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 Amendment
This action is in response to the amendment filed 07/02/2026. Claims 1-20 remain pending in the application. Based on limited time, it did appear the amendments to Claims 9 and 18 would overcome the respective rejections under 35 U.S.C. 103, however, upon further consideration, the prior art could read on the amended claim language under broadest reasonable interpretation, see MPEP § 2111.01. However, for the sake of further prosecution, a new ground of rejection is made to Claims 9 and 18 over Svririd in view of Soni in further view of Luebke and Alcorn in view of Soni in further view of Luebke to the respective claims. Further, Applicant’s amendments overcome all of the prior art rejections to Claims 1-9 and the objections set forth in the Non-Final Office Action dated 04/02/2026.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed 07/02/2026, regarding the amended claim language of independent Claim 1 are fully considered and persuasive.
Applicant argues Yeh does not cure the deficiencies of Soni in the amended language of Claim 1, therefore neither Soni or Yeh, taken alone or in hypothetical combination fail to teach or suggest all the recitations of independent Claim 1.
Examiner replies the combination of Soni and Yeh fail to disclose the amended language recited in Claim 1. Applicant’s arguments are fully considered and persuasive, therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground of rejection is made in view of the combination of Soni and Luebke as necessitated by the amendment.
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 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Soni et al. (US 2019/0164524 A1), hereinafter referenced as Soni, in view of Luebke et al. (“Level of Detail for 3D Graphics”, 2002), hereinafter referenced as Luebke.
Regarding Claim 1, Soni discloses a method (Soni: [0050], discloses a method), comprising:
determining a tear offset of a tear line to be displayed on an electronic display based on a set of buffering parameters (Soni: [0050], discloses determining a tear zone <offset, interpreted as a region a tear line will be displayed>; [0052], discloses static tear zones can be determined based on a mismatch between a rate of processing a frame <buffering parameter> and a refresh rate <also a buffering parameter, the combination of these parameters is a set of buffering parameters >);
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determining a first location of the tear line on the electronic display based on the tear offset and a line of a destination buffer at which a request for a source buffer is approved (Soni: [0068], discloses if a frame transition is to occur while the rendered content is being scanned out for display within the one or more portions of the display where the tear line is permitted, then allowing the frame transition to occur <reads on the displayed tear line being based on the tear offset, because a displayed tear line will be one that falls in a tear zone, further reading on a line of a destination buffer at which a source buffer is approved because the tear line indicates the transition line between buffered frames swapping, and further reading on a request for a source buffer is approved because the frame transition, to a new buffer, is allowed>);
Soni further discloses transitioning between buffered frames and swapping at a second location determined based on a tearline but does not explicitly disclose
and swapping, partway through display of an image frame, from receiving first image data from a first source buffer to receiving second image data from a second source buffer at a second location determined based on the tear line; and
causing image content to be presented to comprise a portion of the first image data and a portion of the second image data based on swapping from receiving the first image data from the first source buffer to receiving the portion of the second image data from the second source buffer during display of the portion of the first image data.
However, Luebke discloses
and swapping, partway through display of an image frame, from receiving first image data from a first source buffer to receiving second image data from a second source buffer at a second location determined based on the tear line (Luebke: [10.2.1 Frame Rate and Refresh Rate, pgs. 303-304], discloses swapping, partway through the display of an image frame, from receiving first rendered frame data from a first buffer to a receiving second image data from a second source buffer, which is swapped, at a second location determined based on where the first frame was being drawn, resulting in a tear line <frames split based on tear line>, see [Fig. 10.3] below); and
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causing image content to be presented to comprise a portion of the first image data and a portion of the second image data based on swapping from receiving the first image data from the first source buffer to receiving the portion of the second image data from the second source buffer during display of the portion of the first image data (Luebke: [Fig. 10.3], see above, illustrates image content presented comprising a portion of Frame n <first image data> and a portion of Frame n-1 based on unsynchronized mid frame buffer swapping <which is the process receiving first image data from a first source buffer to receiving the portion of the second image from the second source buffer during display of the portion of the first image data>).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method disclosed by Soni by unsynchronized buffer swapping as taught by Luebke. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification for uncapped frame rates and reduced input lag.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Soni and Luebke in view of Dahlin et al. (US 20040064577 A1), hereinafter referenced as Dahlin.
