Ex Parte Janzen et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 26, 201613489246 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 26, 2016) Copy Citation UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/489,246 06/05/2012 15747 7590 03/01/2016 Dorsey & Whitney LLP-IP Dept.-MTI Columbia Center 701 5th Avenue, suite 6100 Seattle, WA 98104-7043 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Jeffrey W. Janzen 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. Pl85853.US.03 8259 EXAMINER YU, JAE UN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2135 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/01/2016 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): ip.docket.se@dorsey.com bingemang@dorsey.foundationip.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JEFFERY W. JANZE, BRENT KEETH, and JAMES S. CULLUM Appeal2014-003459 Application 13/489,246 Technology Center 2100 Before JOHNNY A. KUMAR, MELISSA A. RAAP ALA, and KAMRAN JIVANI, Administrative Patent Judges. RAAP ALA, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. Appeal2014-003459 Application 13/489,246 INVENTION Appellants' application is directed to decoding command signals to perform operations in a memory system based on the command signals and an operating state of the memory system. Spec. i-f 2. Claim 1 is representative of the subject matter on appeal: 1. An apparatus, comprising: a latch configured to receive a command, the command corresponding to first and second operations; and a command decoder coupled to the latch and configured to receive the command and a bank signal indicative of a state of a bank, the command decoder configured to perform the first operation responsive, at least in part, to the bank signal indicating the bank is in a first state and further configured to perform the second operation responsive, at least in part, to the bank signal indicating the bank is in a second state. REJECTIONS ON APPEAL Claims 1-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over the combination of Applicant's Admitted Prior Art ("AAPA") and Yu (US 2002/019448 Al; published Dec. 19, 2002). ISSUES Appellants' contentions present us with the following issues: 1 1 We decline to consider Appellants' argument regarding dependent claim 3 (Reply Br. 2-3) because Appellants present the argument for the first time in the Reply Brief and it is not responsive to an argument raised in the Examiner's Answer. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.41(b)(2) ("Any argument raised in the reply brief which was not raised in the appeal brief, or is not responsive to an argument raised in the examiner's answer, including any designated 2 Appeal2014-003459 Application 13/489,246 A) Did the Examiner err in finding the combined teachings of AAP A and Yu teach or suggest "the command corresponding to first and second operations" ("command" limitation), as recited in claim 1? B) Did the Examiner err in finding the combined teachings of AAPA and Yu teach or suggest "performing an operation from a first set of operations in accordance with the command signals" and "performing an operation from a second set of operations in accordance with the command signals" ("performing first and second operations" limitations), as recited in claim 8?2 ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in consideration of Appellants' contentions. We disagree with Appellants' conclusions that the Examiner's rejections of the claims are in error. Issue A: Claims 1-7 and 16--20 Appellants contend the combination of AAP A and Yu does not teach or suggest the "command" limitation recited in claim 1. App. Br. 8-9; Reply Br. 2. Specifically, Appellants argue the control signals RAS#, CAS#, and WE# described in AAP A correspond to a single operation. App. Br. 8-9. Appellants further argue Yu describes that its signals are provided new ground of rejection, will not be considered by the Board for purposes of the present appeal, unless good cause is shown."). 2 We note that on page 8 of Appellants' Brief, both the section two header and first paragraph of section two state these limitations are recited in claims 1 and 16. We understand these references to be typographical errors because later paragraphs of this section refer to the limitations as recited in claim 8 (App. Br. 11 ), the limitations are, in fact, recited in claim 8 and not claims 1 and 16, and the Reply Brief refers to the argument as applying to claim 8 (Reply Br. 3). 3 Appeal2014-003459 Application 13/489,246 independent of any particular type of command being performed and do not correspond to any particular operations. Reply Br. 2. We are not persuaded by these arguments. The Examiner finds, and we agree, Yu teaches receiving a command (read/write request) that corresponds to a first operation (sending a RAS request) and a second operation (sending a busy signal). Ans. 6 (citing Yu i-f 28). Appellants do not provide persuasive argument that the broadest reasonable interpretation of "corresponding" does not encompass operations performed responsive to a command. Furthermore, we observe the claim does not preclude the same first and second operations from being performed in response to different commands. Appellants fail to persuade us that Yu does not teach or suggest the "command" limitation recited in claim 1. Accordingly, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of: (1) claim 1; (2) independent claim 16, for which Appellants rely on the same arguments made for claim 1 (App. Br. 9); and (3) dependent claims 2-7 and 17-20, which are not separately argued. Arguments not made are considered waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). Issue B: Claims 8-15 Appellants contend the combination of AAP A and Yu does not teach or suggest the "performing first and second operations" limitations recited in claim 8. 3 App. Br. 10-11; Reply Br. 3. We disagree. We agree with the Examiner's findings that Yu teaches responsive to (in accordance with) a read or write request (command), sending a RAS request (first operation) if 3 See note 2. 4 Appeal2014-003459 Application 13/489,246 the memory bank is available or sending a busy signal (second operation) if the memory bank is busy. Ans. 6-7 (citing Yu i-fi-18, 9, 28). Appellants do not provide persuasive argument that the broadest reasonable interpretation of "in accordance with" does not encompass operations performed responsive to a command. Therefore, we are not persuaded of error and we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claim 8 and its dependent claims 9-15, which are not separately argued. Arguments not made are considered waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(l)(iv). DECISION We affirm the Examiner's decision to reject claims 1-20. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(±). AFFIRMED 5 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation