DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 12/29/2025 has been entered.
Application Status
This office action is responsive to the amendments filed on 12/29/2025.
This action has been made NON-FINAL.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12/29/2025 is being considered by the examiner. A signed IDS is hereby attached.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1 recites “A method of operating a graphics processor when performing a sequence of rendering jobs …”. However, the examiner suggests the claim should recite as “A computer-implemented method of operating a graphics processor when performing a sequence of rendering jobs comprising: …”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/29/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding the 35 USC 112 rejection, the rejection is withdrawn in view of the Applicant’s amendments.
On page 10 of the remarks, the Applicant alleges the following:
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The examiner is not persuaded. The examiner asserts the combination of Uhrenholt and SIDERIS discloses the Applicant’s claim language. More specifically, Uhrenholt’s teaches the following in Column 7, Lines 20-67 & Column 8, Lines 1-31: “graphics processor generating respective render outputs for the different applications in an interleaved manner such that it may be required to (repeatedly) suspend/resume the processing of a (and each) render output”. The examiner asserts Uhrenholt’s teachings in Column 7, Lines 20-67; Column 8, Lines 1-31; Column 11, Lines 15-27; Column 17, Lines 60-67; Column 18, Lines 1-5 discloses the Applicant’s claim language. MPEP § 2106 states Office personnel are to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the supporting disclosure. In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054-55, 44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027-28 (Fed Cir. 1997). Accordingly, the examiner maintains the rejection.
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.
Claim(s) 1-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Uhrenholt, US 11127188 in view of SIDERIS, US 20160110837.
Claim 1:
Uhrenholt discloses a method of operating a graphics processor when performing a sequence of rendering jobs (See Abstract; Column 7, Lines 20-67; Column 8, Lines 1-31). However, Uhrenholt failed to explicitly disclose “earlier rendering job in the sequence of rendering jobs.” SIDERIS discloses this feature in paragraph 0027. It would have been obvious to a persona having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have further modified Uhrenholt by the teachings of SIDERIS to enable improved techniques which can make a tile-based graphics processing apparatus more efficient (See SIDERIS Abstract; Paragraph 0002). In addition, both of the references teach features that are directed to analogous art and they are directed to the same field of endeavor, such as, graphic processing. This close relation between both of the references highly suggests an expectation of success.
As modified:
The combination of Uhrenholt and SIDERIS discloses the following:
wherein the graphics processor is configured to perform tile-based graphics processing (See Abstract; Column 7, Lines 20-67; Column 8, Lines 1-31) wherein an output for a rendering job is sub-divided (See Column 2, Lines 39-581; Column 7, Lines 53-67; Column 8, Lines 10-40) into a plurality of rendering tiles (See Abstract; Column 7, Lines 20-67; Column 8, Lines 1-31), and wherein the rendering job includes a set of rendering tasks for processing to generate the output for the rendering job (See Abstract; Column 7, Lines 20-67; Column 8, Lines 1-31), the set of rendering tasks comprising rendering tasks that each correspond to one or more rendering tiles of the plurality of rendering tiles (See Abstract; Column 7, Lines 20-67; Column 8, Lines 1-31), the graphics processor thus configured to generate the output for the rendering job by issuing respective rendering tasks in the set of rendering tasks for a later rendering job (See Abstract; Column 7, Lines 20-672; Column 8, Lines 1-31) in the sequence of rendering jobs to the set of one or more processing cores of the graphics processor for processing, (See Figure 1, Item 32; Column 29, Lines 1-5) wherein when performing a sequence of rendering jobs, the graphics processor is operable to issue rendering tasks for a later rendering job (See Abstract; Column 7, Lines 20-673; Column 8, Lines 1-31) in the sequence of rendering jobs to the set of one or more processing cores (See Figure 1, Item 32; Column 29, Lines 1-5) for processing concurrently with rendering tasks for an earlier rendering job (See SIDERIS Paragraph 0027) in the sequence of rendering jobs (See Abstract; Column 7, Lines 20-674; Column 8, Lines 1-31), the method comprising: when the graphics processor is concurrently processing a first, earlier rendering job (See SIDERIS Paragraph 0027) and a second, later rendering job in the sequence of rendering jobs (See Column 7, Lines 20-675; Column 8, Lines 1-31), wherein at least some processing of one or more rendering tasks for the second (See Column 7, Lines 20-676; Column 8, Lines 1-31), later rendering job in the sequence of rendering jobs depends on processing of one or more rendering tasks for the first (See Column 7, Lines 20-677; Column 8, Lines 1-31), earlier rendering job (See SIDERIS Paragraph 0027) in the sequence of rendering jobs (See Column 7, Lines 20-678; Column 8, Lines 1-31):
in response to a command for the graphics processor to suspend performing the sequence of rendering jobs (See Column 11, Lines 15-27; Column 17, Lines 60-67; Column 18, Lines 1-59):
waiting at least until any rendering tasks (See Abstract; Column 7, Lines 20-67; Column 8, Lines 1-31) for the first rendering job on which the processing of a rendering task for the second rendering job depends have completed processing before suspending processing of the sequence of rendering jobs (See Column 11, Lines 15-27; Column 17, Lines 60-67; Column 18, Lines 1-510).
