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 .
Response to Arguments
1. Applicant's arguments filed December 10th, 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues, with respect to the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection of the independent claims under Kim and Chen, that the references fail to teach the claimed limitations as “Kim is limited to disclosing a scheduler and scheduling method” and “[one] of ordinary skills in the relevant fields would understand that a ‘coarse grained reconfigurable array’ is radically different from a conventional ‘processor’”, that “Kim does not even mentioned ‘a coarse grained reconfigurable array’” and thus “Kim would not appear to applicable [sic] to the compilation a [sic] program of data flow for execution on a ‘coarse grained reconfigurable array’”.
In response to the above argument, Examiner respectfully disagrees. The disclosure of Kim mentions very explicitly that the exemplary apparatus may be a coarse grained reconfigurable array. This is stated unequivocally and directly in paragraphs [0023], [0045], and claims 2, 8, and 13. As Applicant’s arguments fail to account for the explicitly teachings of the aforementioned reference, and therefore are not considered to be persuasive and the rejections are maintained.
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.
2. Claims 1, 9, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al (US 2014/0259020, herein Kim) in view of Chen et al (US 2021/0081769, herein Chen).
Regarding claim 1, Kim teaches a device, comprising:
a memory ([0046], [0089], memory system); and
at least one processor configured via instructions stored in the memory ([0046], [0086], processor) to:
receive a program specifying a plurality of memory variables, a plurality of data flows through the memory variables, and first instructions to transform data along the data flows ([0046], [0055-0058], [0087], scheduling commands that make up data flow graphs for executing programs);
receive a profile specifying a coarse grained reconfigurable array ([0037], [0045]); and
map the data flows to operations of data through the elements ([0055-0058], [0087], scheduling instructions and commands according to data flow graphs).
Kim fails to teach the coarse grained reconfigurable array having a plurality of tiles operable in parallel.
Chen teaches a device comprising at least one processor configured to receive a profile specifying a coarse grained reconfigurable array having a plurality of tiles operable in parallel ([0040], processor, [0014-0015], [0046], coarse-grained reconfigurable array and parallel operations, [0127], [0141], individual tiles of array).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the teachings of Kim and Chen to utilize the data flow mapping technique of Kim in a parallel tile-based system such as the one disclosed by Chen. While Kim discloses the possibility of configuring the processing apparatus for parallel execution (Kim [0086]), Kim does not explicitly disclose that the reconfigurable array may be configured as a plurality of tiles to operate in parallel. However, as parallel execution is a routine and conventional aspect of the microprocessor art and both Kim and Chen disclose the use of coarse-grained reconfigurable arrays, the combination would merely entail a simple substitution of known prior art elements to achieve predictable results, and thus would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Claim 9 refers to a method embodiment of the device embodiment of claim 1. Therefore, the above rejection for claim 1 is applicable to claim 9.
Claim 17 refers to a medium embodiment of the device embodiment of claim 1. Therefore, the above rejection for claim 1 is applicable to claim 17.
Allowable Subject Matter
3. Claims 2-8, 10-16, and 18-20 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
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
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/MICHAEL J METZGER/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2183