Ex Parte Sun et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 27, 2017

13340679 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 27, 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.
13/340,679 12/30/2011 Hong Xia SUN 09-BJ-004US01 (5220039) 4095
30432 7590 10/31/2017
SLATER MATSIL, LLP/ST- US
c/o SLATER MATSIL, LLP
17950 Preston Rd.
Suite 1000
Dallas, TX 75252
EXAMINER
MEHTA, JYOTI
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2182
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/31/2017 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):
docketing @ slatermatsil. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte HONG XIA SUN, YONG QIANG WU, KAI FENG WANG, and
PENG FEI ZHU
Appeal 2017-003903
Application 13/340,679
Technology Center 2100
Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, DENISE M. POTHIER, and
JASON M. REPKO, Administrative Patent Judges.
REPKO, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2017-003903
Application 13/340,679
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1—22 and 30—37. App. Br. 2.2 Claims 23—29 have been
canceled. Id. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm and
designate the affirmance of the decision to reject claim 16 as a new ground
of rejection under 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b).
THE INVENTION
Appellants’ invention relates to a pipeline flush for a processor that
may execute instructions out of order. Spec. 14. For example, a superscalar
processor may include an instruction pipeline that simultaneously executes
instructions out of order. Id. 116. Although this out-of-order execution
improves performance, an instruction to load from a memory location may
execute before an instruction to store to that memory location. Id. 14. In
response to this “mis-speculative load instruction,” the system may flush the
entire pipeline. Id. But flushing the entire pipeline requires additional
processing time and energy. See id. So, Appellants’ invention flushes only
part of the pipeline. Id. This partial flush requires less processing time and
energy than flushing the entire pipeline. See id.
Claim 1 is reproduced below with our emphasis:
1. An instruction pipeline, comprising:
1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as STMicroelectronics R&D
(Beijing) Co. LTD. App. Br. 1.
2 Throughout this opinion, we refer to (1) the Final Rejection (“Final Act.”)
mailed August 25, 2015, (2) Advisory Action (“Adv. Act.”) mailed
December 3, 2015, (3) the Appeal Brief (“App. Br.”) filed March 21, 2016,
and (4) the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.”) mailed August 24, 2016.
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Application 13/340,679
a first processing section operable to provide first and
second ordered instructions; and
a second processing section operable:
in response to the second instruction, to read first
data from a data-storage location,
in response to the first instruction, to write second
data to the data-storage location after reading the first data,
and
in response to the writing the second data after
reading the first data, to cause the flushing of some, but
not all, of the pipeline.
THE REJECTIONS
The Examiner relies on the following as evidence:
Klein US 2004/0073774 A1 Apr. 15,2004
Elmer et al. US 2009/0259708 A1 Oct. 15, 2009
Alexander et al. US 2011/0185158 Al July 28, 2011
John L. Hennessy & David A. Patterson, Computer Architecture:
A Quantitative Approach 231-235, 278-282 (3d ed. 2003)
(“Hennessy”).
Claims 1—6, 8, 12—15, 22, and 30—36 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Hennessy and Elmer.3 Final Act. 4—12.
Claims 7, 9—11, and 37 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Hennessy, Elmer, and Alexander. Final Act. 12—17.
3 The Examiner omits claim 12 from the heading of the rejection but
includes it in the substantive portion of the rejection. See Final Act. 4, 7—8.
We, therefore, treat claim 12 as rejected over Hennessey and Elmer.
Furthermore, although Examiner includes claims 23—29 in the heading,
Appellants subsequently canceled these claims in later-filed amendment
entered by the Examiner. See id. at 4; Amendment After-Final, filed
December 3, 2015.
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Application 13/340,679
Claims 17—21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Hennessy, Elmer, and Klein. Final Act. 17—20.
THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OVER HENNESSY AND ELMER
The Examiner’s Rejection
The Examiner finds that Hennessy teaches every limitation recited in
claim 1 except for flushing some, but not all, of the pipeline. Final Act. 4—5.
In concluding that the subject matter would have been obvious, the
Examiner cites Elmer as teaching this feature. Id. at 5.
Appellants ’ Contentions
Appellants argue that the Examiner has not shown that it would have
been obvious to flush some, but not all, of the pipeline. Br. 14. According
to Appellants, Elmer optimizes the performance of a microprocessor’s X87
floating-point addition instructions. Id. Appellants contend that Elmer
flushes all unretired instructions to avoid an issue with an incorrect source
operand value. Id. at 14—15. Appellants, however, argue that Elmer’s
flushing is not in response to the condition recited in the claim—i.e., writing
the second data after reading the first. Id. at 15—16. According to
Appellants, Elmer’s flushing is in response to a reply-request signal, which
signals that a floating-point addition instruction needs to be replayed.
