Ex Parte Fursund et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 14, 201814644830 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 14, 2018) Copy Citation 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. 14/644,830 03/11/2015 Jens Fursund 070852.000104 6463 125968 7590 03/16/2018 Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP (ImgTec) 1909 K St., N.W. Ninth Floor Washington, DC 20006 EXAMINER LHYMN, SARAH ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2613 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/16/2018 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): patlaw @ vorys. com vmdeluc a @ vorys. com rntisdale@vorys.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JENS FURSUND and LUKE T. PETERSON Appeal 2017-009637 Application 14/644,8301 Technology Center 2600 Before NATHAN A. ENGELS, JAMES W. DEJMEK, and MICHAEL M. BARRY, Administrative Patent Judges. BARRY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1—29, which constitute all of the pending claims. App. Br. 13—19 (Claims App’x). We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 Appellants identify Imagination Technologies Limited as the real party in interest. App. Br. 1. Appeal 2017-009637 Application 14/644,830 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellants describe the invention as relating to a 3-D rendering system that performs asynchronous and concurrent hybridized ray tracing and rasterization-based 3-D rendering. Spec. 12. In a disclosed embodiment, “a viewpoint 60 and a frame of pixels define a view frustrum [sic (recte, frustum)] 63 into a 3-D scene 65.” Fig. 2, items 60, 62, 63, 65, Spec. 138. Visible surfaces (e.g., surfaces of objects) may be determined (e.g., by rasterization) for the pixels in the frame from the viewpoint. Spec. 1 5, Fig. 7, items 205, 232. Further, the pixels may be shaded, for at least some of which, shading involves sampling a texture that may be mapped to one or more of the visible surfaces. Spec. 1 5, Fig. 7, item 240. Concurrent with determining the visible surfaces and/or shading the pixels, the texture may be maintained such that selected texture elements are updated by tracing rays from the elements’ locations. Spec. H 57, 66, 68, 69, Fig. 6, items 148, 168, Fig. 7, item 236, Fig. 8, item 405, Fig. 9, item 430. Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed invention: 1. A 3-D rendering process, comprising: determining, for each frame of a sequence of frames, visible surfaces for pixels in the frame, from a respective viewpoint; shading the pixels, the shading for at least some of the pixels comprising sampling a texture, the texture mappable to a surface visible at one or more of the pixels; and concurrently with one or more of the determining of the visible surfaces and the shading, maintaining the texture by: selecting elements of the texture to be updated; tracing rays from locations corresponding to the selected elements of the texture; and 2 Appeal 2017-009637 Application 14/644,830 updating elements in the texture based on results of the tracing of the rays. App. Br. 13 (Claims App’x). References The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims is: Jenkins US 6,111,582 Aug. 29, 2000 Hempel et al. (“Hempel”) US 2008/0211804 Al Sept. 4, 2008 Peterson et al. (“Peterson ’789”) US 2009/0096789 Al Apr. 16, 2009 Peterson et al. (“Peterson ’752”) US 2009/0322752 Al Dec. 31,2009 Zhang et al. (“Zhang”) US 2010/0329358 Al Dec. 30, 2010 Gautron et al. (“Gautron”) US 2012/0001911 Al Jan. 5, 2012 Steed et al. (“Steed”) US 2014/0125668 Al May 8,2014 Ren et al. (“Ren”) US 2014/0267346 Al Sept. 18, 2014 McGuire et al. (“McGuire”) US 2014/0327690 Al Nov. 6, 2014 Montrym et al. (“Montrym”) US 9,013,498 B1 Apr. 21,2015 Rejections 1. Claims 1, 6, 13, 14, 28, and 29 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Hempel and McGuire. Final Act. 5—11. 2. Claims 2, 5, 20, 23, 25, and 27 stand rejected under § 103 as unpatentable over Hempel, McGuire, and Peterson ’752. Id. at 12—22. 3. Claims 3, 8, 24, and 262 stand rejected under § 103 as unpatentable over Hempel, McGuire, Peterson ’752, and Peterson ’789. Id. at 23—25. 2 The Final Office Action addresses claim 8 in the § 103 rejection over Hempel, McGuire, and Peterson ’789, finding Peterson ’789 teaches the additionally recited elements of this claim. See Final Act. 29. Claim 8, 3 Appeal 2017-009637 Application 14/644,830 4. Claim 4 stands rejected under § 103 as unpatentable over Hempel, McGuire, and Steed. Id. at 26—27. 5. Claims 7, 9, 11, and 17—19* * 3 stand rejected under § 103 as unpatentable over Hempel, McGuire, and Peterson ’789. Id. at 28—34. 6. Claim 10 stands rejected under § 103 as unpatentable over Hempel, McGuire, Peterson ’789, and Gautron. Id. at 35—36. 7. Claim 12 stands rejected under § 103 as unpatentable over Hempel, McGuire, Peterson ’789, and Zhang. Id. at 37—38. 8. Claims 15 stands rejected under § 103 as unpatentable over Hempel, McGuire, and Jenkins. Id. at 39-40. 9. Claims 16 and 22 stand rejected under § 103 as unpatentable over Hempel, McGuire, and Montrym. Id. at 41—43. 10. Claims 21 stands rejected under § 103 as unpatentable over Hempel, McGuire, and Ren. Id. at 44. ANALYSIS4 In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner finds Hempel teaches “determining visible surfaces for pixels, from a respective viewpoint.” Final Act. 6 (citing however, depends from claim 3, which stands rejected under § 103 over Hempel, McGuire, Peterson ’752, and Peterson ’789. See id. at 23—25. Accordingly, because the Final Office Action relies on findings from Hempel, McGuire, Peterson ’752, and Peterson ’789 to satisfy the elements of claim 8 (including all of the elements of parent claim 3), along with a rationale to combine these references, we consider claim 8 to stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Hempel, McGuire, Peterson ’752, and Peterson ’789. We treat this irregularity in the record as harmless error. 