Ex Parte Lataille et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Nov 23, 2010

11526870 (B.P.A.I. Nov. 23, 2010)

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.
11/526,870 09/26/2006 Norbert Bernard Eugene Lataille 550-863 2017
23117 7590 11/23/2010
NIXON & VANDERHYE, PC
901 NORTH GLEBE ROAD, 11TH FLOOR
ARLINGTON, VA 22203
EXAMINER
PARTRIDGE, WILLIAM B
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2183
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
11/23/2010 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 NORBERT BERNARD EUGENE LATAILLE,
FLORENT BEGON,
CEDRIC DENIS ROBERT AIRAUD, and
MELANIE VINCENT
____________________

Appeal 2010-001074
Application 11/526,870
Technology Center 2100
____________________

Before: JAY P. LUCAS, STEPHEN C. SIU, and DEBRA K. STEPHENS,
Administrative Patent Judges.

STEPHENS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON REQUEST FOR REHEARING

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Application 11/526,870

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Appellant filed a Request for Rehearing under 37 C.F.R. § 41.52(a)(1)
(hereinafter “Request”) for reconsideration of our Decision mailed June 16,
2010 (hereinafter “Decision”).
Our Decision affirmed the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1-4, 9-13,
and 15-18 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Moudgill;
claims 5-8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Moudgill
and Emer; and claims 10 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Moudgill, Emer, and Ekner.
We have reconsidered our Decision, in light of Appellant’s arguments
in the Request for Rehearing, and we find no errors therein. We decline to
change our prior Decision for the reasons discussed infra.
Appellant requests reconsideration of the following issues:

1. Whether Moudgill identifies “exception and non-exception
instructions within said decoded instruction stream” (Request 1-5);
2. Whether Moudgill teaches “control logic configured to store in
said buffer, register renaming values relating to any registers whose
data values are modified by said group of instructions and which are
renamed by said register renaming logic as a bundle of register
renaming values associated with said exception instruction” (Request
5-7); and
3. Whether the Examiner has provided “an apparent reason for
combining the known elements in the fashion claimed by the patent at
issue” (Request 7-9).

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ILLUSTRATIVE CLAIM
Claim 1 is an exemplary claim and is reproduced below:
1. Control logic for storing values relating to unresolved
exception instructions within a buffer to enable a register
renaming table within a processor to be restored following an
exception;

said processor processing a stream of instructions from
an instruction set, said instruction set comprising exception
instructions and non-exception instructions, said exception
instructions being instructions that may generate an exception
and non-exception instructions being instructions that execute
in a statically determinable way, said processor comprising a
physical set of registers for storing data values being processed
by said processor;

and register renaming logic for receiving a stream of
decoded instructions and for mapping for each decoded
instruction within said stream of decoded instructions, registers
from an architectural set of registers associated with said
instruction set to registers within said physical set of registers in
dependence upon renaming values stored in said
register renaming table;

said control logic comprising a buffer and said control
logic configured:

to identify exception and non-exception
instructions within said decoded instruction stream and to
group any non-exception instructions with a closest
preceding exception instruction;

to store in said buffer, register renaming values
relating to any registers whose data values are modified
by said group of instructions and which are renamed by
said register renaming logic as a bundle of register
renaming values associated with said exception
instruction.
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35 U.S.C. § 102(b): claims 1-4, 9-13, and 15-18

