Ex parte Sefidvash

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Apr 28, 2000

08255518 (B.P.A.I. Apr. 28, 2000)

THIS OPINION WAS NOT WRITTEN FOR PUBLICATION
The opinion in support of the decision being entered today (1) was
not written for publication in a law journal and (2) is not binding
precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 20
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte KHORVASH SEFIDVASH
____________
Appeal No. 1997-4221
Application No. 08/255,518
____________
ON BRIEF
____________
Before KRASS, BARRETT, and BARRY, Administrative Patent Judges.
KRASS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on appeal from the final rejection of
claims 1 through 3 and 7, all of the claims remaining in the
application.
Appeal No. 1997-4221 Page 2
Application No. 08/255,518
The invention pertains to reliability testing of data
being transferred in a computer system. More particularly, the
invention concerns an on-the-fly integrity checking system that
duplicates data passing through a main system bus and functions
concurrently to recognize the size of data blocks being
transferred from a sending module to a receiving module. Each
word of data transferred is immediately parity checked to
indicate the validity or invalidity of the data transfer. No
delay is involved in the data transfer operations of the main
system bus because the integrity checking system operates on-
the-fly independently as an independent module, which does not
delay data transfers on the main system bus.
Independent claim 1 is reproduced as follows:
1. A digital system for establishing the integrity of
data transfers between a first transmitting module connected by
a bus means to a second receiving module, said system
comprising:
(a) bus means connecting said first and second modules
and enabling the parallel transmission of words of data;
(b) means to determine the size of each block of data
being transferred on said bus means;
(c) wherein each said block of data being transferred
includes:
Appeal No. 1997-4221 Page 3
Application No. 08/255,518
(c1) a header portion indicating the size of the
data block;
(c2) an original Error Detection Code (OEDC)
signature which sets a digital value to the data words in said
data block to be transferred;
(d) means to integrity check, concurrently on-the-fly,
each said word and each said data block transferred from said
first module to said second module without any delay to the
data transfer operation, including:
(d1) means to generate an error code value for
each data word transferred including:
(d1a) means to accumulate said error code values
to form an internally generated resultant Error Detection Code
Signature (REDC) after transfer of all the words in said block
of data;
(d2) counter means for holding the number of
words in the data block being transferred and including:
(d2a) means to reduce the amount in said counter
means for each word transferred until reaching a zero count
limit for the block size;
(d2b) means to initiate a comparison of said
internally generated resultant REDC with said original OEDC
after said zero count to see if a match occurs;
(d3) means to transmit an error signal if a match
does not occur;
(d4) input register means to momentarily copy, during
word transfers, each word being transferred;
(d5) means to determine the parity of each said word
being transferred;
Appeal No. 1997-4221 Page 4
Application No. 08/255,518
(d6) means to signal an error flag should the
determined parity of said word be inconsistent.
The examiner relies on the following references:
DeRoo et al. (DeRoo) 5,182,752 Jan. 26,
1993
Tsang et al. (Tsang) 5,243,604 Sep. 7,
1993
Claims 1 through 3 and 7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
103 as unpatentable over Deroo in view of Tsang.
Reference is made to the brief and answer for the
respective positions of appellant and the examiner.
OPINION
We reverse as the examiner has clearly not established a
prima facie case of obviousness with regard to the instant
claimed subject matter.
The examiner applies Deroo against independent claim 1,
citing, at page 4 of the answer, various portions of Deroo
Appeal No. 1997-4221 Page 5
Application No. 08/255,518
We are skeptical about whether Deroo, in fact, discloses1
all the features contended by the examiner as corresponding to
the claimed subject matter.
which the examiner considers to correspond to the claimed
elements. The examiner recognizes, however, that Deroo fails
to disclose or suggest the integrity check “concurrently on-
the-fly,” as claimed. The examiner then turns to Tsang for a
teaching of “on-the-fly” error correction and concludes that it
would have been obvious to combine Tsang with Deroo “because
this allows the next codeword to be sent before the preceding
word is actually corrected” [answer-page 5].
Even, assuming, arguendo, that Deroo discloses all that
the examiner says it does , the examiner’s combination of Deroo1
with Tsang appears to be based on hindsight rather than on
anything suggested by either reference. We find no reason,
either within the references themselves or within the artisan’s
knowledge, for an artisan to have been led to modify Deroo in
any way by the teachings of Tsang. It is not even clear to us
how such a combination would be made even if, somehow, there
was a suggestion to make it. The examiner contends, in the
Appeal No. 1997-4221 Page 6
Application No. 08/255,518
face of appellant’s objection to the combination, that
“combining hardware with hardware is not of importance with
respect to the rejection” [answer-page 8]. We disagree.
Without some suggestion as to how the structures of Deroo and
Tsang would be combined, there would have been no reason for
the artisan to have done so. It appears to us that appellant
is correct when he contends that the examiner is attempting to
combine abstract “concepts” rather than practical
implementations. From a practical implementation view, there
would have been no reason for the artisan to modify Deroo with
Tsang and no clear direction as to how such a modification
would be made if there were some direction to do so.
Although Tsang does disclose an “on-the-fly” system, there
is no indication that it is even the same type of “on-the-fly”
system envisioned, and claimed, by appellant. Neither Tsang
nor Deroo discloses or suggests data transfers between a first,
SCSI Protocol Controller module and a second buffer memory
module, as claimed. Moreover, Tsang’s on-the-fly error
correction system does not appear to integrity check each word
and data block transferred from a first to a second module
Appeal No. 1997-4221 Page 7
Application No. 08/255,518
“without any delay to the data transfer operation,” as claimed.
Since the encoder/decoder of Tsang is not connected to the bus,
in parallel with the modules, as disclosed and suggestively
claimed by appellant, it would appear that there would be an
inherent delay in any data transfer in Tsang, unlike the
instant claimed system. We do not find that the artisan would
have found any advantage in attempting to modify the Deroo
system with that of Tsang even if such a combination was,
somehow, suggested by the prior art which, in our view, the
examiner has not shown.
In our view, the examiner has chosen, without any
suggestion in the prior art for doing so, bits and pieces of
the instant claimed invention from the prior art (the data
transfer of Deroo and the “on-the-fly” teaching of Tsang) and
thrown these pieces together in a haphazard attempt to meet the
instant claim language. 35 U.S.C. 103 requires some reasonable
suggestion for combining the teachings of the prior art. We
find no such suggestion in the evidence provided by the
examiner.
Appeal No. 1997-4221 Page 8
Application No. 08/255,518
Accordingly, the examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1
through 3 and 7 under 35 U.S.C. 103 is reversed.
REVERSED
ERROL A. KRASS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
LEE E. BARRETT ) APPEALS
Administrative Patent Judge ) AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
LANCE LEONARD BARRY )
Administrative Patent Judge )
EAK/jlb
Appeal No. 1997-4221 Page 9
Application No. 08/255,518
ALFRED W. KOZAK
UNISYS CORPORATION
MS 1000
10850 VIA FRONTERA
SAN DIEGO, CA 92127