Ex Parte Stephens et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Mar 29, 2012

11553993 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 29, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte, ARLIE STEPHENS and ERIC HAMILTON
_____________

Appeal 2010-000377
Application 11/553,993
Technology Center 2100
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Before MARC S. HOFF, CARLA M. KRIVAK, and
ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judges.

MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2010-000377
Application 11/553,993

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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of
claims 1 and 3-22. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

INVENTION
Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a garbage collector
configured to organize a memory availability collection of free units of
memory in the memory manager. The collection is ordered based on at least
one of the amount of each of the discrete units available and the allocation
age of the discrete units. See Abstract.
Claims 1 and 8, reproduced below, are exemplary of the subject
matter on appeal.
1. A memory management system for managing memory of a
processing device, comprising:
a memory manager configured to allocate memory, said memory
manager configured to allocate memory from a memory availability
collection ordered based on a collection order of free units of memory, after
dividing discrete units of memory into smaller units; and
a garbage collector, wherein said garbage collector is configured to
organize said memory availability collection of free units of memory in said
memory manager, said collection ordered based on at least the allocation age
of the discrete units.

8. A computer-implemented method of allocating memory
comprising:
receiving a request for unallocated memory;
selecting an appropriate piece of available memory from a collection of
available memory pieces, wherein one or more memory pieces comprise a
memory page and wherein said selection is based on choosing a memory
piece from the page of memory having the longest lived allocation age of a
memory piece; and
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allocating said appropriate piece of memory.

THE REJECTIONS
The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of
unpatentability:
Garthwaite US 7,143,124 B2 Nov. 28, 2006
Grose US Pat. Pub. 2007/0136402 A1 June 14, 2007

The following rejections are before us for review:
1. The Examiner rejected claims 1 and 3-7 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as
being anticipated by Garthwaite.
2. The Examiner rejected claims 8-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Garthwaite in view Grose.

ISSUES
The pivotal issues are whether the Examiner erred in finding that
1. Garthwaite teaches the limitation of a “memory manager
configured to allocate memory from a memory availability collection
ordered based on a collection order of free units of memory” as recited in
claim 1 (emphasis added); and
2. Garthwaite in view of Grose teach “allocating said appropriate
piece of memory” where this “appropriate piece of memory” is further
described in claim 8 as being selected “based on choosing a memory piece
from the page of memory having the longest lived allocation age of a
memory piece”.

Appeal 2010-000377
Application 11/553,993

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ANALYSIS
Analysis with respect to the rejection of claims 1 and 3-7
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e)

Appellants argue that Garthwaite’s collection of units are candidates
for garbage collection and have not yet returned to free status (see App. Br.
5-6 and Reply Br. 2-3).
We are persuaded by Appellants’ arguments. Garthwaite teaches that
the garbage collector identifies all objects which are reachable and that they
are candidates for addition to the collection set (col. 23, ll. 49-57). Thus,
Garthwaite does not teach the limitation of “free units of memory.”
We note that the Examiner’s reliance on column 6, lines 39-51 of
Garthwaite (Ans. 4), is in error because, while that section refers to the
“evacuated” objects (i.e., free units), such reference is with respect to a prior
art application and not to the disclosed improvement of Garthwaite.
Reliance on the prior art disclosure of column 6, lines 39-51 is not
appropriate for an anticipation rejection, since any such reliance in
combination with the disclosed improvement of Garthwaite would fall under
an obviousness, rather than an anticipation, analysis.
For the aforesaid reasons we will reverse the Examiner’s rejection of
claim 1 and for the same reasons the rejection of claims 3-7.

Analysis with respect to the rejection of claims 8-22
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Garthwaite in
view Grose.

Appellants assert that Garthwaite in view of Grose do not teach
“allocating said appropriate piece of memory” where this “appropriate piece
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of memory” is further described in claim 8 as being selected “based on
choosing a memory piece from the page of memory having the longest lived
allocation age of a memory piece” (App. Br. 14).
We agree with Appellants that Garthwaite’s cars and trains are already
allocated memory pieces and not available memory pieces (App. Br. 9-11).
We note that Garthwaite teaches a garbage collection algorithm rather than
an allocation algorithm (col. 9, ll. 30-40).
We also agree with Appellants that Grose may provide the general
teaching of allocating memory (¶ [0006]), but lacks the suggestion of
allocating the memory having the longest lived allocation age of a memory
piece as recited in claim 8 (App. Br. 11).
Accordingly, we will also reverse the Examiner’s rejections of claims
8-22.

CONCLUSIONS
The Examiner erred in finding that
1. Garthwaite teaches the limitation of a “memory manager
configured to allocate memory from a memory availability collection
ordered based on a collection order of free units of memory” as recited in
claim 1 (emphasis added); and
2. Garthwaite in view of Grose teach “allocating said appropriate
piece of memory” where this “appropriate piece of memory” is further
described in claim 8 as being selected “based on choosing a memory piece
from the page of memory having the longest lived allocation age of a
memory piece.”

Appeal 2010-000377
Application 11/553,993

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ORDER
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1 and 3-22 is reversed.

REVERSED

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