Ex Parte Jiang et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Mar 7, 2012

10750589 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 7, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
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APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
10/750,589 12/31/2003 Hong Jiang ITL.1710US (P18028) 8821
21906 7590 03/08/2012
TROP, PRUNER & HU, P.C.
1616 S. VOSS ROAD, SUITE 750
HOUSTON, TX 77057-2631
EXAMINER
WAI, ERIC CHARLES
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2195
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
03/08/2012 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte HONG JIANG and THOMAS A. PIAZZA
____________

Appeal 2010-001579
Application 10/750,589
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, JOHN A. JEFFERY, and
MARC S. HOFF, Administrative Patent Judges.

JEFFERY, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 12-21 and 26-34. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b). We reverse.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants’ invention is an active semaphore for performing graphical
data processing operations by coordinating access to shared resources among
multiple threads of instructions. A processing core sends a semaphore
request message on behalf of an executing thread requesting access to a
shared resource. The thread is then placed in an inactive state. A semaphore
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Application 10/750,589

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entity determines whether to grant control of the semaphore associated with
the requested resource. When control is granted, the semaphore entity sends
a semaphore acknowledge message. The requesting thread is then restored
to an active state. See generally Spec. ¶¶ 0001, 06-08, 14-16. Claim 12 is
illustrative with key disputed limitations emphasized:
12. An apparatus comprising:
execution circuitry to receive and execute a first thread of instructions
corresponding to a first graphical element of an image and a second thread
of instructions corresponding to a second graphical element of the image,
wherein the execution circuit transmits a semaphore request message and
places the first thread in an inactive state in response to the first thread
requiring a resource having an associated semaphore; and
a semaphore entity coupled with the execution circuitry to receive the
semaphore request message from the execution circuitry and to selectively
grant control of the semaphore in response to the semaphore request
message by transmitting a semaphore acknowledge message to the execution
circuitry, wherein the execution circuitry, in response to receiving the
semaphore acknowledge message, removes the thread of instructions from
the inactive state.

The Examiner relies on the following as evidence of unpatentability:
Kwok
Wenniger
US 5,951,672
US 6,018,785
Sept. 14, 1999
Jan. 25, 2000

THE REJECTION
The Examiner rejected claims 12-21 and 26-34 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Kwok and Wenniger. Ans. 3-8.1

1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to (1) the Appeal Brief filed February 3,
2009; (2) the Examiner’s Answer mailed May 11, 2009; and (3) the Reply
Brief filed July 8, 2009.
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Application 10/750,589

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CONTENTIONS
The Examiner finds that Kwok discloses every recited feature of
independent claim 12 except for a semaphore request message and a
semaphore acknowledge message, but cites Wenniger as teaching these
features in concluding that the claim would have been obvious. Ans. 3-4.
Appellants argue that Wenniger’s interrupt signal merely provides an
occasion for a process to continue polling a resource in competition with
other processes, in contrast to the claimed semaphore acknowledge message,
which grants access to a resource without further inquiries on behalf of the
requesting thread. App. Br. 10-11.
The issue before us, then, is as follows:

ISSUE
Under § 103, has the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 12 by finding
that Kwok and Wenniger collectively would have taught or suggested
selectively granting control of a semaphore by transmitting a semaphore
acknowledge message?

FINDINGS OF FACT (FF)
1. Wenniger discloses that multiple processes 112-118 may
simultaneously compete for access to a resource 110 governed by hardware
semaphore 120. A process seeking control over the resource queries the
semaphore to determine if it is available, and if it is unavailable, the process
must await receipt of an interrupt from the semaphore. The interrupt
indicates that control of the resource has been relinquished, and that the
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requesting process can attempt to gain control of the resource. Wenniger,
col. 6, ll. 1-22; Fig. 3.
2. Wenniger’s interrupt signal does not guarantee that the resource for
which it was generated will be available when the requesting process re-
attempts to gain control of the resource. Multiple processes may be awaiting
access to the resource, and thus one process may gain control over the
resource following the interrupt signal before another process has a chance
to gain control. Wenniger, col. 6, ll. 34-42.

ANALYSIS
Based on the record before us, we do not sustain the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of representative claim 12 which recites, in pertinent
part, “selectively grant control of the semaphore in response to the
semaphore request message by transmitting a semaphore acknowledge
message.”
The Examiner’s interpretation that “selectively grant” does not require
any thread actually be granted control of the semaphore (Ans. 10) is
misplaced. In claim 12, the semaphore entity grants control of the
semaphore through the semaphore acknowledge message “in response to the
semaphore request message,” wherein the semaphore request message was
sent on behalf of the first thread. The grant of control is thus selective
because the grant is to the requesting thread—i.e., the first thread—as
opposed to some other thread. Wenniger’s interrupt signal does not grant
control to any process, let alone a requesting process, but rather indicates
that a particular resource is available over which multiple processes may
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Application 10/750,589

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compete for control. See FF1-2. Thus, Wenniger does not disclose a
semaphore acknowledge message.
Further, even if Wenniger’s system must somehow grant control of a
resource to one of the competing processes (see Ans. 11), if not through the
interrupt signal, Wenniger discloses no details regarding how such control is
granted. Absent such evidence, we cannot say that the grant results in the
winning process being removed from an inactive state, as in claim 12. In
fact, one can infer the opposite from Wenniger—that the winning process is
in an active state prior to being granted control because it is competing for
the resource. According to the Specification, for a thread in an inactive
state, “execution and associated operations (e.g., polling of semaphores)
halts.” Spec. ¶ 0015.
We are therefore constrained by this record to find that the Examiner
erred in rejecting (1) independent claim 12; (2) independent claim 26 which
recites commensurate limitations; and (3) the dependent claims for the same
reasons.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner erred in rejecting claims 12-21 and 26-34 under § 103.

ORDER
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 12-21 and 26-34 is reversed.

REVERSED

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