Ex Parte Cardona et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 21, 2016

12335612 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 21, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
12/335,612 12/16/2008
70748 7590
IBM Corp, (AUS/RCR)
c/o Rolnik Law Firm, P.C.
24 N. Main St.
Kingwood, TX 77339
03/23/2016
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Omar Cardona
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.
AUS920080704US 1 1407
EXAMINER
VERDI, KIMBLEANN C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2139
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/23/2016 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):
notices@rolnikiplaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte OMAR CARDONA, JAMES B. CUNNINGHAM,
BALTAZAR DE LEON III, and JEFFREY P. MESSING
Appeal2013-007632
Application 12/335,612
Technology Center 2100
Before BRADLEY W. BAUMEISTER, ANDREW J. DILLON, and
JEREMY J. CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judges.
CURCURI, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1-20, which constitute all the claims pending in
this application. Final. Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Appeal2013-007632
Application 12/335,612
REFERENCES AND REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 5-8, 12-15, 19, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as obvious over Blott (US 7,219,157 B2; issued May 15, 2007),
Anderson (US 2006/0225078 Al; published Oct. 5, 2006), and Ashton
(US 5,317,692; issued May 31, 1994). Final Act. 2---6.
Claims 2--4, 9-11, and 16-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious over Blott, Anderson, Ashton, and Girkar (US 6,378,043 B 1; issued
Apr. 23, 2002). Final Act. 6-9.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants' invention relates to "allocating buffers from a buffer pool
in a memory-locking environment." Spec. ,-r 1. Claim 1, reproduced below,
is illustrative:
1. A computer implemented method to obtain buffers
in a multiprocessor system, the method comprising:
receiving a call from an I/O device driver for a buffer, the
call including at least one parameter;
walking a bucket data structure to a current bucket;
determining whether the current bucket is free;
responsive to a determination that the current bucket is
free, obtaining a buffer list contained within the current bucket;
determining whether sufficient buffers are obtained based
on the parameter; and
responsive to a determination that sufficient buffers are
obtained, providing the current bucket and a second bucket as a
single buffer list to the I/O device driver.
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Application 12/335,612
THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OF CLAIMS 1, 5-8, 12-15, 19, AND 20
OVER BLOTT, ANDERSON, AND ASHTON
Contentions
The Examiner finds Blott, Anderson, and Ashton teach all limitations
of claim 1. Final Act. 2-5.
The Examiner relies on Blott's mbuf_pull primitive for the recited
"receiving a call from an I/O device driver for a buffer, the call including at
least one parameter" of claim 1. Final Act. 2 (citing Blott, col. 5, 11. 54--58).
The Examiner relies on Ashton's interrupt response on a read or write
command for the recited "responsive to a determination that the current
bucket is free, obtaining a buffer list contained within the current bucket" of
claim 1. Final Act. 4 (citing Ashton, col. 5, 11. 40-44 and 60-63). The
Examiner relies on Blott's enqueuing mbuf (memory buffer) pointers for the
recited "responsive to a determination that sufficient buffers are obtained,
providing the current bucket and a second bucket as a single buff er list" of
claim 1. Final Act. 3 (citing Blott, col. 5, 1. 44--col. 6, 1. 2; col. 6, 11. 6-7).
Appellants present the following principal arguments:
1. Blott does not teach the recited "responsive to a determination
that sufficient buffers are obtained, providing the current bucket and a
second bucket as a single buffer list" of claim 1. App. Br. 7. According to
Appellants, "Blott clearly states to first enqueue (alleged providing), and
then perform a determination ('return 0 if successful'). This teaching
entirely contradicts claim 1 's causality, of first determining, and then
providing the current bucket and a second bucket as a single buffer
list." App. Br. 8. Appellants further contend that although Blott describes
concatenating mbufs, Blott does not explain under what conditions Blott
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Application 12/335,612
performs concatenation. App. Br. 8. See also App. Br. 10-12; Reply Br. 2-
4.
11.
Blott rather than teach the claimed I/O device driver, merely
teaches "operating system 102" or "network application 108".
Importantly, Blott states that the applications 108 may use the
mbuf pull primitive to force the system 102 to enqueue a
specified ... number of mbuf pointers. Although, the 'forcing'
has all the earmarks of a 'call', however, unlike the claim, Blott
is teaching that the call is from applications. In contrast, claim
1 recites, "receiving a call from an 1/0 device driver".
App. Br. 13.
111. Ashton does not teach the recited limitation of claim 1,
"responsive to a determination that the current bucket is free, obtaining a
buffer list contained within the current bucket." App. Br. 13; see also App.
Br. 14--15 (Ashton does not teach claim 1 's causality); Reply Br. 4--5.
In response to these three arguments of Appellants, the Examiner
explains, respectively, that Blott's mbuf_pull returning 0 indicates that
sufficient buffers are obtained, and subsequently, concatenated mbufs are
allocated. See Ans. 8-13. The Examiner explains that Blott's applications
have the same functionality as an I/O driver. See Ans. 13. The Examiner
explains that Ashton's steps 400, 402 (Ashton, Fig. 4A) determines that the
current bucket is free, and next buffer pointer 304 (Ashton, Fig. 3) indicates
a buffer list. See Ans. 14--15.
Analysis
For the reasons that follow, the Examiner persuades us that Blott,
Anderson, and Ashton teach all limitations of claim 1. Appellants'
arguments do not show us any error in the Examiner's findings or
conclusions.
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Application 12/335,612
Regarding argument i, Blott discloses (col. 6, 11. 1-2 ) "mbuf_pull 214
return[ s] 0 if successful, or an error code otherwise." Thus, Blott teaches
making a determination that sufficient buffers are obtained because
mbuf_pull attempts to obtain a specified number of mbuf pointers, and the
success of mbuf_pull means that sufficient buffers were obtained.
