Ex Parte Kenney et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 26, 2017

14574041 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 26, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
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
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
14/574,041 12/17/2014 Robert D. Kenney 8888-46201 1004
81310 7590 06/28/2017
Meyertons, Hood, Kivlin, Kowert & G (Apple)
P.O. BOX 398
Austin, TX 78767-0398
EXAMINER
SUN, HAI TAO
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2616
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/28/2017 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):
patent_docketing@intprop.com
ptomhkkg @ gmail .com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte ROBERT D. KENNEY, BENJIMAN L. GOODMAN, and
TERENCE M. POTTER
Appeal 2017-004791
Application 14/574,041
Technology Center 2600
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and
ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
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. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
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Application 14/574,041
THE INVENTION
Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a graphics unit that
renders a frame of graphics data using a plurality of pass groups in which the
frame of graphics data includes a plurality of frame portions. Abstract.
Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is representative of the
subject matter on appeal:
1. An apparatus, comprising:
graphics circuitry configured to render a frame of
graphics data using a plurality of pass groups, wherein the
frame includes a plurality of frame portions, wherein each
frame portion includes a plurality of pixels that is less than
an entirety of pixels of the frame, and wherein the graphics
circuitry comprises:
scheduling circuitry configured to:
receive a plurality of graphics processing
tasks;
maintain, for each of the plurality of tasks,
information that identifies one of the plurality of frame
portions and pass group information that identifies one of
the plurality of pass groups;
maintain age information usable to determine
relative ages of the plurality of frame portions, wherein the
age information indicates an ordering of the plurality of
frame portions based on when an initial task was received
for each frame portion;
select, for execution by the graphics
circuitry, a task from among the plurality of tasks based on
the age information and the pass group information; and
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Application 14/574,041
execute the selected task using one or
more graphics processing elements.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on
appeal is:
Nishimura US 2003/0037091 A1 Feb. 20, 2003
McDermott US 6,584,587 B1 June 24, 2003
Aila US 2005/0134588 A1 June 23, 2005
Koduri US 2006/0271717 A1 Nov. 30, 2006
Jiao US 2010/0123717 A1 May 20, 2010
Duluk US 2011/0080416 A1 Apr. 7,2011
Lottes US 2014/0259016 A1 Sept. 11,2014
THE REJECTIONS
The Examiner made the following rejections:1
Claims 1, 8, 9, 15, 16, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Lottes, in view of Jiao and Koduri. Final Act. 6.
Claims 2, 3, 5, 10, 11, 12, 17, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Lottes, in view of Jiao, Koduri, and
Nishimura. Final Act. 15.
Claims 6 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Lottes, in view of Jiao, Koduri, and Aila. Final Act. 20.
1 A rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) (based on “the age
information”) was withdrawn in the Advisory Action. See Advisory Act. 2.
A rejection of claims 1, 9, 13, and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) was
withdrawn in the Answer. See Ans. 21.
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Claims 7 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Lottes, in view of Jiao, Koduri, and Duluk. Final Act. 21.
Claims 4 and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Lottes, in view of Jiao, Koduri, and McDermott. Final
Act. 22.
ISSUES
The issues are whether the Examiner erred in finding:
1. the combination of Lottes and Jiao teaches or suggests “maintain age
information usable to determine relative ages of the plurality of frame
portions, wherein the age information indicates an ordering of the
plurality of frame portions based on when an initial task was received
for each frame portion,” as recited in claim 1; and
2. sufficient motivation to combine Lottes and Jiao to “select, for
execution by the graphics circuitry, a task from among the plurality of
tasks based on the age information and the pass group information,”
as recited in claim 1.
ANALYSIS
We adopt the Examiner’s findings in the Answer, Advisory Action,
and Final Action and we add the following primarily for emphasis. We note
that if Appellants failed to present arguments on a particular rejection, we
will not unilaterally review those uncontested aspects of the rejection. See
Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential); Hyatt v.
Dudas, 551 F.3d 1307, 1313—14 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (The Board may treat
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arguments Appellants failed to make for a given ground of rejection as
waived).
Regarding the “maintain age information” limitation, Appellants first
argue “Jiao does not, however, teach or suggest that FIFO 156 stores task
information or frame portion information” and “the ordering of missed
instruction fetches FIFO 156 does not correspond to an ordering of tasks in
which the missed instructions are included” (App. Br. 20). Appellants
further argue “Jiao does not teach or suggest frame portions at all” and
“Jiao’s FIFO 156 does not appear to allow determination of when an ‘initial
task’ is received for anything” (App. Br. 20—21; see also Reply Br. 2—5).
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments. The Examiner finds,
and we agree, that “Lottes discloses ‘maintain age information usable to
determine relative ages of the plurality of tiles’” (Ans. 21, citing Final Act.
8), in which “[tjiles are frame portions” (Ans. 21). The Examiner
additionally finds, and we agree, that “Jiao teaches ‘the ages of the 16
threads are compared by the age comparison device 174 to determine the
oldest thread that is available. The oldest thread is selected and provided to
the arbiter’” (Ans. 22, quoting Jiao 176; see also Jiao Fig. 7). Appellants’
arguments attack the references individually without consideration of their
combined teachings.2 Here, the Examiner correctly finds the combination of
2 “[0]ne cannot show non-obviousness by attacking references individually
where . . . the rejections are based on combinations of references.” In re
Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 426 (CCPA 1981). “The test for obviousness is not
whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated
into the structure of the primary reference .... 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.
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Lottes and Jiao yields identified age information indicating an ordering tied
to an initial task received for a frame portion.
Regarding the “select” limitation, Appellants argue “there is no reason
to combine the references” (App. Br. 21) and contend that “[f]irst, the
proposed motivation to ‘determine the final pixel values and output
completed video frame’ is a general goal of graphics processing and is
unrelated to the specific above-referenced features of claim 1. Second,
Jiao’s FIFO is for ‘instruction misses,’ so it is unclear how it relates to a
‘completed video frame’” (App. Br. 21—22).
We are not persuaded by Appellants’ arguments. The Examiner finds,
and we agree, that
Lottes discloses implementing] a high-performance GPU task
scheduling method that efficiently utilizes the hardware
computational resources of a GPU. Jiao discloses dynamic
scheduling parallel shader units in a GPU. The motivation for
combining Lattes and Jiao would have been to quickly
determine the final pixel values and output completed video
frame with dynamic scheduler as taught by Jiao in paragraphs
[0030] and [0037]
(Ans. 23—24). We note that “the law does not require that the references be
combined for the reasons contemplated by the inventor” {In re Beattie, 974
F.2d 1309, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 1992)(prior citations omitted)), and we conclude
the Examiner’s articulated reasoning provides a rational underpinning to
support the legal conclusion of obviousness. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex
Inc., 550 U.S. 398,418 (2007).
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claim 1, and independent claims 9 and 16 commensurate in scope, and
claims 2—8, 10-15, and 17—20 not separately argued. See App. Br. 22—23.
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CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in finding:
1. the combination of Lottes and Jiao teaches or suggests “maintain age
information usable to determine relative ages of the plurality of frame
portions, wherein the age information indicates an ordering of the
plurality of frame portions based on when an initial task was received
for each frame portion,” as recited in claim 1; and
2. sufficient motivation to combine Lottes and Jiao to “select, for
execution by the graphics circuitry, a task from among the plurality of
tasks based on the age information and the pass group information,”
as recited in claim 1.
DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—20 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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