Ex Parte Saidi et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMar 20, 2018

13681801 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 20, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/681,801 11120/2012 73459 7590 03/22/2018 NIXON & V ANDERHYE, P.C. 901 NORTH GLEBE ROAD, 11 TH FLOOR ARLINGTON, VA 22203 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Ali SAIDI 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. SCS-550-1559 8659 EXAMINER SNYDER, STEVEN G ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2184 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 03/22/2018 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): PTOMAIL@nixonvan.com pair_nixon@firsttofile.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte ALI SAIDI, THOMAS FRIEDRICH WENISCH, and AASHEESH KOLLI 1 Appeal2017-009279 Application 13/681,801 Technology Center 2100 Before ROBERT E. NAPPI, JAMES W. DEJMEK, and JOHN D. HAMANN, Administrative Patent Judges. NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 134(a) of the non-final rejection of claims 1 through 5, 8 through 11, and 16 through 21. Claims 6, 7, and 12 through 15 have been identified as reciting allowable subject matter. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 6(b). We reverse. 1 According to Appellants, the Real Parties in Interest are ARM Limited and The Regents of the University of Michigan. App. Br. 3 Appeal2017-009279 Application 13/681,801 INVENTION The invention is directed to an apparatus for processing data that includes signature generation circuitry for generating a signature value indicative of the current state of the apparatus in dependence upon a sequence of immediately preceding return addresses generated during execution of a stream of program instructions to reach that state of the apparatus. Abstract. Claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and is reproduced below. 1. Apparatus for processing data in response to execution of a stream of program instructions including call instructions with respective associated return addresses, said apparatus compnsmg: signature generation circuitry configured to generate a signature value indicative of a current state of said apparatus in dependence upon address values of a plurality of return addresses generated during execution of said stream; and prefetch circuitry configured to perform one or more prefetch operations in dependence upon said signature value. REJECTIONS AT ISSUE2 The Examiner has rejected claims 1, 8, 10, 11, 16, 20, and 21 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Shah (US 2012/0233442 Al; Sept. 13, 2012) and IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin 2 Throughout this Decision we refer to the Appeal Brief ("App. Br.") filed January 12, 2017; Reply Brief ("Reply Br.") filed June 16, 2017; Non-Final Office Action ("Non-Final Act.") mailed July 26, 2016; Appellants' Specification ("Spec.") submitted November 20, 2012; and the Examiner's Answer ("Ans.") mailed April 18, 2017. 2 Appeal2017-009279 Application 13/681,801 NN9312181 - Context Oriented Branch Prediction (1993). Non-Final Act. 3-8. The Examiner has rejected claims 2 through 5, 9, 18, and 19 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Shah, IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin NN9312181, and Malizewski (US 5,964,870; Oct. 12, 1999). Non-Final Act. 9-19. The Examiner has rejected claim 17 under 35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Shah, IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin NN9312181, and Jourdan (US 6,898,699 B2; May 24, 2005). Non- Final Act. 19-20. ANALYSIS We have reviewed Appellants' arguments in the Briefs, the Examiner's rejections, and the Examiner's response to Appellants' arguments. Appellants' arguments have persuaded us of error in the Examiner's rejection of claims 1 through 5, 8 through 11, and 16 through 21. Appellants argue independent claims 1, 20, and 21 recite generating a signature value indicative of a current state of the apparatus in dependence upon address values of a plurality of return addresses generated during execution of the stream of program instructions. App. Br. 7-9. Specifically, Appellants argue that the Examiner acknowledges that Shaw does not teach generating a signature and that Shaw is only concerned with one address. App. Br. 7-8; Reply Br. 3--4. Further, Appellants argue that the IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, which the Examiner relies upon to teach the claimed generating a signature, does not teach the signature in dependence upon address values of a plurality of return addresses. 3 Appeal2017-009279 Application 13/681,801 We concur with the Appellants. The Examiner's response to Appellants arguments states: Shah's age value is equivalent to the claimed current state that is dependent upon address values of a plurality of return addresses. As stated in the outstanding office action, while Shah teaches age values for determining the context/ state, Shah's age values are ages of return addresses. Thus, Shah's context/state is depending upon address values of a plurality of return addresses. In other words, the age value is 1 if there is one address, the age value is 2 if there are two addresses, etc. These age values are "dependent upon address values," since a return address inherently includes an address value. Ans. 22. The Examiner's rejection cites to Shah paragraphs 95, 105, and 110 as providing the teachings regarding the age value for return addresses. We have reviewed Shah. Although we concur with the Examiner that Shah teaches calculating an age value for return addresses, we do not find a disclosure of determining the age value based upon the values of the addresses. Rather, as argued by Appellants, in Shaw, the age value is just a count of the number of addresses stored by a thread. See Reply Br. 4; Shah paras. 95, 105. Thus, the Examiner's rejection cites insufficient evidence to support the finding that Shah and the IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin teach the claimed "generat[ing] a signature value indicative of a current state of [the] apparatus in dependence upon address values of a plurality of return addresses." Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent claims 1, 20, and 21 and dependent claims 8, 10, 11, 16. The Examiner has not shown that the additional teachings of Malizewski or Jourdan make up for the deficiency noted above in the rejection of the independent claims. Accordingly, we similarly do not 4 Appeal2017-009279 Application 13/681,801 sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejections of claims 2 through 5, 9, and 17 through 19 for the same reasons as discussed above with respect to the rejection of the independent claims. DECISION We reverse the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1 through 5, 8 through 11, and 16 through 21under35 U.S.C. Â§ 103(a). REVERSED 5