Ex Parte Garst et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardApr 17, 201411760580 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 17, 2014) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte BLAINE GARST and BERTRAND PHILIPPE SERLET ____________ Appeal 2011-006233 Application 11/760,580 Technology Center 2100 ____________ Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, ALLEN R. MacDONALD, and ROBERT E. NAPPI, Administrative Patent Judges. Per Curiam DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2011-006233 Application 11/760,580 2 Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection of claims 1-22. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellants’ invention relates to a mechanism that supports both reference count and garbage collected memory management operations (Spec. ¶¶ [0004] - [0006]). Independent claim 1 is illustrative of the invention and reads as follows: 1. A dual-use library method, comprising: receiving a first instruction to invoke a first routine; determining a memory management scheme required by the first instruction; executing one or more reference-count specific instructions in the first routine if the first instruction requires a reference count memory management scheme; and executing one or more garbage collector specific memory management instructions in the first routine if the first instruction requires garbage collector memory management. The Examiner’s Rejections Claims 1-3, 9, 12, 14-18, 21, and 22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Detlefs (US 6,993,770 B1). (See Ans. 3-8). Claims 4-8, 10, 11, and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Detlefs and Bernabeu-Auban (US 2006/0259489 A1). (See Ans. 8-11). Appeal 2011-006233 Application 11/760,580 3 Claims 19 and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Detlefs and Bird (US 2007/0106981 A1). (See Ans. 11- 12). Appellants’ Contentions 1. Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 because The Examiner does not appear to take into account the distinction between reference counting memory management (explained at ¶ 4 of Appellant’s Specification) and garbage collection memory management (explained at ¶ 5 of Appellant’s Specification). Appellant clearly distinguishes that reference counting memory management is [“]based on [ ] counting . . . of references . . . [and] [w]hen the number of references . . . is zero [reclamation may be performed].” Specification at ¶ [4]. In contrast, garbage collection memory management “uses a garbage collected heap.” (App. Br. 10). Appellants argue that Detlefs does not anticipate claim 1 because Detlefs’ library does not make a determination of what type of memory management scheme to use (App. Br. 12-13). Additionally, Appellants assert garbage collection and reference counting constitute different implementation types for memory management (App. Br. 14). 2. Appellants rely on the same reasoning in support of the patentability of independent claim 14 and dependent claim 18 (App. Br. 15), allowing these claims to fall with claim 1. 3. Regarding the remaining dependent claims, Appellants argue that those claims are patentable because of their dependency from the claims discussed above and the failure of the other references to cure the deficiencies of Detlefs (App. Br. 15-16). Appeal 2011-006233 Application 11/760,580 4 Issue on Appeal Based on Appellants’ arguments in the briefs, the principal and dispositive issue presented in this appeal is as follows: Did the Examiner err in rejecting the claims as being anticipated by Detlefs because the reference does not teach all the recited features of claim 1? ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants’ conclusion. The Examiner has provided a comprehensive response, supported by sufficient evidence based on the teachings of Detlefs to each of the above-noted contentions raised by Appellants. We adopt as our own (1) the findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this appeal is taken and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellants’ Appeal Brief (see Ans. 12-20). We concur with the conclusion reached by the Examiner. We observe that the conditional limitation recited in claim 1 only requires executing reference count specific instructions if the first instruction requires a reference count memory management scheme, without requiring garbage collector specific memory management instructions to be executed. It is well settled that during examination of a patent application, pending claims are given their broadest reasonable construction consistent with the specification. In re Prater, 415 F.2d 1393, 1404-05 (CCPA 1969); In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Therefore, Appeal 2011-006233 Application 11/760,580 5 Detlefs reference counting memory management meets the recited features of claim 1. Additionally, as further indicated by the Examiner (Ans. 17), the same set of instructions used for reference counting invokes garbage collection. In other words, although Appellants’ Specification mentions using a “garbage collected heap” including node allocation “performed by runtime code rather than explicitly by program code” (Spec. ¶ [0005]) (see also Reply Br. 5-6), claim 1 merely recites “garbage collector” which could be based on reference counting. That is, without reading limitations from the Specification into the claims, the Examiner’s broad, but reasonable, interpretation of reference counting as the basis for garbage collection is not precluded by claim 1. Based on the claim interpretation described above, we specifically agree with the Examiner’s analysis of the cited portions of Detlefs with respect to implementing lock-free reference counting and garbage collection (see Ans. 12-14). We also agree with the Examiner (Ans. 15-16) that the reference counting is one type of garbage collection technique used for freeing memory or allocated objects. As such, we agree with the Examiner that “the same set of instructions implements reference counting and reclamation or garbage collection memory management” (Ans. 17 (citing Detlefs, claims 22 and 25)). Further, contrary to Appellants’ arguments (Reply Br. 9-10), the Examiner correctly concluded Detlefs’ Figure 4B provides for evaluating a set of instructions (i.e., value of the reference counting as the number of pointers to an object) in order to invoke a memory management scheme (Ans. 18-19). Appeal 2011-006233 Application 11/760,580 6 CONCLUSIONS 1. The Examiner did not err in rejecting claim 1 as anticipated by Detlefs. 2. Claims 1-22 are not patentable. DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-22 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 tj Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation