DETAILED ACTION
Notice of AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
2. 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.
3. Claims 1 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Trimberger et al (US Patent: 5600263) and in further view of Obayashi (US Pub: 20160154602) (Applicant submitted reference).
Regarding claim 1, Trimberger et al teaches: An electronic apparatus comprising: a logic circuit whose internal configuration is reconfigurable based on configuration data corresponding to one or more functions [col 1: lines 14-21]; a plurality of first storage portions provided so as to be connectable to the logic circuit [col 2: lines 1-15] and configured to separately store a plurality of items of the configuration data having different corresponding functions or combinations of functions [col 6: lines 31-42]; a switching portion capable of switching a connection target connected to the logic circuit between the plurality of first storage portions [fig. 3A (CRS)]; an acquisition processing portion configured to acquire the configuration data from a second storage portion different from the first storage portions [col 17: lines 14-31]; and a storage processing portion configured to store, in a first storage portion not connected to the logic circuit among the first storage portions, the configuration data acquired by the acquisition processing portion, instead of the configuration data stored in the first storage portion [col 17:lines 14-31 (Trimberger has only eight slices. To get unlimited configurations old configurations have to be replaced by ones brought in from off-chip.)].
Claim 4 has been analyzed and rejected with regard to claim 1.
4. Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Trimberger et al (US Patent: 5600263) and Obayashi (US Pub: 20160154602) (Applicant submitted reference); and in further view of Sakata (US Pub: 20160255231).
Regarding claim 2, Trimberger et al does not specify an image forming device. In the same field of endeavor, Obayashi teaches: The electronic apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: a job execution portion configured to execute an image forming job for forming an image based on image data, wherein when the image forming job is executed, the logic circuit is reconfigured, using the configuration data corresponding to an image forming mode of the image forming job to be executed, so as to be able to execute image processing corresponding to the image forming mode [p0025, p0034], the electronic apparatus comprises a determination processing portion configured to determine, when an image forming job in a standby state exists during execution of the image forming job, whether or not the configuration data corresponding to the image forming mode of the image forming job in the standby state is stored in any of the plurality of first storage portions [p0035, p0036], when the determination processing portion determines that the configuration data corresponding to the image forming mode of the image forming job in the standby state is not stored in any of the plurality of first storage portions, the acquisition processing portion acquires the configuration data corresponding to the image forming mode of the image forming job in the standby state from the second storage portion during execution of the image forming job, and the storage processing portion stores the configuration data acquired by the acquisition processing portion in the first storage portion during execution of the image forming job [p0053, p0055, p0056]. Trimberger et al also teaches when FPGA is still active a new configuration is loaded into a memory slice as prescribed in claim 1.
Obayashi refers to function X other than a job being executed while a second job is queued. In the same field of endeavor, Sakata teaches a conventional printer job queue/standby relationship in [p0107-p0109]. Therefore, given Trimberger et al in view of Obayashi’s teaching on multiple selectable configuration memory slices and loading configuration data into a memory slice while FPGA remains active under current configuration so that an image forming device can execute print jobs using reconfigurable FPGA image processing functions by preloading new FPGA configuration data during ongoing process, and Sakata’s controlling standby jobs in queue, it would have been obvious for an ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of all to apply Trimberger et al in view of Obayashi’s structure to Sakata’s job queue to perform configuration availability determination and preload configuration while a job is being executed for improving processing efficiency.
5. Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Trimberger et al (US Patent: 5600263), Obayashi (US Pub: 20160154602) (Applicant submitted reference); and Sakata (US Pub: 20160255231); and in further view of Akiba (US Pub: 20170115612).
Regarding claim 3, the rationale applied to the rejection of claim 2 has been incorporated herein. Trimberger et al in view of Obayashi and Sakata does not disclose transmitting configuration data using data transmission path. In the same field of endeavor, Akiba teaches: The electronic apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising: a first control portion including the second storage portion; a second control portion including the logic circuit, the plurality of first storage portions, and the switching portion; and a data transmission path used for transmission of the image data from the first control portion to the second control portion, wherein the configuration data corresponding to the image forming mode of the image forming job in the standby state is transmitted from the first control portion to the second control portion, using the data transmission path, during a non-transmission period in which the image data is not transmitted using the data transmission path during execution of the image forming job [abstract, p0032, p0073, p0077]. Therefore, given Akiba’s teaching on sending configuration/control commend using image/video communication line during a non-image period, it would have been obvious for an ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of all to transmit print job configuration data using data transmission path during non-image period according to Trimberger et al in view of Obayashi’s architecture for resource optimization and operation efficiency.
Contact
6. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FAN ZHANG whose telephone number is (571)270-3751. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri 9:00-5:00.
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/Fan Zhang/
Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2682
Prosecution Insights