Ex Parte Moertl et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 14, 2014

11550191 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 14, 2014)

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. 11/550,191 10/17/2006 Daniel F. Moertl AUS920060553US1 8269 50170 7590 02/14/2014 IBM CORP. (WIP) c/o WALDER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW, P.C. 17304 PRESTON ROAD SUITE 200 DALLAS, TX 75252 EXAMINER TSENG, CHENG YUAN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2184 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/14/2014 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 DANIEL F. MOERTL, RENATO J. RECIO, CLAUDIA A. SALZBERG, and STEVEN M. THURBER ____________ Appeal 2011-001144 Application 11/550,191 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, JEAN R. HOMERE, and DANIEL N. FISHMAN, Administrative Patent Judges. RUGGIERO, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-10, and 21-23, which are all of the pending claims. Claims 3 and 11-20 have been canceled. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. Appeal 2011-001144 Application 11/550,191 2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed June 25, 2010), the Answer (mailed Aug. 19, 2010), and the Reply Brief (filed Oct. 18, 2010). Appellants’ Invention Appellants’ invention relates to communication with a network input/output (I/O) adapter using a queue data structure and cached address translations. The cache management of address translation information associated with the queue data structure is distributed between a device drive and device driver services. See generally Spec. ¶ [0017]. Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows: 1. A method, in a data processing system, for managing address translations for accessing a buffer data structure used by a device driver associated with a network input/output (I/O) adapter to communicate with the network I/O adapter, comprising: creating, by the device driver, a buffer data structure for storing data communicated with the network I/O adapter; invoking, by the device driver, device driver services for initializing one or more address translation entries for the buffer data structure in an address translation data structure associated with a root complex of the data processing system, wherein the one or more address translation entries specify translations of one or more untranslated addresses into one or more translated addresses associated with the buffer data structure; providing, by device driver services, the one or more untranslated addresses associated with the buffer data structure to the device driver; creating a queue element (QE) in a queue data structure, wherein the QE references at least one of the one or more untranslated memory addresses associated with the buffer data structure; and retrieving, by the network I/0 adapter, the QE from the queue data structure, wherein the device driver is provided in one of a system image or untrusted logical partition of the data processing system and the device driver services are provided in a trusted virtualization intermediary. Appeal 2011-001144 Application 11/550,191 3 The Examiner’s Rejections The Examiner’s Answer cites the following prior art references: Aslot US 2005/0268047 A1 Dec. 1, 2005 Arndt US 2006/0195675 A1 Aug. 31, 2006 PCI-SIG, “Address Translation Service,” Rev. 0.7, 1-35, March 2006. Claims 1, 2, 4-9, and 21-23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Arndt in view of Aslot. Claim 10 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Arndt in view of Aslot and PCI-SIG. ANALYSIS Claims 1, 2, 4-9, and 21-23 Appellants contend, with respect to the obviousness rejection of independent claim 1, that Aslot does not overcome what the Examiner (Ans. 6) has identified as the deficiencies in Arndt. These deficiencies are the failure to teach or suggest the features of a device driver and device driver services to perform the specified functions recited in claim 1. According to Appellants, while Aslot generally teaches physical and virtual device drivers, there is no teaching or suggestion that these drivers perform the specific operations as claimed. App. Br. 8-9; Reply Br. 6, 10. In a related argument, Appellants contend that the Examiner has not established a proper Appeal 2011-001144 Application 11/550,191 4 basis for the proposed combination of Aslot with Arndt. 1 App. Br. 10-11; Reply Br. 3. We agree with Appellants. While the Examiner (Ans. 6) has pointed to Aslot’s use of virtual drivers and physical device drivers, we find no adequate explanation as to how these drivers correspond to the claimed device drivers and device driver services. Further, we find no adequate explanation from the Examiner as to how and in what manner Aslot would be combined with Arndt to result in the performance of the specifically claimed address translation operations. We also find that the Examiner has not provided an articulated line of reasoning with a rational underpinning to support the proposed combination of Aslot with Arndt. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418. The Examiner has pointed to Aslot’s teaching of the advantages of easily passing down a client’s partition memory to a server partition’s I/O stack as a rationale for the combination with Arndt. Ans. 7 (citing Aslot, ¶ [0008]). We agree with Appellants (App. Br. 10), however, while the discussed advantages perhaps provide a motivation for the invention described by Aslot, they have little relevance to the system disclosed by Arndt which is not concerned with the problems addressed by Aslot. Finally, we recognize that the Examiner, in the “Response to Argument” portion of the Answer has expanded upon the stated obviousness rationale for combining Arndt and Aslot. According to the Examiner, the ordinarily skilled artisan would have recognized the obviousness of combining Arndt and Aslot because both Aslot and the PCI- 1 Appellants have made other arguments. We do not reach these arguments because the arguments discussed infra are dispositive of this appeal. Appeal 2011-001144 Application 11/550,191 5 SIG document (cited in the rejection of dependent claim 10) show that the use of operating systems containing device drivers and device driver services is well known in virtualization environments. Ans. 16-17. As previously discussed and as argued by Appellants (Reply Br. 6- 10), however, while device drivers are generally known in the art, the claims do not merely recite device drivers and device driver services. To the contrary, the claims recite specific address translation operations performed by the device drivers and the device driver services, as well as the placement of the device driver and device driver services, and the specific interaction between the device drivers and the device driver services. In view of the above discussion, we are of the opinion that the proposed combination of references set forth by the Examiner does not support the obviousness rejection. We, accordingly, do not sustain the rejection of independent claim 1, or the rejection of claims 2, 4-9, and 21-23 which are dependent thereon. Dependent claim 10 We also do not sustain the obviousness rejection of dependent claim 10 in which the Examiner has applied PCI-SIG in combination with Aslot and Arndt to address the invalidation completion feature of the rejected claim. We find nothing in PCI-SIG which overcomes the innate deficiencies of the Arndt/Aslot combination as discussed supra. Appeal 2011-001144 Application 11/550,191 6 CONCLUSION OF LAW Based on the analysis above, we conclude that the Examiner erred in rejecting claims 1, 2, 4-10, and 21-23 for obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). DECISION The Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-10, and 21-23 all of the appealed claims, is reversed. REVERSED ELD