Ex Parte Wu et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 20, 201311673915 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 20, 2013) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte YUGUANG WU and CHARLES J. ZHOU ___________ Appeal 2011-003851 Application 11/673,915 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before DAVID M. KOHUT, ERIC B. CHEN, and IRVIN E. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judges. CHEN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-003851 Application 11/673,915 2 This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of claims 1-20, all the claims pending in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants’ invention relates to allocating physical memory in a distributed, shared memory system and for maintaining interaction with the memory using a reservation protocol. A processor node broadcasts a memory request message to a first subset of nodes via a communication network. A reservation protocol includes a four-way handshake between the requesting processor node and a memory node that fulfills the request. (Abstract.) Claim 1 is exemplary, with disputed limitations in italics: 1. A system, comprising: a processor node comprising a processor and a network interface; a plurality of memory nodes, wherein each memory node comprises a memory and a network interface; a communication network configured to interconnect said processor node and said plurality of memory nodes via said network interfaces according to a network topology, wherein each of said memory nodes is removed from said processor node by a respective number of network hops according to said network topology; wherein said processor node is configured to: broadcast a memory request message comprising a unique identifier of a given memory request and a requested memory size to a subset of said plurality of memory nodes; send a confirmation message comprising the unique identifier to a particular one of the subset of memory nodes in Appeal 2011-003851 Application 11/673,915 3 response to receiving a reservation acknowledgment message from said particular one of the memory nodes; and access memory on the particular one of the memory nodes in response to receiving a commit message from the particular one of the memory nodes indicating that the memory has been allocated for the given memory request. REJECTION AT ISSUE Claims 1-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over Richardson (U.S. Patent No. 6,249,802 B1; June 19, 2001) and Yamauchi (U.S. Patent No. 5,649,102; July 15, 1997). ANALYSIS We are unpersuaded by Appellants’ arguments (App. Br. 11-12) that the combination of Richardson and Yamauchi would not have rendered obvious independent claim 1, which includes the limitation “broadcast a memory request message . . . to a subset of said plurality of memory nodes.” The Examiner found that the physical memory allocator of Richardson that identifies a node set corresponds to the limitation “broadcast a memory request message . . . to a subset of said plurality of memory nodes.” (Ans. 4; Richardson, col. 5, ll. 16-30.) We agree with the Examiner. Richardson relates to “allocating physical memory in a distributed shared memory (DSM) network.” (Abstract.) Richardson explains that the DSM architecture includes “a plurality of physically distinct and separated processing nodes each having one or more processors, input/output devices and main memory that can be accessed by any of the processors.” (Col. 1, ll. 20-25.) Figure 1A of Richardson illustrates an operating system 100 that Appeal 2011-003851 Application 11/673,915 4 controls applications 102 and libraries 104 running on a distributed shared memory (DSM) network 120. (Col. 5, ll. 8-12.) “Upon receiving a memory configuration request, physical memory allocator 110 performs a search of global geometry data and outputs a node set 125.” (Col. 5, ll. 27-29.) Thus, Richardson teaches the limitation “broadcast a memory request message . . . to a subset of said plurality of memory nodes.” Appellants argue that “Richardson teaches a search for memory nodes that takes place within the physical memory allocator of the operating system” and that “[t]his is a completely different method for identifying memory nodes that could meet a memory request than the four-message memory allocation protocol of Appellants’ claimed invention.” (App. Br. 12; see also Reply Br. 2-3.) However, the claim limitation “broadcast a memory request message . . . to a subset of said plurality of memory nodes” is broad enough to encompass the memory configuration request of Richardson that identifies a node set 125 from a DSM network 120 to fulfill the request. Furthermore, the Examiner cited to Yamauchi, rather than Richardson, for teaching the limitations “send a confirmation message”, “receiving a reservation acknowledgment message”, and “a commit message.” (Ans. 5, 13.) Thus, we agree with the Examiner that the combination of Richardson and Yamauchi would have rendered obvious independent claim 1, which includes the limitation “broadcast a memory request message . . . to a subset of said plurality of memory nodes.” We are further unpersuaded by Appellants’ arguments (App. Br. 13- 16; see also Reply Br. 4-7) that the combination of Richardson and Yamauchi would not have rendered obvious independent claim 1, which Appeal 2011-003851 Application 11/673,915 5 includes the limitations “send a confirmation message comprising the unique identifier to a particular one of the subset of memory nodes in response to receiving a reservation acknowledgment message from said particular one of the memory nodes” and “access memory on the particular one of the memory nodes in response to receiving a commit message from the particular one of the memory nodes indicating that the memory has been allocated for the given memory request.” The