Ex Parte Mati

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 1, 2016

12339842 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 1, 2016)

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. 12/339,842 12/19/2008 Nicholas P. Mati S01.12-1252 / STL 13942 7941 27365 7590 03/01/2016 SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY LLC C/O WESTMAN, CHAMPLIN & KOEHLER, P.A. SUITE 1400 900 SECOND AVENUE SOUTH MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55402-3244 EXAMINER KNAPP, JUSTIN R ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2112 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/01/2016 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 NICHOLAS P. MATI ____________ Appeal 2014-004414 Application 12/339,842 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before JOHN A. EVANS, MONICA S. ULLAGADDI, and MATTHEW J. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judges. McNEILL, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 27‒47, which are all the claims pending in this application.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellant’s present patent application relates to a solid state storage device including a high resolution analog-to-digital converter coupled to a 1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Seagate Technology LLC. App. Br. 3. 2 Claims 1‒26 have been cancelled. App. Br. 17. Appeal 2014-004414 Application 12/339,842 2 disc drive channel decoder. Spec. 1:5-8. Claim 27 is illustrative of the claimed invention and reads as follows: 27. A storage device comprising: a storage medium including a plurality of cells configured to store data; an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) coupled to at least one cell of the plurality of cells, the ADC including: a first operating mode having a first number of quantization levels to determine a value stored in the at least one cell; a second operating mode having a second number of quantization levels to determine the value stored in the at least one cell, wherein the second number of quantization levels is greater than the first number of quantization levels; and a controller, coupled to the ADC, configured to activate the second operating mode of the ADC in response to an error event that results in a failure to determine the value stored in the at least one cell in the first operating mode. The Examiner’s Rejections Claims 27‒43, 46, and 47 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ramamoorthy (US 2007/0171730 A1; July 26, 2007) and Cornwell (US 7,639,531 B2; Dec. 29, 2009). See Final Act. 2‒6. Claims 44 and 45 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Ramamoorthy, Cornwell, and Li (US 2008/0307270 A1; Dec. 11, 2008). See Final Act. 7‒8. ANALYSIS Appellant argues the Examiner erred in finding Cornwell teaches or suggests “a controller, coupled to the ADC, configured to activate the second operating mode of the ADC in response to an error event that results Appeal 2014-004414 Application 12/339,842 3 in a failure to determine the value stored in the at least one cell in the first operating mode.” App. Br. 8‒14. In particular, Appellant argues Cornwell teaches reducing memory cell resolution in response to an error count being greater than a threshold, rather than increasing memory cell resolution. App. Br. 11‒12 (citing Cornwell Fig. 8A, 10:62‒65). The Examiner responds that while Cornwell teaches an exemplary embodiment of reducing memory cell resolution in response to an error threshold being reached, Cornwell also teaches increasing memory cell resolutions in response to various conditions, including error performance. Ans. 3 (citing Cornwell 10:46‒62). We agree with Appellant that an ordinarily skilled artisan would not understand Cornwell to teach or suggest upgrading memory resolution in response to crossing an error threshold. Cornwell specifically teaches downgrading memory resolution in response to reaching an error threshold. See, e.g., Cornwell Fig. 8A, 7:42-45, 11:10‒13, 20:6‒14, 20:30‒65. The only portion of Cornwell that discusses upgrading memory resolution teaches that “some of the flash memory block 118 may be downgraded or up-graded in response to various conditions.” Cornwell 10:49‒51. Cornwell teaches that the various conditions may include “error performance.” Cornwell 10:51‒56. We find an ordinarily skilled artisan would understand this teaching to suggest that some conditions may call for the flash memory resolution to be decreased, some conditions may call for an increase, and some conditions may allow for either a decrease or an increase. In light of the remainder of the teachings of Cornwell, an ordinarily skilled artisan would not understand Cornwell to teach or suggest upgrading memory resolution in response to crossing an error threshold Appeal 2014-004414 Application 12/339,842 4 because Cornwell explicitly teaches that such condition calls for downgrading memory resolution. See Panduit Corp. v. Dennison Mfg. Co., 774 F.2d 1082, 1094 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (holding that courts should avoid a “superficial review” of prior art references and instead should “consider references in their entireties, i.e., including those portions that would argue against obviousness.”) Accordingly, we find the Examiner has not demonstrated that the combination of Ramamoorthy and Cornwell teaches this limitation. We therefore do not sustain the rejection of independent claim 27. CONCLUSIONS On the record before us and in view of the analysis above, we are persuaded by Appellant’s contentions that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 27. Therefore, we do not sustain the rejection of claim 27, independent claims 38 and 40 which recite similar limitations, and claims 28‒37, 39, and 41‒47 dependent therefrom. DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 27‒47 is reversed. REVERSED