Ex Parte Meiri et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 31, 2013

11083486 (P.T.A.B. May. 31, 2013)

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. 11/083,486 03/18/2005 David Meiri EMS-09402 7929 52427 7590 05/31/2013 MUIRHEAD AND SATURNELLI, LLC 200 FRIBERG PARKWAY, SUITE 1001 WESTBOROUGH, MA 01581 EXAMINER NANO, SARGON N ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2457 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/31/2013 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 DAVID MEIRI, DAN ARNON, MARK J. HALSTEAD, and PETER KAMVYSSELIS ____________ Appeal 2010-011910 Application 11/083,486 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before DENISE M. POTHIER, BRUCE R. WINSOR, and DAVID C. MCKONE, Administrative Patent Judges. POTHIER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejection of claims 4, 5, 9, 10, 17, 25, 26, 30, and 31. Claims 1-3, 6-8, 11-16, 18-24, 27-29, and 32 have been canceled. App. Br. 2. 1 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to the Appeal Brief (App. Br.) filed March 11, 2010; (2) the Examiner’s Answer (Ans.) mailed June 9, 2010; and (3) the Reply Brief (Reply Br.) filed August 2, 2010. Appeal 2010-011910 Application 11/083,486 2 Invention Appellants’ invention relates to a technique for scanning a message list accessible to processors. See Abstract. Claim 4 is reproduced below with certain limitations emphasized: 4. A method for scanning a message-list accessible to a plurality of processors, said method comprising: identifying, in said message-list, a message-slot containing a message intended for a recipient processor from said plurality of processors; obtaining, from said identified message-slot, information indicative of a location of a succeeding message-slot in said message-list; caching, for retrieval during a subsequent scan of said message-list, said information indicative of said location of said succeeding message-slot, wherein caching said information indicative of said location of said succeeding message-slot comprises: determining if a reset condition exists; and caching said information if no reset condition exists; and beginning the subsequent scan of the message-list at a message-slot that is different from the succeeding message-slot if the reset condition exists. The Examiner relies on the following as evidence of unpatentability: Miller US 4,674,033 June 16, 1987 Schanding US 6,449,665 B1 Sept. 10, 2002 (filed Oct. 14, 1999) The Rejections Claims 4, 9, 17, 25, and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Miller. Ans. 3-6. Claims 5, 10, 26, and 31 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Miller and Schanding. Ans. 6-8. Appeal 2010-011910 Application 11/083,486 3 THE ANTICIPATION REJECTION Regarding illustrative independent claim 4, the Examiner finds that Miller discloses reading special data and upon reading the data, subsequently scanning the message-list from an appropriate location. See Ans. 4 (citing to col. 2, ll. 35-45, col. 4, ll. 12-25, and col. 5, ll. 11-21). Appellants argue that the Examiner’s rejection is inconsistent concerning the recited reset condition and subsequent actions. App. Br. 11, 13; Reply Br. 5-6. Specifically, regarding cited column 5, lines 11-21, Appellants assert that Miller’s “special data” does not correspond to the recited “reset condition” and the scan step in Miller is not being performed subsequent to the detection of Miller’s “special data.” App. Br. 12-14; Reply Br. 5-6. Appellants argue that this passage in Miller indicates that the slave processor is waiting for a specific message, and this initiates the look-forward feature but does not detect a reset-condition. Id. ISSUE Under § 102, has the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 4 by finding that Miller discloses determining if a reset condition exists, and if a reset conditions exists, beginning the subsequent scan of the message-list at a message-slot that is different from the succeeding message-slot? ANALYSIS We begin by construing a key disputed limitation of claim 4, “determining if a reset condition exists” and consider the phrase, “reset condition,” in light of the disclosure. Appellants describe two possible reset conditions. The first involves the information indicative of the location of Appeal 2010-011910 Application 11/083,486 4 the succeeding message slot identifies an invalid location. Spec. 3:9-10, 16:5-6. The second involves the number of scans since a previous occurrence of a reset condition exceeds a reset threshold, which can be fixed or adaptively selected. Spec. 3:10-14, 15:16-17:4. However, these are just examples. Giving the phrase, “reset condition,” its broadest reasonable construction, we do not find that claim 4 is limited to the disclosed reset conditions. Dictionaries define “reset” in a similarly broad and non-limiting fashion, e.g., “reset” simply means “to set again or anew.” 2 We thus conclude that, in light of the description in the Specification (which describes a reset condition as any condition that results in a scan that starts from the beginning) and the claim language itself (which further broadens the result of the reset condition to include starting a scan from any point other than the subsequent slot), one of ordinary skill in the art would interpret the “reset condition” broadly, but reasonably to include a condition that sets the start of a subsequent scan to be a message-slot different from the succeeding message-slot. See In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004); see also Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc). Turning to Miller, the Examiner cites to multiple portions of Miller, discussing various events including detecting “a blank” (col. 2, l. 34, col. 4, l. 21), detecting “a crash command” (col. 2, l. 42), and detecting “a special message” (col. 2, l. 38, col. 5, ll. 15-16). While detecting a blank or crash command could be consider similar to detecting an invalid location (e.g., an 2 Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, 11th ed., available at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reset (last visited May 20, 2013). Appeal 2010-011910 Application 11/083,486 5 exemplary reset condition (see Spec. 3:9-10)), the Examiner has not sufficiently explained how the starting point of the subsequent scan of the message-list is different from the succeeding message-slot if the reset condition exists as recited in the context of an anticipation rejection. See Ans. 4, 8-9. We therefore agree that Miller’s “blank” and “crash command” detecting do not disclose the “beginning the subsequent scan” step in claim 4. App. Br. 11 On the other hand and