Regarding Claim 2, the combination of Soni and Luebke disclose the method of Claim 1. The combination of Soni and Luebke do not disclose the limitations of Claim 2, however, Dahlin discloses
buffering capacity available in a display pipeline (Dahlin: [0093], discloses a system with a display device that replicates data <display pipeline>; [0100], teaches system latency <which is the summation of buffering capacity>),
a prefetch budget associated with the image processing circuitry (Dahlin: [0028], discloses a prefetch budget associated with a monitor <has image processing circuitry>),
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the claimed invention as taught by the combination of Soni and Luebke by comprising latency and a prefetch budget parameters as taught by Dahlin. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to maximize quality, as latency defines the speed of a data transmission and a prefetch budget sets a limit to what can be fetched.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin in view of Ulas Koyuncuoglu et al. (”Buffer capacity allocation in unreliable production lines: An adaptive large neighborhood search”, 2021), hereinafter referenced as Ulas, in further view of Stevens (US 2010/00118183 A1), hereinafter referenced as Stevens.
Regarding Claim 3, the combination of Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin disclose the method of Claim 2. The combination of Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin further disclose
the tear offset is determined based on something (Soni: [0050], discloses determining a tear zone <offset, interpreted as a region a tear line will be displayed>; [0043], discloses tear zones can be determined based on a preselected range of lines they are allowed to occur; [0052], further discloses tear zones can be determined based on a mismatch between a rate of processing a frame and a refresh rate; [0056], further discloses tear zones can be determined based on motion and lack of motion of objects in a frame)
buffers available in the display pipeline (Soni: [0029], discloses one or more conventional frame buffers present in parallel processing memories <if one buffer is present in parallel memories, there is a minimum of two>, in a parallel processing unit for display <display pipeline>)
a new prefetch budget is determined based on the prefetch budget associated with the image processing circuitry (Dahlin: [0028], discloses a prefetch budget associated with a monitor <has image processing circuitry>; [0028], discloses a prefetch budget is recomputed <determined> using the previous prefetch budget).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the claimed invention as taught by the combination of Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin by having a prefetch budget as a determinant as further taught by Dahlin. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to maximize quality, as a prefetch budget sets a limit to what can be fetched.
The combination of Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin do not disclose
something that is determined based on a summation of the buffering capacity available in the display pipeline
something that is determined based on the number of lines available for buffering by the image processing circuitry to determine something
However, Ulas discloses
the first buffer location is based on a summation of the buffering capacity available (Ulas: [Section 3. Proposed ALNS algorithm], discloses that the first buffer location is calculated using <based on> the total buffer capacity, the summation of the buffers)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method taught by the combination of Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin by having the total buffering capacity available in the pipeline as a determinant as taught by Ulas. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to maximize throughput, stabilize frame pacing, and ensure smooth visual output.
The combination of Soni, Luebke, Dahlin, and Ulas do not disclose
something that is determined based on the number of lines available for buffering by the image processing circuitry to determine something
However, Stevens discloses
a maintained line-level precision is determined based on the number of lines available for buffering by the image processing circuitry (Stevens: [0060], discloses the memory buffer size, around 3 lines of pixels <number of lines available for buffering by image processing circuitry> to maintain <determine> line-level precision)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the claimed invention as taught by the combination of Soni, Luebke, Dahlin, and Ulas by using the number of lines available for buffering as a determinant as taught by Stevens. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification because being aware of a limiting factor, in this case the lines available, will help mitigate or prevent over fetching.
Claims 4 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin in view of Komanduru V. et al. (US 2025/0037683 A1), hereinafter referenced as Komanduru.
Regarding Claim 4, the combination of Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin disclose the method of Claim 2. The combination of Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin do not disclose the limitations of Claim 4, however, Komanduru discloses
a single-display-pipeline architecture (Komanduru: [0026], discloses a graphics processing pipeline with one display; [Fig. 1]).
