Ex Parte Craske

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 30, 2016

13064113 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 30, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/064, 113 03/07/2011
73459 7590 09/01/2016
NIXON & V ANDERHYE, P,C
901 NORTH GLEBE ROAD, 11 TH FLOOR
ARLINGTON, VA 22203
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Simon John Craske
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.
JRL-550-1355 7389
EXAMINER
SAIN, GAUTAM
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2135
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/01/2016 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):
PTOMAIL@nixonvan.com
pair_nixon@firsttofile.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SIMON JOHN CRASKE
Appeal2015-004216
Application 13/064, 113
Technology Center 2100
Before JOHNNY A. KUMAR, NORMAN H. BEAMER,
and MELISSA A. RAAP ALA, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) the Examiner's Final
Rejection of claims 1-19, which constitute all the claims pending in this
application. 1 We have jurisdiction over the pending rejected claims under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellant identifies ARM Limited as the real party in interest. (App.
Br. 1.)
Appeal2015-004216
Application 13/064, 113
THE INVENTION
Appellant's disclosed and claimed invention is directed to processor
control of preload operations. (Abstract.) Claim 1, reproduced below, is
illustrative of the claimed subject matter:
1. Apparatus for processing data, comprising:
processing circuitry configured to perform data processing
operations in response to program instructions;
instruction decoder circuitry coupled to said processing
circuitry and responsive to said program instructions to generate
control signals for controlling said processing circuitry to
perform said data processing operations; wherein
said instruction decoder is responsive to a preload
instruction, said preload instruction specifying a memory address
location to be subject to a preload operation for preparing for a
subsequent memory access to said memory address, to compare
said memory address with a null value and:
(i) if said memory address does not match said null value
then to generate control signals for controlling said processing
circuitry to perform said preload operation; and
(ii) if said memory address does match said null value then
not to generate said control signals for controlling said
processing circuitry to perform said preload operation.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 14, 15, and 17 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Krieger et al. (US
2010/0250853 Al, pub. Sept. 30, 2010) ("Krieger") and Mesard et al. (US
2007/0136534 Al, pub. June 14, 2007) ("Mesard"). (Final Act. 4--7.)
The Examiner rejected claims 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 18, and 19
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Krieger, Mesard, and
2
Appeal2015-004216
Application 13/064, 113
Vick et al. (US 2007/0283123 Al, pub. Dec. 6, 2007) ("Vick"). (Final Act.
7-9.)
ISSUE ON APPEAL
Appellant's arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following
dispositive issue:2
Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of Krieger
and Mesard teaches or suggests the independent claim 1 limitation, "to
compare said memory address with a null value," and the similar limitation
recited in independent claims 10 and 11. (App. Br. 7-10.)
ANALYSIS
In finding Krieger and Mesard teach or suggest the subject matter of
claim 1, the Examiner relies on the disclosure in Mesard of selective
prefetching based on resource availability, in which, upon encountering a
prefetch instruction, the system checks an availability indicator, and if the
availability indicator indicates that the system resource is not sufficiently
available, the system terminates the execution of the prefetch instruction.
(see Final Act. 5---6; Ans. 9-10; Mesard Abstract, Fig. 2, i-fi-f 16, 29, 30, 32,
34.) The Examiner further relies on the disclosure in Krieger of performing
a prefetch if a cached address translation is found and, if there is no cached
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the findings of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Apr. 17, 2014); the Reply
Brief (filed Feb. 23, 2015); the Final Office Action (mailed Aug. 23, 2013);
and the Examiner's Answer (mailed Dec. 23, 2014) for the respective
details.
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Appeal2015-004216
Application 13/064, 113
address translation, the translation is performed prior to prefetch. (see Ans.
10; Krieger Abstract, Fig. 1, i-fi-f 17, 18.)
Appellant argues the Examiner errs in finding Krieger and Mesard
teach or suggest the required comparison of the memory address with a null
value. (App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 2.) We agree with Appellant's argument. The
Examiner does not point to any teaching or suggestion in the references,
whether alone or in combination, pertinent to this claim limitation, nor is
there otherwise any explanation as how the limitation in question is met by
the references. In particular, the Examiner equates Mesard's resource
availability indicator to the claimed "null value," but does not establish or
explain how the combination teaches comparing the resource availability
indicator to a memory address. Therefore, on the record before us, we are
constrained to find the Examiner errs in rejecting independent claims 1, 10,
and 11.
CONCLUSIONS
For the reasons stated above, we do not sustain the obviousness
rejection of independent claims 1, 10, and 11 over Krieger and Mesard. We
also do not sustain the obviousness rejections of claims 4, 5, 7, 14, 15, and
17 over Krieger and Mesard, and of claims 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 18, and
19 over Krieger, Mesard, and Vick, which claims depend from claims 1, 10,
or 11.
DECISION
The Examiner's rejections of claims 1-19 are reversed.
REVERSED
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