Ex Parte Wu et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 23, 2016

13224090 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 23, 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.
13/224,090 09/01/2011 Ren Wu 82690125 8733
56436 7590 12/28/2016
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 79
Fort Collins, CO 80528
EXAMINER
LI, AIMEE J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2183
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/28/2016 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):
hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com
chris. mania @ hpe. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte REN WU, BIN ZHANG,
MEICHUN HSU, and QIMING CHEN
Appeal 2015-008107
Application 13/224,090
Technology Center 2100
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JOHNNY A. KUMAR, and
JON M. JURGOVAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’
Final Rejection of claims 1—11.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We affirm-in-part.
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Hewlett-Packard
Development Company, LP (App. Br. 2).
2 Claims 12—20 have been withdrawn from consideration (Ans. 2).
Appeal 2015-008107
Application 13/224,090
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants’ invention relates to combining data values through
associative operation (Spec. Title). Exemplary claim 1 under appeal reads as
follows:
1. A method for combining data values through associative
operations, the method comprising:
arranging data values into a plurality of columns according
to natural parallelism of the associative operations to form a first
data matrix;
reading each column to a register of a respective one of a
number of processors;
directing each of the processors to execute a respective
first one of the associative operations, in parallel, on the data
values in their respective columns to which the processors are
assigned; and
storing the respective results of the first associative
operation for each respective column to a respective register of
each processor.
References and Rejections
Claims 1—11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph,
as being indefinite (see Ans. 2).
Claims 1—11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by
Morishita et al. (US 7,315,934 B2; issued Jan 1, 2008) (see Ans. 2-4).
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Application 13/224,090
ANALYSIS
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, Second Paragraph
Regarding independent claim 1, the Examiner finds “arranging data
values into a plurality of columns according to natural parallelism of the
associative operations to form a first data matrix” is indefinite because “it is
not clear whether data are moved by ‘arranging’ rather than merely exist in
columns with natural parallelism,” and “it is not clear how and based on
what information [the data] are moved from one location to another
location” (Ans. 2). Appellants contend there is no question as to how the
data values are arranged, because the Specification states “[d]ata which is
organized according to ‘natural parallelism’ has been arranged in a matrix
such that the data subsets [are] cohesive,” and “the term ‘natural parallelism’
refers to associative operations which simultaneously perform identical
operations on different data subsets in a data matrix” (App. Br. 9—10; Reply
Br. 4—6 (citing Spec. 120)).
A decision on whether a claim is indefinite under 35 U.S.C. § 112,
second paragraph, requires a determination of whether one of ordinary skill
in the art would understand what is claimed when the claim is read in light
of the specification. See Power-One, Inc. v. Artesyn Techs., Inc., 599 F.3d
1343, 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2010); Orthokinetics, Inc. v. Safety Travel Chairs,
Inc., 806 F.2d 1565, 1568 (Fed. Cir. 1986). On the record before us and
based on Appellants’ contentions, we are persuaded of error in the
Examiner’s finding. The disputed limitation merely contributes to the
breadth of the claims, instead of making the claims indefinite. As such, a
skilled artisan, upon reading the claims in light of the examples and
embodiments provided in Appellants’ Specification, would understand what
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Appeal 2015-008107
Application 13/224,090
is claimed by “arranging data values into a plurality of columns according to
natural parallelism of the associative operations.” Therefore, we do not
sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—11 under 35 U.S.C. § 112,
second paragraph, as being indefinite.
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)
Claims 1 and 5—7
Appellants contend Morishita fails to disclose “arranging data values
into a plurality of columns according to natural parallelism of the associative
operations to form a first data matrix,” as recited in independent claim 1
(App. Br. 10-13; Reply Br. 6—9). Appellants argue Morishita discloses data
elements in one column are used as operands in connection with another
data element in another column, but Morishita’s operands are not the
claimed “associative operations” (App. Br. 12; Reply Br. 7). Appellants
further explain “natural parallelism” refers to associative operations which
simultaneously perform identical operations on different data subsets, where
the data subsets are cohesive, and Morishita is silent regarding such “natural
parallelism” (App. Br. 12—13; Reply Br. 8—9).
Appellants’ contention that Morishita does not disclose associative
operations that “simultaneously perform identical operations on different
data subsets” is not commensurate with the scope of the claims, which do
not require simultaneously performing identical operations. See In re Self,
671 F.2d 1344, 1348 (CCPA 1982) (stating that limitations not appearing in
the claims cannot be relied upon for patentability). Although the claims are
interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are
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Appeal 2015-008107
Application 13/224,090
not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184 (Fed.
Cir. 1993).
Appellants’ disclosure provides an example of “natural parallelism of
associative operations” by arranging a column of company travel expense
data and performing addition on the column of data (Spec. 136). Thus,
under the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with Appellants’
disclosure, “natural parallelism of the associative operations” does not
preclude arranging related data having a shared characteristic into columns,
and performing the same associative operation (i.e., addition) on the data set.
See In re Am. Acad. ofSci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2004)
(“[T]he PTO is obligated to give claims their broadest reasonable
interpretation during examination.”) Accordingly, we agree with the
Examiner’s finding that Morishita discloses “natural parallelism of the
associative operations” by arranging a column of related pixel data, and
performing the same associative addition operation on the column of data
(Ans. 3—5 (citing Morishita col. 9,11. 8 and 10: registers store operation
results of the arithmetic logic unit of processing elements PE0—PE7; see also
Figs. 8 and 9, col. 7,11. 65—67 and col. 8,11. 11—12: data columns for each
processor PE0-PE7 contain pixel data P0-P7 and D0-D7, where the pixels
in each column are added to each other)).
Therefore, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 1
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Morishita. No separate
arguments are presented for dependent claims 5—7, we therefore sustain their
rejection for the reasons stated with respect to independent claim 1.
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Claim 2
Appellants contend Morishita only transposes data within a single
matrix, and does not disclose “transposing rows in a second data matrix into
columns in the data matrix,” which requires two separate matrices and uses
data from one matrix to populate the other matrix (App. Br. 14; Reply Br. 9—
10)(emphasis omitted). We are not persuaded of error. As found by the
Examiner, Morishita discloses two separate matrices, an original matrix and
a second, transpose of a matrix, “i.e., another matrix obtained by turning
rows into columns,” thus data from the original matrix populates the
“another matrix” (Ans. 3 (citing Morishita col. 19:14; see also col. 19:1—2)).
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 2 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as anticipated by Morishita.
Claim 3
The Examiner finds Morishita suggests “arranging two dimensional
matrices into a three dimensional matrix,” because extension to a three
dimensional matrix can be done in a similar manner as extension of columns
in two dimensions (Ans. 3). We are persuaded by Appellants’ contention
that the Examiner improperly applies obviousness-type analysis to an
anticipation rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) (App. Br. 15—16; Reply Br.
10—11). We therefore do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 3.
Claims 4 and 8—11
Regarding claims 4 and 8, the Examiner finds it is “common sense
and known in the art” to repeat the use of processing elements when the
number of columns of data is greater than the number of processors (Ans 5).
We are persuaded by Appellants’ argument that the Examiner’s reliance on
obviousness-type analysis in the anticipation rejection is improper (App. Br.
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Application 13/224,090
16—18; Reply Br. 12—14). Accordingly, we do not sustain the rejection of
claims 4 and 8 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b), nor of claims 9—11 depend from
claim 8, for the reasons stated with respect to claim 8.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, and 5—7 under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b).
We reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 3, 4, and 8—11 under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b).
We reverse the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—11 under
35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED-IN-PART
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