Ex Parte HORLEY et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 21, 2018

13968991 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 21, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/968,991 08/16/2013
73459 7590 12/26/2018
NIXON & V ANDERHYE, P.C.
901 NORTH GLEBE ROAD, 11 TH FLOOR
ARLINGTON, VA 22203
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
John Michael HORLEY
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.
JRL-550-1644 4643
EXAMINER
AGUILERA, TODD
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2196
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/26/2018 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):
PTOMAIL@nixonvan.com
pair_nixon@firsttofile.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JOHN MICHAEL HORLEY, SIMON JOHN CRASKE,
MICHAEL JOHN GIBBS, and PAUL ANTHONY GILKERSON 1
Appeal2017-002330
Application 13/968,991
Technology Center 2100
Before HUNG H. BUI, IRVINE. BRANCH, and AARON W. MOORE,
Administrative Patent Judges.
MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
1 This paper is captioned by inventor name according to our pre-AIA
convention. The Applicant, Appellant, and real party in interest is ARM
Limited. (See App. Br. 3.)
Appeal2017-002330
Application 13/968,991
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1-16, 20, and 23, which are all of the pending claims. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm-in-part.
THE INVENTION
The application is directed to "tracing processing operations
performed by a processing apparatus, and analysing the trace data produced
during tracing." (Spec. 1: 10-11.) Claim 1, reproduced below, exemplifies
the subject matter on appeal:
1. A processing apparatus comprising:
processing circuitry configured to perform processmg
operations in response to program instructions;
a condition status storage location configured to store at least
one condition flag indicating a property of a previous processing
result; and
trace circuitry configured to generate trace data elements
indicative of said processing operations performed by said
processing circuitry in response to said program instructions;
wherein:
said processing circuitry is responsive to at least one
conditional instruction to perform a conditional operation in
dependence on a current value of a subset of said at least one
condition flag; and
said trace circuitry is configured, in response to said
processing circuitry processing at least one of said at least one
conditional instruction, to generate a trace data element including
a traced condition value indicative of at least said subset of said
at least one condition flag, said traced condition value providing
information for determining a processing outcome of said at least
one conditional instruction.
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Application 13/968,991
THE REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Boudreau US 4,503,495 Mar. 5, 1985
Bishop et al. US 5,784,552 July 21, 1998
DeWitt, Jr. et al. US 2003/0135719 Al July 17, 2003
Ashfield et al. US 2007 /0294592 Al Dec. 20, 2007
Cortex-MO Devices Generic User Guide: Jan. 8, 2016
3.3.6. Conditional execution ("ARM")
THE REJECTIONS
1. Claims 1-5, 7-9, 12-15, 20, and 23 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § I03(a) as unpatentable over DeWitt and ARM. (See Final Act. 6-
17.)
2. Claim 6 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over DeWitt, ARM, and Ashfield. (See Final Act. 17-18.)
3. Claim 10 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over DeWitt, ARM, and Bishop. (See Final Act. 18-19.)
4. Claim 11 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over DeWitt, ARM, and Boudreau. (See Final Act. 19-21.)
5. Claim 16 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over De Witt and Ashfield. (See Final Act. 21-24. 2)
2 The Examiner has indicated that claims 17 and 18, which depend from
claim 16, are allowable. (See Final Act. 3.)
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Application 13/968,991
BACKGROUND
The Invention
The Specification describes how "[i]n a processing apparatus, a trace
circuit may be provided for monitoring processing operations performed by
a processing circuit and generating trace data indicative of the processing
operations performed." (Spec. 1: 14--16.) "A processing apparatus may
execute conditional instructions which specify an associated condition" and
"[t]he processing outcome of a conditional instruction is dependent on
whether the associated condition is satisfied at the time of execution of the
conditional instruction." (Id. at 1:21-24.) "When execution of a conditional
instruction is traced by a trace circuit, then the trace circuit may generate
trace data including an indication of whether or not the condition was passed
or failed" so that "[ w ]hen analysing the trace data then the pass/fail
indication can be used to determine the outcome of the conditional
instruction." (Id. at 1:24--27.)
The Specification further explains that "when tracing some advanced
processors, the pass/fail result of a conditional result can be difficult to
obtain," for example, because processors "may comprise processing
pipelines having multiple execution stages in parallel with one another" or
"may perform out-of-order execution of instructions to improve
performance." (Spec. 1:29-2: 1.)
Appellant's "technique recognises that the values of the condition
flags are typically more easily available than the pass/fail result of the
conditional instruction," because they "are often part of the architectural
state of the processing apparatus, and so ... can be read at an early stage of
a processing pipeline without needing to monitor when, and at which stage
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Application 13/968,991
of the pipeline, the execution result of the instruction becomes available."
(Spec. 3:7-12.) Thus, according to Appellant, "by tracing the condition flag
values rather than the pass/fail result, the configuration of the trace circuitry
is simplified." (Id. at 3:12-13.)
The Re} ection
The Examiner finds that DeWitt teaches the majority of the subject
matter of claim 1, but "does not explicitly disclose a condition status storage
location configured to store at least one condition flag indicating a property
of a previous processing result." (Final Act. 7.) The Examiner further finds,
however, that "ARM discloses a condition status storage location configured
to store at least one condition flag indicating a property of a previous
processing result" and that "[i]t would have been obvious ... to modify the
method of De Witt, which executes conditional instructions based on flags in
a register, by incorporatingjlags in a register indicating a property of a
previous processing result, as taught by ARM, as ARM would provide the
advantages of a means for instructions to control the conditional execution
of other instructions." (Id. at 7-8, emphasis added and omitted.)