3 See n.2, supra. 4 Because we have identified an issue that is dispositive for our decision, we do not address all of Appellants’ arguments. 4 Appeal 2017-009637 Application 14/644,830 Hempel 32, 41) (emphasis omitted). The Examiner then finds McGuire teaches the remaining elements of claim 1, including “shading the pixels . . . comprising sampling a texture” and “concurrently with one or more of the determining of the visible surfaces and the shading, maintaining the texture by: selecting elements of the texture . . . ; tracing rays . . . ; and updating elements in the texture.” Id. at 6—7 (citing McGuire ^fl[ 36, 45, 64, 65, 74, 77,81-84, 89, 99). Appellants assert “[tjhere is nothing in McGuire, Hempel, Peterson or any of the other cited prior art references, to suggest updating the texture at the same time as rasterizing the image.” Reply Br. 5. Appellants argue the Examiner errs because “[tjhere is in the present record no articulated reason, purpose or rationale for one skilled in the art to have sought to combine the teachings of these prior art documents ... in a manner that would have resulted in the claimed subject matter.” Id. The Examiner responds by explaining McGuire “teaches that parallel and concurrent processing is known, and does not limit its teachings to one type of graphics processing.” Ans. 5 (citing McGuire Tflf 27, 33, 45; Final Act. 3, 6—7) (emphasis omitted) (discussing McGuire’s parallel processing unit (“PPU”) that includes streaming multi-processors (“SMs”)); see also Ans. 3. Accordingly, the Examiner finds “[pjrocessing graphics and primitive data . . . , shader programs . . . , texture processing . . . , and indirect lighting . . . are examples of threads that can be implemented to run, concurrently, in multiple SMs, in PPUs.” Id. at 5 (citing McGuire ]Hf 33—36, 45, 51). The Examiner concludes “[i]t would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to have combined and modified Hempel and McGuire, to have obtained the above feature of Appellant’s [sic] claim 1. . . . 5 Appeal 2017-009637 Application 14/644,830 to provide parallel processing of graphics data.” Id. at 6 (citing Final Act. 2— 4, 6-7). Certainly it is appropriate for an obviousness rejection to “take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ,” because the skilled artisan “is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418, 421 (2007). An obviousness rejection, however, “cannot be sustained by mere conclusory statements; instead, there must be some articulated reasoning with a rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness.” In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006). An obviousness rejection must explain the reasoning by which those findings support the Examiner’s conclusion of obviousness. Perfect Web Techs., Inc. v. InfoUSA, Inc., 587 F.3d 1324, 1328-30 (Fed. Cir. 2009). Although we agree with the Examiner that the irradiance map updating performed by McGuire’s cloud server teaches “maintaining the texture,”5 the Examiner neither points to a passage in the cited prior art nor provides an adequate rationale that explains why an ordinary skilled artisan would have configured the cloud server to perform such irradiance map updates at the same time as—or “concurrently with’ '’—the PPU’s processing of graphics primitives, execution of a shader program, and/or sampling of textures, as recited by claim 1. 5 We disagree with the Examiner that McGuire’s disclosure of texture unit caches teaches “maintaining the texture,” as recited in claim 1. See Final Act. 3, 7; Ans. 5 (citing McGuire 145). The caches of McGuire’s texture unit can store textures for selection and sampling, but we find no evidence that the texture unit caches themselves select textures to be updated or trace rays as required by the three steps of claim 1 ’s “maintaining” requirement. See, e.g., McGuire 145. 6 Appeal 2017-009637 Application 14/644,830 The mere fact that McGuire teaches a PPU that can perform parallel/concurrent processing of threads and programs does not mean that applying such concurrent processing to any two particular elements would have been obvious. As Judge Learned Hand long ago explained, simply finding prior art disclosures of the claimed elements is insufficient: machines are made up of the same elements; rods, pawls, journals, toggles, gears, cams, and the like, all acting their parts as they always do and always must. All compositions are made of the same substances, retaining their fixed chemical properties. But the elements are capable of an infinity of permutations, and the selection of that group which proves serviceable to a given need may require a high degree of originality. It is that act of selection which is the invention .... B.G. Corp. v. Walter Kidde & Co., 79 F.2d 20, 21—22 (2d Cir. 1935); accord KSR, 550 U.S. at 418. The Examiner’s rationale for combining the teachings of Hempel and McGuire—“to provide parallel processing of graphics data”—is conclusory. The Examiner does not sufficiently articulate why an ordinarily skilled artisan would have maintained the texture concurrently with determining the visible surfaces and/or shading the pixels (including the sampling of textures), as recited in claim 1. Thus, we do not sustain the Examiner’s § 103 rejection of claim 1. For the reasons stated above, we also do not sustain the rejections of independent claim 23 and dependent claims 2—22 and 24—29, each of which includes a similar deficiency that the Examiner has not cured with either Peterson ’752, the remaining prior art, or an adequate rationale. See App. Br. 11; Final Act. 7^44. 7 Appeal 2017-009637 Application 14/644,830 DECISION For the above reasons, we reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—29 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. REVERSED 8 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation