11171599 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 7, 2014)

Ex Parte Varanasi

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 7, 2014

11171599 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 7, 2014)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE 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 APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 11/171,599 06/30/2005 Chandra C. Varanasi S104.12-0127/STL 12673 6130 27365 7590 01/08/2014 SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY LLC C/O WESTMAN, CHAMPLIN & KOEHLER, P.A. SUITE 1400 900 SECOND AVENUE SOUTH MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55402-3244 EXAMINER AHMED, ENAM ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2112 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/08/2014 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte CHANDRA C. VARANASI ___________ Appeal 2011-000687 Application 11/171,599 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and DANIEL N. FISHMAN, Administrative Patent Judges. FISHMAN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-000687 Application 11/171,599 2 This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of twice rejected claims 1-20. App. Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. STATEMENT OF THE CASE THE INVENTION Appellant’s invention relates to a data detector for use in a communication channel. The path metric unit includes multiple add units and multiple compare units. In the determination of a lowest path-metric among multiple paths that reach a state, at least one of the multiple add units of the path metric unit operates in parallel with at least one of its multiple compare units. See generally Abstract. Claim 15, reproduced below, is illustrative with the disputed limitation in italics: 15. A communication channel in which data is transmitted and detected, the communication channel comprising: a processor; a branch metric unit; and means, comprising at least one Add-Compare-Select unit that is capable of carrying out a plurality of arithmetic operations including multiple addition operations and multiple comparison operations, for determining a lowest path metric among multiple paths that reach a state, from at least some of a plurality of branch metrics output by the branch metric unit, wherein at least some of the plurality of arithmetic operations within the at least one Add-Compare-Select unit are carried out concurrently in parallel, and wherein the at least some of the plurality of arithmetic operations within the at least one Add-Compare-Select unit that Appeal 2011-000687 Application 11/171,599 3 are carried out concurrently in parallel include at least one of the multiple addition operations and at least one of the multiple comparison operations. THE REJECTIONS Claims 15 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Rossman (U.S. Patent No. 5,027,374; issued June 25, 1991). Ans. 5-7. Claims 1-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Rossman and Mujtaba (U.S. Patent Publication No. 2002/0010895 A1; published Jan. 24, 2002). Ans. 7-8. Claims 4 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Rossman, Mujtaba, and Foland, Jr. (U.S. Patent No. 5,412,669; issued May 2, 1995). Ans. 9. Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Rossman, Mujtaba, and Kim (U.S. Patent No. 6,697,443 B1; issued Feb. 24, 2004). Ans. 9-10. Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Rossman, Mujtaba, and Ashley (U.S. Patent No. 7,191,083 B2; issued Mar. 13, 2007, effective date Apr. 18, 2002). Ans. 10-11. Claims 8 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Rossman, Mujtaba, and Ino (U.S. Patent No. 5,946,154; issued Aug. 31, 1999). Ans. 11-12. Claims 10-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Rossman and Ino. Ans. 12-13. Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Rossman, Ino, and Sayiner (U.S. Patent No. 6,097,769; issued Aug. 1, 2000). Ans. 13-14. Appeal 2011-000687 Application 11/171,599 4 Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Rossman, Ino, Sayiner, and Das (U.S. Patent No. 7,162,675 B2; issued Jan. 9, 2007). Ans. 14-15. Claims 17 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Rossman and Ashley. Ans. 15-16. Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Rossman and Sayiner. Ans. 16-17. Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Rossman, Sayiner, and Das. Ans. 17-18. ISSUE Only those arguments actually made by Appellant have been considered in this decision. Arguments that Appellant did not make in the Appeal Brief have not been considered and are deemed to be waived. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). Appellant’s arguments present us with the following dispositive issue: Has the Examiner erred by finding that Rossman teaches “wherein the at least some of the plurality of arithmetic operations within the at least one Add-Compare-Select unit that are carried out concurrently in parallel include at least one of the multiple addition operations and at least one of the multiple comparison operations” as recited in claim 15 (hereinafter the “Disputed Limitation”)? ANALYSIS Appellant argues claim 16 together with claim 15 (App. Br. 6) and argues that the rejections of claims 1-14 and 17-20 are in error for the same Appeal 2011-000687 Application 11/171,599 5 reason as claim 15 (App. Br. 11-13). We therefore select independent claim 15 as representative, and claims 1-14 and 16-20 stand or fall with claim 15. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). In rejecting claim 15, the Examiner finds that Rossman teaches all features including the Disputed Limitation. Ans. 5-6. Appellant contends that Rossman fails to disclose the Disputed Limitation. App. Br. 6-11. We are unpersuaded. Specifically, Appellant argues: In general, the claimed invention relates to parallel operation of components within a particular Add-Compare- Select (ACS) unit. However, as will be more apparent from the following sections, although Rossman and the other cited references relate to parallel operation of multiple ACS units, they primarily describe serial single bit wide operation within individual ones of the multiple ACS units. App. Br. 6. Appellant further contends that: In Rossman, even when two parallel ACS units are considered, an add operation in the first ACS unit may take place concurrently in parallel with the add operation of the second ACS unit, but no add operation of the first ACS unit takes place concurrently in parallel with a compare operation of the second ACS unit. App. Br. 7. Appellant argues that, by contrast, “claim 15 requires that at least some of the plurality of arithmetic operations within the at least one Add-Compare-Select unit that are carried out concurrently in parallel include at least one of the multiple addition operations and at least one of the multiple comparison operations.” Id. Appellant further argues that “in Rossman the output of adders 36 and 46 are fed to compare portion 42 and therefore the compare in Rossman cannot take place concurrently in parallel with the add.” App. Br. 8. We do not agree. Appeal 2011-000687 Application 11/171,599 6 The Examiner explains that Rossman’s adder portions 36 and 46 and compare portion 42 perform add and compare operations in parallel “because they operate during the same clock cycle.” Ans. 19. We agree and therefore we find that the add and compare portions within a single ACS unit of Rossman operate in parallel to perform respective add and compare operations. Nothing in claim 15 requires that any particular add and compare operations are performed in parallel but rather merely recites that the parallel operation within an ACS unit “include at least one of the multiple addition operations and at least one of the multiple comparison operations.” We agree with the Examiner that Rossman’s adders (36 and 46; Fig. 4) operate on the same clock cycle and thus are performing some add and compare operations in parallel. We find that the structure and operation of Rossman meets this recitation of the Disputed Limitation. Furthermore, the Examiner finds that Appellant’s amendment adding “concurrently” to the recitation “concurrently in parallel” does not further define the operation of the claimed invention as compared to merely reciting “parallel” operations. Ans. 19. We agree with the Examiner that the plain meaning of “concurrently” merely means at “the same time” (id.) which is subsumed within the plain meaning of “in parallel.” Further clarifying the Examiner’s position, we note that the Disputed Limitation recites that add and compare operations are performed in parallel “within the at least one” ACS unit. (Emphasis added.). Thus, the claim encompasses parallel add and compare operations performed in a manner distributed over multiple ACS units teaches the Disputed Limitation. In other words, “within the at least one” ACS unit, as recited in the Disputed Appeal 2011-000687 Application 11/171,599 7 Limitation, encompasses any number of ACS units performing add and compare operations in parallel, including two or more. In view of the above discussion, we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred by finding that Rossman teaches “wherein the at least some of the plurality of arithmetic operations within the at least one Add-Compare-Select unit that are carried out concurrently in parallel include at least one of the multiple addition operations and at least one of the multiple comparison operations” as recited in claim 15. Claims 1-14 and 16- 20 fall with claim 15 and thus, for the same reasons, we are unpersuaded of error in the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-14 and 16-20. DECISION For the above reasons, the rejection of claims 15 and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 102 is affirmed. For the above reasons, the rejections of claims 1-14 and 17-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 are affirmed. 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 gvw