Ex Parte Rupanagunta et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

May 2, 2016

11353698 (P.T.A.B. May. 2, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
111353,698 02/14/2006
57299 7590 05/04/2016
Kathy Manke
A vago Technologies Limited
4380 Ziegler Road
Fort Collins, CO 80525
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Sriram Rupanagunta
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.
491442029800 7506
EXAMINER
MAMO, ELIAS
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2184
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/04/2016 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):
kathy.manke@broadcom.com
patent.info@broadcom.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SRIRAM RUP ANAGUNTA, CHAIT ANY A TUMULURI,
T AUFIK TU AN MA, AMAR AJIT KAPADIA, and
RANGARAJBAKTHAVATHSALAM
Appeal2014-008052
Application 11/353,698
Technology Center 2100
Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, NATHAN A. ENGELS, and
NORMAN H. BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 30-32. 1 Claims 1-29 are cancelled. We have
jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm.
1 In the Appeal Brief, Appellants identify Emulex Corporation as the real
party in interest. (App. Br. 1.)
Appeal2014-008052
Application 11/353,698
THE INVENTION
Appellants' disclosed and claimed invention is directed to
management of I/O access for host subsystems that share I/O peripherals.
(Abstract.) Claim 30, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed
subject matter:
30. A method of managing I/O requests associated with a
plurality of host subsystems, the method comprising:
receiving a first I/O request associated with an I/O
function from a first host subsystem from among the plurality of
host subsystems;
retrieving a context associated with the first host
subsystem;
selectively updating the context;
selectively, based on a state of a target device, queuing the
first I/O request in a list that is specific to the context;
determining an appropriate protocol associated with the
first I/O request;
performing one or more I/O operations on the first I/O
request, the one or more operations on the first I/O request
determined by the protocol associated with the first I/O request,
the step of performing one or more I/O operations on the first I/O
request resulting in a second I/O request;
sending the second I/O request to a remote I/O peripheral,
data in the second I/O request being associated with a requested
action;
receiving a return I/O request from the remote I/O
peripheral, the return I/O request associated with the second I/O
request;
retrieving again the context associated with the first host
subsystem;
selectively updating again the context associated with the
first host subsystem;
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Application 11/353,698
selectively dequeuing the first I/O request;
performing one or more operations on the return I/O
request, the one or more operations on the return I/O request
determined by a protocol associated with the return I/O request,
the step of performing one or more operations on the return I/O
request resulting in a third I/O request;
sending to the first host subsystem the third I/O request.
REJECTION
The Examiner rejected claims 30-32 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Hill et al. (US 5,924,097, issued July 13, 1999)
("Hill") and Taguchi et al. (US 2006/0041595 Al, pub. Feb. 23, 2006)
("Taguchi"). (Final Act. 2-15.)
ISSUE ON APPEAL
Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following
issue:2
Whether the combination of Hill and Taguchi teaches or suggests the
independent claim 30 limitations:
performing one or more I/O operations on the first I/O
request ... the step of performing one or more I/O operations on
the first I/O request resulting in a second I/O request. .. [,]
rece1vmg a return I/O request from the remote I/O
peripheral. .. [,]
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and positions of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Feb. 3, 2014) ("App. Br."),
Reply Brief (filed Jun. 26, 2014) ("Reply Br."), Final Office Action (mailed
Sept. 18, 2013) ("Final Act."), and the Examiner's Answer (mailed May 8,
2014) ("Ans.") for the respective details.
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Application 11/353,698
performing one or more operations on the return I/O
request ... the step of performing one or more operations on the
return I/O request resulting in a third I/O request. .. [,]
and similar limitations recited in independent claims 31 and 32. (App. Br.
5-20.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants' arguments,
and we adopt as our own: ( 1) the findings and reasons set forth by the
Examiner in the Action from which this appeal is taken (Final Act. 2-15);
and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in
response to Appellants' Appeal Brief (Ans. 16-22). We concur with the
conclusions reached by the Examiner, and emphasize the following.
