Ex Parte Nuechterlein

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Feb 11, 2016

13538765 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 11, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/538,765 06/29/2012
102324 7590 02/16/2016
Artegis Law Group, LLP/NVIDIA
7710 Cherry Park Drive Suite T #104
Houston, TX 77095
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
David William Nuechterlein
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.
NVDA/P002951-US1-CON1 2380
EXAMINER
CALDWELL, ANDREW T
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2183
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
02/16/2016 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):
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 DAVID WILLIAM NUECHTERLEIN
Appeal 2014-003811
Application 13/538,765
Technology Center 2100
Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., HUNG H. BUI, and
DANIEL N. FISHMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
BUI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant 1 seeks our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the
Examiner's final rejection of claims 1-20. We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE. 2
1 The Real Party in Interest is NVIDIA Corporation. App. Br. 3.
2 Our Decision refers to Appellant's Appeal Brief filed October 8, 2013
("App. Br."); Reply Brief filed February 10, 2014 ("Reply Br."); Examiner's
Answer mailed December 9, 2013 ("Ans."); Final Office Action mailed
March 7, 2013 ("Final Act."); and original Specification filed June 29, 2012
("Spec.").
Appeal 2014-003811
Application 13/538,765
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant's Invention
Appellant's invention relates to a system and method for performing a
sequence of fetches from memory when a cache cannot be used to improve
memory access efficiency. Spec. i-f 4, and Abstract. Claims 1 and 10 are
independent. Claim 1 is illustrative of Appellant's invention and is
reproduced with disputed limitations emphasized below:
1. A method for coalescing fetch requests for
multiple data classes, comprising:
receiving a plurality of fetch requests in an instruction
stream first-in first-out (FIFO) buffer stored in a memory;
aligning the plurality of fetch requests to a preferred
memory alignment based on the width of the memory to
produce one or more aligned fetch requests;
unrolling the one or more aligned fetch requests to
produce one or more unrolled fetch requests, wherein each
unrolled fetch request is less than or equal to a maximum fetch
request size;
for each data class in a plurality of data classes:
combining any two or more sequential unrolled
fetch requests associated with the data class to produce
one or more coalesced fetch requests for the data class,
and
fetching data specified by the coalesced fetch
request from the memory; and
outputting an instruction stream that includes the data
associated with each coalesced fetch request, wherein the
instruction stream is ordered according to the order the plurality
of fetch requests were received.
App. Br. 16 (Claims App'x.).
2
Appeal 2014-003811
Application 13/538,765
Schinnerer
Nordquist
Evidence Considered
us 6,002,412
US 7,492,368 Bl
Dec. 14, 1999
Feb. 17,2009
Andrew S. Tanenbaum ,"Structured Computer Organization,"
2nd Edition, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1984 (hereinafter referred as
"Tanebaum").
"Porting Unix To The 386: A Practical Approach," William &
Lynne Jolitz, 2009 (hereinafter referred as "Jolitz").
Examiner's Re} ections3
(1) Claims 1-19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Schinnerer, Tanenbaum, Jolitz, and Nordquist. Ans. 3-9.
(2) Claim 20 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Schinnerer, Tanenbaum, Jolitz, Nordquist, and Official
Notice. Ans. 9-10.
Issue on Appeal
Based on Appellant's arguments, the dispositive issue is whether the
Examiner's combination of Schinnerer, Tanenbaum, Jolitz, and Nordquist
discloses or suggests several disputed limitations of independent claims 1
and 20, including:
(1) "aligning the plurality of fetch requests to a
preferred memory alignment based on the width of the memory
to produce one or more aligned fetch requests;" and
3 We note that the Examiner has changed the grounds of rejection from an
obviousness rejection of claims 1-20 based on Schinnerer, Tanenbaum, and
Official Notice as originally outlined in the Final Rejection (Final Act. 2-8)
to two different rejections listed above. Because Appellant does not dispute
the change, we need not address this issue on appeal.
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Application 13/538,765
(2) "for each data class in a plurality of data classes:
combining any two or more sequential
unrolled fetch requests associated with the data
class to produce one or more coalesced fetch
requests for the data class."
App. Br. 10-14; Reply Br. 5-12.
ANALYSIS
In support of the rejection of claims 1 and 10, the Examiner finds
Schinnerer discloses the disputed limitation: "aligning the plurality of fetch
requests to a preferred memory alignment based on the width of the memory
to produce one or more aligned fetch requests." Ans. 3 (citing Schinnerer
14:50-57).
Appellant contends Schinnerer does not teach or suggest: "aligning
the plurality of fetch requests to a preferred memory alignment based on the
width of the memory to produce one or more aligned fetch requests" as
recited in claims 1 and 20 (emphasis added). App. Br. 10-12; Reply Br. 5-
8. In particular, Appellant argues Schinnerer only teaches a technique for
reordering a stream of data references (e.g., pixels) such that data references
having common row portions are grouped together in order to reduce delays
associated with switching between rows and/or memory banks. App. Br. 10
(citing Schinnerer 2:53---60, 5:42--49, 6:26-36, Abstract). According to
Appellant, "grouping data references having the same row address
(Schinnerer) is not the same as aligning the data references to a preferred
memory alignment based on the width of the memory (as claimed)." Id.