Claim 2:
Uhrenholt discloses wherein in response to the command to suspend the performing of the sequence of rendering jobs, the method comprises waiting until (See Abstract; Column 7, Lines 20-6711; Column 8, Lines 1-31) all rendering tasks that are currently being processed for one of the first and second rendering jobs have completed processing before suspending processing of the other one of the first and second rendering jobs (See Column 11, Lines 15-27; Column 17, Lines 60-67; Column 18, Lines 1-512).
Claim 3:
Uhrenholt discloses wherein in response to the command to suspend the performing of the sequence of rendering jobs (See Column 7, Lines 20-67; Column 8, Lines 1-31), the method comprises waiting until (See Abstract; Column 7, Lines 20-6713; Column 8, Lines 1-31) all of the rendering tasks for the first rendering job have completed processing before suspending processing of the sequence of rendering jobs (See Column 11, Lines 15-27; Column 17, Lines 60-67; Column 18, Lines 1-514).
Claim 4:
Uhrenholt discloses once all of the rendering tasks for the first rendering job have completed processing, suspending processing for any outstanding rendering tasks for the second rendering job (See Column 11, Lines 15-27).
Claim 5:
Uhrenholt discloses subsequently resuming the second rendering job from the point at which the second rendering job was suspended (See Column 7, Lines 20-6715; Column 8, Lines 1-30).
Claim 6:
Uhrenholt discloses wherein in response to the command to suspend the performing of the sequence of rendering jobs (See Column 11, Lines 15-2716), the method comprises: stopping issuing any further rendering tasks for the second rendering job for processing (See Column 9, Lines 5-1717); and before attempting to suspend processing for the first rendering job (See Column 11, Lines 15-2718): waiting for any rendering tasks for the second rendering job that are currently being processed to complete processing (See Abstract; Column 7, Lines 20-6719; Column 8, Lines 1-31).
Claim 7:
Uhrenholt discloses wherein once all rendering tasks for the second rendering job that are currently being processed have completed processing (See Abstract; Column 7, Lines 20-6720; Column 8, Lines 1-31), such that there are no outstanding active dependencies between the second rendering job and the first rendering job (See Column 17, Lines 60-67; Column 18, Lines 1-5), but there are still outstanding rendering tasks for the first rendering job (See Column 17, Lines 60-67; Column 18, Lines 1-5), the method comprises suspending processing for the first rendering job (See Column 11, Lines 15-2721).
Claim 8:
Uhrenholt discloses wherein when the first rendering job and the second rendering job are both suspended (See Column 11, Lines 15-2722), the method comprising subsequently resuming processing (See Column 7, Lines 20-67 ; Column 8, Lines 1-31) the first rendering job from a point at which the first rendering job was suspended (See Column 11, Lines 15-2723) and resuming processing (See Column 7, Lines 20-67 ; Column 8, Lines 1-31) the second rendering job from a point at which the second rendering job was suspended (See Column 11, Lines 15-2724).
Claim 9:
Uhrenholt discloses wherein in response to the command to suspend the performing of the sequence of rendering jobs (See Column 7, Lines 20-67; Column 8, Lines 1-31), the method comprises identifying which processing cores (See Figure 1, Item 32; Column 29, Lines 1-5) are currently only processing rendering tasks for the second rendering job (See Column 7, Lines 20-67; Column 8, Lines 1-31), and suspending the processing (See Column 7, Lines 20-67; Column 8, Lines 1-31) by the identified processing cores (See Figure 1, Item 32; Column 29, Lines 1-5).
Claim 10:
Uhrenholt discloses once the processing of the sequence of rendering jobs has been suspended, performing a new sequence of rendering jobs (See Column 7, Lines 20-6725).
Claims 11-19:
Claims 11-19 are rejected on the same basis as claims 1-10.
Pertinent Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20220101479 relates to methods and apparatus for hybrid rendering of video/graphics content by a graphics processing unit. The apparatus can configure the graphics processing unit of a display apparatus to perform multiple rendering passes for a frame of a scene to be displayed on a display device.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHEREE N BROWN whose telephone number is (571)272-4229. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 5:30-2:00 PM EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, SAID BROOME can be reached at (571) 272-2931. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SHEREE N BROWN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2612 February 4, 2026
1 Uhrenholt discloses this sub-division may be performed over multiple levels. For instance, the overall render output (e.g. frame) may initially be divided into a first set of tiles (which may be referred to as “metatiles”, each covering a portion of the area of the overall render output, with the size of these metatiles being specified, e.g., by the application requiring the graphics processing), with the tiles in the first set of tiles then being further sub-divided at the graphics processor into smaller area rendering tiles, e.g. with the size of the rendering tiles determined based on the size of the graphics processor's available buffers, to further facilitate the rendering process.
2 Uhrenholt discloses the processing of graphics primitives when generating a render output. In particular, the technology described herein relates to graphics processing operations in the situation where the generation of a first render output may be stopped, to be resumed at a later time (e.g. because there is a need to switch to generation of a second, different render output).
3 Uhrenholt discloses the processing of graphics primitives when generating a render output. In particular, the technology described herein relates to graphics processing operations in the situation where the generation of a first render output may be stopped, to be resumed at a later time (e.g. because there is a need to switch to generation of a second, different render output).
4 Uhrenholt discloses the processing of graphics primitives when generating a render output. In particular, the technology described herein relates to graphics processing operations in the situation where the generation of a first render output may be stopped, to be resumed at a later time (e.g. because there is a need to switch to generation of a second, different render output).
5 Uhrenholt discloses the processing of graphics primitives when generating a render output. In particular, the technology described herein relates to graphics processing operations in the situation where the generation of a first render output may be stopped, to be resumed at a later time (e.g. because there is a need to switch to generation of a second, different render output).
6 Uhrenholt discloses the processing of graphics primitives when generating a render output. In particular, the technology described herein relates to graphics processing operations in the situation where the generation of a first render output may be stopped, to be resumed at a later time (e.g. because there is a need to switch to generation of a second, different render output).
7 Uhrenholt discloses the processing of graphics primitives when generating a render output. In particular, the technology described herein relates to graphics processing operations in the situation where the generation of a first render output may be stopped, to be resumed at a later time (e.g. because there is a need to switch to generation of a second, different render output).
8 Uhrenholt discloses the processing of graphics primitives when generating a render output. In particular, the technology described herein relates to graphics processing operations in the situation where the generation of a first render output may be stopped, to be resumed at a later time (e.g. because there is a need to switch to generation of a second, different render output).
9 Uhrenholt discloses in order to facilitate the waiting for any outstanding processing for primitives ahead of the selected boundary primitive to complete, the suspending of the processing for the render output being generated is performed by and under the control of the driver for the graphics processor for that render output, so that the driver is permitted to retain control of the graphics processor until the suspend operation has been completed (in contrast, e.g. to the driver being forced to relinquish control of the graphics processor (and the graphics processor being forcibly switched to start processing a different render output) when the suspend command is received).
10 Uhrenholt discloses in order to facilitate the waiting for any outstanding processing for primitives ahead of the selected boundary primitive to complete, the suspending of the processing for the render output being generated is performed by and under the control of the driver for the graphics processor for that render output, so that the driver is permitted to retain control of the graphics processor until the suspend operation has been completed (in contrast, e.g. to the driver being forced to relinquish control of the graphics processor (and the graphics processor being forcibly switched to start processing a different render output) when the suspend command is received).
11 Uhrenholt discloses the processing of graphics primitives when generating a render output. In particular, the technology described herein relates to graphics processing operations in the situation where the generation of a first render output may be stopped, to be resumed at a later time (e.g. because there is a need to switch to generation of a second, different render output).
12 Uhrenholt discloses in order to facilitate the waiting for any outstanding processing for primitives ahead of the selected boundary primitive to complete, the suspending of the processing for the render output being generated is performed by and under the control of the driver for the graphics processor for that render output, so that the driver is permitted to retain control of the graphics processor until the suspend operation has been completed (in contrast, e.g. to the driver being forced to relinquish control of the graphics processor (and the graphics processor being forcibly switched to start processing a different render output) when the suspend command is received).
13 Uhrenholt discloses the processing of graphics primitives when generating a render output. In particular, the technology described herein relates to graphics processing operations in the situation where the generation of a first render output may be stopped, to be resumed at a later time (e.g. because there is a need to switch to generation of a second, different render output).
14 Uhrenholt discloses in order to facilitate the waiting for any outstanding processing for primitives ahead of the selected boundary primitive to complete, the suspending of the processing for the render output being generated is performed by and under the control of the driver for the graphics processor for that render output, so that the driver is permitted to retain control of the graphics processor until the suspend operation has been completed (in contrast, e.g. to the driver being forced to relinquish control of the graphics processor (and the graphics processor being forcibly switched to start processing a different render output) when the suspend command is received).
15 Uhrenholt discloses identifying the position of the selected boundary primitive within the sequence of primitives for the first render output such that the graphics processor can identify the position of the boundary primitive within the sequence of primitives for the first render output when processing of the first render output is resumed.
16 Uhrenholt discloses on the other hand, for primitives in the sequence of primitives currently being processed in the graphics processing pipeline that, at the point at which the processing is suspended, lie ahead of the selected boundary primitive (and in an embodiment for all such primitives, although this need not be the case and it would be possible for the processing of some of the primitives ahead of the boundary primitive to also be stopped), the processing is allowed to complete before the graphics processor suspends processing of the first render output (e.g., and in an embodiment, before the graphics processor starts to process a second, different render output).
17 Uhrenholt discloses stopping the processing of the current sequence of primitives in the graphics processing pipeline at the position of the selected boundary primitive a more efficient suspend/resume operation can be provided
18 Uhrenholt discloses on the other hand, for primitives in the sequence of primitives currently being processed in the graphics processing pipeline that, at the point at which the processing is suspended, lie ahead of the selected boundary primitive (and in an embodiment for all such primitives, although this need not be the case and it would be possible for the processing of some of the primitives ahead of the boundary primitive to also be stopped), the processing is allowed to complete before the graphics processor suspends processing of the first render output (e.g., and in an embodiment, before the graphics processor starts to process a second, different render output).
19 Uhrenholt discloses the processing of graphics primitives when generating a render output. In particular, the technology described herein relates to graphics processing operations in the situation where the generation of a first render output may be stopped, to be resumed at a later time (e.g. because there is a need to switch to generation of a second, different render output).
20 Uhrenholt discloses the processing of graphics primitives when generating a render output. In particular, the technology described herein relates to graphics processing operations in the situation where the generation of a first render output may be stopped, to be resumed at a later time (e.g. because there is a need to switch to generation of a second, different render output).
21 Uhrenholt discloses on the other hand, for primitives in the sequence of primitives currently being processed in the graphics processing pipeline that, at the point at which the processing is suspended, lie ahead of the selected boundary primitive (and in an embodiment for all such primitives, although this need not be the case and it would be possible for the processing of some of the primitives ahead of the boundary primitive to also be stopped), the processing is allowed to complete before the graphics processor suspends processing of the first render output (e.g., and in an embodiment, before the graphics processor starts to process a second, different render output).
22 Uhrenholt discloses on the other hand, for primitives in the sequence of primitives currently being processed in the graphics processing pipeline that, at the point at which the processing is suspended, lie ahead of the selected boundary primitive (and in an embodiment for all such primitives, although this need not be the case and it would be possible for the processing of some of the primitives ahead of the boundary primitive to also be stopped), the processing is allowed to complete before the graphics processor suspends processing of the first render output (e.g., and in an embodiment, before the graphics processor starts to process a second, different render output).
23 Uhrenholt discloses on the other hand, for primitives in the sequence of primitives currently being processed in the graphics processing pipeline that, at the point at which the processing is suspended, lie ahead of the selected boundary primitive (and in an embodiment for all such primitives, although this need not be the case and it would be possible for the processing of some of the primitives ahead of the boundary primitive to also be stopped), the processing is allowed to complete before the graphics processor suspends processing of the first render output (e.g., and in an embodiment, before the graphics processor starts to process a second, different render output).
24 Uhrenholt discloses on the other hand, for primitives in the sequence of primitives currently being processed in the graphics processing pipeline that, at the point at which the processing is suspended, lie ahead of the selected boundary primitive (and in an embodiment for all such primitives, although this need not be the case and it would be possible for the processing of some of the primitives ahead of the boundary primitive to also be stopped), the processing is allowed to complete before the graphics processor suspends processing of the first render output (e.g., and in an embodiment, before the graphics processor starts to process a second, different render output).
25 Uhrenholt discloses identifying the position of the selected boundary primitive within the sequence of primitives for the first render output such that the graphics processor can identify the position of the boundary primitive within the sequence of primitives for the first render output when processing of the first render output is resumed.