ISSUE 1
As previously discussed, Moudgill identifies an exception instruction.
A branch instruction is issued (pg. 207). During the time it is being resolved
the instructions following it are speculatively issued, based on a predicted
target (id.). Once the branch is resolved, it is determined whether the
branch was mispredicted (id.). If so, all the values produced by the
speculative instructions would be discarded (id.). Therefore, Moudgill
clearly identifies whether an instruction is an exception or non-exception
instruction as it needs to be able to back out the instructions executed to the
point the exception occurred. The non-exception instructions are grouped
(assembled as a unit) with the exception instruction since they are being
speculatively issued - again to allow backing out. The system thus identifies
the non-exception instructions and groups them with the closed preceding
exception instruction as the speculatively issued instructions. If another
exception were to occur, the instructions following that exception would be
grouped with it – so they too could be speculatively issued.
Appellants argue “[a]ll instructions in Moudgill are simply stored in a
readable map” (Request 4); however, the way the instructions are stored is
not recited and therefore, not relevant to whether the instructions are
identified and grouped. Identifying and grouping instructions is not the
same as storing instructions in a particular matter just as understanding an
argument is not the same as agreeing with it.

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ISSUE 2
Appellants again are arguing limitations not recited in the claims.
Specifically, the claim does not recite that the storing is based on the
grouping and the claim recites that the storing is of register renaming values
not the instructions. The register renaming values are stored as a bundle of
renaming values associated with the exception instruction. Moudgill’s
adding register renaming values to a history buffer (pg. 210) is gathering a
number of things, i.e., bundling the register rename values.
Additionally, “when a branch is discovered to have been
mispredicted, the logical register names must be set to map to the physical
registers constituting the old values….this means that the mapping table
must be restored to the state it was in at the time the branch was issued” (pg.
207). “On a mispredicted branch, the table is flushed, and the current map
set to the top map in the table” (pg. 209). Thus, the register renaming values
are a “gathered number of things” (bundle) associated with the exception
instruction as for those register renaming values to be “flushed,” i.e., if
restoration is required, the Moudgill system determines what register
renaming values are associated with that exception and thus, need to be
flushed.
ISSUE 3
35 U.S.C. § 103(a): claims 5-8, 10, and 14
We conclude the Examiner has set forth a prima facie case of why one
of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the technology of the
Moudgill and Emer references (Ans. 9-10 and Ans. 12). We do not agree
that the Examiner has merely made conclusory statements. Instead, we
agree with the Examiner and further emphasize that combining a counter to
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keep track of data or events would have been well within an ordinary
artisan’s skill at the time of the invention. We further agree with the
Examiner that adding the load exception check methods of Ekner to provide
another counter to keep track of events (unresolved load instructions) would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the
invention and further conclude it would have been well within an ordinary
artisan’s skill at the time of the invention.
The Examiner has provided explicit reasoning as to why one of
ordinary skill in the art would have combined the references (id.).
Appellants have not provided any arguments as to why the Examiner’s
reasoning for combining the references is in error (See App. Br. 20-21,
Reply Br. 8, and Request 7-9). Thus, since the Examiner has provided a
rational and explicit reasoning for the combinations and Appellants have not
provided any arguments or evidence to show the Examiner has erred, we
find that the Appellants have failed to persuade us of error in the Examiner’s
conclusions of obviousness with respect to claims 5-8, 10 and 14.

CONCLUSION
We have considered the arguments raised by Appellant in the Request
for Rehearing, but find none of these arguments persuasive that our original
Decision was in error. It is our view that Appellant has not identified any
points that the Board has misapprehended or overlooked. We are still of the
view that the invention set forth in claims 1-4, 9-13 and 15-18 is anticipated
over the applied prior art and the invention set forth in claims 5-8, 10 and 14
is obvious over the applied prior art based on the record before us. We have
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reconsidered our Decision but decline to grant the relief requested. Our
decision remains AFFIRMED.

This Decision on Appellant’s Request for Rehearing is deemed to
incorporate our earlier Decision (mailed June 16, 2010) by reference. See 37
C.F.R. § 41.52(a)(1).

ORDER
We have granted Appellant’s request to the extent that we have
reconsidered our Decision of June 16, 2010 but we deny the request with
respect to making any changes therein.

DENIED
Vsh

NIXON & VANDERHYE, PC
901 NORTH GLEBE ROAD, 11TH FLOOR
ARLINGTON VA 22203