Ex Parte Duluk et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 27, 201613442730 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 27, 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. 13/442,730 04/09/2012 Jerome F. DULUK JR. NVDA/SC-11-0313-US1 7469 102324 7590 12/29/2016 Arte.ois T aw Omim T T P/NVTDTA EXAMINER 7710 Cherry Park Drive Suite T #104 Houston, TX 77095 KIM, DONG U ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2196 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/29/2016 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): kcruz @ artegislaw.com ALGdocketing @ artegislaw.com mmccauley @ artegislaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JEROME F. DULUK JR., JESSE DAVID HALL, PHILIP ALEXANDER CUADRA, and KARIM M. ABDALLA Appeal 2016-002024 Application 13/442,7301 Technology Center 2100 Before LARRY J. HUME, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and STEVEN M. AMUNDSON, Administrative Patent Judges. HUME, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Final Rejection of claims 1,2, 10, 11, 19, and 20. The Examiner indicates claims 3—9 and 12—18 are drawn to allowable subject matter. Final Act. 8. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is NVIDIA Corp. App. Br. 3. Appeal 2016-002024 Application 13/442,730 STATEMENT OF THE CASE2 The Invention Appellants' disclosed and claimed inventions "generally relate[] to resource management, and more specifically to methods and apparatus for auto-throttling encapsulated compute tasks." Spec. 11. Exemplary Claim Claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on appeal (emphasis added to contested limitation): 1. A method for auto-throttling encapsulated compute tasks, the method comprising: receiving one or more tasks to be scheduled for execution by a processor that includes a plurality of parallel processing units, wherein the processor may be configured in a non- throttled mode in which a first number of the plurality of parallel processing units are active for processing tasks or a throttled mode in which a second number of the plurality of parallel processing units are active for processing tasks, the second number being smaller than the first number; determining whether at least one of the tasks scheduled for execution may be executed only when the processor is configured in the throttled mode\ and if none of the tasks require the processor to be configured in the throttled mode, then configuring the processor to activate the first number of parallel processing units, or if at least one of the tasks require the processor to be configured in the throttled 2 Our decision relies upon Appellants' Appeal Brief ("App. Br.," filed May 11, 2015); Reply Brief ("Reply Br.," filed Nov. 30, 2015); Examiner's Answer ("Ans.," mailed Sept. 28, 2015); Final Office Action ("Final Act.," mailed Oct. 6, 2014); and the original Specification ("Spec.," filed Apr. 9, 2012). 2 Appeal 2016-002024 Application 13/442,730 mode, then configuring the processor to activate the second number of parallel processing units. Prior Art The Examiner relies upon the following prior art as evidence in rejecting the claims on appeal: Goudy et al. ("Goudy") US 7,747,842 B1 June 29, 2010 Nickolls et al. ("Nickolls") US 2011/0087860 Al Apr. 14, 2011 Rejection on Appeal Claims 1,2, 10, 11, 19, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Nickolls and Goudy. Final Act. 4. CLAIM GROUPING Based on Appellants' arguments (App. Br. 11—12), we decide the appeal of the obviousness rejection of claims 1,2, 10, 11, 19, and 20 on the basis of representative claim 1. ISSUE Appellants argue (App. Br. 11—12; Reply Br. 5—8) the Examiner's rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over the combination of Nickolls and Goudy is in error. These contentions present us with the following issue: Did the Examiner err in finding the cited prior art combination teaches or suggests "[a] method for auto-throttling encapsulated compute tasks" that includes, inter alia, the step of "determining whether at least one of the tasks 3 Appeal 2016-002024 Application 13/442,730 scheduled for execution may be executed only when the processor is configured in the throttled mode," as recited in claim 1? ANALYSIS In reaching this decision, we consider all evidence presented and all arguments actually made by Appellants. We do not consider arguments that Appellants could have made but chose not to make in the Briefs, and we deem any such arguments waived. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). We disagree with Appellants' arguments with respect to claims 1, 2, 10, 11, 19, and 20, and we incorporate herein and adopt as our own: (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken, and (2) the reasons and rebuttals set forth in the Examiner's Answer in response to Appellants' arguments. We incorporate such findings, reasons, and rebuttals herein by reference unless otherwise noted. However, we highlight and address specific findings and arguments regarding claim 1 for emphasis as follows. Appellants contend "Nickolls does not teach or suggest determining whether a task that is scheduled for execution may be executed only when a processor is configured in a throttled mode, as required by claim 1." App. Br. 11. Further, "Nickolls simply discloses the typical tradeoff between processing resource availability and the amount of work that can be processed at any given time. By contrast, claim 1 recites determining whether a particular task scheduled for execution may be executed only when a processor is configured in a throttled mode." Id. Appellants allege the Examiner is mapping the contested limitation "to the portion of Nickolls that discloses determining whether a core has 4 Appeal 2016-002024 Application 13/442,730 'sufficient resources' to execute 'another [cooperative thread arrays] CTA.'" Id. Appellants urge, however, that determining whether a core has sufficient resources to execute a CTA is not the same as determining whether a particular task may