Examiner acknowledged that Richardson does not disclose the limitations “send a confirmation message comprising the unique identifier to a particular one of the subset of memory nodes in response to receiving a reservation acknowledgment message from said particular one of the memory nodes” and “access memory on the particular one of the memory nodes in response to receiving a commit message from the particular one of the memory nodes indicating that the memory has been allocated for the given memory request” (Ans. 4-5) and thus, relied upon Yamauchi for teaching a distributed shared memory management system that includes shared data management commands (Ans. 5, 13; Yamauchi, col. 25, ll. 30- 37). The Examiner concluded that “[i]t would have been obvious . . . to combine Richardson and Yamauchi, by adding the reservation system of Yamauchi to that of Richardson, because it . . . allows the computer to operate more efficiently.” (Ans. 5.) We agree with the Examiner. Yamauchi relates to “[a] distributed shared memory management system for a distributed shared memory computer system . . . , each computer having an independent address space and logically sharing data physically distributed to a storage of each computer.” (Abstract.) Yamauchi explains that “[w]hen a group is designated by the group joining Appeal 2011-003851 Application 11/673,915 6 command 3001, the commands in the coherence control command memory area 1701 are read and executed to enter necessary data items in the group management table 2902.” (Col. 24, ll. 63-66.) In one embodiment, shared data management commands 2007 include a coherence control request command “ACQUIRE” 3301 (i.e., the claimed “a confirmation message”), a coherence control acknowledge command “ACQUIRE_ACK” 3302 (i.e., the claimed “reservation acknowledgment message), and a group joining command “JOIN_GROUP” 3304 (i.e., the claimed “commit message). (Col. 25, ll. 30-37.) A person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that incorporating the distributed shared memory management system of Yamauchi, that includes shared data management commands, with the physical memory allocator of Richardson would improve Richardson by providing the ability to more effectively access a shared memory. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007). Alternatively, the combination of Richardson and Yamauchi is nothing more than incorporating the known distributed shared memory management system of Yamauchi with the known physical memory allocator of Richardson, to yield predictable results. Id. at 416. Thus, we agree with the Examiner (Ans. 5) that modifying Richardson to include the distributed shared memory management system of Yamauchi would have been obvious. Appellants argue that: The two-message ACQUIRE/ACQUIRE ACK sequence for requesting access to shared data as taught by Yamauchi (in which an acquire message is sent by one computer and an acquire_ack message is sent by another computer) cannot be equivalent to the four-message sequence for requesting and Appeal 2011-003851 Application 11/673,915 7 receiving an allocation of memory that is recited in Appellants’ claim 1. (App. Br. 13-14; see also Reply Br. 4-5.) Again, the Examiner cited to Richardson for teaching the limitation “broadcast a memory request message” (Ans. 4) and the Examiner cited to Yamauchi, rather than Richardson for teaching the limitations “send a confirmation message”, “receiving a reservation acknowledgment message”, and “a commit message” (Ans. 5, 13). Appellants also argue that “there would have been no reason to combine Richardson and Yamauchi in a manner that would result in Appellants’ claimed invention.” (App. Br. 15; see also Reply Br. 6.) However, as discussed previously, the combination of Richardson and Yamauchi is based on the improvement of a similar device in the same way as in the prior art, or in the alternative, by combining known elements to achieve predictable results. Thus, we agree with the Examiner that the combination of Richardson and Yamauchi would have rendered obvious independent claim 1, which includes the limitations “send a confirmation message comprising the unique identifier to a particular one of the subset of memory nodes in response to receiving a reservation acknowledgment message from said particular one of the memory nodes” and “access memory on the particular one of the memory nodes in response to receiving a commit message from the particular one of the memory nodes indicating that the memory has been allocated for the given memory request.” Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of independent claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Claims 2-11 depend from claim 1, and Appellants have not presented any substantive arguments with respect to these claims. Appeal 2011-003851 Application 11/673,915 8 Therefore, we sustain the rejection of claims 2-11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), for the same reasons discussed with respect to independent claim 1. Independent claims 12, 17, and 19 recite limitations similar to those discussed with respect to independent claim 1, and Appellants have not presented any substantive arguments with respect to these claims. See In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“[T]he Board reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to require more substantive arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation of the claim elements and a naked assertion that the corresponding elements were not found in the prior art.”). We sustain the rejection of claims 12, 17, and 19, as well as dependent claims 13-16, 18, and 20 for the same reasons discussed with respect to claim 1. DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-20 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 ELD Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation