Ex Parte HallivuoriDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 12, 201612303437 (P.T.A.B. May. 12, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 12/303,437 12/04/2008 466 7590 YOUNG & THOMPSON 209 Madison Street Suite 500 Alexandria, VA 22314 05/16/2016 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Matti Hallivuori 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. 3502-1154 6430 EXAMINER SAVLA,ARPANP ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2138 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/16/2016 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): DocketingDept@young-thompson.com yandtpair@firs ttofile. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte MATTI HALLIVUORI Appeal2014-006436 Application 12/303,437 Technology Center 2100 Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, JOSEPH P. LENTIVECH, and SHARON PENICK, Administrative Patent Judges. LENTIVECH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL .6. .... ,1 .. • .. ,....,-TTr'1.r-"\ l\-1,....AI/'\. £',"1 Appeuant' seeKs our review unaer j) u.~.L. s U4~aJ or me Examiner's final rejection of claims 35---68. Claims 1-34 have been canceled. See App. Br. 2. We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We reverse. 1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Tellabs OY. App. Br. 2. Appeal2014-006436 Application 12/303,437 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant's Invention Appellant's invention generally relates to processing, in a flash type memory device, transactions consisting of one or more sub-operations. Spec. 1:7-9. Claim 35, which is illustrative, reads as follows: 35. A method for executing a transaction regarding information to be stored in a flash type memory device, the method comprising: - executing a payload data writing operation relevant to said transaction into a first memory block of said flash type memory device, - setting up memory-block specific status information of said first memory block to express that a) payload data written in said first memory block is relevant and b) said transaction is in a commitment process, and -processing the payload data written in said first memory block into valid payload data in response to a condition that said memory-block specific status information has been set up to express that a) the payload data written in said first memory block is relevant b) said transaction is in a commitment process. Rejection Claims 35---68 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Lasser (US 2003/0088804 Al; published May 8, 2003). Final Act. 2-12. Dispositive Issue on Appeal Did the Examiner err by finding that Lasser discloses "setting up memory-block specific status information of said first memory block to 2 Appeal2014-006436 Application 12/303,437 express that ... said transaction is in a commitment process," as recited in claim 35? ANALYSIS The Examiner finds Lasser discloses "a block's transaction field is set to 0 (i.e. null) before the transaction starts," "then set to 5 while the transaction is still open and write operations are occurring (i.e. while the transaction is in a commitment process)," "and then set back to 0 (i.e. nullified again) when the transaction is complete (i.e. committed)." Ans. 3- 4 (citing Laser, Figs. 13A, 13C-13F, i-fi-f 131, 133-136). The Examiner further finds Lasser discloses: [W]hile the transaction is still open (i.e. in a commitment process), the transaction field stays set to 5 because if a failure/power loss occurs while the transaction is still open the system needs to be able to roll back to a previously known state. However, once the transaction is closed (i.e. committed) the transaction field can once again be nullified because there is no need to roll back to any previous state. Ans. 4. Based on these findings, the Examiner concludes Lasser discloses the disputed limitation. Id. Appellant contends Lasser fails to disclose the disputed limitation because Lasser' s transaction field does not express that a transaction is in a commitment process. App. Br. 11-18. According to Appellant, Lasser discloses that the commitment process occurs after the driver is instructed to close a transaction and includes nullifying the transaction field of each physical block having a transaction field set to the transaction ID (e.g., 5) and removing the transaction from the global open transactions list. App. Br. 14--15 (citing Lasser i-fi-f 134--138). Appellant contends Lasser, therefore, 3 Appeal2014-006436 Application 12/303,437 does not disclose that the transaction field expresses that the transaction is in the commitment process because when the transaction field is set to 5 the transaction may be either in the update process or in the commitment process, and when the transaction field is nullified (e.g., set to 0) the transaction may be in the commitment process or it may be closed. Id. We agree with Appellant. The issue in this appeal involves the interpretation of "commitment process," as recited in the claims. During patent prosecution, claim terms are given their broadest reasonable interpretation, consistent with the specification, as they would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Buszard, 504 F.3d 1364, 1367 (Fed. Cir. 2007); In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Regarding the term "commitment process," Appellant's Specification provides: The transaction is usually divided into three successive operations: a start of transaction, an update of data, and a commitment of transaction. The update of data comprises changing existing data, deleting existing data, and adding new data. The commitment refers to processing the updated data into valid data. Spec. 2:5-9. Appellant's Specification further provides that when a serious system error occurs before a transaction is complete, if the status information expresses that the transaction has reached a commitment process, there is adequate certainty about the data having been successfully updated and the data is processed into valid payload data. Spec. 9:29-38. The Examiner interprets "commitment process" to include a process in which the transaction is still open and write operations are occurring (e.g., an update process) where an occurrence of a failure or loss of power during the 4 Appeal2014-006436 Application 12/303,437 commitment process would cause the system to roll back to a previously known state. Ans. 4. The Examiner's interpretation of "commitment process" including the occurrence of write operations is unreasonable because it is inconsistent with Appellant's Specification. Instead, the claimed term "commitment process" refers to a process for validating data related to a particular transaction that occurs after all the data related to the particular transaction has been updated (e.g., after an update process has concluded). As such, we agree with Appellant that Lasser fails to disclose the disputed limitation. We do not reach Appellant's further allegations of error because we find the issue discussed above to be dispositive of the rejection of claim 35 and of claims 36-68 which include similar limitations. For the foregoing reasons, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 35---68. DECISION We reverse the Examiner's rejection of claims 35-68. REVERSED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation