Ex Parte Thayer

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

May 17, 2011

11115675 (B.P.A.I. May. 17, 2011)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte LARRY J. THAYER
____________
Appeal 2009-010054
Application 11/115,6751
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before HOWARD B. BLANKENSHIP, JEAN R. HOMERE, and
MICHAEL R. ZECHER, Administrative Patent Judges.

ZECHER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

1 Filed on April 27, 2005. The real party in interest is Hewlett-Packard
Development Co., L.P. (App. Br. 1.)
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I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) (2002) from the
Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1-5, 7-15, and 17-40. (App. Br. 2.)
Claims 6 and 16 have been cancelled. (Id.) We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b) (2008).
We affirm.
Appellant’s Invention
Appellant invented a method and apparatus for implementing a power
throttling scheme for one or more memory controllers disposed on a
computer system. (Spec. 3, ¶ [0009].)

Illustrative Claim
Independent claim 1 further illustrates the invention as follows:
1. A power throttling method for a memory
controller, comprising:

providing at least a first and second throttle value in said
memory controller, said at least first and second throttle values
for controlling memory operation cycles issued by said memory
controller to one or more memory devices;

monitoring power supplied from a power module to said
one or more memory devices;

if said supplied power is greater than a predetermined
value, generating a throttle control signal; and

responsive to said throttle control signal, selecting by
said memory controller a lower value of said at least first and
second throttle values, whereby said memory operation cycles
are issued to said one or more memory devices at a reduced
rate.
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Prior Art Relied Upon
The Examiner relies on the following prior art as evidence of
unpatentability:
Miyai US 5,537,584 Jul. 16, 1996
Kahn US 6,662,278 B1 Dec. 9, 2003
Sawyers US 2003/0126474 A1 Jul. 3, 2003
Kumar US 2005/0283624 A1 Dec. 22, 2005
(filed Jun. 17, 2004)

Rejections on Appeal
The Examiner rejects the claims on appeal as follows:
Claims 1, 5, 7, 11, 15, 18, 21, 25-30, and 34-38 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Kahn and
Miyai.
Claims 8-10, 17, 19, 20, 39, and 40 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Kahn, Miyai, and
Sawyers.
Claims 2-4, 12-14, 22-24, and 31-33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Kahn, Miyai, and
Kumar.

Appellant’s Contentions
According to Appellant, basic physics indicates that power is voltage
times current. (Reply Br. 2). Consequently, Appellant argues that since
voltage is not equivalent to power, the Examiner incorrectly mixes the
physical units of power and voltage. (App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 2-3.) Therefore,
Appellant alleges that Miyai’s disclosure of monitoring voltage to a memory
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board does not teach or fairly suggest “monitoring power supplied from a
power module to said one or more memory devices,” as recited in
independent claim 1. (Id.) Further, Appellant contends that Miyai’s
disclosure of an enable signal is not a throttle control signal that is based on
supplied power. (App. Br. 9; Reply Br. 2.) Therefore, Appellant argues that
Miyai does not teach or fairly suggest “if said supplied power is greater than
a predetermined value, generating a throttle control signal,” as recited in
independent claim 1. (Id.)

Examiner’s Findings and Conclusions
The Examiner finds that Miyai discloses a power supply circuit,
which comprises a voltage detecting circuit that detects whether the voltage
supplied from an external apparatus exceeds a predetermined value. (Ans.
8-9.) Therefore, the Examiner finds that Miyai teaches or fairly suggests
“monitoring power supplied from a power module to said one or more
memory devices,” as recited in independent claim 1. (Id.) Additionally, the
Examiner finds that when the voltage supplied from an external apparatus
exceeds a predetermined value, Miyai discloses that an enable signal
generating circuit generates an enable signal. (Id. at 9-10.) Therefore, the
Examiner finds that Miyai teaches or fairly suggests “if said supplied power
is greater than a predetermined value, generating a throttle control signal,” as
recited in independent claim 1. (Id.)

II. ISSUE
Has Appellant shown that the Examiner erred in concluding that the
combination of Kahn and Miyai renders independent claim 1 unpatentable?
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In particular, the issue turns on whether the proffered combination teaches or
fairly suggests the following claim limitations:
(a) “monitoring power supplied from a power module to said one
or more memory devices,” as recited in independent claim 1; and
(b) “if said supplied power is greater than a predetermined value,
generating a throttle control signal,” as recited in independent claim 1.

III. FINDINGS OF FACT
The following Findings of Fact (hereinafter “FF”) are shown by a
preponderance of the evidence.
Miyai
FF 1. Miyai discloses a memory card that comprises a power supply
circuit, which includes a voltage detecting circuit that detects whether or not
the voltage supplied from an external apparatus exceeds a predetermined
value. (Col. 3, ll. 35-38; see also col. 5, ll. 57-59.) Miyai also discloses that
the memory card includes an enable signal generating circuit that receives a
detection signal from the voltage detection circuit, generates an enable
signal, and sends the enable signal to a decoder at a timing following
unstable time periods of input signals. (Col. 3, ll. 38-43.)

IV. ANALYSIS
Claim 1
Independent claim 1 recites, inter alia: 1) “monitoring power
supplied from a power module to said one or more memory devices;” and 2)
“if said supplied power is greater than a predetermined value, generating a
throttle control signal.”
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As detailed in the Findings of Fact section above, Miyai discloses a
memory card that includes a power supply circuit, which utilizes a voltage
detecting circuit incorporated therein to monitor the voltage supplied from
an external apparatus. (FF 1.) We find Miyai’s disclosure teaches
monitoring the voltage supplied from an external apparatus to a memory
card. Further, we are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument that the
Examiner contradicts a basic law of physics by asserting that voltage is
equivalent to detecting power. (Reply Br. 1-2.) We find that an ordinarily
skilled artisan would have understood that voltage is a component that is
utilized in the computation of power. Therefore, since power is based, at
least in part, on voltage, we find that Miyai’s disclosure of monitoring the
voltage supplied from an external apparatus to a memory card would have
allowed an ordinarily skilled artisan to readily ascertain the power supplied
from the external apparatus to the memory card. Thus, we find that Miyai
teaches or fairly suggests “monitoring power supplied from a power module
to said one or more memory devices,” as recited in independent claim 1.
Next, Miyai discloses that the voltage detecting circuit detects
whether the voltage from an external apparatus exceeds a predetermined
level. (FF 1.) Upon receiving a detection signal from the voltage detecting
circuit, Miyai discloses that an enable signal generating circuit generates and
sends an enable signal. (Id.) In light of our analysis above, if power from an
external apparatus exceeds a predetermined level, we find that an ordinarily
skilled artisan would have understood that Miyai’s enable signal generating
circuit generates an enable signal. Moreover, since the generation of the
enable signal is based on the power supplied from an external apparatus, we
find that an ordinarily skilled artisan would have appreciated that Miyai’s
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enable signal amounts to the “throttle control signal,” as claimed. Thus, we
find that Miyai teaches or fairly suggests “if said supplied power is greater
than a predetermined value, generating a throttle control signal,” as recited
in independent claim 1. It follows that Appellant has not shown that the
Examiner erred in concluding that the combination of Kahn and Miyai
renders independent claim 1 unpatentable.

Claims 11, 21, and 30
Since Appellant argues the rejection of independent claims 11, 21, and
30 as a single group (App. Br. 8-9; Reply Br. 1-2), independent claims 11,
21, and 30 fall with independent claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).

Claims 5, 15, 29, and 38
Appellant does not provide separate and distinct arguments for
patentability with respect to dependent claims 5, 15, 29, and 38. (App. Br.
5.) Therefore, we select independent claim 1 as representative of the cited
claims. Consequently, Appellant has not shown error in the Examiner's
rejection of dependent claims 5, 15, 29, and 38 for the reasons set forth in
our discussion of independent claim 1. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii).

Claims 2-4, 7-10, 12-14, 17-19, 20, 22-28, 31-37, 39, and 40
Appellant merely reiterates what the disputed claim limitations recite
and makes general allegations as to the teachings of the prior art references.
(App. Br. 9-13; Reply Br. 2-3.) Such reiterations and general allegations do
not amount to separate patentability arguments. See Ex parte Belinne, No.
2009-004693, 2009 WL 2477843 at *3-4 (BPAI Aug. 10, 2009)
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(informative); see also 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). Appellant’s arguments
“do not … explain why the Examiner’s explicit fact finding is in error.”
Belinne, 2009 WL 2477843 at *4. Therefore, Appellant has not shown
reversible error in the Examiner's obviousness rejection of dependent claims
2-4, 8-10, 12-14, 17, 19, 20, 22-24, 31-33, 39, and 40.2 It follows that
Appellant has not shown that the Examiner erred in concluding that: 1) the
combination of Kahn and Miyai renders dependent claims 7, 18, 25-28, and
34-37 unpatentable; 2) the combination of Kahn, Miyai, and Sawyers
renders dependent claims 8-10, 17, 19, 20, 39, and 40 unpatentable; and 3)
the combination of Kahn, Miyai, and Kumar renders dependent claims 2-4,
12-14, 22-24, and 31-33 unpatentable.

V. CONCLUSION OF LAW
Appellant has not shown that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims
1-5, 7-15, and 17-40 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

VI. DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1-5, 7-15, and 17-
40 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).

2 See In re Jung, 98 USPQ2d 1174, 1180 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“Jung argues that
the Board gave improper deference to the [E]xaminer’s rejection by
requiring Jung to ‘identif[y] a reversible error’ by the [E]xaminer, which
improperly shifted the burden of proving patentability onto Jung. Decision
at 11. This is a hollow argument, because, as discussed above, the
[E]xaminer established a prima facie case of anticipation and the burden was
properly shifted to Jung to rebut it. . . . ‘[R]eversible error’ means that the
applicant must identify to the Board what the [E]xaminer did wrong . . . .”).

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No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

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