Id. at 16.
Dependent claims 2—6, 8, 12—14, and 30-36 and independent claims
15 and 22 are not argued separately. See id. at 18. We select claim 1 as
representative.
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Application 13/340,679
Issues
Appellants’ arguments for representative claim 1 (see id. at 13—18)
present us with the following issues:
I. Under § 103, has the Examiner erred in rejecting independent claim
1 by finding that Hennessy and Elmer would have collectively taught or
suggested the recited processing section that, in response to the writing the
second data after reading the first data, causes the flushing of some, but not
all, of the pipeline?
II. Has the Examiner supported the obviousness conclusion with
articulated reasoning with some rational underpinning?
Analysis
I
The first issue turns on the interpretation of “flushing of some, but not
all, of the pipeline.” “[Cjlaims in an application are to be given their
broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification, [ ] and
that claim language should be read in light of the specification as it would be
interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art.” In re Sneed, 710 F.2d 1544,
1548 (Fed. Cir. 1983). Here, the Specification discloses that “[t]he
processor may perform such a partial pipeline flush by reloading the
instruction-issue queue from the reorder buffer such that a fetch-decode
section of the pipeline need not be and, therefore, is not, flushed.” Spec.
1:28—30. We emphasize the term “may” here because it indicates that
Appellants do not intend to limit the recited flushing to this particular
embodiment. Furthermore, the Specification emphasizes that the described
embodiments are only illustrative. Id. at 17:7—11. And processor 8 can
perform the flush “in any suitable manner.” Id. at 15:9—10. Accordingly, a
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broad, but reasonable, interpretation of the claimed pipeline flush does not
require flushing of specific sections, only that “some, but not all,” of the
pipeline is flushed.
Notably, claim 1 uses the term “comprising” in defining those
sections that are in the pipeline. “Comprising” is a term of art that means
additional, unrecited elements are not excluded from the claim. So, the
recited pipeline is not limited to only the first and second sections. Rather,
claim l’s pipeline encompasses additional, unrecited sections. Therefore,
consistent with the examples from the Specification (see, e.g., id. at 1:28—
30), the limitation at issue encompasses flushing the recited sections and not
flushing some unrecited sections.
The Examiner finds that some, but not all, of Elmer’s microprocessor
100 pipeline is flushed. Ans. 3. We agree. Elmer flushes execution unit
124’s pipelines of all unretired instructions. Elmer | 62. But execution unit
124 is only one section of Elmer’s microprocessor pipeline. See id., Fig. 1.
Specifically, Elmer’s microprocessor pipeline includes a series of connected
sections: translator 108, register allocation table (RAT) 116, instruction
dispatcher 120, execution units 124, and retire unit 126. Id., Fig. 1; see also
id. 27—29. The Examiner finds that other sections, e.g., the retire unit, is
not flushed. Adv. Act. 2.
Even if some of the sections in Elmer’s microprocessor pipeline do
not correspond to the recited first and second sections, the claim’s open
language does not limit the pipeline to only the recited sections, as discussed
above. Because Elmer’s execution unit 124 pipeline accounts for some, but
not all, of microprocessor 100’s pipeline, we are unpersuaded that the
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Examiner erred in finding that Elmer teaches flushing some, but not all, of
the pipeline. See id.
II
We are also unpersuaded that the Examiner’s obviousness conclusion
is undermined by Elmer’s teachings of optimizing the performance of a
microprocessor’s X87 floating-point addition instructions (Br. 14) or a
reply-request signal {id. at 15—16). The Examiner does not propose bodily
incorporation of all Elmer’s teachings. See Ans. 3^4; see also Final Act. 5.
Nor does the standard for obviousness require doing so.
Here, the Examiner finds that both Elmer and Hennessy teach
different approaches to read-after-write (RAW) hazards. Ans. 4. Although
Elmer’s flush is in response to a replay-request signal (Br. 15—16), the
Examiner finds that Hennessy teaches that the RAW hazard stalls the
pipeline, instead of flushing it. Final Act. 5. The Examiner then proposes to
substitute Elmer’s approach for resolving a RAW hazard—i.e., a flush of
some of the pipeline. Id.', see also Ans. 4 (explaining Elmer’s hazard). In
concluding that the claimed subject matter would have been obvious, the
Examiner finds that one of ordinary skill in the art would have looked to
Elmer’s approach to obtain certain performance characteristics in
Hennessy’s pipeline. See Final Act. 5. In this way, the Examiner’s
proposed enhancement uses prior art elements predictably according to their
established functions—an obvious improvement. See KSR Int 7 Co. v.
Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007). On this record, the Examiner has
supported the obviousness conclusion with articulated reasoning with some
rational underpinning.
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Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 and
dependent claims 2—6, 8, 12—14, and 30-36 and independent claims 15 and
22, which are not argued separately. See Br. 18.
THE REMAINING OBVIOUSNESS REJECTIONS
CLAIMS 7, 9-11, 18-21, and 37
Although the Examiner rejects claim 17 over the additional reference
of Klein, Appellants argue independent claim 17 together with claim 1. See
Br. 18. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection for the same
reasons discussed above.
Claims 7, 9—11, 18—21, and 37 depend from independent claims 1,17,
and 22. In arguing the patentability of the dependent claims, Appellants
refer to the arguments presented for the independent claims. See id. at 18—
19. Therefore, for the reasons discussed in connection with claims 1,17,
and 22, we also sustain the rejections of claims 7, 9—11, 18—21, and 37.
CLAIM 16
Claim 16 recites, in part, “memory coupled to the pipeline and
operable to store the first and second instructions.”
Appellants and the Examiner treat claim 16 as rejected. See Br. 2;
Adv. Act 1. But apart from the claim status found in the Office Action
Summary and Advisory Action, the Final Action does not contain a
substantive rejection for claim 16. See Final Act. Office Action Summary
(“Claim(s) 1-37 is/are rejected.”); Adv. Act. 1 (providing the status of the
claims in item 15).
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The Examiner, however, rejects claim 20, which recites limitations
similar to those found in claim 16: “The system of claim 17 wherein the
integrated circuit comprises a memory.” Final Act. 20. Because the
Examiner has not articulated, expressly, that these findings apply to claim 16
(see id. at 4—20), we affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claim 16 but
designate the affirmance a new ground of rejection.
For clarity, we summarize the Examiner’s findings regarding claim 20
and explain how they apply to claim 16. In particular, the Examiner finds
that Klein teaches a memory coupled to a processor. See id. 19—20 (citing
Klein 131). For example, Klein teaches that memory control interface 40
stores instructions in instruction register 58. See Klein Fig. 4, discussed in
Klein 131. Register 58 can be a multi-instruction buffer. Id. 130. The
Examiner concludes that it would have been obvious to use Klein’s
processor-coupled memory for Hennessy’s processor with a pipeline to
facilitate memory access. Final Act. 19. This proposed enhancement uses
Klein’s memory predictably according to its established function (e.g.,
storing instructions), which is an obvious improvement to Hennessy’s
system. SeeKSR Inti Co., 550 U.S. at 417.
Therefore, claim 16 is unpatentable over Hennessy, Elmer, and Klein
under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—22 and 30—37.
We designate our affirmance of the decision to reject claim 16 as a
new ground of rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
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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).
This decision contains a new ground of rejection under 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.50(b), which provides “[a] new ground of rejection pursuant to this
paragraph shall not be considered final for judicial review.” This section
also provides:
When the Board enters such a non-final decision, the appellant,
within two months from the date of the decision, must exercise
one of the following two options with respect to the new ground
of rejection to avoid termination of the appeal as to the rejected
claims:
(1) Reopen prosecution. Submit an appropriate
amendment of the claims so rejected or new Evidence relating to
the claims so rejected, or both, and have the matter reconsidered
by the examiner, in which event the prosecution will be
remanded to the examiner. The new ground of rejection is
binding upon the examiner unless an amendment or new
Evidence not previously of Record is made which, in the opinion
of the examiner, overcomes the new ground of rejection
designated in the decision. Should the examiner reject the
claims, appellant may again appeal to the Board pursuant to this
subpart.
(2) Request rehearing. Request that the proceeding be
reheard under § 41.52 by the Board upon the same Record. The
request for rehearing must address any new ground of rejection
and state with particularity the points believed to have been
misapprehended or overlooked in entering the new ground of
rejection and also state all other grounds upon which rehearing
is sought.
Further guidance on responding to a new ground of rejection can be
found in the MPEP § 1214.01 (9th ed. Rev. 07.2015, Nov. 2015).
AFFIRMED
37 C.F.R, $ 41.50(b)
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