The Examiner finds the claim limitations at issue are taught or
suggested by the disclosure in Hill of an I/O task management system that
includes load balancing queues, input message queues, and output message
queues to distribute I/O requests to and from different hosts. (Final Act. 2-
5; Hill Fig. 2, col. 4, 1. 66-col. 5, 1. 15.) In particular, the Examiner finds the
disclosure in Hill of: processing I/O requests in the input message queue
teaches or suggests "performing one or more I/O operations on the first I/O
request"; the resulting next I/O request moving up the queue as a result of
processing the prior I/O request teaches or suggests "performing one or more
I/O operations on the first I/O request resulting in a second I/O request";
sending a destination output message back to the originator of the I/O
request teaches or suggests "receiving a return I/O request from the remote
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Application 11/353,698
I/O peripheral"; processing the destination output message in the output
message queue teaches or suggests "performing one or more operations on
the return I/O request"; and the resulting next destination output message
moving up the output message queue as a result of processing the prior I/O
request teaches or suggests "performing one or more operations on the return
I/O request resulting in a third I/O request." (Id.)
Appellants argue processing I/O requests in the input message queue
as described in Hill is not performing I/O operations on I/O requests, as
required by the claims, citing the Specification provisions for processing I/O
requests after performing intermediate operations on those requests, which
operations can change the request. (App. Br. 5---6; Spec i-fi-139, 57.)3
Similarly, Appellants argue the disclosure in Hill of processing destination
messages in the output message queue, such as adding the destination
message to the queue, and dequeuing the message, is not performing the
claimed operations on return I/O requests. (App. Br. 8-9.) However, we
agree with the Examiner, under the broadest reasonable interpretation, the
claim language:
[D]oes not exclude "processing" of an I/O request as a type of
performance of one or more I/O operations on the I/O request
and
[A ]nything done to the return I/O request would be a
performance of an operation on that request. The host adding a
destination message to a queue is one type of operation.
3 Appellants cite to paragraph numbers in the published application; citations
to the Specification herein are to the differently numbered corresponding
paragraphs in the application as originally filed.
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Application 11/353,698
Dequeuing the message and sending it to the original host is
another type of operation.
(Ans. 17, 20.) Appellants' argument based on the embodiment described in
the Specification is unpersuasive, in that it attempts to limit the scope of the
claims to the disclosed embodiment. In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184
(Fed. Cir. 1993) ("In the patentability context, claims are to be given their
broadest reasonable interpretations ... limitations are not to be read into the
claims from the specification").
For the "second I/O request" limitation, Appellants argue the
Examiner errs in relying on the fact that, in Hill, a next I/O request moves up
the input message queue as a result of processing the prior I/O request,
because "Dequeuing the first I/O request merely causes a next I/O request
(independent of the first I/O request) to be moved up in the queue .... and
thus [the next I/O request] cannot 'result' from performing I/O operations on
the first I/O request." (App. Br. 6-7.) Appellants similarly argue Hill's
disclosure of dequeuing a destination message, which causes other
destination messages to move up the output message queue, does not teach
or suggest the "resulting in a third I/O request" of the claims. (App. Br. 9.)
The Examiner correctly rejects this argument:
[T]he Specification has not excluded processing an I/O request
as a type of performing an operation on the I/O request. . . . By
storing I/O requests in a queue before processing them, Hill has
disclosed that the I/O requests will be processed in a particular
order, namely the order in which they are queued. Thus, when
the host processes an I/O request in its queue, it "results" in the
next I/O request in the queue being in line to be processed next.
[The Specification] does not specify that performing an operation
on the first I/O request will cause the second I/O request to be
generated, received, or transmitted. It merely and vaguely states
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Application 11/353,698
it will "result" in a second I/O request. In light of the broadness
of the limitation, "resulting in a second I/O request," Hill's
system of processing I/O requests in a queue reads on the claim.
(Ans. 18-19, see also Ans. 21-22.)
Appellants further argue Hill's destination output message is not an
I/O request, and therefore cannot satisfy the required "return I/O request."
(App. Br. 7-8.) However, the Examiner correctly finds:
The claim does not specify what the return I/O request is or does.
Thus, in the context of the claim, a return I/O request is merely
an I/O communication that is transmitted from a remote I/O
peripheral to a processor. Steps 314-316 of figure 3 in Hill
discloses a remote host sending a destination output message
back to the original local host. Thus, an I/O communication is
sent from the remote host to the original local host.
(Ans. 19-20.)
CONCLUSION
For the reasons discussed above, we sustain the Examiner's rejection
of claims 30-32.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner's rejection of claims 30-32.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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