Ex Parte KLIEM et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 4, 2018

13399513 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 4, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/399,513 02/17/2012
25297 7590 10/09/2018
Jenkins, Wilson, Taylor & Hunt, P.A.
3015 Carrington Mill Boulevard
Suite 550
Morrisville, NC 27560
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Daniel KLIEM
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.
1406/702/2 5976
EXAMINER
KATSIKIS, KOSTAS J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2441
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/09/2018 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):
usptomail@jwth.com
datcheson@jwth.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DANIEL KLEIM and MARTIN WAGNER
Appeal 2018-00413 5
Application No. 13/399,513 1
Technology Center 2400
Before MARC S. HOFF, SCOTT B. HOWARD, and
JOYCE CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judges.
HOFF, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a Final Rejection of
claims 1, 5, 7-9, 13, 15, 16, 19, and 21. 2 We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm.
Appellants' invention is a control device for controlling a plurality of
network nodes of a computer network. A master computing means assigns at
least one program to each network. Control logic is configured to group the
network nodes in accordance with the programs assigned to these network
1 The real party in interest is Airbus Operations GMBH.
2 Claims 2--4, 6, 10-12, 14, 17, 18, and 20 have been cancelled.
Appeal 2018-004135
Application No. 13/399,513
nodes, and to transmit the same program in parallel to those network nodes
of the same group which have been assigned the same program by the
master computing means. See Abstract.
Claim 1 is reproduced below:
1. A control device for controlling a plurality of network nodes of a
computer network, comprising a master computing device configured to
control the network nodes in accordance with a program, which master
computing device is configured to assign at least one program to each
network node, and
comprising a control logic which is configured to group the network
nodes in accordance with the programs assigned to these network nodes in
each case and to transmit the same program in parallel to those network
nodes of the same group which have been assigned this same program by the
master computing device, and comprising a memory which is arranged
between the master computing device and the control logic and in which the
programs allocated to the network nodes, group information of the allocation
of the programs to the respective network nodes, and length information
about the respective program length are stored;
wherein the control logic is configured, for each group of network
nodes, to transmit the assigned program for the group of network nodes to
the network nodes of the group by transmitting the assigned program on the
computer network such that the assigned program is addressed
simultaneously to all of the network nodes of the group;
wherein a program assigned to a group of network nodes comprises a
number of program commands, the control logic being formed to transmit
the number of program commands in succession to the network nodes in
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Application No. 13/399,513
accordance with a preset sequence, and wherein a program command
comprises at least a single interpretable order and/or at least a single
executable instruction;
wherein the memory comprises a program memory which is formed to
store the programs allocated to the network nodes, and wherein the memory
comprises an allocation memory which is formed to store the at least one
allocation of the network nodes to a group of network nodes and the
program lengths of the programs respectively assigned to said network
nodes.
Claims 1, 5, 7-9, 13, and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Takeuchi, Muff, Liu, Simpson, and Archer.
Claims 16, 19, and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Takeuchi, Muff, Simpson, and Archer.
Throughout this decision, we make reference to the Appeal Brief
("App. Br.," filed December 7, 2017), the Reply Brief ("Reply Br.," filed
March 9, 2018), and the Examiner's Answer ("Ans.," mailed January 11,
2018) for their respective details.
ISSUES
1. Does the combination of Takeuchi, Muff, Simpson, and Archer,
with or without Liu, teach or suggest control logic configured to transmit the
same program in parallel to the network nodes of the same group which have
been assigned the program by the master computing device?
2. Does the combination of Takeuchi, Muff, Simpson, and Archer,
with or without Liu, teach or suggest transmitting the assigned program
addressed simultaneously to all of the network nodes of the group?
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Application No. 13/399,513
PRINCIPLES OF LAW
We determine the scope of the claims in patent applications not solely
on the basis of the claim language, but upon giving claims their broadest
reasonable construction in light of the specification as it would be
interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech.
Ctr., 367 F.3d 1359, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
One cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually
where the rejections are based on combinations of references. In re Keller,
642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981). The test of obviousness is not whether the
features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the
structure of the primary reference, nor is it that the claimed invention must
be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is
what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to
those of ordinary skill in the art. Id. at 425.
ANALYSIS
Appellants present a single combined argument directed to all pending
claims. Therefore, we will address the two appealed grounds of rejection
together.
