b)
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