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It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method as taught by the combination of Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin by comprising a single-display-pipeline architecture as taught by Komanduru. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification for a simple composition, condensing output.
Regarding Claim 5, the combination of Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin disclose the method of Claim 2. The combination of Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin do not disclose the limitations of Claim 4, however, Komanduru discloses
a multi-display-pipeline architecture (Komanduru: [0026], discloses a graphics processing pipeline with more than one display; [Fig. 1]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method as taught by the combination of Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin by multi-display-pipeline architecture as taught by Komanduru. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification by increasing throughput and modularity.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Soni and Luebke in view of Malnar (US 2020/0219430 A1), hereinafter referenced as Malnar.
Regarding Claim 6, the combination of Soni and Luebke disclose Claim 1. The combination of Soni and Luebke do not disclose the limitations of Claim 6, however Malnar discloses wherein
swapping from the first source buffer to the second source buffer is configured to enable most recent image data rendered from a graphics processing unit (GPU) to be displayed on the electronic display (Malnar: [0083], discloses a buffer swap where the GPU updates the display to indicate the selected frame is eligible to become the front buffer at the next sync interval; [0087], discloses the most recently drawn buffer is determined to be display during the next sync interval; [Fig. 4B]).
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It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method taught by the combination of Soni and Luebke by the double buffering method as taught by Malnar. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to maintain chronological order and impart low input lag and smooth visuals without stutter.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Soni and Luebkein view of Svirid (US 11776507 B1), hereinafter referenced as Svirid.
Regarding Claim 7, the combination of Soni and Luebke disclose Claim 1. The combination of Soni and Luebke further disclose
determining whether a configuration change is present in a frame in which the (Soni: [0060], discloses determining motion <configuration> in a new frame compared to the current one, to determine a transition <swap>; [Fig. 8], step 820);
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and based on the configuration change being present, blocking the request for the (Soni: [0060-0061], discloses determining motion between frames, if there is motion occurring on a tear zone, delaying the transition <blocking the swap request>).
The combination of Soni and Luebke do not disclose
determining a request for a second source buffer swap from the first source buffer to the second source buffer
However, Svirid discloses
second source buffer swap (Svirid: [Col 22, ln 65], discloses requesting another swap in the swap chain <at least two source buffers, therefor there is a second source buffer>)
determining a request for a second source buffer swap from the first source buffer to the second source buffer (Svirid: [Col 22, ln 65], discloses requesting another swap in the swap chain <at least two source buffers>);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method as taught by the combination of Soni and Luebke by determining another swap request in a swap chain as taught by Svirid. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to enable higher and smoother frame rates.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Soni, Luebke, and Svirid in view of Wang et al. (US 2022/0351432 A1), hereinafter referenced as Wang.
Regarding Claim 8, the combination of Soni, Luebke, and Svirid disclose Claim 7. The combination of Soni, Luebke, and Svirid do not disclose the limitations of Claim 8, however, Wang discloses wherein the configuration change comprises
image scaling and ambient condition changes (Wang: [0003], discloses condition changes in an image, such as scaling <reads on image scaling> and noise addition <reads on ambient condition changes>)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the method discloses by Soni, Luebke, and Svirid by comprising the configuration change of image scaling and ambient condition changes as taught by Wang. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the disclosed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to identify distortions in an image that might affect the visual continuity of a buffer swap and/or the presence of a tear line.
Claims 9-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Svirid in view of Soni, and in further view of Luebke.
