DETAILED ACTION
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1-2 and 8-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Monferrer (U.S. Publication No. 2008/0244278). Monferrer teaches determining a temperature associated with a system (fig. 1, 108-1, 108-2); driving the system into an idle state responsive to determining the temperature (¶28, “Moreover, in one embodiment, dynamic calibration of an IC component may be performed in idle mode (e.g., where there is no dynamic power consumption). In such situation, the temperature increase (over a controlled ambient temperature) in each portion (e.g., blocks) of the IC component may be dependant upon the leakage power.”); measuring a leakage current of the system while in the idle state (¶28 “The leakage values may then be computed based on the static temperatures of the portions (since other constants may be known, such as supply voltage, threshold voltage, and ambient temperature); associating the temperature with the measured leakage current (¶27); and allocating a power token based on the temperature and the measured leakage current (¶11 “manage power consumption of one or more components of the corresponding domain.” See also ¶12).
Regarding claim 2, there are only three possible allocations, static, dynamic or combined. Since all three are claimed, at least one is anticipated. ¶12 teaches dynamic power estimation.
Regarding claim 8, Monferrer teaches a voltage regulator 110 to regulate an amount of voltage supplied to a system; a temperature sensor 108 to measure a temperature associated with the system; a current sensor to measure a leakage current of the system (106, determining power leakage is determining current leakage) while the system is in an idle state (¶28); a circuitry coupled to the voltage regulator, the temperature sensor, and the current sensor, wherein the circuitry is configured to: associate the amount of voltage supplied and the measured temperature with the measured leakage current; and store the measured leakage current associated with the amount of voltage supplied and the measured temperature and a current date and time in a data structure ((¶¶13-14); and a resource manager (¶11 “manage power consumption of one or more components of the corresponding domain.” See also ¶12) to allocate a power token based on the amount of voltage supplied, the measured temperature, the measured leakage current, and the current date and time stored in the data structure.
Regarding claim 9, the data structure includes a plurality of temperatures corresponding to a plurality of voltages (¶14); the stored temperature is one of the plurality of temperatures and the stored voltage is one of a plurality of voltages; and the resource manager is to allocate the power token based on the one of the plurality of temperatures and the one of the plurality of voltages (figs. 2A, 2B).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-7 and 10-15 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.
Claims 16-20 are allowed.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTOPHER E MAHONEY whose telephone number is (571)272-2122. The examiner can normally be reached 9-5:30.
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/CHRISTOPHER E MAHONEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2852
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