Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
This is in response to applicant’s amendment/response filed on 06/01/2026, which has been entered and made of record. Claims 1, 2, 4, 7 have been amended. Claims 3, 5-6, 8-20 have been cancelled. Claims 21-28 have been added. Claims 1, 2, 4, 7, 21-28 are pending in the application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments on 06/01/2026 have been fully considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the references being used in the current rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, fourth paragraph:
Subject to the following paragraph [i.e., the fifth paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112], a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claim 22-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends. Claim 22-24 recite “the method of claim 1”. However, claim 1 is an apparatus claim. Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 25-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claim is directed to non-statutory subject matter in the form of a “computer-readable medium”. The claims fall outside the scope of patent-eligible subject matter at least because the claimed computer-readable medium is broad enough to encompass transitory embodiments (e.g., one of ordinary skill in the art could reasonably be expected to interpret the computer-readable medium as a carrier wave onto which instructions could be coded) and because the specification describing the computer-readable medium does not limit the computer-readable medium to non-transitory embodiments.
See also the Official Gazette Notice 1351 OG 212 February 23, 2010 “Subject Matter Eligibility of Computer Readable Media” which states in relevant part “[i]n an effort to assist the patent community in overcoming a rejection or potential rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in this situation, the USPTO suggests the following approach. A claim drawn to such a computer readable media that covers both transitory and non-transitory embodiments may be amended to narrow the claim to cover only statutory embodiments to avoid a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 by adding the limitation ‘non-transitory’ to the claim.”
Also see MPEP 2106.03, “Even when a product has a physical or tangible form, it may not fall within a statutory category. For instance, a transitory signal, while physical and real, does not possess concrete structure that would qualify as a device or part under the definition of a machine, is not a tangible article or commodity under the definition of a manufacture (even though it is man-made and physical in that it exists in the real world and has tangible causes and effects), and is not composed of matter such that it would qualify as a composition of matter. Nuijten, 500 F.3d at 1356-1357, 84 USPQ2d at 1501-03. As such, a transitory, propagating signal does not fall within any statutory category. Mentor Graphics Corp. v. EVE-USA, Inc., 851 F.3d 1275, 1294, 112 USPQ2d 1120, 1133 (Fed. Cir. 2017); Nuijten, 500 F.3d at 1356-1357, 84 USPQ2d at 1501-03.”
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 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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 7, 21, 24, 25, 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Heinrich et al. (US Pub 2015/0084975 A1).
As to claim 1, Heinrich discloses an apparatus comprising:
processing circuitry coupled to a memory (Fig. 1), the processing circuitry to: wherein the one or more processors are to establish a memory surface within the memory based on a configuration, the memory surface to facilitate storage of data and metadata in memory portions of the memory (¶0033, “processing tasks that are encoded as task metadata (TMD) and stored in memory.” ¶0053, “certain memory access operations related to textures and surfaces could be associated with a texture header, where a texture header stores information describing characteristics of the given texture surface, including, without limitation, the type, format, dimensions, storage structure, and base address of the memory allocated to the texture or surface. If the incoming memory access operation is associated with a texture header, then the command and data conditioning unit determines whether the received memory access operation is consistent with the associated texture header, according to the type of memory access operation.” ¶0054, “Memory access operations are consistently presented to the texture processing pipeline 400, even if the received memory operations are inconsistent with the corresponding surface configurations.” ¶0058, “The sampling control and address unit 408 is configured to perform various address computations based on the coordinates within the memory access request. The results of the address computations may be used to identify an entry in a tag table included within tag unit 410. The sampling control and address unit 408 also provides information on how texture and surface information are sampled for certain memory access requests. The sampling control and address unit 408 may also support other functions, such as clamping, wrapping, and border color substitution behaviors for memory access requests that extend beyond the boundaries of a given texture or surface or that straddle the boundary between two textures or surfaces. The sampling control and address unit 408 passes the memory access request, address computation results, and sampling control information to the tag unit 410 and the filter weight unit 418.” ¶0060, “Upon receiving the memory access request and address computation results from the sampling control and address unit 408, the tag unit 410 determines whether the tag table includes an entry with corresponding identifying information corresponding to the texture or surface data to be retrieved.” ¶0072.), and
provide a data consuming component with direct access to the data and the metadata without having to access the configuration (Fig. 7, ¶0092, “When surface memory access operations are processed, the texture processing pipeline 400 may take advantage of similarities between surface and texture operations, such as the use of texture headers to describe various properties, accessing memory via a coordinate tuple rather than a linear address, and accessing memory via multiple views, such as a 1D element, a 1D array, a 2D element, a 2D array, or a 3D element. Both surface and texture operations allow the texture header information to be bound as constant index for all requesting threads in a warp. Alternatively, the texture header information may be bindless, in that each thread may specify a unique texture header. Logic either prior to or with the texture processing pipeline 400 may identify the unique texture headers selected among the threads and serialize the corresponding memory access operations as needed. Notably, the texture processing pipeline 400 may process surface memory access operations differently than texture memory access operations, as further described below.” ¶0095, “Surface load/store memory access requests would bypass only the LOD unit 406 and the filter and return unit 422.” “A configuration” is a very broad term. Applicant needs to specify the details of a configuration. Otherwise, anything that a surface memory access bypassed can be mapped to “without having to access the configuration.).