Appellants argue that the Examiner erred in combining Takeuchi,
Muff, Liu, Simpson, and Archer. App. Br. 6. Appellants contend that Muff
does not teach a control logic which is configured to "transmit the same
program in parallel to those network nodes of the same group which have
been assigned this same program by the master computing device." App. Br.
6-7. Appellants argue that "Muff is generally directed to parallel execution
of programs and not parallel transmission of programs." App. Br. 7.
Appellants point to paragraph 26 of Muff, cited by the Examiner, disclosing
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Application No. 13/399,513
that "NOC [ network on a chip] video adapter 322 and the NOC coprocessor
324 are optimized for programs that use parallel processing." Id., citing
Muff,I 26.
We are not persuaded that the Examiner erred. We agree with the
Examiner that Muff discloses a multi threaded architecture ( whereby each of
the NOCs execute multiple functions simultaneously), as well as
multiprocessing (in which programs are executed in parallel). Ans. 5. Muff
teaches that "there are four hardware threads 108a-d within NOC 102, each
of which is assigned to perform a different portion of a job described by user
application 112." Muff,I 18. We agree with the Examiner that modifying the
master and slave computing devices of Takeuchi with the multithreaded
architecture taught by Muff would produce the predictable result of
simultaneous (i.e., parallel) transmission of a program, in the manner
claimed. See Final Act. 10; Ans. 6; KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S.
3 98, 401 (2007) ("[A] combination of familiar elements according to known
methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable
results.").
Appellants further contend that the Examiner erred when finding that
"Takeuchi-Muff-Lu and Simpson are analogous art because they are from
the same problem solving area, namely, carrying out serial communications
in communication networks." App. Br. 8, quoting Final Act. 14. Appellants
urge that this finding is in conflict with the claim limitation at issue,
"transmit the same program in parallel." App. Br. 8.
Appellants' argument that "parallel" in the claims refers to parallel
communications, and is thus dissimilar to serial communications, does not
find support in the Specification. Appellants disclose that "[i]n a final step
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Application No. 13/399,513
S3 of the method according to the invention, a program P 1 - Pm, which is to
be transmitted from the master computing means 2 to the same network
nodes T 1 - T n in each case, is transmitted in parallel to the network nodes T 1
- T n of the same group. In this context, in parallel means that the control
logic performs the processing and computing operations for transmitting a
program P1 - Pm only once for each group." Spec. 12:29 - 13 :2; see Figure
3.
We regard the Specification's definition of "in parallel" here as
corresponding with the Examiner's interpretation of ''parallel" as
"simultaneous," specifically simultaneous program transmission. Ans. 5.
Therefore, we agree with the Examiner that the combination of Takeuchi,
Muff, Liu, Simpson, and Archer suggests "transmitting the same program in
parallel" as claim 1 recites.
Appellants' argument that the Examiner's rejection is erroneous
because Archer fails to disclose or suggest "transmitting the assigned
program on the computer network such that the assigned program is
addressed simultaneously to all of the network nodes of the group" is not
persuasive. App. Br. 8; Reply Br. 4. Appellants' argument amounts to an
attack on the references individually, which is not effective to show error in
a rejection based upon a combination of references. See Keller, 642 F.2d at
425. The Examiner relied on Takeuchi for a teaching of program
transmission. Final Act. 9. The Examiner relied on Archer for its teaching of
a parallel computer broadcasting a message to a plurality of compute nodes
102 organized into at least one operational group 132. Final Act. 16, citing
Archer ,r,r 27, 29. We agree with the Examiner that the combined teachings
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of the references would have suggested transmitting an assigned program
simultaneously to all the network nodes of the group.
Because we are not persuaded that the Examiner erred, we sustain the
Examiner's§ 103(a) rejection of claims 1, 5, 7-9, 13, and 15 as being
unpatentable over Takeuchi, Muff, Liu, Simpson, and Archer. We also
sustain the Examiner's§ 103(a) rejection of claims 16, 19, and 21 as being
unpatentable over Takeuchi, Muff, Simpson, and Archer.
CONCLUSIONS
1. The combination of Takeuchi, Muff, Simpson, and Archer, with or
without Liu, suggests control logic configured to transmit the same program
in parallel to the network nodes of the same group which have been assigned
the program by the master computing device.
2. The combination of Takeuchi, Muff, Simpson, and Archer, with or
without Liu, suggests transmitting the assigned program addressed
simultaneously to all of the network nodes of the group.
ORDER
The Examiner's decision to reject claims 1, 5, 7-9, 13, 15, 16, 19, and
21 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)(l )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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