DETAILED ACTION
The instant application having Application No. 18/088,170 filed on 12/23/2022 is presented for examination by the examiner. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 4-5, 8, 11-12, 15 and 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Sun et al. (US 2021/0303977).
As per Claim 1, Sun discloses a computer-implemented method for interpolating register-based lookup tables, at least a portion of the computer-implemented method being performed by a computing device comprising at least one processor, the computer-implemented method comprising: receiving a request to look up a value in a lookup table encoded for storage within a set of registers (Abstract and Figures 2, 7 and Paragraphs 0003, 0075 and 0091-0092, a processing unit comprises a lookup table (LUT) mechanism 700 that receives/implements a LUT instruction to select a data entry from the LUT corresponding to an input operand X, wherein the LUT is stored in one or more registers of the processing unit);
and responding to the request by interpolating, from the encoded lookup table stored in the set of registers, a representation of the requested value (Figures 7-8 and Paragraphs 0065, 0067, and 0091-0094, the LUT data entry comprises bias and slope values that are provided to a MAC computation to perform a linear interpolation in order to generate an approximation of the non-linear activation function for the input operand X).
As per Claim 4, Sun discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the lookup table comprises a table having representative outputs for a machine-learning function (Title, Abstract and Paragraphs 0002, 0025-0026 and 0107-0108, LUT outputs are used to approximate machine learning and deep learning functions).
As per Claim 5, Sun discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the set of registers comprises at least two registers of the at least one processor of the computing device (Abstract and Paragraphs 0003-0004, LUT is stored in one or more registers).
As per Claims 8 and 11-12, and 15 and 17-18, they are system and medium claims comprising the same limitations as recited in Claims 1 and 4-5, respectively. Thus, Claims 8, 11-12, 15, and 17-18 are rejected under the same rationale(s) as presented in the above rejection(s) of Claims 1 and 4-5.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 6-7, 13-14 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sun in view of Nogueira et al. (US 2013/0339564).
As per Claim 6, Sun does not explicitly disclose the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein interpolating the representation of the requested value comprises identifying an approximation of the requested value within the lookup table.
However, Nogueira discloses function approximation circuitry comprising register-based lookup table(s) followed by interpolation, wherein interpolating the representation of the requested value comprises identifying an approximation of the requested value within the lookup table (Abstract and Paragraphs 0022-0023, 0026-0027 and 0050-0052, when the LUT does not store a discrete value of the function F for a particular input, the LUT outputs approximate value(s) that are interpolated with a non-zero interpolation factor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing of the claimed invention to combine the function approximation circuitry taught by Nogueira with the function approximation circuitry of Sun because Nogueira’s circuitry can advantageously approximate any function and is programmable (Nogueira, Paragraphs 0035-0036), and because Nogueira’s circuitry provides increased flexibility through additional, programmable interpolation options as well as programmable accuracy and precision of the function values being approximated (Nogueira, Paragraphs 0029-0034).
As per Claim 7, Sun does not explicitly disclose the computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein interpolating the representation of the requested value comprises identifying an exact representation of the requested value within the lookup table.
However, Nogueira discloses function approximation circuitry comprising register-based lookup table(s) followed by interpolation, wherein interpolating the representation of the requested value comprises identifying an exact representation of the requested value within the lookup table (Abstract and Paragraphs 0022-0023, 0026-0027 and 0050-0052, when the LUT stores a discrete value of the function F for a particular input, the LUT outputs the precise value for the input value and the interpolation factor becomes zero, i.e. the interpolation does not change the LUT output value).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing of the claimed invention to combine the function approximation circuitry taught by Nogueira with the function approximation circuitry of Sun because Nogueira’s circuitry can advantageously approximate any function and is programmable (Nogueira, Paragraphs 0035-0036), and because Nogueira’s circuitry provides increased flexibility through additional, programmable interpolation options as well as programmable accuracy and precision of the function values being approximated (Nogueira, Paragraphs 0029-0034).
As per Claims 13-14 and 19-20, they are system and medium claims comprising the same limitations as recited in Claims 6-7, respectively. Thus, Claims 13-14 and 19-20 are rejected under the same rationale(s) as presented in the above rejection(s) of Claims 6-7.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-3, 9-10 and 16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW SANDIFER whose telephone number is (571)270-5175. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9:30am-6pm.
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/MATTHEW D SANDIFER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2151
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