As to claim 7, claim 1 is incorporated and Heinrich discloses the processing circuitry comprises graphics processing circuitry, wherein the data consuming component includes a graphics display to consume the graphics data for displaying of contents (Fig. 1).
As to claim 21, Heinrich discloses a method comprising: establishing, by processing circuitry of a computing device, a memory surface within the memory based on a configuration, the memory surface to facilitate storage of data and metadata in memory portions of the memory; and providing a data consuming component with direct access to the data and the metadata without having to access the configuration (See claim 1 for detailed analysis.).
As to claim 24, claim 1 is incorporated and Heinrich discloses the processing circuitry is coupled to a memory, the processing circuitry comprising graphics processing circuitry, wherein the data consuming component includes a graphics display to consume the graphics data for displaying of contents (See claim 7 for detailed analysis.).
As to claim 25, Heinrich discloses at least one computer-readable medium having stored thereon instructions which, when executed, cause a computing device to perform operations comprising: establishing, by processing circuitry of the computing device, a memory surface within the memory based on a configuration, the memory surface to facilitate storage of data and metadata in memory portions of the memory; and providing a data consuming component with direct access to the data and the metadata without having to access the configuration (See claim 1 for detailed analysis.).
As to claim 28, claim 25 is incorporated and Heinrich discloses the processing circuitry is coupled to a memory, the processing circuitry comprising graphics processing circuitry, wherein the data consuming component includes a graphics display to consume the graphics data for displaying of contents (See claim 7 for detailed analysis.).
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 of this title, 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 2, 4, 22-23, 26-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Heinrich et al. (US Pub 2015/0084975 A1) in view of Gruber (US Pub 2019/0087930 A1).
As to claim 2, claim 1 is incorporated and Heinrich discloses wherein the configuration includes a surface-layout configuration (Heinrich, ¶0053, “certain memory access operations related to textures and surfaces could be associated with a texture header, where a texture header stores information describing characteristics of the given texture surface, including, without limitation, the type, format, dimensions, storage structure, and base address of the memory allocated to the texture or surface”).
Heinrich does not disclose the metadata comprises compression information relating to the data stored in the memory portions, wherein the compression information to identify one or more of a portion of the data that is compressed and a type of compression used to compress the portion of the data, wherein the data includes graphics data.
Gruber teaches disclose the metadata comprises compression information relating to the data stored in the memory portions, wherein the compression information to identify one or more of a portion of the data that is compressed and a type of compression used to compress the portion of the data, wherein the data includes graphics data (Gruber, ¶0019, “Non-uniform bandwidth compression may use a metadata surface (i.e., metadata information that describes how the compression is applied to different areas of the texture).” ¶0062-0067).
Heinrich and Gruber are considered to be analogous art because all pertain to computer graphics. It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Heinrich with the features of “the metadata comprises compression information relating to the data stored in the memory portions, wherein the compression information to identify one or more of a portion of the data that is compressed and a type of compression used to compress the portion of the data, wherein the data includes graphics data” as taught by Gruber. The suggestion/motivation would have been in order to fetching the texture surface in accordance with the metadata (Gruber, abstract).
As to claim 4, claim 1 is incorporated and the combination of Heinrich and Gruber discloses the metadata is stored at a location associated with a memory portion based on a metadata base address associated with the memory portion established for the memory surface wherein the access is provided without having to access the compression information (Heinrich, ¶0033, “The work distribution unit receives pointers to processing tasks that are encoded as task metadata (TMD) and stored in memory. The pointers to TMDs are included in a command stream that is stored as a pushbuffer and received by the front end unit 212 from the host interface 206. Processing tasks that may be encoded as TMDs include indices associated with the data to be processed as well as state parameters and commands that define how the data is to be processed.” Gruber teaches compression information.).
As to claim 22, claim 1 is incorporated and the combination of Heinrich and Gruber discloses the metadata comprises compression information relating to the data stored in the memory portions, wherein the compression information to identify one or more of a portion of the data that is compressed and a type of compression used to compress the portion of the data, wherein the data includes graphics data, and wherein the configuration includes a surface-layout configuration (See claim 2 for detailed analysis.).
As to claim 23, claim 1 is incorporated and the combination of Heinrich and Gruber discloses the metadata is stored at a location associated with a memory portion based on a metadata base address associated with the memory portion established for the memory surface, wherein the access is provided without having to access the compression information (See claim 4 for detailed analysis.).
As to claim 26, claim 25 is incorporated and the combination of Heinrich and Gruber discloses the metadata comprises compression information relating to the data stored in the memory portions, wherein the compression information to identify one or more of a portion of the data that is compressed and a type of compression used to compress the portion of the data, wherein the data includes graphics data, and wherein the configuration includes a surface-layout configuration (See claim 2 for detailed analysis.).
As to claim 27, claim 25 is incorporated and the combination of Heinrich and Gruber discloses the metadata is stored at a location associated with a memory portion based on a metadata base address associated with the memory portion established for the memory surface, wherein the access is provided without having to access the compression information (See claim 4 for detailed analysis.).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YU CHEN whose telephone number is (571)270-7951. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8-5 PST Mid-day flex.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Xiao Wu can be reached on 571-272-7761. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/YU CHEN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2613
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