Ex Parte Achterberg et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 15, 2017

14056942 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 15, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
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.
14/056,942 10/18/2013 Tobias Achterberg DE920110022US3
(736CON)
7354
46320 7590
CRGO LAW
STEVEN M. GREENBERG
7900 Glades Road
SUITE 520
BOCA RATON, EL 33434
EXAMINER
KIM, SISLEY NAHYUN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2196
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/17/2017 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):
docketing@crgolaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte TOBIAS ACHTERBERG, DANIEL JUNGLAS, and
ROLAND WUNDERLING
Appeal 2017-000446
Application 14/056,942
Technology Center 2100
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, KRISTEN L. DROESCH, and
JASON M. REPKO, Administrative Patent Judges.
REPKO, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING
Under 37 C.F.R. § 41.52, Appellants1 have submitted a Request for
Rehearing dated July 24, 2017 (“Request”) from the portion of the May 23,
2017 Decision (“Decision”) affirming the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—
3, 9, 10, and 15—17 under § 103.2
1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as International Business
Machines Corporation. App. Br. 2.
2 We refer to (1) the Final Rejection (“Final Act.”) mailed December 30,
2015, (2) the Appeal Brief (“App. Br.”) filed May 31, 2016, (3) the
Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”) mailed August 4, 2016, and (4) the Reply Brief
(“Reply Br.”) filed October 4, 2016.
Appeal 2017-000446
Application 14/056,942
We have reconsidered the Decision in light of the Request. But we
are not persuaded that the Board misapprehended or overlooked any points
in affirming the Examiner.
Appellants argue that the Board has not considered the core argument
on page 6 of the Appeal Brief. Request 3—5. According to Appellants, the
core argument is that the combination of Appellants’ admitted prior art
(“AAPA”) and Shin lacks “a computation of a deterministic time for the
corresponding one of the threads in the queue from a count of memory
accesses comprising memory read or memory write operations that occur in
the corresponding one of the threads in the queue.” Id. at 4.
Appellants argue, although the Examiner finds that AAPA teaches
counting instructions to compute a deterministic time, the claim requires
more. Id. at 4—5. Specifically, Appellants argue that the claim requires that
the counted instructions must include memory access operations that occur
“in the corresponding one of the threads.” Id. at 5.
We addressed these arguments on page 6 of the Decision. In
particular, we explained that Appellants’ argument does not persuasively
rebut the Examiner’s reliance on the combination of AAPA and Shin to
address the limitation at issue. Decision 6 (citing Final Act. 20—22). Rather,
Appellants’ argument amounts to an attack on the teachings individually.
See Decision 6.
As we summarized on page 6 of the Decision, the “Examiner proposes
combining (1) AAPA’s deterministic-time calculation that counts
instructions with (2) Shin’s memory accesses to arrive at the limitation at
issue.” Decision 6 (citing Ans. 4—5). In particular, the Examiner finds,
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Appeal 2017-000446
Application 14/056,942
AAPA teaches a deterministic time is measured/computed for a
corresponding thread in the queue as the number/count of
instructions executed/occurred to receive exclusive accesses to a
shared resource.
However, AAPA does not explicitly teach wherein the
shared resource is a memory and as such, does not teach the
instructions are “memory accesses comprising memory read or
memory write operations.”
Ans. 4. The Examiner relies on Shin for the feature missing from AAPA.
Id. So, even if Shin does not count memory accesses (Request 4 (quoting
App. Br. 6)), the Examiner relies on the collective teachings of Shin and
AAPA for this feature (Decision 6—7; Ans. 4—6).
According to Appellants, the claim requires computing the
deterministic time “on a thread by thread basis for each thread in the queue
based upon the read or memory write operations ‘that occur in the
corresponding one of the threads in the queue’.” Request 4. Appellants
argue this feature is not found in the prior art. Id.
AAPA, however, teaches that “it is known to utilize a deterministic
time in selecting a thread in the queue to receive exclusive access to a
shared resource.” Spec. 17 (emphasis added). AAPA further teaches that
“[t]he deterministic time can be computed as the amount of time consumed
by a corresponding thread at the time of selection and can be measured, by
way of example, as the number of instructions executed by the thread to
date.” Id. (emphasis added). That is, AAPA’s deterministic time is
computed from operations that occur in the corresponding one of the threads
in the queue. See Decision 6 (citing Spec. 17, Final Act. 19—21).
Although AAPA differs from the claimed invention by the
substitution of memory as the shared resource and the lack of corresponding
accesses to that memory, the Examiner concludes that it would have been
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Appeal 2017-000446
Application 14/056,942
obvious to substitute Shin’s shared memory as AAPA’s shared resource,
with no change in the memory’s function, to arrive at the limitation at issue.
Final Act. 22—23, discussed in Decision 6—7; see also Ans. 5—6. For the
reasons discussed in the Decision, we agree with the Examiner (see Final
Act. 20—23) that AAPA and Shin collectively teach “a deterministic time
computed for the corresponding one of the threads from a count of memory
accesses comprising memory read or memory write operations occurring in
the corresponding one of the threads,” as recited in the claims.
We have considered the arguments raised by Appellants in the
Request. Because we have not misapprehended or overlooked any points in
affirming the Examiner’s rejections under § 103, Appellants’ Request for
Rehearing is denied.
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).
DENIED
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