ANALYSIS
Claims 1-15, 20, and 23
Appellant argues that "[w]hen claim 1 is (a) read as a whole and (b)
read in light of the specification and figures," one skilled in the art would
have understood that it "requires 'a trace data element including a traced
condition value indicating at least said subset of said at least one condition
flag' which indicates 'a property of a previous processing result."' (App. Br.
13.) Appellant also argues that "[n]either DeWitt nor the ARM document
teaches the claimed trace data element" because neither "teaches generating
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Application 13/968,991
a trace data element including a traced condition value that indicates a
property of the previous processing result based on at least a subset of the at
least one condition flag." (Id. at 13, 14.)
Appellant further argues that "[ e ]ven if one could combine the APSR
from the ARM document in the De Witt system ... , De Witt's modified
system would not teach generating 'a trace data element including a traced
condition value indicative of at least said subset of the said one a condition
flag' where the condition flag indicates 'a property of a previous processing
result."' (App. Br. 14--15).
The fundamental problem, according to Appellant, is that the
modified system "would still use a conventional technique for tracing
conditional instructions that requires an indication of whether the condition
was passed or failed for a given conditional instruction." (App. Br. 15,
emphasis omitted.) "In other words," Appellant maintains, "the pass/fail
result ... would be traced rather than tracing an indication of a property of a
previous processing result indicated by the condition flag." (Id.)
The Examiner responds that "[n]owhere does the claim recite 'a trace
data element including a traced condition value indicating at least said subset
of said at least one condition flag which indicates a property of a previous
processing result.'" (Ans. 3.) The Examiner asserts that "the 'claimed' trace
data element ... is not actually claimed" and "[t]hus ... cannot distinguish
the claimed invention from DeWitt or ARM." (Id.)
The Examiner further responds that "De Witt merely does not disclose
that the 'at least one condition flag' indicates a property of a previous
processing result," but that "ARM does disclose 'at least one condition flag'
that indicates a property of a previous proceeding result as set forth in the
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Application 13/968,991
final Office action," and that "it would have been obvious to modify DeWitt
by including at least one condition flag which 'indicates a property of a
previous processing result.'" (Id. at 3-4.)
Regarding claim construction, Appellant argues that the Examiner
"fails account for the word 'said' in 'said at least one condition flag,' which
means that the condition flag indicated in the traced condition value is the
same condition flag previously defined as indicating a property of the
previous processing result." (Reply Br. 3.) Appellant further argues the
Examiner "misunderstands the argument in part B.2 of the Appeal Brief,"
which is "not about whether it is obvious to combine De Witt and ARM ...
but about whether such DeWitt-ARM modified system would result in what
is claimed." (Id.) "Ultimately," Appellant argues, "the modification of
DeWitt based on ARM does not result in claim 1 because the DeWitt-ARM
combination ... would not have trace circuitry which generates a trace data
element with a traced condition value indicative of a condition flag which
indicates a property of a previous processing result." (Id. at 5---6.)
We agree with Appellant on the claim construction issue. The claim
recites "at least one condition flag indicating a property of a previous
processing result" and, subsequently, "generat[ing] a trace data element
including a traced condition value indicative of at least said subset of said at
least one condition flag." By long established convention, "said at least one
condition flag" refers to the antecedent "at least one condition flag." The
second limitation, therefore, is functionally the same as "generat[ing] a trace
data element including a traced condition value indicative of at least said
subset of said [ at least one condition flag indicating a property of a previous
processing result]." The claim thus requires that the trace data element
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Application 13/968,991
include a traced condition value that is indicative of a subset of condition
flags indicating a property of a previous processing result.
Resolution of the claim construction issue that way compels us also to
find for Appellant on obviousness. The Examiner finds that "De Witt does
not explicitly disclose ... [ storing] at least one condition flag indicating a
property of a previous processing result," but that ARM does, and that it
would have been obvious to use ARM' s flags in De Witt to "provide the
advantages of a means for instructions to control the conditional execution
of other instructions." (Final Act. 7-8.) We agree with Appellant, however,
that showing it would have been obvious to use a flag indicate a property of
a previous result is insufficient to also show that it would have been obvious
to generate a trace data element including a traced condition value indicative
of the flag, as recited in claim 1. The Examiner has not made the further
finding that, once a person of skill in the art determined to use flags for the
processing, it also would have obvious to record the flags as part of the
tracing.
Because we find the Examiner has not established that the
combination would have taught or suggested generating a trace data element
including a traced condition value indicative of a condition flag indicating a
property of a previous processing result, we do not sustain the obviousness
rejection of (a) claim 1 and its dependent claims 2-12 and 23, or (b)
independent claim 13 and its dependent claims 14, 15, and 20, which include
the same condition flag language.
Claim 16
Independent claim 16 recites "at least one condition flag indicating a
condition of said processing apparatus" instead of "at least one condition
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Application 13/968,991
flag indicating a property of a previous processing result." The Examiner
rejects this claim as obvious in view of De Witt and Ashfield. (See Final
Act. 21-24.) However, Appellant does not present any argument to show
that the Examiner's rejection is in error. As such, we sustain the Examiner's
obviousness rejection of claim 16.
DECISION
The rejections of claims 1-15, 20, and 23 are reversed. The rejection
of claim 16 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-IN-PART
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