Ex Parte Archer et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 28, 2012

11459387 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 28, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
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BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
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Ex parte CHARLES J. ARCHER, PHILIP HEIDELBERGER, JOSE
EDUARDO MOREIRA, and JOSEPH D. RATTERMAN
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Appeal 2010-006005
Application 11/459,387
Technology Center 2100
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Before KARL D. EASTHOM, JUSTIN T. ARBES, and THOMAS L.
GIANNETTI, Administrative Patent Judges.

GIANNETTI, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a rejection of all
pending claims, 1-6 and 12-15. Claims 7-11 and 16-20 were cancelled. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE

The Invention
The invention is in the field of data processing, more specifically,
involving methods for executing an allgather operation on a parallel
computer. See Spec. 1 (Field of Invention). As described by Appellants, an
“allgather” operation is a collective operation on an operational group of
compute nodes that gathers information from all compute nodes in the
operational group, concatenates the gathered data into a memory buffer in
rank order, and provides the entire contents of the memory buffer to all
compute nodes in the operational group. App.Br. 7. In an allgather
operation, all transmitted segments are of the same size. Id. In an
“allgatherv” operation, by contrast, there is no requirement that all
transmissions of buffer segments be of the same size. Id.

The Claims
Claims 1-6 and 12-15 are pending. Claims 1, 4, and 12 are
independent.
Claim 1 following illustrates the claimed subject matter:

1. A method of executing an allgather operation on a parallel
computer, the method comprising:
executing an alltoallv operation with a list of send
displacements, each send displacement comprising a send buffer
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segment pointer, each send displacement pointing to the same
segment of a send buffer, wherein:
executing an alltoallv operation further comprises
transmitting contents of ranked segments of a send buffer of a
compute node, taking the ranked segments in random order, and
the parallel computer comprises a plurality of compute
nodes, each compute node comprises a send buffer, the compute
nodes are organized into at least one operational group of compute
nodes for collective operations, each compute node in the operational
group is assigned a unique rank, and each send buffer is segmented
according to the ranks.
App.Br. 16 (Appendix of Claims)
Claim 4 is identical to claim 1, with one exception: the claim 4
preamble recites “allgatherv” in place of “allgather.” Id. at 17.

Prior Art

The Examiner relies upon the following prior art:

Nilsson US 4,715,032 Dec. 22, 1987
Heller US 5,617,538 April 1, 1997
Scott US 5,958,017 Sept. 28, 1999
Kureya US 6,334,138 Dec. 25, 2001
Brown US 6,754,211 B1 June 22, 2004
Carvey US 2002/0016901 A1 Feb. 7, 2002

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Rejections
The following rejections by the Examiner are being appealed (App.Br.
4-6):
1. Claims 4-6 are rejected as indefinite under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph.
2. Claims 1 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Kureya,
Nilsson, and Heller.
3. Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Kureya,
Nilsson, Heller, and Brown.
4. Claims 2, 3, 5, and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over
Kureya, Nilsson, Heller, and Scott.
4. Claims 13 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over
Kureya, Nilsson, Heller, Brown, and Scott.
5. Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Kureya,
Nilsson, Heller, Brown, Scott, and Carvey.

Appellants’ Contentions
1. Appellants contend that the indefiniteness rejection should be
reversed because claims 4-6 are not substantial duplicates of claims 1-4.
App.Br. 6.
2. Appellants contend that the obviousness rejections should be
reversed because Kureya taken alone, or with Nilsson and Heller, does not
teach executing an allgather or allgatherv operation. App.Br. 6-7.
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3. Appellants further contend that Kureya teaches away from
Appellants’ claims because the segments of the send buffer transmitted by
Kureya are not taken in random order. App.Br. 8.
4. Appellants further contend that to modify Kureya as suggested by
the Examiner to take ranked segments in random order as taught by Heller
would impermissibly change Kureya’s principle of operation and render
Kureya unsatisfactory for its intended purpose. App.Br. 8-11.