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Appeal 2014-003811
Application 13/538,765
The Examiner responds that: ( 1) the term "preferred memory
alignment" is not defined in the claims or Appellant's Specification, and, in
the absence of a definition from the Specification, (2) such a term can be
broadly interpreted to encompass "the same row of memory are grouped
together" as disclosed by Schinnerer. Ans. 10.
We do not agree with the Examiner. At the outset, we note that claim
terms are given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the
Specification. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1369 (Fed.
Cir. 2004). However, the broadest-construction rubric does not give the
PTO an unfettered license to interpret the words in a claim without regard
for the full claim language and the written description. In re Suitco Surface
Inc., 94 USPQ2d 1640, 1644 (Fed. Cir. 2010). Rather, claims should always
be read in light of the specification and teachings in the underlying patent.
See Schriber-Schroth Co. v. Cleveland Trust Co., 311 U.S. 211, 217 (1940).
As correctly recognized by Appellant, claims 1 and 20 recite the
"preferred memory alignment" in connection with "the width of the memory
to produce one or more aligned fetch requests." Reply Br. 5. Paragraphs 51
and 57 of Appellant's Specification provide specific examples of the term
"preferred memory alignment" in connection with the memory width. Id.
As pointed out by Appellant, the Examiner's broad interpretation of the term
"preferred memory alignment" is not reasonable because such an
interpretation does not account for "the width of the memory to produce one
or more aligned fetch requests" in the manner recited in claims 1 and 10. Id.
Separately, Appellant also contends the cited references do not teach
or suggest: "for each data class in a plurality of data classes: combining any
two or more sequential unrolled fetch requests associated with the data class
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Appeal 2014-003811
Application 13/538,765
to produce one or more coalesced fetch requests for the data class" as recited
in claim 1, and similarly recited in claim 10. App. Br. 13-14; Reply Br. 10-
12.
The Examiner acknowledges Schinnerer does not teach reference to
"multiple data classes" and "unrolling the one or more aligned fetch requests
to produce one or more unrolled fetch requests, wherein each unrolled fetch
request is less than or equal to a maximum fetch request size" as recited in
claims 1 and 10. Ans. 4. Nevertheless, the Examiner relies on: (1) Jolitz
for allegedly teaching different data classes, and (2) Nordquist for allegedly
describing "why breaking up an illegal fetch request into multiple legal fetch
requests is beneficial/necessary" to support the finding that the combination
of Schinnerer, Jolitz, and Nordquist teaches or suggests the disputed
limitation: "for each data class in a plurality of data classes: combining any
two or more sequential unrolled fetch requests associated with the data class
to produce one or more coalesced fetch requests for the data class" as recited
in claims 1 and 10. Ans. 12-13.
The Examiner's findings are not supported by evidence. To establish
a prima facie case of obviousness, the Examiner must articulate some
objective reason to combine the teachings of the references, and that this
reasoning must have some rationale underpinning. "[R ]ejections on
obviousness grounds cannot be sustained by mere conclusory statements;
instead, there must be some articulated reasoning with some rational
underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness." In re Kahn,
441F.3d977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006), cited with approval in KSR, 550 U.S. at
418. The reasoning is important "because inventions in most, if not all,
instances rely upon building blocks long since uncovered, and claimed
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Application 13/538,765
discoveries almost of necessity will be combinations of what, in some sense,
is already known." Id. at 418-19.
As recognized by Appellant, neither Schinnerer nor Jolitz nor
Nordquist, whether taken individually or in combination, discloses or
suggests Appellant's claimed "for each data class in a plurality of data
classes: combining any two or more sequential unrolled fetch requests
associated with the data class to produce one or more coalesced fetch
requests for the data class" as recited in claims 1 and 10. App. Br. 13; Reply
Br. 10. The Examiner has not explained how (1) the alleged data classes
disclosed by Jolitz and (2) the alleged "breaking up an illegal fetch request
into multiple legal fetch requests" as disclosed by Norquist relevant in the
context of Schinnerer and how Schinnerer can be modified to incorporate the
teachings of Jolitz and Nordquist, from the perspective of a skilled artisan, to
arrive at the disputed limitation. In addition, the Examiner has not explained
how the proffered modification of Schinnerer accounts for all the features of
the claims.
For the reasons set forth above, we do not sustain the Examiner's
rejection of claims 1 and 10 and dependent claims 2-9 and 11-19, which
Appellant does not argue separately.
CONCLUSION
On the record before us, we conclude that the Examiner has erred in
rejecting claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
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Appeal 2014-003811
Application 13/538,765
DECISION
As such, we REVERSE the Examiner's final rejection of claims 1-20.
REVERSED
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