Ex parte GRIESS et al.

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jul 30, 1998

08480106 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 30, 1998)

Application for patent filed June 7, 1995. According to1
the appellants, this application is a continuation of Application
08/338,976, filed November 14, 1994; which is a continuation of
Application 07/807,696, filed December 16, 1991.
1
THIS OPINION WAS NOT WRITTEN FOR PUBLICATION
The opinion in support of the decision being entered today (1)
was not written for publication in a law journal and (2) is not
binding precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 16
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
_____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
_____________
Ex parte KEVIN R. GRIESS,
ANN C. MERENDA and
DONALD L. PIERCE
_____________
Appeal No. 97-0609
Application 08/480,1061
______________
ON BRIEF
_______________
Before THOMAS, JERRY SMITH and FLEMING, Administrative Patent
Judges.
THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge.
Appeal No. 97-0609
Application 08/480,106
2
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants have appealed to the Board from the examiner’s
final rejection of claims 1 to 14, which constitute all the
claims in the application.
Representative claim 11 is reproduced below:
11. A method for dynamically handling processing errors
during processing of a stream of instructions in a computer
system having a plurality of functional units, comprising the
steps of:
detecting an error occuring during processing of an
operation subsumed by an instruction of said stream of
instructions by a functional unit;
determining that said error was caused by a timing dependent
defect by iteratively increasing an instruction processing cycle
time and retrying at least one operation; and
after said determining step, causing said functional unit to
process subsequent operations in said stream of instructions in a
degraded performance mode such that said error will not recur.
The following reference is relied on by the examiner:
Missios et al. (Missios) 4,025,768 May 24, 1977
Claims 1 to 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103. As
evidence of obviousness, the examiner relies upon Missios alone.
Appeal No. 97-0609
Application 08/480,106
The bottom of page 1 of the principal Brief on appeal2
indicates that the present application is a continuation of
Application Serial No. 08/338,976 filed on November 14, 1994.
This latter application has been the subject of an earlier appeal
identified as Appeal No. 96-1439.
3
Rather than repeat the positions of the appellants and the
examiner, reference is made to the briefs and the answer for the
respective details thereof. 2
OPINION
We reverse the rejection of all claims on appeal under 35
U.S.C. § 103.
Independent claims 1 and 5 on appeal here contain a common
limitation relating to a feature of a means for maintaining
operation of the overall computer system to continue processing
of an instruction and a remainder of a stream of instructions at
an instruction cycle time at which the retry of at least one
earlier recited instruction was successful. Claim 5 recites
essentially the same feature as in claim 1 in slightly different
words.
The statement of the rejection at pages 3 and 4 of the
answer does not detail the particulars of these features in each
of these claims. The same may be said of the positions taken by
the examiner with respect to the responsive arguments portion of
the answer beginning at page 6. On the basis of this alone, it
Appeal No. 97-0609
Application 08/480,106
4
appears that the examiner has not set forth a prima facie case of
obviousness of the subject matter of independent claims 1 and 5
on appeal in light of the teachings and suggestions of Missios,
the sole reference relied upon.
Our detailed study of this reference also leads us to
conclude our agreement with appellants’ basic position generally
expressed at pages 14 and 15 of the principal Brief on appeal
that such above noted feature set forth in both claims on appeal
is not taught or suggested in the reference relied upon by the
examiner. The operation of the sequence of blocks greater than
block D3 in Fig. 1 of Missios does not appear to us to fuction in
the manner required by the noted portion of claims 1 and 5 on
appeal, since when a no error condition is obtained according to
the flow diagram in Fig. 1, the sequencing of instructions does
not next continue to occur at the instruction cycle time rate at
which the retry was determined to be successful.
Turning lastly to the subject matter of independent claim 11
on appeal, again, we note that the statement of the rejection
beginning at page 3 of the answer does not detail the particulars
of this claim, the pertinent portion of which relates to the
determination of an error being done by iteratively increasing an
Appeal No. 97-0609
Application 08/480,106
5
instruction processing cycle time and then retrying at least one
operation.
The responsive arguments portion of the answer beginning at
the bottom of page 8 does attempt to assert the obviousness of
this detailed portion of independent claim 11 on appeal.
Although we understand Missios as teaching repetitively and
iteratively sequencing the flow of blocks in Fig. 1 of this
reference, the iterations are not done in the recited manner in
independent claim 11 on appeal. Also, extending respective clock
periods in a sequential or iterative manner for testing purposes
is not the same as iteratively increasing an instruction
processing cycle time and retrying at least one previously
recited operation as set forth in claim 11 on appeal. Thus, we
are in general agreement with appellants’ assertion at page 15 of
the principal Brief on appeal as to this claim.
In view of the foregoing, we have reversed the rejection of
respective independent claims 1, 5 and 11 on appeal,
necessitating in turn the reversal of their respective dependent
claims. Accordingly, the decision of the examiner is reversed.
Appeal No. 97-0609
Application 08/480,106
6
As a final matter, in view of the fact that the present
application appears to be a voluntarily filed continuation of the
parent application noted in footnote 2 earlier in this opinion,
and since the present independent claims are variations of the
subject matter of correspondingly numbered claims in that
application, we further remand this application to the examiner
for consideration on the record of the propriety of an
obviousness-type double patenting rejection among the various
claims in the two pending appeals.
REVERSED and REMANDED
Appeal No. 97-0609
Application 08/480,106
7
)
JAMES D. THOMAS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
JERRY SMITH )
Administrative Patent Judge ) APPEALS AND
)
) INTERFERENCES
)
MICHAEL R. FLEMING )
Administrative Patent Judge )

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