Regarding Claim 9, Svirid discloses an electronic device (Svirid: [Fig. 5], illustrates an electronic device), comprising:
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a graphics processing unit (GPU) (Svirid: [Fig. 5], illustrates a GPU at reference character 504);
a first source buffer configured to receive first image data from the GPU (Svirid: [Fig. 5], illustrates a GPU buffer; [Col 24, ln 52], discloses that a GPU buffer can store, render, manipulate, and display frames);
a second source buffer configured to receive second image data from the GPU (Svirid: [Fig. 5], illustrates a GPU buffer; [Col 24, ln 52], discloses that a GPU buffer can store, render, manipulate, and display frames; [Col 17, 57], discloses two buffers);
and processing circuitry coupled to the first source buffer, the second source buffer, and the GPU (Svirid: [Fig. 5], illustrates a CPU connected with the system which includes the buffers and the GPU), and configured to:
receive a request to swap from the first source buffer to the second source buffer (Svirid: [Col 6, ln 27], discloses a rendered image presented after sending a swap request to a swap chain <at least two buffers> where the swap will provide a rendered image, where the image being rendered after the swap request was sent implies the request was received);
and approve the request based on a timing of the request (Svirid: [Col 6, ln 27], discloses presenting a new frame <approved request> where the application <run on image processing circuitry> the first buffer takes the place of the displayed buffer <swapping the first source buffer to the second source buffer>, which is currently displayed; [Col 17 ln 67], discloses the swap is presented <approved> every 4.1675 ms at 60 FPS <based on time>; it is noted that a ).
Svirid fails to disclose
and approve the request based on a timing of the request and determining that no other image data configuration change is present, wherein approving the request is configured to cause image content to be presented to comprise a portion of the first image data and a portion of the second image data based on the processing circuitry swapping from receiving the first image data from the first source buffer to receiving the portion of the second image data from the second source buffer during display of the portion of the first image data.
However, Soni discloses
and approve the request based on a a present request (Soni: [0060-0061], discloses determining motion between frames, if there is no motion occurring on a tear zone <image data configuration change>, allowing the frames to transition from one to the next; see [Fig. 8] below).
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It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the device disclosed by Svirid by approving the request if no configuration change is present as taught by Soni. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to display minimal visual change when tearing occurs.
The combination of Svirid and Soni teach buffer swapping at a high level (Svirid: [Col 6, ln 27]; Soni: [0050-0068]), while this doesn’t explicitly teach just a portion of the frame being swapped, the frame does include at least a portion under broadest reasonable interpretation. For the sake of further prosecution Examiner will interpret this to read as only a portion of the image is swapped as opposed to the entire image data. Luebke discloses
cause image content to be presented to comprise a portion of the first image data and a portion of the second image data based on the processing circuitry swapping from receiving the first image data from the first source buffer to receiving the portion of the second image data from the second source buffer during display of the portion of the first image data (Luebke: [10.2.1 Frame Rate and Refresh Rate], discloses displayed frames <image content> presented comprising Frame n <a portion of the first image data>and Frame n-1 <a portion of the second image data> based on double buffering using a buffer swap occurring in the middle of a refresh cycle <processing circuitry swapping from receiving the first image data from the first source buffer to receiving the portion of the second image data from the second source buffer during display of the portion of the first image data>; see [Fig. 10.3] below)
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It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the electronic device disclosed by the combination of Svirid and Soni by unsynchronized buffer swapping as taught by Luebke. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification for uncapped frame rates and reduced input lag.
Regarding Claim 10, the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke disclose the system of Claim 9. The combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke further disclose wherein
the second image data is more recent than the first image data (Soni: [0061], discloses a currently displayed frame <first image data> and a new <more recent> frame <second image data>).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the device disclosed by the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke by having the second frame be more recent than the first frame as further taught by Soni. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to maintain chronological order.
Regarding Claim 11, the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke disclose the system of Claim 9. The combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke further disclose wherein
swapping from the first source buffer to the second source buffer comprises feeding the second image data to a destination buffer at a buffer address line corresponding to a tear line (Soni: [0054], discloses transitioning to a new frame <second image data> on the display <destination buffer> at a current raster generator line where a tear line will occur <corresponds to the tear line>).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the device disclosed by the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke by structuring a tear line as further taught by Soni. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to maximize refresh rates, minimize lag, while not tearing vital portions of the screen.
Regarding Claim 12, the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke disclose the system of Claim 11. The combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke further disclose wherein
the tear line is determined based on a tear offset and a line of the destination buffer at which the request was approved (Soni: [Abstract], discloses the tear line only occurring within a determined tear zone <based on a tear offset> and the frame <destination buffer, as a frame is stored in a frame buffer> transitions at the scanline at which the transition was allowed <request was approved>).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the device disclosed by the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke by structuring a tear line as further taught by Soni. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to maximize refresh rates, minimize lag, while not tearing vital portions of the screen.
