11419936 (B.P.A.I. Apr. 21, 2010)

Ex Parte Leveille et al

Board of Patent Appeals and InterferencesApr 21, 2010

11419936 (B.P.A.I. Apr. 21, 2010)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS AND INTERFERENCES ____________ Ex parte PAUL A. LEVEILLE, THOMAS D. BISSETT, STEPHEN S. CORBIN, JERRY MELNICK, GLENN A. TREMBLAY, SATOSHI WATANABE, and KEIICHI KOYAMA ____________ Appeal 2009-012400 Application 11/419,9361 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Decided: April 22, 2010 ____________ Before LEE E. BARRETT, LANCE LEONARD BARRY, and CAROLYN D. THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judges. THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL 1 Application filed May 23, 2006. The real party in interest is Marathon Technologies Corporation. Appeal 2009-012400 Application 11/419,936 2 I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1-8, 10-17, and 19-25. Claims 1-32 are pending in the application, with claims 26-32 allowed, claims 9 and 18 objected to, and claims 1-8, 10- 17, and 19-25 rejected. Appellants’ request for an Oral Hearing was waived. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. A. INVENTION Appellants invented a system, method, and computer readable medium for providing a symmetric multiprocessing fault-tolerant computer system that controls memory access. (Spec. 49, Abstract.) B. ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM The appeal contains claims 1-32. Claims 1, 10, 19, and 26 are independent claims. Claim 1 is illustrative: 1. A method of implementing a fault-tolerant computer system using symmetric multiprocessing computer systems, the method comprising controlling at least one of the symmetric multiprocessing computer systems by: creating virtual paging structures, a virtual paging structure being associated with a processor in the symmetric multiprocessing computer system and reflecting physical page access privileges to shared memory for the processor; and controlling access to shared memory based on physical page access privileges reflected in the virtual paging structures to coordinate deterministic shared memory access between processors in the symmetric multiprocessing computer system. Appeal 2009-012400 Application 11/419,936 3 C. REFERENCES The references relied upon by the Examiner as evidence in rejecting the claims on appeal are as follows: Sznyter, III US 4,758,951 Jul. 19, 1988 Devine US 6,397,242 B1 May 28, 2002 Altman US 6,907,477 B2 June 14, 2005 Martin US 7,080,375 B2 Jul. 18, 2006 D. REJECTIONS The Examiner entered the following rejections which are before us for review: (1) Claims 1-3, 10-12, 20, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Altman; and (2) Claims 4, 5, 13, 14, 22, and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Altman in view of Devine; (3) Claims 6, 7, 15, 16, 24, and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Altman in view of Sznyter; and (4) Claims 8, 17, and 192 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Altman in view of Martin. 2 Claim 19 is an independent claim rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Altman and Martin (Ans. 7), yet the claims dependent upon claim 19 are not rejected under Martin. In order to expedite this Appeal, we shall treat independent claim 19, like independent claims 1 and 10, as being rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) over Altman. Appeal 2009-012400 Application 11/419,936 4 II. FINDINGS OF FACT The following findings of fact (FF) are supported by a preponderance of the evidence. Altman 1. Altman discloses that “[e]ach direct memory access controller comprises an address translation mechanism thereby enabling each associated attached processing unit to access the shared memory in a restricted manner without an address translation mechanism.” (Abstract.) 2. In Altman, “[t]he associated direct memory access controller is configured to translate the range of virtual addresses into an associated range of physical addresses.” (Id.) III. PRINCIPLES OF LAW In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102, “[a] single prior art reference that discloses, either expressly or inherently, each limitation of a claim invalidates that claim by anticipation.” Perricone v. Medicis Pharm. Corp., 432 F.3d 1368, 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (citing Minn. Mining & Mfg. Co. v. Johnson & Johnson Orthopaedics, Inc., 976 F.2d 1559, 1565 (Fed. Cir. 1992)). “What matters is the objective reach of the claim. If the claim extends to what is obvious, it is invalid under § 103.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 419 (2007). To be nonobvious, an improvement must be “more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions.” Id. at 417. Appeal 2009-012400 Application 11/419,936 5 IV. ANALYSIS Common Feature in All Claims Our representative claim 1, recites, inter alia, “a virtual paging structure . . . reflecting physical page access privileges to shared memory for the processor.” Independent claims 10 and 19 recite similar limitations. Thus, the scope of each of the independent claims includes a virtual paging structure reflecting physical page access privileges to shared memory. The Anticipation Rejection Claims 1, 10, and 19 Appellants contend: Altman’s address translation mechanism does not constitute a virtual paging structure that reflects physical page access privileges to shared memory for the processor as recited. Instead, it merely provides a mechanism by which virtual addresses may be mapped to physical addresses and provides no indication as to whether a particular processing unit has access privileges to particular pages of the shared memory. (App. Br. 4-5.) The Examiner found that Altman discloses “that each direct memory access controller comprises an address translation mechanism (for translating the virtual to physical addresses and vice versa) thereby enabling each associated attached processing unit to access the shared memory in a restricted manner without an address translation mechanism.” (Ans. 8-9.) Appeal 2009-012400 Application 11/419,936 6 Issue: Have Appellants shown that the Examiner erred in finding that Altman discloses a virtual page structure reflecting physical page access privileges to shared memory? The Examiner directs our attention to Altman’s Abstract and found that Altman discloses a direct memory access controller comprising an address translation mechanism that accesses the shared memory in a restricted manner. (FF 1-2) The Examiner thereby concluded that because the address translation mechanism must be used in Altman to access physical pages, this reflects physical page access privileges (Ans. 9.) We disagree. While Altman discloses translating virtual addresses to physical addresses (FF 2) and accessing the shared memory in a restricted manner (FF 1), the Examiner has not shown that such “restricted access” amounts to access privileges. A “privilege” denotes some type of right or authority over an item. Here, the Examiner has not shown how Altman’s restricted access denotes any type of right or authority over the shared memory. Instead, “restricted access” suggests a diminished ability to access the shared memory. Neither the Examiner nor Altman’s Abstract explains what the “restricted manner” entails. Furthermore, the Examiner has not shown, and we do not readily find any “physical page access privileges” in Altman. Without more of an explanation from the Examiner to correlate the teachings of Altman to the claimed “physical page access privileges,” we do not see how the cited portions of the Abstract correspond to “physical page access privileges” as recited in claim 1. Appeal 2009-012400 Application 11/419,936 7 Since we agree with at least one of the arguments advanced by Appellants, we need not reach the merits of Appellants’ other arguments. It follows that Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred in finding Altman renders the claims unpatentable. Thus, Appellants have persuaded us of error in the Examiner’s conclusion of anticipation for representative claim 1. Therefore, we reverse the Examiner’s § 102 rejection of independent claim 1 and of claims 2, 3, 10-12, and 19-21, which stand therewith. The Obviousness Rejection Given that the Examiner has not shown how Devine, Sznyter, and Martin cure the above-noted deficiencies of Altman, we cannot sustain the rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Therefore, we also reverse the Examiner’s § 103 rejection of claims 4-8, 13-17, and 22-25. V. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1-8, 10-17, and 19-25. VI. DECISION In view of the foregoing discussion, we reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-8, 10-17, and 19-25. REVERSED Appeal 2009-012400 Application 11/419,936 8 Erc FISH & RICHARDSON P.C. P.O. BOX 1022 MINNEAPOLIS MN 55440-1022