Blott also discloses (col. 5, 11. 44--46) "applications 108 allocate
mbufs by dequeueing the mbufs' pointers 410 from mbuf_alloc 302 using
the dequeue routine 206." Thus, Blott provides buffers because allocating
mbufs makes buffers available to an application.
Further, a skilled artisan would have understood that Blott's providing
buffers is responsive to Blott' s successful enqueue of mbuf pointers with
mbuf_pull. Put another way, the purpose of enqueuing the mbuf pointers is
to allow the mbufs to be allocated, which reasonably describes the
allocating of mbufs being in response to the enqueuing of the mbuf pointers,
and thus responsive to the determination that sufficient buffers were
obtained.
Blott discloses (col. 6, 11. 6----7) "a plurality of mbufs can be
concatenated to hold a packet that is larger than a single mbuf." Thus, Blott
teaches providing the current bucket and a second bucket as a single buff er
list because, as discussed above, Blott allocates mbufs, and when allocated
mbufs are concatenated as also taught by Blott, a single buffer list is
provided.
Although Appellants argue that Blott contradicts claim 1 's causality,
we disagree for reasons explained above. Further, although Appellants
argue regarding Blott's concatenation, we disagree and conclude that a
skilled artisan would have understood that Blott taught, when providing
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Application 12/335,612
buffers, providing the current bucket and a second bucket as a single buffer
list to allow a packet of any length to be stored in mbufs. As discussed
above, Blott allocates mbufs, and when allocated mbufs are concatenated as
also taught by Blott, a single buffer list is provided.
Regarding argument ii, Blott discloses (col. 5, 11. 54--58) "When
necessary (e.g., mbuf_alloc 302 is empty), however, applications 108 may
use the mbuf_pull primitive 212 to force the system 102 to enqueue a
specified (strictly positive) number of mbuf pointers 410 synchronously into
mbuf_alloc 302." We agree with the Examiner (see Ans. 13) that Blott's
applications have the same functionality as an I/O driver. Thus, Blott
teaches receiving a call from an I/O device driver for a buffer. Blott's
applications are reasonably described as I/O device drivers because Blott's
applications (bridge or router configurations) access hardware (network
interfaces). Although Appellants argue Blott's call is from an application
and not from an I/O device driver, we conclude that a skilled artisan would
have understood that Blott teaches receiving a call from an I/O device driver
(Blott's application) for the reasons given by the Examiner in the Answer.
See Ans. 13.
Regarding argument iii, Ashton discloses (Fig. 4A, steps 400 and 402;
col. 5, 1. 55---col. 6, 1. 6) that in response to a write command from the host,
the address of a first empty buffer is fetched (step 400) (and inspected to
make sure it corresponds to an empty buffer (step 402)). Thus, Ashton
teaches determining that the current bucket is free, and obtaining this first
empty buffer. Further, Ashton (Fig. 3) discloses a linked list of buffers.
Thus, Ashton teaches obtaining a buffer list (the first empty buffer is the first
buff er in the list).
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Application 12/335,612
Although Appellants argue that Ashton does not teach the causality
of claim 1, we disagree because the buffer list is only obtained when the
address of the first empty buffer actually corresponds to an empty buffer.
Thus, a skilled artisan would have understood the buffer list is actually
obtained upon determination that the fetched address (step 400) actually
corresponds to an empty buffer (step 402).
We, therefore, sustain the Examiner's rejection of claim 1, as well as
claims 5-8, 12-15, 19, and 20, which are not separately argued with
particularity. See App. Br. 15.
THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OF CLAIMS 2--4, 9-11, AND 16-18
OVER BLOTT, ANDERSON, ASHTON, AND GIRKAR
The Examiner finds Blott, Anderson, Ashton, and Girkar teach all
limitations of claims 2--4, 9-11, and 16-18. Final Act. 6-9.
Appellants do not separately argue claims 2--4; 9-11; and 16-18. See
App. Br. 15.
We, therefore, sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 2--4, 9-11,
and 16-18.
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Application 12/335,612
DECISION
The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-20 is affirmed. 1
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
1 Should there be further prosecution of this application, the Examiner
should review claims 8-14 for compliance under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Independent claim 8, as well as dependent claims 9-14, recites "a computer
readable tangible storage device," but is not limited to non-transitory
devices. Furthermore, Appellants' Specification states that "[t]he medium
can be ... a propagation medium" (Spec. i-f 69), thereby fhrther evidencing
that the claims are intended to cover signals per se. When the broadest
reasonable interpretation of a claim to a computer-readable medium covers a
signal per se, as appears to be the case here, the claim must be rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 101 as covering non-statutory subject matter. See Ex parte
Mewherter, 107 USPQ2d 1857, 1862 (PTAB 2013) (precedential) (citing
In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d. 1346, 1356-57 (Fed. Cir. 2007)). See also
U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Subject Matter Eligibility of Computer-
Readable Media, 1351 Off. Gaz. Pat. Office 212 (Feb. 23, 2010) (wherein
the Office has taken the position that the ordinary and customary meaning of
computer readable media covers signals per se ); MPEP § 2106 (9th ed.
March 2014) ("[A] claim to a computer readable medium that can be a
compact disc or a carrier wave covers a non-statutory embodiment and
therefore should be rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-
statutory subject matter."); 2014 Interim Guidance on Subject Matter
Eligibility, 79 Fed. Reg. 74, 618, 74,621 (Dec. 16, 2014) (explaining that
examiners should reject claims that do not fall within one of the four
statutory categories).
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