Claims 13 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke in view of Dahlin.
Regarding Claim 13, the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke disclose the limitation of Claim 12. The combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke further disclose
the tear offset is determined based on something (Soni: [0050], discloses determining a tear zone <offset, interpreted as a region a tear line will be displayed>; [0043], discloses tear zones can be determined based on a preselected range of lines they are allowed to occur; [0052], further discloses tear zones can be determined based on a mismatch between a rate of processing a frame and a refresh rate; [0056], further discloses tear zones can be determined based on motion and lack of motion of objects in a frame)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the device disclosed by the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke by structuring a tear line as further taught by Soni. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to maximize refresh rates, minimize lag, while not tearing vital portions of the screen.
The combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke do not disclose
wherein the tear offset is based on a prefetch budget associated with the processing circuitry
However, Dahlin discloses
a new prefetch budget is determined based on the prefetch budget associated with the processing circuitry (Dahlin: [0028], discloses a prefetch budget associated with a monitor <has image processing circuitry>; [0028], discloses a prefetch budget is recomputed <determined> using the previous prefetch budget).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the device taught by Svirid, Soni, and Luebke with the parameters of buffer capacity and prefetch budget as taught by Dahlin. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to maximize quality, as latency defines the speed of a data transmission and a prefetch budget sets a limit to what can be fetched.
Regarding Claim 14, the combination of Svirid, Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin disclose the limitation of Claim 13. The combination of Svirid, Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin further disclose
wherein the display pipeline buffer capacity comprises a maximum display pipeline buffer capacity (Dahlin: [0093], discloses a system with a display device that replicates data <display pipeline; it comprises a maximum display pipeline capacity because capacity itself refers to a maximum volume>),
and the prefetch budget associated with the processing circuitry comprises a maximum prefetch budget associated with the processing circuitry (Dahlin: [0028], discloses a prefetch budget associated with a monitor <has image processing circuitry; it comprises a maximum prefetch budget because budget itself refers to a maximum limit>).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the device taught by Svirid, Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin with the parameters of a maximum buffer capacity and a maximum prefetch budget as taught by Dahlin. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to maximize quality, as latency defines the speed of a data transmission and a prefetch budget sets a limit to what can be fetched.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Svirid, Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin in view of Shrestha et al. (“ESPN: Memory-Efficient Multi-Vector Information Retrieval”, 2023), hereinafter referenced as Shrestha.
Regarding Claim 15, the combination of Svirid, Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin disclose the electronic device of Claim 14. The combination of Svirid, Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin do not disclose the limitations of Claim 15, however, Shrestha discloses
determining the maximum prefetch budget causes the processing circuitry to reduce an amount of data prefetched from the first source buffer (Shrestha: [Section 5.5], discloses the computed prefetch budget <maximum prefetch budget> reduces the number of embeddings <amount of data> per query <which would include the first buffer>).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the electronic device taught by the combination of Svirid, Soni, Luebke, and Dahlin by using the prefetch budget to reduce the amount of data prefetched each query. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to optimize performance.
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke in view of Wang.
Regarding Claim 16, the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke disclose the electronic device of Claim 9. The combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke do not disclose the limitations of Claim 16, however, Wang discloses wherein the image data configuration change comprises
image scaling and ambient condition changes (Wang: [0003], discloses condition changes in an image, such as scaling <reads on image scaling> and noise addition <reads on ambient condition changes>),
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the electronic device taught by the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke by comprising the configuration change of image scaling and ambient condition changes as taught by Wang. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the disclosed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to identify distortions in an image that might affect the visual continuity of a buffer swap and/or the presence of a tear line.
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke in view of Meylan et al. (US 2004/0095964 A1), hereinafter referenced as Meylan.
Regarding Claim 17, the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke disclose the electronic device of Claim 9. The combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke further disclose…
the processing circuitry is configured to approve the request based on the request (Soni: [0054], discloses the system <processing circuitry> approving the transition request based on the request having a scan line falling within a tear zone)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the electronic device as taught by the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke by conditionally approving the request as further taught by Soni. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to only display certain buffered frames, by being selective it optimizes the quality of the feed.
The combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke do not disclose
the request being received during a present frame of image data prior to an idle subframe of the present frame of image data to determine something.
However, Meylan discloses
request being received during a present frame of image data prior to an idle subframe of the present frame of image data to determine something (Meylan: [0005, Fig. 1, Fig. 4], discloses a transmission <request> being received during the end of active image data rendering <present frame> before a scheduled pause <idle subframe> to determine if the content of Frame 2 is missing).
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It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the electronic device as taught by the combination of Svirid, Soni, and Luebke by receiving a request at the end of active rendering as taught by Meylan. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to reduce latency and computational energy.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alcorn (US 6157395 A), hereinafter referenced as Alcorn in view of Soni, and in further view of Luebke.
Regarding Claim 18, Alcorn discloses
receive a first source buffer swap request associated with a first display pipeline (Alcorn: [Abstract], discloses multiple slave pipelines <including a first display pipeline> receiving a signal <receive request> to swap buffers; [Fig. 2], illustrates a first graphics pipeline);
receive a second source buffer swap request associated with a second display pipeline (Alcorn: [Abstract], discloses multiple slave pipelines <including a second display pipeline> receiving a signal <receive request> to swap buffers; [Fig. 2], illustrates a second graphics pipeline);
determine a first timing of the first source buffer swap request and a second timing of the second source buffer swap request (Alcorn: [Abstract], discloses pipelines synchronously receiving the request <determining the timings to be the same> to the slave pipelines <including a first and second pipeline, each receiving a request, first and second source buffer swap request>);
and cause, based on determining that the first source buffer swap request and the second source buffer swap request are synchronized, buffer swapping based on approving the first source buffer swap request and the second source buffer swap request (Alcorn: [Abstract], discloses causing, when the timings of a feedback signal are synchronized, the slave pipelines in the daisy chains swap buffers based on the master pipeline swapping and propgated a master swap signal <interpreted as approving the requests>).
Alcorn teaches daisy chain swapping but does explicitly not disclose
image data to change from being received from a first source buffer to being received from a second source buffer during display of a single image frame
A tangible, non-transitory, computer-readable medium, comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to:
However, Soni discloses
A tangible, non-transitory, computer-readable medium, comprising computer-readable instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors (Soni: [0077], discloses a non-transitory <tangible> computer-readable storage medium including instructions that when executed by a processer, cause the processor to perform a method) to:
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the computer-readable medium as disclosed by Alcorn by implementing the method as a non-transitory computer-readable medium as taught by Soni. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification because a non-transitory computer-readable medium provides automated data-processing, storage, and retrieval.
The combination of Alcorn and Soni do not disclose
image data to change from being received from a first source buffer to being received from a second source buffer during display of a single image frame
However, Luebke discloses
image data to change from being received from a first source buffer to being received from a second source buffer during display of a single image frame based on a buffer swap occurring in the middle of a refresh cycle (Luebke: [10.2.1 Frame Rate and Refresh Rate], discloses displayed frames <image data> presented to change from receiving Frame n <a portion of the first image data> from a buffer and Frame n-1 <a portion of the second image data> from a second buffer based on double buffering using a buffer swap occurring in the middle of a refresh cycle <processing circuitry swapping from receiving the first image data from the first source buffer to receiving the portion of the second image data from the second source buffer during display of the portion of the first image data>; see [Fig. 10.3] below)
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It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the non-transitory computer-readable medium disclosed by the combination of Alcorn and Soni by unsynchronized buffer swapping as taught by Luebke. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification for uncapped frame rates and reduced input lag.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Alcorn, Soni, and Luebke in view of Meylan.
Regarding Claim 19, the combination of Alcorn, Soni, and Luebke disclose the non-transitory computer-readable medium of Claim 18. The combination of Alcorn, Soni, and Luebke further disclose
determining that the first source buffer swap request and the second source buffer swap request occur during a present frame of image data (Alcorn: [Abstract], discloses the slave pipelines receiving their respective swap request <at least two swap requests>; [Col 2, ln 8], discloses that a swap occurs while a frame buffer <present frame of image data> is being displayed).