Examiner’s Response
1. The Examiner responds that the recitations of “allgather” and
“allgatherv” in the preambles of claims 1 and 4 are entitled to no weight.
Therefore the claims are identical and thus indefinite. Ans. 21-22.
Alternatively, the Examiner concludes that even if the allgather and
allgatherv recitations were considered, the claims are substantial duplicates.
Id. at 21.
2. The Examiner responds that Appellants’ argument distinguishing
Kureya is based on preamble recitations entitled to no “patentable weight,”
and in any event the distinguishing features attributed by Appellants to the
allgather and allgatherv operations are not recited in the claims. Ans. 22.
3. The Examiner explains the rationale for combining Kureya with
Heller. Ans. 23-24. The Examiner determines that while Kureya does teach
that alltoall communications are sped up by using a method known as the
“hypercube algorithm,” Kureya does not teach that such an algorithm is
essential. Ans. 23. Furthermore, the Examiner determines that Heller
teaches that even a completely random ordering scheme would generally be
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as fast or as close to as fast as strict ordering and would be less complex to
derive than a hypercube or similar algorithm. Id.
Appellants did not file a reply and thus we have before us no rebuttal
to the Examiner’s positions.

ANALYSIS

Principles of Law
“In general, a preamble limits the invention if it recites essential
structure or steps, or if it is ‘necessary to give life, meaning, and vitality’ to
the claim. . . . Conversely, a preamble is not limiting ‘where a patentee
defines a structurally complete invention in the claim body and uses the
preamble only to state a purpose or intended use for the invention.’”
Catalina Marketing Int’l, Inc. v. Coolsavings.com, Inc., 289 F.3d 801, 808
(Fed. Cir. 2002) (citations omitted).

A reference may be said to teach away when a person of ordinary
skill, upon reading the reference, would be discouraged from following the
path set out in the reference, or would be led in a direction divergent from
the path that was taken by the applicant. In re Gurley, 27 F.3d 551, 553
(Fed. Cir. 1994).

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Indefiniteness Rejection
We agree with the Examiner’s determination that claims 1-3 and 4-6
cover substantially the same subject matter that forms the basis for this
rejection. Ans. 5. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ contrary conclusion
that the Examiner erred. Appellants do not even reply to the Examiner’s
position that the preamble recitations of “allgather” and “allgatherv” should
be given no patentable weight. Ans. 21. They instead point to a portion of
the Specification without even explaining how this limits the claims. See
App.Br. 6. Absent a meaningful response, Appellants have not shown that
the Examiner erred in determining that the bodies of those claims define a
structurally complete invention and that the preambles are therefore only a
statement of purpose or intended use. See Catalina Marketing, supra. We
conclude therefore that the Examiner’s rejection of claims 4-6 as indefinite
should be sustained.

Obviousness Rejection
Claims 1, 4, and 12
We agree with the Examiner’s determination that these claims are
obvious over Kureya and Heller, in combination with other references as set
forth in the summary above. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ principal
argument that Kureya “teaches away” from the random order operation
recited in the claims and taught by Heller. See supra. Appellants have
pointed to nothing in either reference that would discourage a person of
ordinary skill from substituting a random ordering scheme for the hypercube
algorithm used in Kureya. See Gurley, supra.
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We are not persuaded of any error in the Examiner’s determination
that Kureya does not teach that such an algorithm is essential. Ans. 23.
Furthermore, we find support for the Examiner’s position in Heller’s
teaching that even a completely random ordering scheme would generally be
as fast as strict ordering and would be a relatively simple scheme. See
Heller col.10, ll. 7-17. Nor do we find any merit in Appellants’ argument
that combining Kureya and Heller would change Kureya’s “principle of
operation.” As noted, Appellants have not challenged the Examiner’s
finding that Kureya’s hypercube ordering scheme is not essential. See supra.
Moreover, “[t]he test for obviousness is not whether the features of a
secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the
primary reference . . . . Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of
the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.” In
re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981). In addition, “if a technique has
been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art
would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way,
using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or
her skill.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007).
In summary, the Examiner has presented a more than adequate
rationale for combining Kureya, Heller, and the other references, which
Appellants have failed to rebut. The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 4,
and 12 as obvious is therefore sustained.

Claims 2-3, 5-6, and 13-15
Claims 2 and 3 depend from claim 1. Claims 5 and 6 depend from
claim 4. Claims 13-15 depend from claim 12. Appellants present the same
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arguments for patentability of these dependent claims as for the independent
claims. App. Br. 11-13. For the reasons set forth above, therefore, the
Examiner’s obviousness rejection of these claims is sustained.

DECISION

The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-6 and 12-15 is 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).

AFFIRMED

KMF