contrary to the Appellants’ allegations (App. Br. 11-12), Miller’s process of detecting a special message (col. 2, ll. 35-40, col. 5, ll. 11-19) discloses both detecting a reset condition and beginning the subsequent scan of the message-list at message-slot different from the succeeding message-slot when a reset condition exists. Miller discusses a processor (e.g., a slave) scanning its output queue for a specific message. Col. 2, ll. 36-38, col. 5, ll. 13-16. During this process, the scan ignores other messages until the specific message is found. See id. Upon detecting the specific message, Miller discloses the processor returning to the unattended information in the queue, such as returning to the start of the previously ignored messages. Col. 2, ll. 38-40, col. 5, ll. 14-19. The Examiner indicates this detecting – not the act of initiating the “looking ahead” feature (App. Br. 12-14) – is the reset condition. See Ans. 4 (mapping “if special data is read” to the determining if a reset condition exists step). We agree. The act of detecting the specific message in Miller, rather than the act of initiating the “looking ahead” feature (App. Br. 12-14), is a condition or event that returns the processor to previous information/messages in its subsequent scan of the message-list. Col. 2, ll. 38-40, col. 5, ll. 14-19. Returning to the unattended information at the start Appeal 2010-011910 Application 11/083,486 6 of the previously ignored message sets the subsequent scan to scan the ignored messages again, starting from a point different from the subsequent message (e.g., a reset condition). See id. Thus, Miller discloses, once the specific message is detected (e.g., a reset condition exists), the processor begins the subsequent scan of the message-list at a message-slot different from the succeeding message-slot as recited. While not using the phrase, “special data,” Miller does disclose, as explained above, detecting a “specific message” in both column 2 and 5. Thus, to the extent Appellants assert that these passages are unrelated to or do not correspond with the “specific message” discussion (see App. Br. 11- 12; Reply Br. 4-5), we disagree. Moreover, as explained above, Miller performs the subsequent scan after detecting the specific message. See col. 2, ll. 36-40, col. 5, ll. 13-19. Lastly, Appellants contend that Miller does not address solving the message delay. App. Br. 15. An argument that the reference does not solve the same problem as the claimed invention is not germane to a rejection under § 102. See In re Self, 671 F.2d 1344, 1351 (CCPA 1982); see also In re Schreiber, 128 F.3d 1473, 1478 (Fed. Cir. 1997). For the foregoing reasons, Appellants have not persuaded us of error in the rejection of independent claim 4 and claims 9, 17, 25, and 30 not separately argued with particularity. THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION Representative claim 5 recites determining whether the reset condition exists involves determining whether the information indicative of the location of the succeeding message-slot identifies an invalid location. Appeal 2010-011910 Application 11/083,486 7 Appellants repeat the arguments that Miller fails to disclose the detection of a reset condition or the resulting steps in response to the reset condition as recited. App. Br. 18-19. We disagree and refer to the above discussion. Notably, in rejecting claim 5, the Examiner relies on both Miller and Schanding to teach its limitations, including determining whether the information indicative of the succeeding-slot identifies an invalid location. See Ans. 6-7. As indicated above, Miller’s “blank” or “crash command” events suggest at least detecting an invalid location, which Appellants describe as a reset condition ( See Spec. 3: 9-10, 16:5-6). Any argument that Schanding alone fails to teach determining a reset condition is not persuasive. App. Br. 19. Even so, Schanding teaches a processor that corrects for invalid addresses in a buffer when the current address pointer represents an invalid address. See Ans. 7 (citing col. 4, ll. 58-61). This suggests a type of invalid location (e.g., an invalid address) that may be used in Miller to determine if a reset condition (e.g., “crash command”) exists. Thus, when combining Schanding with Miller, the collective teachings suggest determining whether a reset condition exists by identifying an invalid location. Appellants also argue that Schanding is silent concerning the subsequent actions to take regarding a subsequent scan of the message-list. App. Br. 19-20. We disagree. To correct for the invalid address, Schanding further teaches assigning (1) the current value pointer to the next segment pointer’s value and (2) the next segment pointer to a value of the first address of the next segment to be transferred. Col. 4, ll. 58-65. Given that the current value pointer is assigned a next segment pointer value and value of the current address pointer is determined to be valid or not (see id.), Appeal 2010-011910 Application 11/083,486 8 Schanding at least suggests determining whether the information indicative of the location of the succeeding message-slot identifies an invalid location as recited in claim 5. Also, while we stated above that Miller does not provide sufficient detail whether the subsequent scan of the message-list begins at a message- slot different from the succeeding message-slot if the crash command (e.g., a reset condition) exists, we also found that, in the context of the “crash command” event, Miller attempts to resynchronize with a master processor. Col. 2, ll. 40-45. As discussed above, Schanding suggests a technique for resynchronizing with another processor, when an invalid address is found. Col. 4, ll. 58-65. This technique involves assigning the current pointer or slot to the next segment pointer value, which may result in jumping back to the beginning an address range (e.g., a different slot from the succeeding message-slot). See id; col. 5, ll. 44-46. Combining Schanding with Miller therefore suggests the subsequent scan will occur at a message-slot different from the succeeding message-slot as recited. Accordingly, Appellants have not persuaded us of error in the rejection of claim 5 and claims 10, 26, and 31 not separately argued with particularity. CONCLUSION The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 4, 9, 17, 25, and 30 under § 102 and claims 5, 10, 26, and 31 under § 103. Appeal 2010-011910 Application 11/083,486 9 DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 4, 5, 9, 10, 17, 25, 26, 30, and 31 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)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED kis