The combination of Alcorn, Soni, and Luebke do not disclose
occur during a present frame of image data prior to an idle subframe of the present frame of image data
However, Meylan discloses
occur during a present frame of image data prior to an idle subframe of the present frame of image data (Meylan: [0005, Fig. 1, Fig. 4], discloses a transmission <request> being received during the end of active image data rendering <present frame> before a scheduled pause <idle subframe)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the non-transitory computer-readable medium as taught by the combination of Alcorn, Soni, and Luebke by receiving a request at the end of active rendering as taught by Meylan. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to reduce latency and computational energy.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Alcorn, Soni, and Luebke in view of Kim et al. (US 2016/0343355 A1), hereinafter referenced as Kim.
Regarding Claim 20, the combination of Alcorn, Soni, and Luebke disclose the non-transitory computer-readable medium of Claim 18. The combination of Alcorn, Soni, and Luebke further disclose
receive a source buffer swap request associated with the first display pipeline (Alcorn: [Abstract], discloses multiple slave pipelines <including a first display pipeline> receiving a signal <receive request> to swap buffers; [Fig. 2], illustrates a first graphics pipeline);
receive a source buffer swap request associated with the second display pipeline (Alcorn: [Abstract], discloses multiple slave pipelines <including a second display pipeline> receiving a signal <receive request> to swap buffers; [Fig. 2], illustrates a second graphics pipeline);
determine a timing of the source buffer swap request and a timing of the other source buffer swap request (Alcorn: [Abstract], discloses pipelines synchronously receiving the request <determining the timings to be the same> to the slave pipelines <at least two pipelines>);
The combination of Alcorn, Soni, and Luebke do not disclose
third source buffer swap request associated with the first display pipeline
a fourth source buffer swap request associated with the second display
and based on determining that the third source buffer swap request and the fourth source buffer swap request are not synchronized, cause the third source buffer swap request and the fourth source buffer swap request to be approved on a subsequent frame of image data.
However, Kim discloses
third source buffer swap request associated with the first display pipeline (Kim: [0082], discloses that after a periodic signal occurs <interpreted as swap request>, a third image frame transmitted to <associated with> a first buffer <the buffer itself is interpreted as a display pipeline> )
a fourth source buffer swap request associated with the second display pipeline (Kim: [0133], discloses that after a periodic signal occurs <interpreted as swap request>, a fourth image frame transmitted to <associated with> a second buffer <the buffer is interpreted as a display pipeline> )
and based on determining that the third source buffer swap request and the fourth source buffer swap request are not synchronized, cause the third source buffer swap request and the fourth source buffer swap request to be approved on a subsequent frame of image data (Kim: [0017], discloses a periodic signal <swap request> occurring only when an EOF command indicating the completion of transmission of a specific image frame is received and an EOS command for the specific image frame is created, indicating that the signal implying swap requests are not synchronized; [0083 and 0133], disclose the buffer swaps for the third and fourth frame are made based on their respective periodic signals <which are not synchronized>).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply and/or modify the non-transitory computer-readable medium as taught by the combination of Alcorn, Soni, and Luebke by having more than two requests associated with the first two pipelines as taught by Kim. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to make this modification to enhance throughput and resource utilization.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
RTSS Documentation (“RivaTuner Statistics Server v7.3.0”) discloses a “Scanline Sync” feature which allows users to set scanlines on their screen to maximize refresh rate.
Yeh et al. (US 9129581 B2) discloses double buffering.
oakenglass ("How to Set the Coolest Sync Technology: RTSS Scanline Sync", 2022) discloses a high-level tutorial using RivaTuner Statistics Server’s feature Scanline Sync.
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Holland et al. (US 9652816 B1) discloses systems and methods for adjusting the refresh rate of a display.
Colenbrander (US 11751916 B2) discloses adjusting rendered frame scan out in response to fluctuations in a variable frame rate.
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 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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/I.O./Examiner, Art Unit 2618
/DEVONA E FAULK/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2618
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