be executed only when a processor is configured in a throttled mode, as required by claim 1. "Nickolls does not teach a throttled mode of a processor, much less that the throttled mode has a specific number of active parallel processing units that is less than a number of active parallel processing units in another mode." App. Br. 12. Appellants further allege Goudy does not make up for the alleged deficiencies of Nickolls with respect to the contested limitation of claim 1. Id. In the Reply Brief (1), Appellants reiterate their argument by stating "the Examiner still has not provided any teaching from Nickolls of determining whether a particular task scheduled for execution may be executed only when a processor is configured in a throttled mode. Consequently, Nickolls cannot be properly interpreted as meeting the [argued] limitations of claim 1." As an initial matter of claim construction, we give the claim its broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the Specification. See In re Morris, 111 F.3d 1048, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1997). "In the patentability context, claims are to be given their broadest reasonable interpretations . . . limitations are not to be read into the claims from the specification." In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (citations omitted). Utilizing Appellants' Specification, the Examiner interprets "throttled mode" as "limiting a number of CTAs that can execute concurrently based 5 Appeal 2016-002024 Application 13/442,730 on resource availability." Ans. 3 (citing Appellants' PGPub 171, corresponding to Spec. 1 69). When a TMD 322 needing multiple CTAs that each require large amounts of memory are ready to be scheduled for execution, the task/work unit 207 may limit (i.e., throttle) the number of CTAs that execute concurrently so the CTAs do not attempt to consume more memory than is available for access by the TMD 322. Examples of parameters related to the amount of memory available for each thread of a CTA include a size of one or more local memory regions, a number of registers, size of memory that may be directly addressed by the TMD 322 through an LI cache, an amount of shared memory for a single CTA, and a number of barrier operations for each CTA. Spec. 1 69. The Examiner reads the recited "one or more tasks" of claim 1 onto the disclosed cooperative thread arrays (CTA) of Nickolls. Final Act. 4—5; Ans. 3. We note Appellants have not cited to a definition of "task" in the Specification that would preclude the Examiner's broader reading.3 The Examiner finds, with respect to the teachings and suggestions of the Nickolls reference: [T]he act of throttling is clearly evident within the Nickolls disclosure, Nickolls teaches one of the tasks scheduled for 3 While Appellants' Specification does provide an exemplary embodiment detailing how tasks may be stored and utilized in the system, e.g., "a task table 345 that includes slots for each task scheduled on each of the SMs 310," and "[a]t step 714, work distribution unit 340 determines whether any scheduled tasks require PPU 202 to be run in a throttled mode" (Spec. 1100), we decline to import such limitations into the claims. While we interpret claims broadly but reasonably in light of the Specification, we nonetheless must not import limitations from the Specification into the claims. See Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1316, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc) (citations omitted). 6 Appeal 2016-002024 Application 13/442,730 execution may be executed only when the processor is configured in the throttled mode. In other words, [cooperative thread array] CTA which require the use of all 16 barrier points can only run when the system limits other CTAs from running to make resources available to assign it to the CTA which requires the use of all barrier points. Therefore, CTA which requires all barrier point can only run on a processor that has the throttle mode configured. . . . [I]f throttled mode was not available a CTA which requires all 16 barrier points with total of 16 barriers available would not be able to execute until no other CTAs are running with the processing system. Ans. 4. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, we agree with the Examiner's finding that the combination of Nickolls and Goudy teaches or at least suggests all the limitations of claim 1, and particularly agree that Nickolls' disclosure of CTA processing in the manner described teaches or at least suggests the contested limitation of claim 1. Accordingly, based upon the findings above, on this record, we are not persuaded of error in the Examiner's reliance on the combined teachings and suggestions of the cited prior art combination to teach or suggest the disputed limitation of claim 1, nor do we find error in the Examiner's resulting legal conclusion of obviousness. Therefore, we sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejection of independent claim 1, and grouped claims 2, 10, 11, 19, and 20 which fall therewith. See Claim Grouping, supra. 7 Appeal 2016-002024 Application 13/442,730 REPLY BRIEF To the extent Appellants may advance new arguments in the Reply Brief (Reply Br. 5—9) not in response to a shift in the Examiner's position in the Answer, we note arguments raised in a Reply Brief that were not raised in the Appeal Brief or are not responsive to arguments raised in the Examiner's Answer will not be considered except for good cause (see 37 CE.R. § 41.41(b)(2)), which Appellants have not shown. CONCLUSION The Examiner did not err with respect to the obviousness rejection of claims 1,2, 10, 11, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the cited prior art combination of record, and we sustain the rejection. DECISION We affirm the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1,2, 10, 11, 19, and 20. 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). See 37 C.F.R. §41.50(f). AFFIRMED 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation