Ex Parte Sorgard et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 19, 201711987265 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 19, 2017) 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. 11/987,265 11/28/2007 Edvard Sorgard JRL-613-126 4246 23117 7590 10/23/2017 NIXON & VANDERHYE, PC 901 NORTH GLEBE ROAD, 11TH FLOOR ARLINGTON, VA 22203 EXAMINER AMINI, JAVID A ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2617 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/23/2017 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 EDVARD SORGARD, BORGAR LJOSLAND, JORN NYSTAD, MARIO BLAZEVIC, and FRANK LANGTIND Appeal 2015-007717 Application 11/987,2651 Technology Center 2600 Before MARC S. HOFF, JAMES W. DEJMEK, and SCOTT B. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judges. DEJMEK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1—25. We have jurisdiction over the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 Appellants identify ARM Norway AS as the real party in interest. App. Br. 3. Appeal 2015-007717 Application 11/987,265 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellants’ disclosed and claimed invention is directed to processing graphics in a tile-based graphics processing system. Spec. 1:5—7; see also Spec. 7:24—26. According to the Specification, in a tile-based rendering system, the scene to be displayed is sub-divided into a plurality of smaller sub-regions, or tiles. Spec. 2:21—25. Further, it is known to prepare a list of so-called “primitives” to be rendered for each tile. Spec. 3:10-22. The Specification further indicates “graphics ‘primitives’ are usually in the form of simple polygons, such as triangles, and are usually described by defining their vertices.” Spec. 1:18—21. In a disclosed embodiment, rather than a listing of primitives, the graphics descriptors in tile lists are “something other than simple base primitives, such as simple polygons, such as triangles, quads, lines or points that may be and will be used to describe the scene for the actual rendering process (and thus will not be in [the] form of simple primitives, such as triangles, lines, quads or points).” Spec. 9:27—34; see also Spec. 10:29—34 (describing the graphics descriptors as not being a simple polygon or primitive). According to the Specification, by using (i.e., listing) graphics descriptors that are not simple primitives, various advantages such as better control over and knowledge of memory usage requirements, improved sorting and culling of graphics data, and improved time and processing resource efficiency may be realized. Spec. 8:6—28. Claim 1 is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal and is reproduced below with the disputed limitation emphasized in italics'. 1. An apparatus for sorting graphics data for processing in a graphics processing system, the apparatus comprising: 2 Appeal 2015-007717 Application 11/987,265 a processor for sorting graphics descriptors that relate to or have associated with them a location or locations in a scene to be rendered into a plurality of lists, each list for a particular area or sub-region of the scene, each graphics descriptor being something other than a primitive of the scene to be rendered, wherein the graphics descriptors comprise one or more of graphics descriptors that are non-primitive-based descriptions of objects to be rendered or of graphics processes to be performed. The Examiner’s Rejections 1. Claims 1—10 and 12—14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Maclnnis et al. (US 2011/0280307 Al; Nov. 17, 2011) (“Maclnnis”) and Fujimoto (US 6,911,985 Bl; June 28, 2005). Final Act. 2-9. 2. Claims 11 and 15—25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Maclnnis, Fujimoto, and Duluk, JR. et al. (US 2007/0165035 Al; July 19, 2007) (“Duluk”). Final Act. 9-11. 3. Claims 1, 2, and 12—14 alternatively stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Maclnnis and Duluk. Final Act. 11-13. Issues on Appeal1 Did the Examiner err in finding the citied prior art teaches or suggests graphics descriptors that are “something other than a primitive of the scene to be rendered,” as recited by the pending independent claims? 2 We only address this issue, which is dispositive. We do not address additional issues raised by Appellants’ arguments. 3 Appeal 2015-007717 Application 11/987,265 ANALYSIS3 In rejecting claim 1 the Examiner relies on the combined teachings of Maclnnis and Fujimoto or, alternatively, the combined teachings of Maclnnis and Duluk. Final Act. 2—5, 11—13. Thus, we provide a brief overview of these references below. Maclnnis is generally directed to an integrated circuit system for processing and displaying video and graphics. Maclnnis 13. Maclnnis describes a graphics display system comprising a video decoder, video scaler, window controller, and display engine. Maclnnis 1 89. Maclnnis discloses that graphics data is processed using logical windows. Maclnnis 193. The graphics windows may overlap and comprise text and graphics, patterns, GIF images, live video, control panels, cursors, three-dimensional graphics, or menus. Maclnnis 193. Additionally, the graphics windows may be characterized by window descriptors. Maclnnis 194. “Window descriptors are data structures that describe one or more parameters of the graphics window. . . . [and] may include, for example, image pixel format, pixel color type, alpha blend factor, location on the screen, address in memory, depth order on the screen, or other parameters.” Maclnnis 194. Fujimoto is generally directed to reducing the frame buffer size in a three-dimensional graphics system. Fujimoto, col. 1,11.56—58. Fujimoto discloses in the three-dimensional graphics system, “an object is typically drawn using numerous polygons such as triangles, and the like.” Fujimoto, 3 Throughout this Decision, we have considered the Appeal Brief, filed February 18, 2015 (“App. Br.”); the Reply Brief, filed August 24, 2015 (“Reply Br.”); the Examiner’s Answer, mailed June 23, 2015 (“Ans.”); and the Final Office Action, mailed June 16, 2014 (“Final Act.”), from which this Appeal is taken. 4 Appeal 2015-007717 Application 11/987,265 col. 2,11. 51—52. According to Fujimoto, the need to store two full frames worth of data (i.e., double buffering of data) may be eliminated by sorting rendering commands based on the location of a triangle ahead of time and processing those triangles that fall in a particular section of the screen. Fujimoto, col. 3,11. 47—56. As an example, Fujimoto describes treating the bottom half of a screen as a first section whereas the top half of the screen is a second section. Fujimoto, col. 4,11. 12—14. Fujimoto further describes, as part of a rendering operation, the CPU may sort polygons (e.g., triangles) based upon their location (i.e., whether they are present in the first and/or second sections). Fujimoto, col. 4,11. 16—27. “If the polygon crosses the boundary between the first section and the second section of the screen, the CPU may add the corresponding rendering command to both the first list and the second list.” Fujimoto, col. 4,11. 30—33. Duluk is generally directed to differed shading in three-dimensional graphics processing. Duluk 112. In particular, a Deferred Shading Graphics Processor (DSGP) pipeline is described that performs shading, sub-pixel anti-aliasing, and texture- and bump-mapping in hardware. Duluk 1478. Duluk discloses the DSGP may interface to a host processor via an Advanced Graphics Port (AGP). Duluk 1479. Duluk further describes the input stream from to the DSGP as comprising commands and data wherein the data includes geometrical object data (e.g., colors, surface normal, and texture coordinates). Duluk || 485 486. Each of the independent claims distinguishes the claimed graphics descriptor from being a single primitive of the scene to be rendered. See claims 1, 2, and 12—14. In explaining the rejection, the Examiner finds it is known to divide a scene (i.e., image or screen) into a plurality of sub-regions 5 Appeal 2015-007717 Application 11/987,265 (i.e., tiles) and that “each sub-region’s primitive or the location of the sub- region is equal to the graphic descriptor.” Ans. 14 (emphasis omitted). Additionally, the Examiner indicates the primitive of a scene is equated to what claim 1 recites as “something other than a primitive of the scene.” Ans. 14 (emphasis omitted). Further, the Examiner finds “when a primitive of a scene [is] divided into [a] sub-scene, then the primitive of a sub-scene is not the same as the primitive of the scene.” Ans. 16 (emphasis omitted). As an initial matter, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner’s mapping of a “primitive” to “something other than a primitive” is inconsistent with what one of ordinary skill in the art would understand a primitive in the graphic arts to be. See Reply Br. 6. Additionally, contrary to the Examiner’s explanation, we agree with Appellants that there is no distinction between primitives of a scene and primitives of a tile. Reply Br. 4. There are just primitives for the scene as a whole. Thus, to the extent the Examiner’s finding relies on primitives specific to a tile (i.e., sub-region of the scene) as being “something other than a primitive of the scene” (as recited in claim 1), we disagree. Although Maclnnis teaches that the various windows are associated with window descriptors that may comprise location information, the Examiner has not provided sufficient evidence or explanation that Maclnnis’ graphic windows correspond to the claimed graphics descriptors. Additionally, contrary to the Examiner’s findings, Fujimoto’s disclosure of a polygon (e.g., triangle) that may be located in both sections of a screen, and, therefore, would be included as part of the rendering operations for each section, is suggestive of an exact binning process wherein a primitive (i.e., a simple polygon such as a triangle) is listed in the tile list of those tiles in 6 Appeal 2015-007717 Application 11/987,265 which it is located. See Spec. 3:3 5—4:15, Fig. 1 (describing “exact binning”); see also App. Br. 15. In other words, the Examiner has not provided sufficient explanation or reasoning how the graphic descriptors of Fujimoto are “something other than a primitive of the scene to be rendered.” Further, the Examiner has not explained how the descriptive information associated with geometrical objects in Duluk corresponds to the claimed graphics descriptors. See Final Act. 12—13. For the reasons discussed supra, we are persuaded of Examiner error. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejections of independent claim 1. For similar reasons, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejections of independent claims 2 and 12—14, which recite similar limitations. Additionally, we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejections of claims 3—11 and 15—25, which depend therefrom. DECISION We reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—25. REVERSED 7 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation